Thread by @ashtonpittman

THREAD: In 1922, Mississippians noticed that the state revenue agent, Stokes V. Robertson, was earning $40,000 a year on taxpayer's dime—a salary equal to about $635,000 today.

Voters had a plan: They launched a ballot initiative to slash his pay. 1/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Revenue Agent Stokes V. Robertson came up with his own plan to stop voters from using a ballot initiative to slash his exorbitant salary: He'd ask the Mississippi Supreme Court to kill the state's entire ballot initiative law on a technicality. 2/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Starting in 1912, Mississippi voters (meaning white men then), frustrated with legislative inaction, demanded the Legislature allow voters to create an initiative & referendum process so they could make laws themselves when lawmakers failed. 3/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

In 1914, the Legislature responded to voters by placing the "Initiative & Referendum" issue on the ballot.

If voters approved, they'd be able to gather signatures for ballot initiatives to make changes to laws or amend the constitution themselves. 4/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

In 1914, 69% of voters approved the Initiative & Referendum Amendment.

It enshrined in the Mississippi Constitution these words: "The people reserve to themselves the power to propose legislative measures, laws, resolutions and amendments..." 5/
mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

“The first power reserved by the people is the initiative … . The second power reserved by the people is the referendum,” Section 33 of the Mississippi Constitution read in 1917.

Not everyone was happy with voters' newfound powers, though. 6/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

In a 1917 lawsuit, opponents told the Mississippi Supreme Court that the Legislature-approved referendum that created the citizen "Initiative & Referendum" process was illegal because it included more than one amendment to the constitution. 7/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

State law at the time said that any referendums on the ballot must “be submitted in such manner and form that the people may vote for or against each amendment separately.” 8/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Opponents told the MS Supreme Court that the 1914 "Initiative & Referendum" amendment was in violation because it created both an initiative process for voters to change the constitution and a referendum process for voters to repeal or create laws. 9/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

But in its 1917 Howie v. Brantley ruling, the MS Supreme Court rejected the effort to kill the state's ballot initiative.

The decision “settles the matter finally in this state,” the asst. attorney general declared.

It did not settle the matter. 10/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

One MS Supreme Court justice who dissented wrote that upholding the Initiative & Referendum law "abolishes representative state government."

The 1890 MS Constitution, framed by "the wisdom and patriotism of great minds" was now threatened, he wrote. 11/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Justice J. Holden wrote that the ballot initiative process threaten the Mississippi Constitution's "as a charter of liberty and equality, protecting weak against the strong, minority against majority, & preserving a government by the white man." 12/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Five years later in 1922, Mississippi Revenue Agent Stokes V. Robertson, eager to preserve his high-dollar salary as voters gathered signatures to put a referendum to lower it on the ballot, asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling. 13/
mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

In its 1922 Power v. Robertson ruling, the MS Supreme Court reversed itself, agreeing that the Initiative & Referendum amendment had been improperly placed in the constitution, killing it on a technicality.

Robertson kept his $40,000-per-year salary. 14/
mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Even as the Mississippi Supreme Court killed the ballot initiative process 99 years ago, it said #MSLeg could revive ballot initiatives with new referendums. But lawmakers did not act.

For the next 70 years, direct democracy was dead in Mississippi. 15/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

By 1990, many Mississippians were angered by the MS Constitution's ban on a state lottery—and the Legislature's failure to propose a referendum allowing them to repeal it.

Mississippi's Attorney General Michael Moore and Rep. Oliver Diaz had an idea. 16/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

In 1990, Moore and Diaz presented Secretary of State Dick Molpus with an initiative petition to repeal the Mississippi constitution's prohibition on lotteries.

Molpus rejected it, pointing to the 1922 Powers ruling that killed citizen initiatives. 17/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

The next day, the petitioners filed a lawsuit in Hinds County, urging the courts to reverse the 1922 ruling. The case made its way to the Mississippi Supreme Court in 1991.

Moore argued that Power v. Robertson was wrongly decided. 18/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

The 1991 MS Supreme Court agreed that Powers v. Robertson may have wrongly been decided... but said “weighty considerations of finality & repose counsel restraint in the face of 68 year old precedent, even if we be convinced it was wrongly decided.” 19/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

MS Supreme Court, 1991:

“In most settings the mere fact that a prior ruling may have been wrong—even badly wrong—is not enough to move the judicial hand...We are told of biblical origins: ‘Remove not the ancient landmark, which the fathers have set.’” 20/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Mississippi voters had the momentum, though. In 1992, the Mississippi Legislature finally decided to allow voters the chance to get direct democracy back.

