[Desk] Thursday Legislative Update
by Adam Lynch
House floor action consisted largely of highway designations and personality commendations on Jan. 25. The House did pass HB 963, which increases the time within which the state should demand payment of sales tax revenues from individuals, as well as HB1028, which prohibits certain acts used to duck paying sales tax (such as telling the retailer that the purchased items are for resale).
HB 1027 is another revenue enforcer, allowing the State Tax Commission to deny the application for a license plate permit or revoke the permit of any person failing to pay any state taxes, fees, penalties and/or interests owed to the state.
The House also passed?strangely, without real debate--HB 1321, which creates a commission bearing the proud name of America?s first and last Confederate President. The bill containing the building blocks for the Jefferson Davis Bicentennial Commission now heads to the Senate.
House Committees churned away today, trying to make session deadlines. HB 202 creates a criminal offense for attempted murder?something the state never had. Currently the charge falls under aggravated assault. Another crime-oriented bill, HB 982, increases penalties for crimes against Mississippi?s disabled, and HB 1303 allows the return of a weapon to a suspect after the charges have been dropped against him or her.
A bill that could potentially complicate school success scores is HB 1084, which demands school districts include graduation and dropout rates when submitting information to state agencies.
Marriage will get a little simpler if HB 167 survives the House floor. That bill removes the three-day waiting period and the blood test for getting married. It also revises the age requirement for getting married: age 19 for the guy, 15 for the girl. If you?re under 18, though, the parents get a notification.
On the Senate side, the Insurance Committee passed SB 3050, similar to the bill which deals with the windpool. Looking to get the Mississippi Economic Growth and Redevelopment Act of 2007 out by the Tuesday deadline, the committee had no desire to stall the process with amendments--though amendments are still possible later on the Senate floor.
Beyond SB 3050, Sen. Deborah Dawkins, D-Pass Christian, said the Senate seemed to be going at a sluggish on Thursday.
?We didn?t do anything of note,? Dawkins told the JFP. ?I had six committee meetings today, and I can?t say we did anything that?s going to change anybody?s lives for the better.?
Posted by admin at 03:12 PM in Legislature, Overview, JFP | Email this entry
Comments:
I don’t understand HB 1321; it passed 113-0, 8 abstentions, and some of the people voting for it are not folks you’d expect to see with their names on this kind of legislation. It is hard to imagine people like Credell Calhoun, for example, wanting to honor Jefferson Davis. Can someone explain what the thinking behind this bill was?
The removal of the waiting period and blood test in HB 167 sounds like a great idea. The mental image of a 19-year-old male marrying a 15-year-old female, though, is distressing.
HB 202 is a great idea, long overdue. I hope it easily passes both houses.
Cheers,
TH
Posted by Tom Head on 01/26 at 11:08 PM | #
Didn’t we lose the Civil War? I keep forgetting.
Oh wait: WE GOT STOMPED! Why do we keep celebrating a war we lost? There’s nothing honorable about a stupid war we lost badly. We won’t even discuss the background over it either, that’s equally stupid.
Posted by on 01/27 at 01:59 PM | #
Right--Jefferson Davis started a failed war that took the lives of well over a million people and probably hamstrung the South for two centuries in the process. If the state legislature proposed a bill to honor his 200th anniversary by burning him in effigy or installing Jefferson Davis urinal cakes in the bus stop restroom, I might go for that. Otherwise, no. There were some good people fighting for the South, but the Confederacy was an evil administration that never should have existed, and Davis was a wicked, megalomaniacal nut.
Cheers,
TH
Posted by Tom Head on 01/27 at 04:05 PM | #
Is it me, or are those age limits for marriage a little bizarro and, perhaps, a little dated? If there’s some justification for the idea that a 15-year-old female can be married, why can’t a 15-year-old male?
Why shouldn’t the limit be 16 or 17 or whatever age of consent is for both sexes? And what the hell are the limits right now, if this is supposed to be an improvement?! 
Posted by on 01/27 at 04:46 PM | #
The marriage application will be held for three (3) days. Marriage licenses cannot be issued to males under 17, or females under 15 years of age. If the clerk receives a signed authorization from the parents, this minimum age requirement can be waived.
Is jailbait really that enticing?
Posted by on 01/27 at 04:54 PM | #
So this law raises the limit for males and not for females? Er...huh?
Posted by on 01/27 at 05:30 PM | #
IMHO, it should be 18 for both genders. I don’t understand how it can ever be acceptable for a male--who, under the new legislation, would have to be at least 19, so this is no “Romeo and Juliet” thing--to marry a 15-year-old girl. Gross.
Cheers,
TH
Posted by Tom Head on 01/27 at 06:27 PM | #
And may I point out that I think it’s wicked warped to teach abstinence-only and say that 15-year-olds can’t find out about birth control through government funded venues, then turn around and say that adult men--be they 19 or 50--can marry 15 year old girls. Disgusting and predatory. This legislation needs to be changed.
Cheers,
TH
Posted by Tom Head on 01/27 at 06:30 PM | #
Er, I don’t mean this legislation--I’m guessing this legislation is an improvement over the status quo, where the age of marriage for women is 14 (if I’m not mistaken), and kudos to Cummings for proposing an incremental improvement. I guess what I’m saying is that the law needs to be changed, and changed more radically. The media really should be on top of this, asking why 15-year-old girls can be married off to grown men, before they’re even old enough to sign binding contracts and certainly before they’re old enough to buy emergency contraception, under current law.
Cheers,
TH
Posted by Tom Head on 01/27 at 06:32 PM | #
