Mississippi legislature posts latest version of House Bill 1020
A conference committee tasked with reaching a compromise on the Jackson Capitol Complex Improvement District Courts’ controversial bill, House Bill 1020, released its new version late Monday night.
The conference proceedings combine a number of aspects of the House and Senate versions of the bills and include the creation of a new permanent, unelected court system in the black-majority Mississippi capital, an important and controversial part of the original House version.
It would also allow for four provisionally appointed judges within Hinds County’s existing court system and extend the jurisdiction of the state-run Capitol Police to the entire city of Jackson, as proposed in the Senate version.
Explosive Quotes:Check out some of the most explosive quotes from the House debate on Jackson unelected courts
It would add three new assistant district public defenders, as well as two new assistant district attorneys. In addition, there would be the two prosecutors appointed by the Attorney General for the newly created CCID court. The single judge of the CCID court would be appointed by the Chief Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court.
The conference report also included changes in Capitol Police operations. Previous versions attempted to initiate a memorandum of understanding between Capitol Police and the Jackson Police Department as their responsibilities would be concurrent. In the version that eventually passed the Senate, signing this memorandum of understanding was made optional, and the Hinds County Sheriff was included. The conference report does not mention an MOU.
A new aspect included in the conference proceedings would require the chief of the Capitol Police — or the commissioner for the Department of Public Safety that oversees the Capitol Police — the JPD chief and the Hinds County Sheriff to hold quarterly public meetings held in a location within the CCID where the public can ask them questions.
The conference report also includes a requirement for Capitol police officers to wear body cameras. This was added as an early amendment on the House floor and will remain in the new version of the bill.
The six-member conference committee had only two members representing people from Jackson: Rep. Earle Banks, D-Jackson, and Senator Walter Michel, R-Ridgeland. It also included the main authors of the bill. Rep. Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, prepared the House version while Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, did in the Senate. All six conference participants signed the report.
Both the House and Senate versions of the bill drew significant criticism from members of the Jackson delegation and locally elected officials. One of the main criticisms was that creating an appointed court system to represent a majority-white area of a majority-black city would dilute the voting rights of black Jacksonians. Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said it “reminds me of apartheid.”
Supporters of the bill, which include all Republican lawmakers, say it will help make Jackson and Hinds County safer by cutting backlogs and providing more policing. The Hinds County Court has recorded backlogs, although some are due to funding from the state crime lab rather than the number of judges.
The latest version of the law must now be approved by both chambers before it can go to Gov. Tate Reeves’ desk. However, Michel warned Tuesday morning that the version released the night before may not be the final version the chambers will vote on. As of Tuesday afternoon, the House of Representatives had already voted to send it back to the conference, and the Senate was also scheduled to consider it.
“I’ve just spoken to Sen. Wiggins, he will be using it again for further work. We caught some things in it,” said Michel. “It could very well come back from the conference and meet us for a vote later this evening.”
While Michel indicated the changes would likely be technical fixes, Democratic members of Jackson’s Senate delegation hope they will go further. Although Sens. John Horhn and David Blount, both Jackson Democrats, voted strongly against and strongly opposed the Senate version of HB 1020 earlier in the session, they said it is a far better bill than what is now on the table .
“I was disappointed that it revived a separate court system. That wasn’t in the Senate version,” Blount said.
Horhn said the bill has issues beyond its disagreements with its intent.
“We thought we had a good bill when she left the Senate, but then it got a lot more complicated. In her current form, she’s a bad bill and she needs to be killed. Many of the actions called for in the bill are not needed,” Horhn said. “A substandard court structure, it’s a solution in search of a problem.”
As the Senate joined the House to resubmit the bill to the conference, Wiggins reiterated that the changes would be technical in nature, including correcting spelling errors. However, he also noted that changes could be made to the responsibilities of the Capitol Police and the JPD.
“The changes, as I mentioned, are that we are trying to finalize the language to address the Capitol Police and JPD language already included in the report. It just takes some adjustments to make that happen,” Wiggins said.
Blount asked Wiggins to provide the time and place of the conference committee meeting and asked if that meeting could be public. Wiggins responded that as a House bill, those decisions will be a House matter. Previous meetings of the Conference Committee were not publicly announced or were not public.
If a new version of HB 1020 passes the House and Senate by the end of the week and Reeves signs it, it’s likely to face opposition in court. Legislators appeared to anticipate legal challenges by adding a section on constitutionality to the conference proceedings.
“If any section, paragraph, sentence, clause, sentence or part of this statute is held to be unconstitutional or void, or if for any reason is held to be invalid or of no effect, the remaining sections, paragraph, sentence, clause, sentence or Parts of this law are not affected in any way, but remain in full force,” the conference report said.
Lawmakers have until the end of the week to pass legislation before the 2023 session ends.