GREENWOOD — It is said that Mississippi holds its breath when state lawmakers convene in Jackson every January and lets out a sigh of relief when they leave a few months later.
As for me, I’m going to miss them. They make the life of an editorial writer so much easier, as they provide a steady source of things to criticize.
To be fair, there were a few very good measures to come out of the 2016 session, most of them in the area of education.
Lawmakers finally ended, after years of lobbying by business and pro-education groups, the anachronistic practice of electing almost 40 percent of the state’s school superintendents. Changing to all appointed superintendents should do more to improve education in this state than many reforms that have been enacted over the years.
The Legislature also voted to expand the charter school program to make it easier for these alternative public schools to get started in rural areas where they are arguably the most needed.
And it made further inroads in reducing the administrative bloat and academic inefficiencies of operating more school districts than there are students to justify. Assuming Gov. Phil Bryant signs all five consolidation bills that have been sent to him — including those that would create countywide districts in Leflore and Montgomery counties — the state by 2019 will be down to 139 districts, compared to the 152 it had before the consolidation push began in earnest a few years ago.
After that, though, the 2016 legislative session will be remembered as a dismal affair, one marked by tremendous pandering, gross fiscal irresponsibility and a monumental public relations disaster.
The Republicans deserve the credit for the few accomplishments and the blame for the much greater number of disappointments.
I have been criticized some recently for being anti-Republican. I am not. What I am is anti-government malfeasance. With Republicans running unchecked at almost every level of state government, that malfeasance is now being perpetrated largely by them.
Democrats in the Legislature have been so denuded of power that I can’t think of a single bill of major significance enacted this year that was authored by a Democrat. They don’t have the numbers nowadays to kill bad GOP ideas, much less to pass any good ideas of their own.
What the Republicans at the Capitol and in the Governor’s Mansion have done is:
• Put more guns in circulation in a state already overrun with gun deaths.
• Pander to homophobia with a so-called “religious freedom” bill that is going to get the state sued, pilloried in the national media and shunned by business, while providing no more religious protection than already exists in state and federal law.
• Set Mississippi on a crash course toward budget disaster by further slashing taxes in a state that is anything but overtaxed.
• Ignore the crisis of deteriorating roads and bridges, thus adding to the cost when the state has no other choice but to address it.
• Continue a campaign finance system that invites corruption and rewards greed.
That is a record at which any GOP believer in personal freedom, financial prudence and honest government should be alarmed.
On a good note, it does help prevent writer’s block.
Kalich is editor and publisher of The Greenwood Commonwealth.
