Our freedoms as Mississippians cannot be taken for granted. Liberty must be protected, nurtured, and for far too many, strengthened. The ACLU of Mississippi has developed a legislative agenda that offers a roadmap our legislators—regardless of party—can follow to increase liberty for every Mississippian. This roadmap is needed because Mississippians have become less free in recent years. Our lawmakers must do more than protect and restore our freedoms—they must grow them.
Voting is the keystone right for public life. Mississippi is the only state whose citizens lack both online registration and no-excuse early voting. We should not be less free because of where we live, and Mississippians deserve the convenience and flexibility enjoyed by voters in other states.
Mississippi is one of only ten states where voting rights are not automatically restored to people convicted of felonies after they complete their prison sentences. Data from The Sentencing Project, for example, shows how voting rights restoration improves overall community safety, and correlates with decreased recidivism. Our justice system should not continue punishment even after time is served. Once restitution is paid and the sentence completed, voting rights should be restored.
Voting is a constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression that must be protected, restored and grown. It’s not the only one.
Mississippi has been without a ballot initiative since 2021, when the state Supreme Court struck down not only the medical marijuana initiative passed by voters, but the entire ballot initiative process.
A correction can be as simple as updating the number of districts in the law’s language, but the Legislature’s ongoing neglect to restore voters’ freedom shows a blatant disregard for the voice and free will of our citizens.
Ballot initiatives protect the interests of voters even when their representatives will not. Until the ballot initiative is restored, every single Mississippian is less free.
We must give Mississippi mothers and health workers the security, dignity, and autonomy they deserve.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s reproductive healthcare has become even more inaccessible and unaffordable. It has very nearly become obsolete. Mississippi is an inherently dangerous place to give birth, with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in not just the United States but across all developed nations. Furthering the reproductive health system’s downward spiral, healthcare workers are being attacked with onerous oversight, threatening support systems that the vulnerable so desperately need.
ACLU of Mississippi will fight any further attacks on a person’s right to make reproductive choices, the dangerous enforcement of abortion laws, and — alongside our coalition partners — we will continue the fight to improve Mississippi’s maternal and reproductive healthcare system.
Finally, our agenda calls for Mississippi to fully live up to its identity as a truly hospitable state, one that welcomes and respects all individuals, and treats them fairly.
We know there will be new efforts to punish and exclude transgender Mississippians simply for existing. We will not stand idly by while bullying and discrimination exclude people from living in their free identities.
Mississippi and the Civil Rights movement are forever intertwined. The state has always been seen as the frontline in America’s ongoing work to fulfill its highest promises. Progress has been made, but we are still plagued with the limiting behaviors of individuals and institutions.
To change the landscape of Mississippi’s future, we must do more than protect our rights. We must restore the rights we have lost, and finish the project to grow rights for all.
Lawmakers and the public can use this roadmap to push for a real and attainable path to protect, restore, and grow freedom in Mississippi.
