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24 May, 13 tweets, 6 min read
NEW: Amid widespread anger, lawmakers say they want to fix Mississippi's broken ballot initiative process and medical marijuana law.

But Sen. Chris McDaniel warns that some in #MSLeg will use it as an opportunity to take more power away from voters. 1/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
Sen. McDaniel: “There’s obviously an element within #MSLeg that doesn’t like the ballot-initiative process & you’re starting to hear these rumblings right now—they’re saying it’s too easy. But what they’re really saying is they don’t trust the people." 2/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
Jason White, the No. 2 Republican in the MS House, sees an “an opportunity" not only to provide a technical fix for the ballot initiative law, but to "get right how we do" initiatives.

He says many who voted for medical marijuana were uninformed. 3/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
Sen. McDaniel: “Think about House leadership or Senate leadership—they will put a 200-page bill before us and expect us to vote on it immediately. The people on this issue had much more knowledge of the issue than we do of bills we pass every day." 4/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
Even though Mississippians voted for #Initiative65 by a 74-26 margin, Rep. White says, "for the Republican (lawmakers), that 26% that voted no were probably some of their main supporters." 5/
mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
Rep. White says that, instead of the medical marijuana law Mississippians voted for by a more than 2-1 margin, Republicans should implement a more restrictive law that their conservative base will accept.

"Fix it and be a little more conservative" 6/
mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
McDaniel, a conservative Republican: “My position is we should adopt the referendum language bc our bosses have indicated that’s what they want. And you’ve got this group...that claims they have this inherent right to circumvent the will of the people." 7/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
Among Rep. White's concerns about ballot initiatives: a Medicaid expansion effort:

"What I’m not about is somebody co-opting a ballot-initiative process to push something through that has nothing to do with getting Mississippians' health care.” 8/
mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
Sen. McDaniel: “I think people understand that I’m very much against Medicaid expansion. But our job as conservatives is not to circumvent the will of the people because we think it might not turn out well for us." 9/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
Sen. McDaniel (cont): "Our job is to convince the majority of the people that our argument is sound. If we can’t…that’s our fault, that’s our responsibility.”

“It’s funny, when we passed voter ID, they thought the procedure was fine." 10/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
Sen. McDaniel says voters should be wary of lawmakers who willy attempt to undermine voters' power:

“It’s this type of individual who tries to float above the will of the people. And it’s a kind of elitism. I only have one boss. It’s the people." 11/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
Last week, Sen. Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, told @MSFreePress State Reporter @NickJudin that he considers ballot initiatives “a terrible way to make policy” and that he hopes the governor does not call a special session to revive it. 12/ mississippifreepress.org/12328/absurd-a…
You can support our truth-to-power journalism by following us @MSFreePress and giving a one-time or recurring donation to us at mfp.ms/donate.

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More from @ashtonpittman

Ashton Pittman Profile picture
25 May
One thing I want people interested in making Mississippi better to understand: If your goal here is a "blue wave," you have the wrong goal.

Mississippians don't need someone else to be their voice. They need their voices heard. They need their words to matter. 1/
Pre-2007, if you wanted to be in the majority party in MS, you had no choice but to be a Democrat for ~100 years.

Since 2011, if you want to be in the majority, you've had to be a Republican.

But MS was No. 50 in most of the good rankings on both ends of these timescales. 2/ ImageImage
Mississippi politics went through drastic change in the 2000s, from Democratic-dominated to Republican-dominated.

But you know what didn't change (aside from health rankings, etc)?

Voting. Under Dem or GOP overlords, we remained one of the states with the least democracy. 3/
Read 25 tweets
Ashton Pittman Profile picture
25 May
THREAD: Mississippi House Speaker Pro Tempore Jason White does not want a straight fix to Mississippi's ballot initiative law without making other changes to it.

