Special Election Set To Fill McGee's House Seat

JACKSON, Miss.--A special election date of Jan. 8 has been set to fill the Mississippi House seat left vacant following the resignation earlier this month of Kevin McGee. He left office after ethics violations and a $10,000 fine.

The deadline to qualify to run in Dec. 10. McGee was seated in House Dist. 59, representing Rankin County.

“The House District 59 election will be held on Jan. 8 so voters in that district can elect a new representative at the outset of the 2013 session of the Mississippi Legislature,” Gov. Bryant said in a statement Tuesday.

The Republican may have avoided paying nearly $400,000 in fines by resigning. He was found to have helped steer state contracts to his family's printing business in Rankin County. As part of his punishment, he was ordered never again to run for office.

That left a space empty on the House Education Committee. State Rep. Linda Whittington (D-Schlater) had recently been moved from the committee by House Speaker Phillip Gunn because she was not a supporter of the Republican version of the charter school bill last year. She believed McGee's resignation may have made way for her to have her seat back, a notion shot down by Gunn earlier this week.

Special Election Set to Fill McGee's House Seat