The Legislature passed Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 616, putting the issue on the ballot. 21/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Like the 1914 Initiative and Referendum Amendment that earned 69% support from voters, 70% of Mississippi voters approved Section 273(3) in 1992, resurrecting the right of citizens to amend the constitution via ballot initiative. 22/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

“The people reserve unto themselves the power to propose and enact constitutional amendments by initiative," reads Section 273(3), which voters added to the MS Constitution in 1992.

But 29 years later, the MS Supreme Court would kill that power—again. 23/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

By 2018, the Mississippi Legislature had shown no interest in enacting a medical marijuana program—an idea popular with Mississippians.

A group of voters decided to do it themselves. 24/
mississippifreepress.org/6738/mississip…

By law, petitioners had to collect 86,165 signatures across the state to get medical marijuana on the ballot.

Unfriendly local officials often rejected as many as half of signatures. Petitioners collected 228k signatures to overcome that. 25/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

In November, 68% voted for Initiative 65, the medical marijuana initiative.

Beyond medical marijuana, 65's success showed that Mississippi voters can make change thru democracy even when MS leaders ignore their wishes. 26/ mississippifreepress.org/6738/mississip…

After the successful medical marijuana initiative, voting rights activists launched a campaign in March 2021 to create 10 days of early voting

MS currently has no early voting & perhaps the most limited absentee voting in the country. 27/ mississippifreepress.org/11740/not-a-pa…

In early May 2021, a group of Mississippi medical professionals and patients launched a petition to expand Medicaid—which the Legislature had failed to do and the governor opposes.

Not only could medical expansion save lives—but also hospitals. 28/
mississippifreepress.org/12117/medicaid…

With Medicaid expansion, an estimated 200k-300k working Mississippians could get health care access.

It could also save 50% of the state's rural hospitals that are in danger of closing without expansion.

Polls show 60% of Mississippians support it. 29/mississippifreepress.org/12117/medicaid…

One person who wasn't encouraged by Initiative 65's success was Mary Hawkins Butler, the mayor of Madison, Mississippi.

She guards her zoning authority in her affluent, 93% white

She saw 65 and medical marijauana as a threat. 30/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Madison's mayor said she didn't want "pot shops" (medical dispensaries) in Madison.

In October, before the vote, she said she was "looking at...what we could do regarding protecting our citizens, our schools, our plans and the future of Madison." 31/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Madison's mayor came up with a plan: To stop "pot shops" from coming to her city, she would challenge, not just initiative 65, but the legality of Mississippi's entire ballot initiative process at its core. 32/ apnews.com/article/missis…

The 1992 ballot initiative law says the "signatures...from any congressional district shall not exceed 1/5 of the total required."

That made sense in 1992, when the state had five congressional districts. 33/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

After 2000 redistricting, Mississippi lost a congressional district.

Since, Mississippi secretaries of state, seeing the requirement's goal as to ensure diversity, have required petitioners to simply use the 1990s district lines to collect signatures. 34/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

For 20 years, none challenged the ballot initiative process's legality after MS lost its 5th district—including when voters adopted voter ID in 2011.

But after 68% voters adopted medical marijuana, the mayor of Madison decided it was time. 35/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

On May 14, 2021, for the second time in 99 years, the Mississippi Supreme Court killed the citizen ballot initiative process after a powerful politician who saw it as a threat to their power asked them to do so on the basis of a technicality. 36/ mississippifreepress.org/12260/in-blow-…

To keep "pot shops" out of her town, Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler asked the MS Supreme Court to kill, not only Initiative 65, but all ballot initiatives on a technicality—just as Revenue Agent Stokes V. Robertson did to preserve his salary 99 years ago. 37/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

The Supreme Court's ruling not only killed the Medical Marijuana program that 68% of Mississippians created with a constitutional amendment in 2020, but killed 2022 initiatives for issues like early voting and Medicaid expansion. 38/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Just as the Mississippi Supreme Court did when it killed the Initiative & Referendum amendment in 1922 again in 1990, the justices once again suggested that the Mississippi Legislature can revive the ballot initiative process ...if they want. 39/mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

A group of voters are asking for a rehearing in an effort to revive Initiative 65 and the ballot initiative law, saying “the judiciary is a creature of the constitution" tasked with "interpreting and applying" it but "cannot void the constitution." 40/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

"This unfortunate decision has allowed elected officials to rob the voters of a fundamental right owned by them, & for the 2nd time it has done so not because a provision became unconstitutional...but based on a technicality," the voters argue. mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Motion: “The judiciary is a creature of the constitution...It cannot void the constitution...In short, it cannot both nullify or erase the authority & will of the voters & still be in compliance with the authority granted to it under the constitution.” 42/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

