JACKSON - A bill requiring voters to present identification at the polls died under a deadline at the state Capitol, but that doesn't mean the issue won't reappear later this session, a lawmaker says.
Tuesday was the deadline for House and Senate committees to either pass or kill bills originating in the other chamber. The Senate voter ID bill was among dozens that died.
House Apportionment and Elections Chairman Tommy Reynolds tried to persuade committee members to consider suspending the rules on the bill to free it from the deadline.
Reynolds wanted to amend the bill to make changes to the state's suffrage laws.
Mississippi law strips some nonviolent offenders of the right to vote, yet retains the right for some who are convicted of felonies.
"If you sell two tons of cocaine or crystal meth, the day you get out you can vote. If you write a check, no way, Jose," Reynolds said.
But some members of the committee didn't want to risk opening the door for contentious voter identification debate and negotiations.
Rep. Ferr Smith, D-Carthage, said the 2005 Legislature had more pressing issues, including a tight budget and finding money for Medicaid's $268 million deficit.
Rep. Willie Bailey, D-Greenville, said he was upset that Reynolds wanted to keep the bill alive.
"We should have come forward with a bill to deal with suffrage. This now surfaces at the last minute," Bailey said.
Reynolds said if he can come to a reasonable compromise with the Senate on voter ID and suffrage, he may try to suspend the rules to revive a bill.
"If we could work out a settlement along the lines we had last year, I believe we're good to go," Reynolds said.
Last session, the House and Senate came close to agreeing on legislation that would have allowed some residents to present identification at the polls and automatically restore suffrage rights to nonviolent offenders.
There was an ID exemption made for people born before 1940 to address concerns about intimidating people who paid poll taxes for the right to vote decades ago.
Also dying under Tuesday's deadline was a bill that would have deleted requirements for a blood test and a three-day waiting period to get a marriage license.
Judiciary A Chairman Charlie Ross, R-Brandon, said he allowed the bill to die because he "didn't want to do anything to diminish the significance of the institution of marriage."
Ross said the legislation was only supported by the tourism industry. He said he had not heard any complaints about the marriage license process from average citizens.
"I don't think we should change our procedure for marriage based on dollars and cents," Ross said.
A bill that addresses the deficiencies in the state's juvenile justice system survived the deadline, though it is a scaled-back version of what supporters had originally envisioned.
The House Appropriations Committee passed a Senate juvenile justice bill that would give all counties access to adolescent offender programs operated by the Department of Human Services.
The bill does not remove the state's two training schools from the oversight of DHS, which is what House Juvenile Justice Chairman George Flaggs had sought in his bill.
However, Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, said the bill does moves the state's detention centers from under the authority of DHS to the attorney general's office.
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