The House bill that would enact several layers of illegal immigration reform, including requiring state and local law enforcement agencies to take a more active role in preventing it, faces a Tuesday deadline to make it out of the Senate Judiciary B Committee. It doesn’t sound like it will. Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, chairman of [...]
The Mississippi Public Service Commission voted 2-1 Friday morning to allow — at least temporarily — Mississippi Power Co. to continue construction on the Kemper County coal plant. Northern District Commissioner Brandon Presley was the dissenting vote. Commissioners will hold another hearing Tuesday morning to decide if they will issue a permanent certificate of public [...]
In advance of Friday morning’s hearing, Mississippi Power Co. filed Thursday a motion asking the Public Service Commission to issue a declaratory opinion affirming that the certificate of public convenience and necessity the Commission issued for the Kemper County coal plant last year is still valid. The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled 9-0 March 15 that the [...]
One of the two bills that would increase the alcohol-by-weight content in beer from 5 percent to 8 percent has met a major deadline. Senate Bill 2878 was sent to the House floor by the Ways and Means Committee Tuesday morning. The deadline for committees to report general bills that originated in the opposite chamber [...]
Defense attorney Josiah Coleman of Toccopola announced Wednesday afternoon that he has qualified to run for the Mississippi Supreme Court seat being vacated by Presiding Justice George C. Carlson Jr. The seat is one of three in the Northern District. Coleman, whose grandfather J.P. Coleman served as governor, joins Batesville lawyer Flip Phillips and the [...]
Speaker Phillip Gunn said Monday afternoon that he was generally pleased with the bills the House sent to the Senate before last week’s deadline to do so. Gunn was the speaker at the lunch meeting of the Stennis Capital Press Corps. Gunn referred just more than 1,500 bills to House committees. Of those, 268 survived [...]
The civil trial involving the state and the Georgia-based company hired to manage the construction of the failed Mississippi Beef Processors plant in Oakland has been taken off Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Winston Kidd’s calendar. The trial had been scheduled to start Monday morning. Dorsey Carson, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, would [...]
The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled 9-0 Thursday afternoon that the Mississippi Public Service Commission’s decision to allow Mississippi Power Co. to build a lignite coal-fired power plant in Kemper County was not supported by “substantial evidence presented,” as mandated by statute. The Sierra Club had sought to halt the project in Harrison County Chancery Court, [...]
The Senate passed Thursday morning a bill that would remove for two years State Personnel Board restrictions on agency heads’ ability to terminate employees. It’s the fourth consecutive session the bill has been introduced. It passed on a 29-19 vote. Supporters of the legislation called it a critical cost-saving measure. Opponents said it would hand [...]
A little more than 48 hours until the deadline for floor action on bills that have made it out of committee, the House spent much of Tuesday morning debating a bill that would require doctors performing physicians to have admitting privileges at hospitals. The bill passed 80-37, but not before reigniting the worst parts of [...]
