VICKSBURG - Don't look for state Rep. John Reeves to be elected Mississippi Bar Association Legislator of the Year.
The reason is that Reeves, a Jackson Republican, has filed a simple, one-page bill that would require all lawyers to print on their stationery whether they have liability insurance.
Doubtless, members of the bar know they can be sued for malpractice same as doctors - but it's not likely they'd enjoy having to remind clients of that in every correspondence.
That bill will go nowhere, but others filed by Reeves, a lawyer himself, may advance during the legislative session that began Jan. 4. That's because Reeves is relentless on the DUI front. Every time his fellow attorneys find loopholes in the statutes designed to punish and deter drunken driving, Reeves acts to plug them.
He's backing seven changes in the DUI law this year. One is to ban non-adjudicated sentences for people who don't take breath tests. (This is a popular trick judges are able to use for their friends.) Another is to say a charge can't be dismissed solely because an arresting officer is unable to prove every trivial detail of the implied consent law was fully explained to a suspect. (Attorneys often move for dismissal on this basis, much to the chagrin of state troopers who must then shrug their shoulders and accept that at least they got an impaired person off the road for a little while.)
Reeves' bills could be found in a canvass of the exactly 300 House bills awaiting the opening bell of lawmaking season here in Mississippi. Citizens may track each House and Senate measure, updated daily on the Internet at www.ls.state.ms.us.
A visitor picking through the list will immediately note "Fleming" listed as the author of exactly 100 of the early House bills. That's Rep. Erik Fleming, D-Jackson, whose interests are diverse. For one thing, he'd like to see tuition remain level for people once they start college. For another, he wants Mississippi to support a congressional study on paying cash reparations to the descendants of people held in slavery.
Even though 300 bills sounds like a lot for one chamber to consider, ponder that if every House member (there are 122) were as prolific as Fleming, there would be 12,200 proposals on the table. And even with some lawmakers offering few or no suggestions for new laws or changes, the number will climb. During the 2004 regular session there were 1,860 House bills and 1,221 Senate bills - not including scores of resolutions and such - filed before the session ended.
How could any lawmaker wade through them all? Fact is, none do. The process is quickly narrowed by committees to which bills are assigned. A fraction of measures make it to an up or down vote.
Among prefiled bills, some are of no great moment. H.B. 108, for example, would merely make it legal for retiring firefighters to keep their helmets and badges.
Others are voluminous, including the Juvenile Justice Act that would shift and reallocate the duties of a number of agencies into a new one along with creating new duties for the new state agency.
H.B. 106 would allow low-income senior citizens to attend colleges for free. In a similar move, Rep. Rita Martinson, R-Madison, thinks colleges should be for those ready for college-level studies. Her H.B. 130 would phase out remedial reading courses now available at state universities.
Rep. Chester Masterson, R-Vicksburg, is the only lawmaker offering a "tort reform." Masterson, a physician, thinks $250,000 (half the existing cap) is enough to award Medicaid patients in pain and suffering damages. His bill could be lumped under "expressions of righteous indignation" with others, including H.B. 122. It would stop the dilly-dallying by saying any elected official indicted for a felony would be suspended from office without pay when the indictment was filed - and removed immediately if convicted.
There are "good government" measures including H.B. 199 (which would require proof of car insurance before tag or driver's license purchases), H.B. 289 (which would seem to address a topic that should have been addressed long ago: "only certified pathologists may perform autopsies") and H.B 176 (which, to the relief of many, would require more women's restrooms in state buildings).
What has to be a favorite, though, is a measure filed by a freshman, Rep. Sid Bondurant, D-Grenada. Not intimidated by his newness to the lawmaking process, Bondurant, also a physician, wants the state constitution amended to list a new fundamental freedom to be protected alongside speech, religion and the rest.
It would read, "All persons shall have the right to hunt and fish in this state in accordance with law and regulations."
Is this a great state or what?
