When Mississippi adopted its constitution in 1890, the number of citizens who could not read proficiently was undoubtedly much higher than it is today.
Because of that, the drafters of the document included a provision that said any member of the Legislature could demand that a bill be read aloud.
Over the years, this anachronistic provision has been turned into a filibuster, a way for the minority to register a protest or to just slow down the majority from running roughshod over it.
The majority, of course, doesn’t like it when its initiatives run into this roadblock. Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn has tried to curb the stalling tactic by ordering the computer-operated reader to be turned up so fast that no one — other than possibly chipmunks — could decipher what is being read.
Gunn’s action is being challenged in a lawsuit, filed by Rep. Jay Hughes, D-Oxford, that is now before the state Supreme Court. Gunn’s attorneys have argued that it doesn’t matter the speed of the automated reader, the speaker is complying with the constitutional requirement. That’s a stretch, given that when the 1890 document was written, the world was still a half-century away from the invention of the computer.
The Supreme Court historically has been shy of interjecting itself within what it considers the internal debates and political jockeying of the legislative branch. It would not be unusual for it to pass on this disagreement and to tell lawmakers to work out their differences among themselves.
That would be the easy way out. It would also be the wrong way.
It is the Supreme Court’s job to interpret the law. The intent of this section of the 1890 constitution is obvious. The reason to read a bill aloud is to make sure that everyone who is going to vote on it — regardless of any lawmaker’s level of literacy or quality of eyesight — knows what it says. Gunn is defying the spirit of the law, if not the letter of it.
If he and other Republicans don’t like what has become mostly a filibustering tactic, then they should do what has always been required in the past when a section of the constitution has become outdated — put it to a popular referendum to delete it.
Until that happens, Gunn should be barred from turning up the speed on the computerized reader beyond what is the normal cadence of human speech. It is the Supreme Court’s duty to tell him that.
