It’s been more than four years since Mississippians have been able to propose new laws or constitutional amendments directly on the ballot for public vote during an election. But one elected official is hoping that will change in 2026.
“I’ve got a bill that I’ve looked at for the last couple of years on the ballot initiative,” state Sen. Jeremy England, R-Vancleve, said. “I am planning on working on that this year.”
The ballot initiative process was stripped by the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2021 over challenges to signature-gathering requirements and a change to the state’s congressional districts. Since then, efforts to give citizens the right to circumvent the legislature in making new laws have proven fruitless.
A series of debates over what citizens should or should not be able to put on the ballot, signature requirements for a measure to be featured on an election day, and the percentage of votes needed for a measure to be approved have resulted in multiple impasses within the state capitol.
England, however, is committed to bringing the item to the table once more, but in a way that might be more appealing to his colleagues. The lawmaker, while not divulging the specifics of the legislation he is planning to either draft or sponsor, plans to restore the ballot initiative process with guardrails that match the evolving communications environment.
Online petitions are not uncommon, and some can garner droves of responses rather promptly. With that in mind, England intends for the legislature to implement a strict criterion for citizen-driven initiatives to meet, to ensure that the measure is actually supported at the grassroots level, and not the byproduct of a fringe online campaign.
“It’s not going to be exactly what we had. It will be a little bit tougher, but it’s not going to be impossible,” England said. “The reason it’s going to be tougher is because of the changing atmosphere that we have around us with social media and the ability to get petitions signed. Back when this was first set up, you had people just sitting out in front of their grocery stores getting signatures. Now, we’re able to dump a bunch of money into something and get it done.”
Mississippi lawmakers will return to the state capitol in January for the 2026 legislative session.
