The winners of the ballot initiative demise? Chris McDaniel and abortion rights supporters
Conservative state Sen. Chris McDaniel of Ellisville and those who support abortion rights are two winners from Senate Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency Chair John Polk’s decision to kill legislation reviving the state’s ballot initiative process.
The initiative proposal died late in the 2023 legislative session when Polk refused to call it up for consideration before the full Senate on a key deadline day. The initiative would allow citizens to bypass the Legislature and place issues on the ballot for voters to decide.
McDaniel, who is challenging Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann in this year’s Republican primary, can hammer the incumbent for letting the initiative restoration legislation perish. Whether the death of the initiatives will be a pivotal issue in the GOP primary for the underdog McDaniel is debatable, but it at least creates an opening. And Hosemann, who is still the odds-on favorite to win re-election, can at least argue that during the final days of the session he made one last effort to revive legislation restoring the initiative. That effort, of course, was unsuccessful as House Speaker Philip Gunn refused Hosemann’s overtures to revive the process late in the session.
Polk, a Hattiesburg Republican, stressed it was his decision to allow the proposal to die. He said Hosemann supported it. But as presiding officer of the Senate, Hosemann could have assigned a committee chair other than Polk to handle the legislation. Hosemann should not be surprised by the outcome. After all, last year Polk took unusual parliamentary measures to kill the initiative, yet Hosemann sent the measure to his committee again this year, ultimately giving a senator who opposes the initiative the power over whether the process is revived.
https://mississippitoday.org/2023/04/09/ballot-initiative-chris-mcdaniel-abortion-rights/