Thread by @jallen1985

THREAD: Randy Boyd & Dana Criswell urged MS's Congressional delegation to overturn the 2020 election because they allege the result lacks transparency.

Boyd & Criswell chair the MS House's transparency committee, so let's check THEIR OWN transparency record, shall we? 1/

Because @PhilipGunnMS appointed Boyd & Criswell to lead the MS House's Accountability-Efficiency-Transparency Committee, new transparency legislation won't pass without their support. 2/

To that end, the committee's 2020 bills are available here: billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/2020/pdf/house…

As is immediately apparent, Boyd & Criswell's committee passed some deregulatory bills but killed all transparency legislation introduced in the MS House this year.

For example: 3/

The committee killed Rep. Zuber's HB 229, which would have extended the MS Accountability and Transparency Act to counties of at least 20,000 residents and cities of at least 10,000, requiring them to put records on a public website. billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/2020/pdf/histo… 4/

The committee killed @JansenOwen's HB 1067, which would have increased the amount of public information posted to the Transparency Mississippi website. billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/2020/pdf/histo… 5/

The committee killed @JansenOwen's HB 1562, which would have required public bodies that have websites to make their public meeting minutes available to the public on their websites. billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/2020/pdf/histo… 6/

Boyd & Criswell's committee killed all transparency legislation introduced in the House this year by March 3, meaning that none of these bills died because of the pandemic. 7/

Boyd & Criswell (as well as MS House AET committee members Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes and Steve Hopkins) now call on MS's Congressional delegation to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that overturning the election would be a win for government transparency. 8/

For real:

"We, the undersigned, urge you on January 6th to vocally support the rule of law AND TRANSPARENT GOVERNMENT by ... objecting to the contested electors in those states where Republicans have offered opposing slates of electors." 9/

To be clear, Boyd & Criswell's letter is about the 2020 election, but this thread is NOT about the 2020 election.

This thread is about Boyd & Criswell's standard for transparency. 10/

To that end, it remains a mystery why Boyd & Criswell cannot find any transparency reforms they support to improve access to public records and open meetings and to prevent the corruption scandals that are now Mississippi's bad recurring nightmare. 11/

If Boyd & Criswell have nothing to say about transparency except how other people should provide it, then I propose that @PhilipGunnMS simply give their leadership positions to @JansenOwen and @KentMcCarty instead. 12/