Critical Legislative Wins This Session

We had an unprecedented 11 major, conservative legislative victories this session! Mississippi Advocacy Group drafted the original initiatives of many of these bills and led the way in getting the bills passed. We gathered broad coalition partners to support leading lawmakers in getting major bills across the finish line.

It took us working TOGETHER and YOU were a major piece in this equation. Thank you for staying engaged and working together to make our voices heard to pass conservative policies! THANK YOU! 

Ban Transgender Procedures for Minors:

HB 1125 Regulate Experimental Adolescent Procedures (REAP)

Status: PASSED!!

Purpose: Bans the harmful gender transition treatment of minors.

Comment: With the passage of this bill, MS became one of the first states to prohibit minors from undergoing dangerous and experimental transgender procedures. We are truly in a culture war – as other states are even terminating parental rights if they deny “medically necessary,” “gender-affirming” care to their children.

Thank you to our MS lawmakers for standing strong on this issue, especially Representative Gene Newman, Representative Nick Bain, Senator Joey Fillingane, and Speaker Philip Gunn. We would like to thank Governor Reeves for his strong leadership and support of this crucial bill protecting vulnerable children in Mississippi.

---

Care for Mothers and Children Post-Dobbs

Foster Parents’ Bill of Rights: HB 510:

Status: PASSED!!

Purpose: Help foster parents understand their rights and provide them the ability to be more involved in the education and visitation of the child. Lawmakers also wanted to make the foster care system much more efficient.

Comment: Foster parents around the state have been asking for these protections, similar to those offered by other states, like Georgia. The bill does not really have an enforcement mechanism, such as a private right of action, but it is a good start for MS foster parents.

Please thank Representative Jill Ford for sponsoring this legislation!

Baby Drop-off and Safe Haven Boxes: HB 1318:

Status: PASSED!!

Purpose: Authorizes municipalities that meet the requirements of this law to install safe haven baby drop-off boxes in order to protect newborns and provide an option for women who are not ready to mother.

Comment: You would not imagine how difficult this legislation was to pass in Mississippi! But we kept working hard and made this one of the last bills to pass in 2023.

Recommendation: Encourage as a service project to each of our clubs across the state to take the next steps in installing a box in their respective counties. That’s 37 boxes across our state where babies’ lives can be saved, and desperate, vulnerable women have an option to safely surrender their child without fear of prosecution or shame.

Please thank Representative Jill Ford for sponsoring this legislation and Representative Angela Cockerham for leading as Committee Chair to see it through to completion. Thank Senator Josh Harkins for fighting for this bill in the Senate.

Tax Credit Act for Mothers and Families: HB 1671:

Status: PASSED!!

Purpose: (1) Pregnancy Resource Act: Increase the amount of tax credits for business donations to CPCs that may be allocated during a calendar year from $3.5 million to $10 million! For example, if a business owes $100 in state taxes, $50 of that state tax obligation can be donated instead to a MS CPC!

(2) Transitional Homes: Additionally, the law provides a $10 million tax credit for transitional homes for mothers.

(3) Medical Clinics: The law also provides a $4 million tax credit for charitable medical clinics across the state. (This is a great idea, as these clinics provide frontline, no-cost medical center and many partner with churches around the state.)

(4) Childcare Expenses: Finally, the law provides tax credits for childcare expenses equal to 25% of the federal tax credit to help young mothers who are looking to support themselves and their children.

Recommendation: Encourage each club to help their local CPC’s raise donations from their local businesses in order to meet this allocation. This is life-changing money for women and children in need, post-Dobbs.

Please thank Speaker Gunn for sponsoring this legislation! Thank Rep. Jill Ford and Senator Josh Harkins for fighting hard for this bill.

Adoptive Families Tax Credit: SB 2696:

Status: PASSED!!

Purpose: Make adoption easier by doubling the existing state tax credit for adoption expenses.

Recommendation: Please thank Senator Nicole Boyd for sponsoring this legislation.

Foster Care Path to Permanency: HB: 1149:

Status: PASSED!!

Purpose: This bill essentially does two things: 1) It is seeking to make MS Child Protective Services more accountable by making it a separate agency; 2) It enacts legal reforms aimed at better protecting the rights of children in foster care.

Recommendation: Please thank Representative Angela Cockerham for sponsoring this legislation.

---

Election Integrity Legislation

Last year, the Legislature passed bills that would ban the use of private “Zuckerbucks” money to influence Mississippi elections. This year, even though several sound election integrity bills died in committee, we were able to make good progress in stopping election fraud.

Voter Roll Clean Up and Election Audits: HB 1310:

Status: PASSED!!

Purpose: This bill sets forth a commonsense process to verify voter addresses and provides increased funding in order to clean up state voter rolls. The bill also allows the Secretary of State to audit local election results.

Please thank Representative Brent Powell for his very hard work on this bill over the last few years. Secretary of State Michael Watson also never quit fighting for this legislation. 

Prohibit Ballot Harvesting: SB 2358:

Status: PASSED!!

Purpose: Ballot harvesting occurs, often, when nonprofit advocacy groups collect ballots for delivery into unmonitored or insecure ballot drop boxes. This law limits the conditions under which ballots may be collected so as to discourage such “harvesting.”

