EMILY W. PETTUS
Associated Press
JACKSON — After Republican Tate Reeves was elected Mississippi lieutenant governor in November, he spent weeks meeting with the 52 state senators to gauge their public policy interests.
He used that information while assigning senators to committees, both as chairmen and as rank-and-file members.
Reeves announced the committee rosters this past Friday, one day after his inauguration, and many senators’ initial assessments were positive. He said he tried to transcend traditional boundaries of party, race and geography.
“It was an incredibly difficult task,” said Reeves, fresh off two terms as state treasurer.
The 122 House members await their committee assignments, and new Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, said he might announce those late this week.
The committee assignments set the state’s direction the next four years because chairmen have broad powers to determine which bills live or die. Immigration? Abortion? Environmental regulation? Those issues, and others, could come up for debate, and committees are the first filters.
Reeves put Republicans in charge of 21 committees and Democrats in charge of 18.
Some committee assignments are more equal than others, of course. The plum assignments are the two money committees, Appropriations and Finance; along with Education, Public Health, Judiciary A and Judiciary B.
Chairmen of several other committees — Corrections; Highways and Transportation; Universities and Colleges; and Elections — also will get to do plenty of work.
The less glamorous assignments? It’s safe to say that few legislators have long-term aspirations to be chairman of Enrolled Bills or the Executive Contingent Fund Committee.
Read complete article at Starkville Daily News.
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