“There is simply no rational basis for an argument that the authors of the (1992) amendment believed that somehow the number five was a magical triggering number and any others, 3, 4, 6, 7, or even 8, … were incompatible with a constitutional right.” 43/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

The lawyer says the Mississippi Supreme Court's decision to nullify the ballot initiative process violates its own precedent. It should have deferred to the Secretary of State's judgement about the validity of ballot initiatives, the lawyer says. 44/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

When Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour left office in 2012, he issued a number of controversial pardons and may have done so without complying with technical public notice requirements under state law. 45/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

When then-Attorney General Jim Hood asked the courts to void Barbour’s pardons based on a technicality, the court refused, despite conceding that Barbour’s pardons may not have complied with a statute’s public-notice requirements. 46/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Why the MS Supreme Court said they wouldn't override Barbour's powers:

“While this Court clearly has the constitutional duty to interpret the content of laws passed by the Legislature and executive orders issued by the governor..." (cont) 47/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

"...we decline...to assume for ourselves the absolute power to police the other branches of government in fulfilling their constitutional duties to produce laws and executive orders, unless there is alleged a justiciable violation of a personal right." 48/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Attorneys say that the MS Supreme Court should have applied that logic in the Initiative 65 case because, under state law, it is the Secretary of State who determines "whether the initiative signature gathering was sufficient to comply with...the law." 49/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

"Section 273(3) states ‘The people reserve unto themselves the power to propose & enact constitutional amendments by initiative.'...this reads like a clear warning to the Court not to overstep its authority again. And yet, here we are again.” 50/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

“The United States Supreme Court does not strike down provisions of the United States Constitution: it invalidates legislation and executive actions that conflict with the constitution. Such is the limited role of this court as well," the motion says. 51/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

"And just as before, it has done so when individual members of the Legislature or other elected officials complained because they did not like the specific results of the citizen sponsored initiative process,” the motion for a rehearing says. 52/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

“The role of the Supreme Court must be one of great deference to the Constitution, flawed or not, and in the interests of all the citizens of the State of Mississippi, not just a few." 53/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

"Democracy dies, not all at once, but cut by cut and blow by blow. This court must not now again be responsible for a serious blow to democracy and the death of this right granted to the people," the motion for a rehearing says. 54/ mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…

Will #MSLeg implement the medical marijuana law 68% voted for? They're hinting they may pass a much more restrictive one. They held hearings this week to "hear both sides" (even though voters already heard "both sides" from 2018-2020 & voted for it). 55/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) warns that while fixing MS's ballot initiative law, some lawmakers will try to make direct democracy harder.

"What they’re really saying is they don’t trust the people...Our job is not to make self government more difficult." 55/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

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. 56/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

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." 57/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

Mississippi House Speaker Pro Tempore Jason White: "There’s an agenda there...What I’m not about is somebody co-opting a ballot-initiative process to push something thru that has nothing to do with getting Mississippians health care.” 58/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

White didn't explain how Stacey Abrams and a Medicaid expansion initiative figured into changing Mississippi's ballot initiative law.

But this reporter found no evidence that Stacey Abrams was tied to the Medicaid expansion campaign at all. 59/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

Republican Sen. Chris McDaniel on White's remarks:

“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." 60/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

Mississippi @SenatorMcDaniel: "Our job (as conservatives) 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.” 61/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

GOP leaders didn't complain about the ballot initiative system in the past, Sen. Chris McDaniel mused:

“It’s funny, when we passed voter ID, they thought the procedure was fine. And when we passed eminent domain they thought the procedure was fine." 62/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

"There’s obviously an element within the Legislature that doesn’t like the ballot-initiative process, and you’re starting to hear these rumblings right now—they’re saying it’s too easy," @SenatorMcDaniel says. 63/
mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

Sen. McDaniel: "But what they’re really saying is they don’t trust the people. And when politicians don’t trust the people, that’s a problem. So they’re going to do everything in their power to deflect and circumvent the legislation.” 64/
mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

Sen. McDaniel: "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. ... Our job is not to make self-government more difficult.” 65/
mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

Sen. Chris McDaniel said he knows there is “a lot of fear of direct democracy referendums,” but in Mississippi, he said, “it’s only utilized when the Legislature has kicked the can down the road unnecessarily for decades.” 66/ mississippifreepress.org/12472/they-don…

Rehearing motion: “Elected officials, whether the Revenue agent in 1922 or (Butler) who fears medical marijuana, or #MSLeg...have glibly tossed the rights of the people under the bus collateral damage all in the service of their own personal interests." 67/mississippifreepress.org/12703/democrac…