Unhoused people asking for assistance on the side of the road without a permit could face fines and misdemeanor charges under a bill the Mississippi Legislature passed last week.
House Bill 1197 would apply to anyone requesting money or contributions of value while standing or sitting on or beside a roadway and says they must obtain a solicitation permit for the municipality, county or political subdivision where they want to solicit. Permit fees could cost up to $25.
For those soliciting inside downtown Jackson, the Mississippi Capitol Police chief would issue solicitation permits.
Law enforcement could charge a person who solicits on roadways without a permit with the misdemeanor crime of “forgery of a solicitation permit,” fine the person no more than $300 and imprison the person for no more than six months in a county jail, the legislation says.
H.B. 1197 says people with permits would only be able to solicit from 9 a.m. until one hour before sunset. Counties and municipalities could vote to opt out of enforcing the legislation within six months after the date the bill became effective, which would be July 1, 2025, if Gov. Tate Reeves signs it into law.
“If a church youth group is going to have a fundraiser carwash to do whatever—go on a trip or something—would this apply to them to where they would have to obtain a permit?” Mississippi Sen. Mike Seymour, R-Vancleave, asked Senate Judiciary A Committee Chairman Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula.
“What we heard in committee was yes, if they’re soliciting something,” Wiggins replied.
The Clarion-Ledger reported that Mississippi House Rep. Shanda Yates, I-Jackson, called it “a safety issue.”
“We limit (H.B. 1197) to just roadways. We’re not talking about sidewalks or any other areas with that. It’s literally just the roadways and the median. It is a public safety issue,” she told the Clarion-Ledger, adding that organizations like United Way were working to address the needs of unhoused people.
The Senate Judiciary A Committee chairman said political candidates campaigning in public roadways and public parking lots would not have to obtain solicitation permits.
The House passed the legislation by an 81-30 vote on Feb. 5, and the Senate passed it by a 39-12 vote on March 12.
Civil Liability for Making and Distributing Child Porn
A person could sue a commercial entity that distributes child pornography or child sexual exploitation online under House Bill 599, which the Senate passed on March 11.
“A commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes obscene matter or matter that depicts, describes or promotes child pornography or child sexual exploitation on the Internet may be held liable to an individual for nominal damages, actual damages, court costs and reasonable attorney fees as ordered by the court,” the legislation says. The Senate amended the bill to add “noneconomic damages” as a charge of up to $500,000.
Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, said the State would not hold Internet service providers liable for hosting child pornography; companies only violate the law if they create and distribute depictions of child sexual exploitation under the legislation.
“If (ISPs are) hosting and they’re creating that obscene material, then yes, I would argue that you could be sued for that. But if they’re solely (hosting) that and not creating that material, then they can’t be, they’re exempted,” he told Sen. Daniel Sparks, R-Belmont, on the Senate floor on March 11.
“And I understand they’re not creating the material, but they’re creating my ability to find it,” Sparks replied to Wiggins.
The House passed H.B. 599 by a 117-0 vote on Feb. 13 and the Senate passed its amended version of the bill by a 51-0 vote on March 11.
Labor Union Restrictions for Businesses Receiving State Funds
A company that receives funds from the State of Mississippi could not recognize a labor union unless the workers voted on a secret ballot to form the union under Senate Bill 2849, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Josh Harkins, R-Flowood, said on the Senate floor on Feb. 10.
The legislation says private businesses receiving state funds or benefits could not “voluntarily” give a labor organization an employee’s personal contact information without the employee’s consent. The bill also applies to subcontractors.
“I’ve had a lot of folks from union organizations that say they are against this bill and they feel like it’s going to further inhibit their ability to unionize and organize around workers’ rights. Would you tell me what I need to tell them that refutes what I just said? Is it going to infringe upon the rights of workers to be able to organize?” Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, asked Harkins on the Senate floor on Feb. 10.
“To cast a ballot? No, that’s what it’s saying. They can unionize, they just have to do it via a secret ballot. Everybody gets the right to have a private vote on whether or not they want to unionize. They don’t have to do it publicly or through coercion,” Harkins replied.
The House Business and Commerce Committee added a strike-all amendment that kept Section 1 of the bill while removing Section 2, which defines terms used in the bill, details actions that disqualify an employer’s eligibility for an economic development incentive and describes which agreements the bill excludes.
The Senate passed the bill on Feb. 10 by a 35-14 vote and the House passed its amended version by a 105-9 vote on March 10. The members of the House and Senate will have go to conference for both bodies to reach an agreement on the final version of the bill.
