Looking back at the 2024 session
As with any year, there were highs and lows along the way—there are victories to celebrate and losses to mourn.
A little over a month ago marked the end of the 2024 legislative session in Mississippi. All bills that passed have either been signed or vetoed by the governor, and most will become law on July 1st. As with any year, there were highs and lows along the way—there are victories to celebrate and losses to mourn.
However, given that Mississippi is the state with the highest percentage of self-described conservative voters in the nation and the fact that we enjoy a Republican supermajority, I did wonder many times over these past four months why good, conservative legislation is so difficult to pass here. This was especially confusing given the fact that neighboring states like Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Arkansas, and Alabama are leaving Mississippi in the dust when it comes to advancing solid Republican policies.
If you don’t have the time for the full session report, just skip to the issues you care most about that we analyze in detail. See the good, the bad, and the ugly below:
PROTECTING WOMEN’S SAFE SPACES:
PASSED! SB 2753, Sponsored by Sens. Josh Harkins and Jeremy England, the SAFER Act (companion bill HB 1428 sponsored by Rep. Celeste Hurst died in House Jud. A):
In recent polling of registered voters in Mississippi, 95% thought it was important that Mississippi law protect same-sex spaces for women, such as bathrooms, changing rooms, prisons, dorms, and sorority houses; 87% believed Mississippi law needs to define sex-based terms such as woman, female, man, and male based on biological sex (a redundant phrase). The SAFER Act does both and then provides a private cause of action for any violation of the law, as well as enforcement by the Attorney General.
Despite these remarkable polling numbers, after passing both chambers, the two sides failed to come to an agreement by the conference report deadline and the SAFER Act died.
However, women across our state, as well as men who stood with them, made their voices heard and asked the House and Senate to suspend the rules to allow the bill to not be bound by the deadline. The bill was then revived and brought back to the floor, where it easily passed both chambers.
I commend both chambers for making this right! We thank Sen. Harkins, Sen. England, and Rep. Hurst for their tireless efforts to get this crucial bill across the finish line. These lawmakers modeled what it should look like to work across chambers to pass good, conservative legislation for Mississippi. We also thank some of our crucial coalition partners, such as MFRW and Mississippi’s incredibly strong faith community! The bill has been signed into law by Governor Reeves.
PROTECTING PARENTAL RIGHTS:
HB 1100, Sponsored by Rep. Lee Yancey, Protecting Parental Access to Children’s Medical Records and Consent for Healthcare: Mississippi Hospitals, including UMMC, are blocking parents from accessing their minor kids’ medical records. The Biden Administration is also setting up Obamacare in public schools and pushing parents out.
Rep. Lee Yancey stood up for parental rights. His bill (HB 1100) would have protected the basic right for parents to direct their children’s healthcare, including making sure they have access to their children’s medical records.
HB 1100 passed the House, but the Senate, prompted by UMMC, killed legislation that would have protected the fundamental parental right to direct children’s healthcare. The current consent process is very permissive and does not actually require hospitals and doctors to obtain parental consent before treating a child. This issue will be back in 2025.
HB 900, The Families’ Rights and Responsibilities Act, Sponsored by Rep. Randy Rushing: This bill also ensured a parent’s rights to their minor child’s medical records. After passing the House, this bill died in the Senate.
PASSED! SB 2873, Sponsored by Senator David Parker: An amendment to Sen. Parker’s medical records bill also made sure parents can access their children’s medical records. This bill passed both chambers and was signed into law by the Governor. More work is needed next session.
HB 1047, sponsored by Rep. Kimberly Remak, declared parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children. This bill died in committee. This issue will be back in 2025.
HEALTH CARE:
PASSED! SB 2858, The “Right to Try Act,” Sponsored by Senator Josh Harkins, Enabling Mississippi Patients to Access Lifesaving Care: Bureaucracy and red tape are annoying, but when bureaucracy prevents American patients from getting access to lifesaving treatments readily available in other countries, it becomes downright deadly. FDA clinical trials that take decades and cost millions are not suited to new medical technologies that are customizing treatments for individual patients with rare diseases.
Sen. Harkins’ bill created a pathway for cancer patients and children with rare diseases in Mississippi to work with their doctors to try innovative, potentially life-saving treatments, when no other option is available. This bill has been signed into law by Gov. Tate Reeves. (Some of you may know that this law is near and dear to my heart after my hard-fought, now-successful battle with cancer since 2022!)
Obamacare Medicaid Expansion: One issue that seemed to take up much of the oxygen in the room this session was Obamacare Medicaid Expansion, with both the Republican- controlled House and Senate pushing their respective versions of this government welfare program. The Senate stood strong in demanding a real work requirement for Medicaid expansion (HB 1725). The Obamacare Medicaid expansion is for able-bodied adults without children and was being presented as a way to provide health insurance for the “working poor.” In states with no work requirement, the majority of expansion enrollees are not working AT ALL. This issue will be back in 2025.
ELECTION INTEGRITY:
SB 2367, Sponsored by Senator Jeremy England, Stopping Radical Leftist Voting Schemes: The Republican National Committee and Donald Trump oppose Rank Choice Voting; Rep. “AOC,” Senator Bernie Sanders, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, not to mention Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, support it. Ranked-choice voting is a scam used to trick voters in swing states (like Maine and Alaska) to vote for Democrats and Far Left candidates. It is already being used in several states to block Republicans from getting elected. (A house companion bill, HB 1364, Sponsored by Rep. Jill Ford, died in committee.)
