“Play nice children!” Unfortunately, there was no adult in the room when childish legislators’ rhetoric dissolved into “You did it, no you did it.”

 

Sen. Briggs Hopson said, “they went home,” after the House adjourned the Friday before “conference weekend.” Due to legislative deadlines, the House action killed 105 budget bills including several deficit appropriations needed to keep agencies operating through this fiscal year.

 

“I don’t know why anybody, any member of the Senate or the Lt. Governor, was surprised at all that we didn’t have real negotiations on the budget earlier, that we weren’t going to be here this weekend,” said Speaker Jason White. He further blamed the Senate for amending House bills and thereby requiring conference.

 

“We all took the same oath…We adopted the rules…We all agreed to be here,” said Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. “There is no reasonable explanation for this,” he added. “A special session will be very expensive” (approximately $100,000 per day).

 

Interestingly, the Clarion-Ledger reported that conferees had reached “handshake” agreements on 70 of the 105 bills prior to conference weekend but the House failed to return required paperwork to the Senate in time for action.

 

Rep. Trey Lamar’s “gotcha” moment in the House didn’t help. A week earlier, when the House Ways and Means chairman discovered typos in the Senate’s income tax cut bill, he abruptly got the House to pass the bill and send it to Gov. Tate Reeves who signed it into law. These typos, e.g. using .85% rather than 85%, basically eliminated future thresholds the Senate had designed to slow tax cuts if future revenue growth declines.

 

“I’ve never seen that kind of action,” said Rep. Robert Johnson when Lamar knowingly put a flawed bill on the floor. “But they admitted they saw it and passed it like it was.”

 

Both sides promised to discuss possible changes, but nothing happened. Cartoonist Marshall Ramsay cleverly captured the promises as an April Fool’s joke.

 

Unsurprisingly, the House voted to shut down the legislative session and went home early.

 

Apparently, the yaya began early in the session.

 

“The two Republican-led chambers have been at odds over most everything this legislative session,” wrote Mississippi Today reporter Taylor Vance.

 

“This session has seen much hostility between the two chambers, with both killing major priorities the other had at the beginning of the year,” reported Clarion-Ledger writer Grant McLaughlin.

 

It is both costly and regrettable that there was no adult in the room the settle the children down. You might think our governor would play that role, but he was likely giggling over his unexpected tax cut win and the clout he will have over a special session.

 

Crawford is the author of “A Republican’s Lament: Mississippi Needs Good Government Conservatives.”