2015/05/07 – The state Supreme Court on Thursday approved “the Legislature’s” motion to expedite an appeal of a lower court’s actions on a school funding initiative on November’s statewide ballots.

The court agreed to a request from Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn to expedite its consideration because a sample of statewide ballots must be given to counties at least 55 days before the election. The court also said, “this case is retained by the Mississippi Supreme Court.” It passed on a motion to dismiss the Legislature’s appeal of the lower court decision saying it will consider that “with the merits of this appeal.”

ORIGINAL STORY: The state Supreme Court on Wednesday approved Gov. Phil Bryant’s request to join an appeal of a lower court’s actions on a school funding initiative on November’s statewide ballots.

A citizen-led petition drive placed “Initiative 42,” a state constitutional amendment that would force the Legislature to fully fund its adequate education formula, on the November ballot. The Legislature countered by placing an alternative “Initiative 42-A” on the ballot. Supporters of the citizen-led initiative accused lawmakers of trying to muddy the water for voters and kill the initiative.

A Hinds County judge last month re-wrote the title of the Legislature’s alternative initiative. The GOP legislative leadership asked the state High Court to overturn the lower court’s decision.

Bryant says the lower court judge did not have the authority to reword the Legislature’s alternative on the ballot and asked to be allowed to join in the state Supreme Court case. Supporters of the citizen-led initiative, and the lower court’s ruling, say the ruling cannot be appealed, per state law allowing the Legislature to offer an alternative to a citizen ballot initiative. But Bryant says the law allowing the Legislature to pass an alternative does not allow anyone to appeal the wording of such an alternative in court.

Hinds County Circuit Judge Winston L. Kidd in April ruled in favor of an Oxford parent who filed a lawsuit against the Legislature’s alternative to Initiative 42.

Kidd had ruled in April that state law says the Legislature’s ballot language cannot “intentionally be an argument, nor likely to create prejudice, either for or against the measure.”

Initiative 42 seeks to force lawmakers to fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, passed by the Legislature in 1997. Lawmakers, by state law, are supposed to use the MAEP formula to fund the state’s K-12 public school system. But the Legislature has fully funded MAEP only twice, in 2003 and 2007. The formula has been shorted more than $1.5 billion in the last six years, and K-12 funding lawmakers set for the coming year was $211 million short per MAEP, despite a $110-million year-over-year increase to the $2.5-billion K-12 budget.

Source: The Clarion-Ledger 

Geoff Pender