By Erik Fleming, Director of Policy
We began the 2017 session with the rollout of our annual Equity Agenda and our annual Legislative Advocacy Day, which involved approximately 35 participants. Together, we advocated for seven measures:
- Mississippi Civil Rights Act: Prohibiting discrimination of any kind in Mississippi in the areas of housing, public accommodations, education, employment and health care.
- Special Prosecutors Ensure Transparency & Accountability: Requiring appointment of independent special prosecutors in officer-involved shooting deaths.
- Written Consent to Search: Requiring officers to offer forms to drivers when officers want to search a vehicle without probable cause.
- Statewide Policy for Body-Worn Cameras for Law Enforcement: Establishing a uniformed standard for all law enforcement agencies who use body cameras.
- Racial Impact Analysis: Establishing a system that assesses the racial and ethnic impact of proposed legislation or ballot initiatives that are criminal justice related.
- State Protections Against Housing Discrimination: Strengthening protections for sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination for housing financed through the Mississippi HOME Corporation.
- All State Employees Need Protection: Expanding protections against discriminatory practices related to sexual orientation or gender identity for all state government employees.
We tracked 133 bills. Only three bills that were supportive of equitable and fair treatment actually passed both houses, and only two of them became law. For more information, see our 2017 Legislative Scorecard posted on our website. Here’s a look at the new state laws (enacted July 1, 2017) we tracked:
Promote Community Policing, Transparency and Accountability
HB 645 – known as the Mississippi Blue Lives Matter bill. This unnecessary law makes it a hate crime to kill or assault a law enforcement officer or first responder, on or off duty. We advocated to amend the bill to ensure that protestors’ First Amendment rights were protected.
HB 907 – The proposed version of this bill (HB 509) requires the Department of Public Safety to develop a program on how drivers should respond to law enforcement when stopped. We successfully amended this bill to mandate that any drivers’ education programs must inform drivers about their right not to consent to an unwarranted search.
HB 812 – mandates that law enforcement agencies report annual profits on asset and forfeiture seizures online. This was a recommendation from the Asset Forfeiture Task Force, which we successfully advocated for during the 2016 session in the form of SB 2477.
Other Legislative Actions
HB 638 – changes drug protocol for death penalty executions. This barbaric law will allow sedatives like Midazolam as the first drug, making our state susceptible to violating the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
HB 1033 – would have ended the practice of debtors’ prison, made it easier for parolees to re-enter society, and created a sentencing task force in an effort to reduce the state’s prison population thereby saving the state more than $20 million in incarceration costs. It had unanimous support in both houses, but was later vetoed by the Governor. We launched an aggressive advocacy campaign to discourage the initial veto and to get the bill added to the Special Session. Despite neither of those actions happening, we were impactful in maintaining bi-partisan support for the bill and gaining assurances that the bill will pass in 2018.
This fall, we will host a series of webinars around our 2018 policy and advocacy initiatives. Sign-up to receive our action alerts so that you receive the full schedule.