After passing the Senate, this bill was not brought up by the House and was considered dead. But thanks to the hard work of Senator Jeremy England and SOS Michael Watson, SB 2367 language was added to SB 2144 and it PASSED! This bill has been signed into law by the Governor. Mississippi now joins a growing list of Red States that are banning ranked-choice voting.
PROTECT AGAINST CHILD PORN:
PASSED! The Walter Montgomery Bill, sponsored by Rep. Jill Ford and Sen. Bart Williams: This bill makes substantial efforts to protect children on social media by requiring digital service providers/social media type companies to:
verify the age of a person creating an account,
obtain express parental consent before a minor can create an account,
limit how much personal identifying information they collect on a minor,
develop a strategy to protect minors from harmful content such as suicide, eating disorders, illegal drugs, bullying, porn, or any illegal activity.
It also prohibits digital service providers from:
collecting a minor’s precise geolocation,
displaying targeted advertising that is harmful to minors,
sharing/disclosing/selling a minors personal identifying information unless for an exception such as a law enforcement investigation.
These two lawmakers modeled what it should look like to work across chambers to pass good, conservative legislation for Mississippi. The bill has been signed into law by the Governor.
SB 2256, sponsored by Sen. Joey Fillingane, and HB 1363, Sponsored by Rep. Price Wallace, Preventing Child Pornographers from Repeatedly Victimizing Children: Child pornographers are using children’s images to make obscene content on the internet. Even after sex offenders go to jail, websites are still profiting from the use of children’s images. Sen. Joey Fillingane and Rep. Price Wallace had a solution. These bills allow parents to sue websites that post child pornography, forcing them to remove this filth and other forms of illegal obscenity.
Both of these bills were killed in the Senate, leaving child victims unprotected. This issue will be brought up again next session.
OTHER LOSSES TO MOURN:
Eliminate DEI: Sen. Angela Hill sponsored SB 2402 to eliminate funding for DEI programs in any state-funded institution. Rep. Becky Currie sponsored a similar bill in the House, HB 127. Both bills died in committee.
Child and Family Tax Credit: Rep. Trey Lamar sponsored HB 1985 to provide a tax credit for families that commit to raising their children within marriage. What a novel idea. The bill unanimously passed the House and was killed by the Senate.
Illegal Immigration: In spite of several good bills to nudge the state toward doing something about illegal immigration, Mississippi failed to follow the lead of states like Texas working to secure their own border from the flood of illegal aliens unleashed by the Biden administration. See HB 931, SB 2284, and SB 2400.
Federal Rulemaking: Lawmakers introduced several bills to push back against federal rulemaking. The most notable were: a bill by Rep. Lee Yancey to address the growing problem of Obamacare being offered in public schools; a bill sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Crawford to protect parental consent related to the treatment of children with special needs; a bill introduced by Sen. Angela Hill to push back on OSHA; and a bill introduced by Sen. Kathy Chism called the Federal Funding Transparency Act. All of these efforts died in the initial committee stage.
TWO MORE CONSERVATIVE “STOPS” TO APPLAUD:
Protecting Life and Religious Freedom: The House twice tried to pass IVF legislation that would have undermined Mississippi’s pro-life protections. The first bill (HB 1688) was modeled after bad federal legislation killed in the U.S. Senate by our own Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. The second attempt (HB 1542conference report) was “less bad” but raised many concerning questions. Any bill that defines human embryos as “genetic material” that could be bought and sold is decidedly not pro-life. Mississippi can ethically ensure parents’ access to ethical IVF treatments without sacrificing our pro-life beliefs—let's work together to craft a strong bill that does both. This issue will be back in 2025.
Ballot Initiative: During the debates over the ballot initiative (HCR 11 and SB 2770), Senator John Polk referred to the initiative process as a “rattlesnake” to be avoided and not even touched. I am deeply concerned that leftists will use the ballot initiative to legalize abortion-on-demand as they have done in red, pro-life states such as Ohio, Kansas, and Kentucky. And then why would they stop at abortion? Whoever has the most money will subvert our representative democracy in order to legalize drugs, strip away our gun rights, destroy our election integrity, and more. The ballot initiative is a tool being used by the Left to go around Red State legislatures. It’s not a good idea for Mississippi right now.
Liberals said the quiet part out loud on how they will defeat conservative policies with ballot initiatives in a recent New York Times article.This is about as clear as it gets:
“There is a newly proven, promising path to restore and safeguard these rights in many states, including some politically conservative ones controlled by Republicans. ... The perfect record of success for these initiatives in the midterm elections provides a clear political roadmap toward rescuing reproductive rights in states. Buoyed by the results, abortion rights supporters are working toward replicating these victories elsewhere. This is where attention and support should be focused.”
This issue will most likely be back in 2025.
Ronald Reagan famously said, “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally - not a 20 percent traitor.” And I agree. There are a lot of good men and women who were doing the right thing down at our Capitol; but there were a lot who were playing politics and a lot who seemed to take their talking points straight from leftist Democrats. After this session, I wonder if we Republicans might consider some soul- searching, come together on that 80%, and ensure we return to the conservative principles found in our Mississippi Republican Party Platform. I look forward to it! We have a lot more work to do together to make Mississippi even more free and prosperous!
Thanks for reading and for your support! We are grateful.
- Lesley