Salaries For CCID Judges
House Bill 1459 would give the Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice the authority to appoint two full-time judges and one part-time judge for the Capitol Complex Improvement District to serve a period of time that the chief justice specifies.
The judges currently work for the court and the chief justice already has the authority to appoint the judges, but the legislation gives them official, legal authority to work for the court, Rep. Shanda Yates, I-Jackson, told the Mississippi Free Press on March 19.
This bill authorizes the employment and salaries for those judges and their staff, Yates explained.
After House Bill 1020 became law in 2023 and the court was forming, Yates said the Mississippi Supreme Court chief justice and the administrative office of courts told the Legislature that the CCID court would need more than one judge.
“We passed last session the same language that gave them the ability to appoint two judges full time and one part-time judge along with an appropriation to cover that,” Yates told the Mississippi Free Press on March 19. “This language was included in another bill, though, which was vetoed by the governor for reasons unrelated to this language. So, the appropriation went through, but the authorizing language ended up getting vetoed. So, the money was there, the judges were hired, the judges are currently working—they’re there. We just had to come back this session and fix the authorizing language to match the appropriation that was given last session because of that veto issue. So, it’s just a cleanup issue.”
The administrative office of courts would pay full-time CCID judges no more than $10,000 less than county-court judges’ salaries. The office would pay part-time judges at an hourly rate “and for such times as deemed necessary by the full-time CCID judges,” the legislation says.
In 2023, H.B. 1020 established a court in the Capitol Complex Improvement District with a Mississippi Supreme Court-appointed municipal judge to oversee cases involving local misdemeanor offenses in the City of Jackson and four temporary unelected special circuit court judges.
Jackson residents filed a lawsuit against the legislation in 2023, arguing that the law violated the Mississippi Constitution and would dilute local voting power in the majority Black city with unelected, state-appointed judges.
The Mississippi Supreme Court allowed the Legislature to create the municipal judgeship but ruled that the four temporary special circuit court judges were unconstitutional.
The House passed H.B. 1459 by a 94-13 vote on Feb. 10, and the Senate passed its amended version of the legislation by a 38-12 vote on March 10. The Senate amendment restores the repealer language on Line 47, which is marked with three asterisks in the House’s version. The Senate amendment requires the bill to go to the House for concurrence. If the House does not agree with the Senate’s changes, the House can invite the Senate to join a conference meeting to reach an agreement on the final version of the legislation.
Department of Tourism
Mississippi may soon have a Department of Tourism with a governor-appointed executive director to promote, develop and “support services for the tourism industry within the state,” Senate Bill 2573 says.
If the bill becomes law, the Tourism Division of the Mississippi Development Authority would transfer its authority and tasks to the Mississippi Department of Tourism on July 1, 2025, the legislation says. The tourism department would be in charge of the state’s welcome centers, rest areas, state parks, museums, wildlife and natural areas, nature trails, culinary meeting venues, civil rights landmarks, music, beaches, casinos, and other attractions, the bill says.
“The reason for the bill is because of the importance that tourism plays to the State of Mississippi. It’s our fourth-largest industry, and there are many in the tourism industry who feel that having a dedicated Department of Tourism would help develop and perpetuate the tourism industry in Mississippi,” Sen. Mike Thompson, R-Gulfport, said on the Senate floor on Feb. 11.
The legislation would authorize the department to receive funds from legislative appropriations, federal and “private sources” to create and establish a “comprehensive strategy for branding, advertising, promotion and development of the state’s diverse tourism” offerings that is specific for each of the state’s “five distinct regions” while coordinating with local tourism groups.
The tourism department would have to coordinate with “all agencies of state government” to promote the tourism industry while establishing an educational program to boost the development of activities geared toward tourists. It would also promote the state’s history and culture along with developing an informational system to guide travelers to attractions within the state.
Under the bill, the State would create the Mississippi Tourism Association Marketing Advisory Board to help plan advertisements and promote tourism.
The House’s amendment includes a reverse repealer with a date of June 30, 2025, in the legislation to force the Senate to join the House for a conference before the current legislative session ends so the Legislature can amend the bill further.
The Senate passed the original version of the bill by a 43-8 vote on Feb. 11 and the House passed its version of a bill by a 117-2 vote on March 12.
Candidate Qualification Process
Senate Elections Committee Chairman Sen. Jeremy England, R-Vancleave, added two amendments to legislation revising candidate qualification rules, House Bill 811. The first amendment changes the wording for the congressional candidate deadline to allow candidates to submit their qualifying paperwork no earlier than Dec. 1 of the year prior to the election. The qualifying period currently starts on Jan. 2, so the legislation would give candidates an extra month to submit their qualifications.
