Will Gov. Reeves break out his veto stamp on Legislature’s ‘Christmas tree’ costs of pet tasks?

In their last act of the 2023 session, in the wee hours of the early morning April 1, Mississippi legislators passed a “Christmas tree” costs with $372 million in regional pet tasks.

It consists of spending on parks, theaters, museums, municipal government and court houses, streets, volunteer station house, boat ramps and waterside advancements. From Adams County to Zama, almost every hamlet — and every legislator — in Mississippi got a taste of the election-year spending.

Now the concern is, will Gov. Tate Reeves veto some or all of the spending? He did in 2015, albeit selectively, nixing 10 tasks worth about $27 million out of a comparable $223 million regional tasks costs. This year’s costs even consists of a re-try by legislators of a few of the particular tasks he banned in 2015.

But Reeves is up for reelection this year, dealing with Democratic opposition Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, whose knocks on Reeves consist of that he’s out-of-touch with rural and typical Mississippians. Reeves might hesitate to ban spending on tasks with grassroots regional assistance and anger legislators and their constituents throughout an election year.

FULL LIST: The pet projects lawmakers passed during the 2023 legislative session

Reeves called the tasks he banned in 2015 “wasteful” spending, however critics at the time kept in mind that he authorized the majority of the lots of tasks in the costs, consisting of some that appeared really comparable to the ones he banned.

For circumstances, he banned $500,000 in 2015 for a green-space park around the federal court house in Greenville, however authorized lots of other city beautification tasks throughout the state.

Jackson bore the force of the guv’s 2022 vetoes, with 4 tasks consisting of upgrades to the capital city’s planetarium, a golf course and nature path at LeFleur’s Bluff State Park. Reeves said the city had a lot of other issues, consisting of collapsing facilities and criminal activity, to be spending money on parks and a planetarium. But lots of other cities whose parks, museum and other tasks he authorized likewise have alarming facilities and other significant problems.

For this year, legislators re-upped $2 million in financing for Jackson’s planetarium in the tasks costs. They likewise consisted of in another costs money for LeFleur’s Bluff Park, although it is obviously not allocated for golf course restorations.

Explaining his vetoes to press reporters in 2015, Reeves said, “I vetoed some spending that is simply not state taxpayers’ responsibility.” He said this consisted of city workplace upgrades. In this year’s costs, legislators moneyed many restoration tasks for city and county federal government workplaces in addition to coliseums, amphitheaters, music halls and civic centers.

READ MORE:  Gov. Tate Reeves blocks state funding for major Jackson park improvement, planetarium

When asked for comment this week about his plans for the Christmas tree costs, Reeves’ spokesman Cory Custer said in a statement: “Mississippi Today is not a news organization, it is an unregistered Democrat PAC.”

Reeves has until April 22 to sign the bill into law or exercise his veto authority. The Mississippi Constitution gives governors the authority to issue partial or line-item vetoes of appropriations bills, though, there is debate about whether his vetoes last year were legal.

But since they never were challenged in court, the vetoes stood.

This year, if he vetoes any of the projects approved by legislators, there will be similar questions about whether the vetoes are legal.

In legislative parlance the bill containing most of the projects is not an appropriations bill. Another bill appropriates funds to the Department of Finance and Administration to fund the projects. But the projects themselves are in what is known as a general bill, which according to the constitution the governor must veto in whole or not at all.

House Speaker Philip Gunn said of last year’s vetoes, “… I am not aware of any provision under the law that allows the governor to veto partially a general bill. He has to veto all of it or none of it … That may be more than people want to understand but there are differences in the types of bills we have up here.”

And Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, who successfully won a lawsuit against former Gov. Kirk Fordice for his partial vetoes in the 1990s, said of Reeves’ 2022 vetoes, “We’re just transferring money from one account to another, or from one purpose to another. That is not an appropriation. That is a transfer. I understand that to be what they are arguing and will not be subject to the line item.”

But in the end, no one challenged Reeves’ vetoes last year.

Eash year the Legislature approves similar projects throughout the state, but the number approved during the 2003 session is historic. Legislators were able to expend such a large amount of funds on such projects because of unprecedented revenue growth in recent years.

Legislators have opted to spend those funds on such projects while not expanding Medicaid to ensure health care for primarily for the working poor and while not fully funding public education.

Also, for two years legislators have opted to leave a huge amount of revenue unspent.

Legislators submit their priority projects to the leadership early in the session. During the final days of the session, a small group of legislative leaders meet behind closed doors to determine how much money is available for projects and which projects will be moneyed.

Each year rank-and-file legislators learn late in the session whether their tasks were funded. This year they learned soon after the clock rolled over to April Fool’s Day — April 1.

They will learn in the coming days whether their projects will survive Tate Reeves’ veto pen.

LEARN MORE: Latest Reeves vetoes could again expand guv’s power