The 2020 Mississippi legislative session has now broken the record for the longest session since the Civil War due to complications from the coronavirus outbreak.
Representative Jason White, who serves as the Speaker Pro Tempore of the House, and his colleagues are working to put an end to “the session that won’t end.”
“We intend to hopefully leave Jackson next week with a balanced budget that will have some minor cuts to it over last year’s budget,” White said. “We hope to do that next week [and] get out of here. We hope to pass bills that will appropriate and spend most of this CARES Act money…We get those two things done and get out of town.”
It is more than plausible that members will return to their districts by the end of next week as both chambers have passed HCR 69, which is a resolution that will allow the legislature to have an open-ended session in order to address issues that arise from COVID-19.
“What [HCR 69] provides is if Congress acts and appropriates more money or if they change the regulations on what the money should or could be spent on, that’s two triggering events that could bring us back to Jackson,” White continued. “We will also be back the first full week of October. We will sine die on October 10th one way or another.”
Long story short, it looks as if the Mississippi Legislature will tentatively end the current session and reconvene for one week in October unless COVID-19 has something to say about it.
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