The first Senate amendment added that candidates must submit a “form prescribed by the secretary of state” along with their notarized, written statements with their name, “physical address of the candidate’s residence,” phone number, political party, email address, office sought by Feb. 1 of the year of the primary election. They also must pay fees and present their valid Mississippi identification card by Feb. 1 during the year of the primary election or on the candidate’s qualifying deadline date when they submit their intent to run for office with the circuit clerk of the candidate’s county of residence.
“Such statement shall require the candidate to certify that he or she meets all qualifications for the office for which he or she is a candidate,” the Senate amendment to the legislation says.
The amendment also removes the penalty of a $500 fine for state party executive committees that fail to send candidate-qualifying information to the Mississippi secretary of state on the qualifying deadline.
Candidates are required to live in the jurisdiction where they are running for an election for a certain period of time ahead of the election. Candidates are disqualified if they vote outside of their jurisdiction during that time period.
The second amendment to the bill says that candidates will not be disqualified from voting in an election outside of their jurisdictions during the required residency period if candidates vote in an election that they were “properly registered for” and then get redistricted into the district that they are running for office to represent.
The House passed H.B. 811 on Feb. 11 by an 82-29 vote and the Senate passed its amended version on March 11 by a 51-0 vote. The Senate returned the legislation to the House for concurrence.
Paid Parental Leave for State Employees
State of Mississippi employees could soon get six weeks of paid parental leave for the primary caregiver within 12 weeks of a child’s birth or adoption under the Senate’s amendment of House Bill 1063 that the Senate passed on March 11.
The Senate’s amendments brought language to the House bill that mirrors the Senate’s bill that had six weeks of paid parental leave for the primary caregiver instead of eight weeks like the House provided. The Senate also removed the provision of the House bill that gives two weeks of paid parental leave to secondary caregivers.
“I think if our goal is to pass it, six weeks would be optimal,” because six weeks is a “very reasonable time period to grant paid parental leave,” Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, said on the Senate floor on March 11.
The Senate’s amendment also adds that school districts can choose whether employees can get paid parental leave. He noted that the Senate’s amendments of H.B. 1063 “brought the cost to be in line” with the Senate’s paid parental leave bill.
After the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, 21 states adopted paid parental leave. Mississippi is one of 12 states that does not have paid parental leave for state employees.
Both the House’s and Senate’s paid parental leave bills are alive. The Senate passed Senate Bill 2438 on Feb. 13 by a 34-15 vote and the House amended version of the legislation by a 115-0 vote on March 6. The House passed H.B. 1063 by a 114-0 vote on Jan. 30 and the Senate passed its amended version of the bill by a 34-16 vote on March 11.
Anti-Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Legislation
Mississippi public schools, state-accredited nonpublic schools and state-supported institutions of higher learning could not create, teach or promote diversity, equity and inclusion programs under a bill the Mississippi House and Senate have both passed. The legislation, House Bill 1193, would prohibit requiring diversity statements or training in hiring, admission and employment processes in educational institutions.
A Senate amendment names the bill as the Requiring Efficiency For Our Colleges and Universities System and Education System Act in Section 1. It also replaces every definition that the House provided in its version of the bill by spelling out exactly which “diversity, equity and inclusion” efforts public school cannot participate in, including teaching that any “race, color, ethnicity, sex, gender, identity, sexual orientation, religion or national origin” is superior to another, or requiring “adherence to the social construction and malleability of sex and gender, gender-neutral pronouns, deconstruction of heteronormativity and sexual privilege.” The House had similar language in its definition of “divisive concepts,” which the Senate removed in its version of the bill.
“Nowhere in here are we looking to destroy diversity. Mississippi is a diverse state and we will forever be diverse in our employment, in our education, in our body as a whole—we will always be diverse. And that diversity makes us one of the most powerful people in the United States of America,” Sen. Tyler McCaughn, R-Newton, said on the Senate floor on March 10.
In addition, public schools should not have a “diversity, equity and inclusion office” that promotes “differential treatment of or providing special benefits to favor individuals in admissions and hiring based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation,” the legislation says.
If successful, H.B. 1193 would require public schools to teach students that there are only two genders, male and female, as indicated by chromosomes and sex at birth. The legislation would not prevent a student from writing a paper about transgender or gender non-conforming people, but it would prevent schools from teaching a curriculum that acknowledges trans and nonbinary people, Rep. Joey Hood, R-Ackerman, said when introducing H.B. 1193 on the House floor on Feb. 5.