One reason? He thinks @staceyabrams is plotting to put Medicaid expansion on the ballot. 1/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don… ImageImage
White: “You look at (Medicaid expansion), follow that money trail & see where it goes. When I get to clickin’—& I’m not a good computer tech generation like I should be...but even I, after clicking about 3 times, Stacey Abrams’ face keeps popping up." 2/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
“You mean with the Hospital Association? Stacey Abrams of Georgia?” radio host Paul Gallo replied, astonished.

“Yes sir, yes sir,” White said. “So I hate it with the people of the Hospital Association, but it’s just a fact. 3/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…
Read 18 tweets
Ashton Pittman Profile picture
19 May
Sinéad O'Connor: "I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career & my tearing the photo [of the Pope] put me back on the right track.”

"O’Connor saw herself as a protest-singing punk. When she ascended to the top of the pop charts, she was trapped." nytimes.com/2021/05/18/art…
Sinéad says her mom abused her as a child:

"O’Connor was 18 when her mother died & on that day, she took down the one photo on her mom’s bedroom wall: the image of the pope. O’Connor carefully saved the photo, waiting for the right moment to destroy it."nytimes.com/2021/05/18/art…
So much in here about misogyny in the music industry:

"When Sinéad O’Connor became pregnant in the midst of recording, she writes that the executive called a doctor and tried to coerce her into having an abortion, which she refused." nytimes.com/2021/05/18/art…
Read 5 tweets
Ashton Pittman Profile picture
17 May
Speaking of the "sanctity of life," Mississippi has the WORST infant mortality rate in the US at 8.43 infant deaths per 1000 births (vs 5.8 nationally).

Broken down by race in Mississippi:

White Infant Mortality: 5.9
Black Infant Mortality: 11.6

But yup, sanctity of life.
Regarding "the sanctity of life," 2019 data suggests Mississippi would've saved 1,000+ lives from 2014-2021 WITHOUT A PANDEMIC if the state had expanded Medicaid for ~200k folks.

Gov. Reeves says he's against "Obamacare expansion" & offers no alternative.
Here's the study & data on how many lives Mississippi could've saved if Gov. Reeves and other leaders had accepted over $1 billion a year from the federal government to expand Medicaid (totally free in first few years; federal govt covers 90% later years). cbpp.org/research/healt…
Read 7 tweets
Ashton Pittman Profile picture
17 May
Today, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to Roe v. Wade.

In 2016, the media ignored Hillary Clinton as she emphasized the court's importance.

Others mocked her.

"Use scare tactics much? ... What's scarier? You in the Oval Office. WE will write in Sen. Sanders."
A lot of left-wing men who weren't fans of Hillary Clinton similarly responded to her tweets about the Supreme Court with derision.

Example: "what utter BS talk policies and stop fear mongering for votes. You should be ashamed!"
On March 30, 2016, Hillary Clinton gave a major speech in WISCONSIN about the Supreme Court.

Trump-obsessed media either ignored the speech or ignored the issue. Ex, this headline from a story on the speech:

"Clinton Says Republicans Have Only Themselves to Blame for Trump" THE NATION 2016 article: Hillary Clinton Just Delivered the For the most part, if the speech was covered, the headlines
Read 20 tweets
Ashton Pittman Profile picture
17 May
THREAD: In 2019, I reported in @JxnFreePress that Mississippi lawmakers' weren't passing abortion bans simply to ban abortion in Mississippi.

Their true goal: To get a case to the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to overturn Roe v. Wade nationwide. 1/
jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/feb/… A Jackson Free Press magazine cover from 2019 shows a man wi
As Trump began remaking the Supreme Court, I reported in 2019, anti-abortion lawmakers in the Mississippi Legislature saw, for the first time in decades, "an opportunity to achieve the holy grail of the pro-life movement: the overturn of Roe v. Wade." 2/
jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/feb/…
With Trump fundamentally altering the Supreme Court, which had a 5-3 pro-Roe majority on the day of the 2016 election, anti-abortion lawmakers set out to make Mississippi "the battleground for Roe v. Wade's future."

Today, they succeeded. 3/ jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/feb/…
Read 5 tweets

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