The Mississippi Senate Elections Committee on Tuesday adopted a measure that would restart parts of the state’s ballot initiative process, allowing Mississippians to bypass the Legislature and seek statewide votes on certain questions. The committee voted to approve Senate Concurrent Resolution 518, according to the measure’s sponsors, as part of an effort to restore what voters previously had before the initiative process was struck down by the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2021.
Under the committee’s version of the resolution, initiative organizers would have to collect signatures totaling at least 10% of registered voters in the state—about 170,000 signatures—before the initiative could appear on a ballot. The resolution also sets specific limits on the scope of what initiatives may do if approved, narrowing the areas of state policy that can be targeted through the ballot channel.
The committee chairman, Republican Sen. Jeremy England of Vancleave, framed his support as advancing the measure toward the Legislature’s timetable. England described the effort as a work in progress, and he said he wanted the committee to move it forward ahead of Tuesday’s key legislative deadline for the Senate to continue debating it.
In explaining the changes the resolution would make, the measure’s sponsors said it would allow a ballot initiative to change or create state law, but it would not permit initiatives to alter the Mississippi Constitution. The resolution would also prohibit initiatives related to abortion and the state’s public pension system, according to the committee’s description of the proposal.
England also addressed political concerns about who might try to influence ballot outcomes from outside Mississippi. The Vancleave Republican said he had no concerns about Mississippians voting on a statewide ballot to keep the state’s strict abortion laws in place, but he said he worried out-of-state interest groups would “put a target” on Mississippi and try to overturn the state’s abortion laws because a Mississippi law contributed to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
If voters approve an initiative under the proposed system, the resolution would prevent the Legislature from passing a law to undo or change it for a period of two years. The Legislature could override that two-year delay only if lawmakers vote to change the initiative because of an emergency circumstance, and that override would require a three-fifths margin, under the committee’s plan.
The resolution is still multiple steps away from becoming law. It next heads to the full Senate floor, where at least two-thirds of the chamber would need to approve the measure before it could advance to a House committee. If it passes the Legislature, the initiative process would then require approval by Mississippi voters in a statewide election.
The underlying dispute dates to 2021, when the Mississippi Supreme Court invalidated the state’s initiative process over technicalities involving language that referred to the state’s old number of congressional districts in a medical marijuana-related ballot initiative. The latest committee action comes with a Senate adoption deadline on the calendar: the last day for the chamber to adopt the measure on the Senate floor is Feb. 12.
The measure’s path through the Senate and then to voters means that, even as the committee advanced Senate Concurrent Resolution 518, any restoration of ballot initiative power would remain contingent on further legislative votes and final approval by the electorate.