McCaughn said the bill was not related to President Donald Trump’s executive orders on the federal level when introducing the bill on the Senate floor on March 10.
“We want to take the step as a state to provide the guidance (that) is out there so that when a letter comes down from somebody in D.C. who thinks they know how to run Mississippi that we can step out and say, ‘No, sir, we’ve had that in place for a period of time. This is what DEI means.’ This is where they’re not out there going against the statutes of the State of Mississippi.’” McCaughn said.
The Senate amendment names all the institutions of higher learning that H.B. 1193 affects: The University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, Jackson State University, the University of Southern Mississippi, Mississippi Valley State University, Delta State University, Alcorn State University, Coahoma Community College, Copiah-Lincoln Community College, East Central Community College, East Mississippi Community College, Hinds Community College, Holmes Community College, Itawamba Community College, Jones College, Meridian Community College, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, Northeast Mississippi Community College, Northwest Mississippi Community College, Pearl River Community College, Southwest Community College and “any other of like kind which may be hereafter established by the state.”
The legislation affects all public charter schools and public schools that are an “early education, elementary or secondary school governmental entity under the exercise and management of a local school governing board, established to supervise one or more public schools within its geographical limits pursuant to state statutes.” It also includes agricultural high schools, the Mississippi School of the Arts, the Mississippi School for the Deaf and Blind and the Mississippi School of Mathematics and Science.
Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, spoke against the bill at the podium on the Senate floor and encouraged his peers to vote no for the legislation, which he said is “ending a second Reconstruction” period of the U.S.
“We’re going to see the resegregation in Mississippi in public schools, at community colleges, at historically white institutions because if you have a situation where a vast majority of your staff, your enrollment, your professors are of one color or one persuasion, and you don’t see the value of diversifying that and making sure there’s a mix that’s representative of our whole state,” he said on the Senate floor on March 10.
The senator said a common example of DEI is a sports coach giving players different shoes for playing different positions.
“I don’t know where this idea came from that having diversity, insisting on equity and insisting on inclusion became a demon, but it appears to me that we are demonizing this idea of diversity, equity and inclusion,” Horhn said.
Sen. Hillman Frazier, D-Jackson, said he came to the podium to oppose the legislation. He shared that when he first came to the Legislature, he was friends with former Rep. Buddie Newman, Mississippi Speaker of the House from 1976 to 1988, and former Rep. Robert Clark, who was the first Mississippi Black lawmaker to serve since Reconstruction in 1967. The senator talked about the barriers the men had to overcome being Black in a majority-white Legislature.
Frazier said the Jim Crow Mississippi Constitution of 1890, known as “The Mississippi Plan,” was “anti-DEI” and explained how it was designed to make it hard for Black men to vote and run for office. As they sought to undo Black political power gained after the Civil War, white lawmakers passed laws requiring anyone who wanted to vote to be able to read, write, interpret the Constitution and pay a poll tax. Since much of the Black population in the state at the time had been born into slavery—when it was illegal for anyone to teach slaves how to read or write—those laws effectively ended the short-lived era of Black political power in Mississippi.
Candidates running for office had to own property to get their names on the ballot, but many Black people were unable to own property because of racist laws.
“It’s going to take us to reject the flavor of the day. The flavor of the day right now across the country is anti-DEI,” Frazier said on the Senate floor on March 10.
Sen. Sollie Norwood told Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann that he was going to get up to speak against the bill, but he realized he was not going to change any of his colleagues’ minds, so he did not.
Sen. Angela Burks-Hill, R-Picayune, said she grew up in a school that became desegregated and had a majority-white population but also had students and teachers who were not white. She said everyone was “treated about the same as far as I could tell” no matter what color they were.
“We’ve overcome a lot. Some of you may not think we’ve overcome as much, but I’m just going to tell you, the proudest thing in my high school experience was the fact that I had friends of all races in the top five of my high school class that went to colleges and became very successful without any kind of DEI because all our teachers knew was to treat us like human beings and give us the best opportunity possible. And I think that’s the best way to move on in the future. And that’s what I hope we can do. And that’s why I support this bill,” she said on the Senate floor on March 10.
The House passed H.B. 1193 by a 75-41 vote on Feb. 5 and the Senate passed the amended version by a 34-14 vote on March 10. Since the Senate amended the House’s bill, members from the two bodies will meet for concurrence to decide on a final version of the bill to send to Gov. Tate Reeves’ desk for approval.
Shaunicy Muhammad contributed to this report.