Recommendation: The definition of “family member” needs to be tightened up in the law, but it’s a good start. Mississippi also needs to ban “pre-filled” absentee ballots.

Please thank Senator Jeff Tate for sponsoring this legislation. 

Prohibit Fraudulent Ballot Applications: HB 1306:

Status: PASSED!!

Purpose: This bill also takes a step toward preventing the fraudulent request or submission of absentee ballot applications.

Recommendation: Mississippi may need to tighten up its language to clarify that only government officials can send out blank absentee ballot applications and ballots to voters who request them. This law is a good start, though.

Please thank Representative Dan Eubanks for sponsoring this legislation. Please thank Dr. Jameson Taylor for his tireless work on all these election integrity bills. 

Library and Online Porn and Minors

Age Verification for Pornographic Websites: SB 2346:

Status: PASSED!!

Purpose: The Republican Party Platform states that pornography is a “public health crisis,” with particularly harmful consequences for children and teens. This bill discourages minors from accessing pornographic websites by requiring age verification technology. It is based on a model that went into effect in Louisiana on January 1, 2023.

Please thank Senator Nicole Boyd for sponsoring this important legislation.

Remove Pornography from Library Databases: HB 1315:

Status: PASSED!!

Purpose: Require private, corporate library subscription services to remove obscene and harmful content from their databases marketed to K-12 schools and libraries.

Comment: Mississippi has contracts with private, commercial vendors to provide online, library databases. The vendors who market these services are supposed to remove “soft” and “hardcore” pornography. This bill creates a process so that these vendors will be held accountable if they fail to protect Mississippi children from pornography.

Recommendation: Please thank Speaker Philip Gunn for sponsoring this legislation. In addition, Representative Jill Ford fought hard to pass a companion bill that would have required age-appropriate guidelines for physical library collections and then joined Speaker Gunn in the fight for 1315. (Think: G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17.) This bill (HB 1045) died on the House calendar. Hopefully, Rep. Ford’s commonsense bill will pass next year.

Thank Senator Angela Hill for fighting hard for this bill in the Senate. Please thank Dr. Jameson Taylor for his tireless work on both of these crucial bills.

---

Two Bills That Died This Session

Codifying the Women’s Bill of Rights:

Status: Killed before reaching committee in both the House and the Senate.

Purpose: Put into law a man is a biological man and a woman is a biological woman and protect women’s private spaces.

Comment: This result was shocking and inexcusable. Where were our lawmakers standing up for women and girls in MS? Despite continual, non-stop efforts even after the bill was officially killed until the very last day of session, every attempt died.

Recommendation: We highly recommend this remain a priority initiative next session to protect MS women and girls by putting into law that a biological man is a man and a biological woman is a woman and that our women and girls need protected spaces for their safety and privacy. 

Thank you to Representative Jill Ford and Senator Angela Hill for fighting hard for these bills.

Codifying a Parents’ Bill of Rights and Ensure Transparency in Education:

Status: Killed before reaching committee in both the House and the Senate.

Purpose:

• Allow parents to know if their child is gender transitioning at school or with a physician;

• Allow parents to know if their child is being taught controversial teachings at public schools such as critical gender theory, critical queer theory, critical race theory;

• Allow parents to have a cause of action against the school board if their constitutional rights are violated.

• Confirm the constitutional rights of teachers to not be forced by the government to violate their beliefs about biological sex or the importance of parental involvement.

Comment: The liberal education lobby, including Nancy Loome with the Parents Campaign and Mississippi First, ambushed these bills with a well-coordinated, well-timed all out state-wide email campaign beginning early Monday morning right before the Tuesday committee deadline. These emails contained stark misrepresentations of the bills. Despite that, quick but sound good-faith efforts were made to compromise and give the teacher’s union what they asked. All changes were ignored. A messaging document was prepared accurately explaining the bill and was quickly dispersed to dispel the myths being spread.

Recommendation: This result was inexcusable. States all around us have passed similar Parent’s Bills of Rights, states such as Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, Montana, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, West Virginia, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. This bill will be proposed again next session. We will need help to push back on the liberal teachers union’s myths and protect the Constitutional and God-given rights of parents to direct the upbringing and healthcare of their children.

Please thank Speaker Gunn for sponsoring and Representative Jill Ford for fighting hard for it in the House. Thank you to Senator Angela Hill for sponsoring and fighting hard for this bill in the Senate.

---

A special thank you to Mississippi Federation of Republican Women for allowing us to draft their 2023 Legislative Agenda and work with their incredible Legislative Committee this year on many of these initiatives! It was our honor and pleasure to serve you and our great state.

Thank you also to Mississippi Baptists, Mississippi Pentecostals, American Family Association, Alliance Defending Freedom, The Heritage Foundation, Dr. Mike Artigues, Dr. Ligon Duncan, Meeke Addison, Xandra Roberts, Dr. Jameson Taylor, Ron Matis, Commissioner Andy Gipson, Secretary of State Michael Watson, State Auditor Shad White, Congressman Michael Guest and Haley Guest. From my own team, thank you to my Administrative Assistant Sara Michael Kennedy, VP Anja Baker, and my precious family members who helped behind the scenes. 

– Lesley