It’s no surprise that Mississippi Republicans are confident they’ll retain political control in the state for some time to come. In the last decade the GOP has continued to amass power in the state Legislature, and there is no sign that those fortunes might change.
On the other hand, strange things do happen, and a Republican lawmaker made that point last week in opposing a House bill that would give the governor sweeping authority to control decisions made by many of the state’s occupational licensing boards.
The bill would require these boards — overseeing fields such as accounting and cosmetology — to send any proposed regulations or enforcement actions to the governor, who then could approve, modify or reject them.
The idea is to create more oversight of boards that go too far in protecting the interests of their profession — to the point of putting up artificial barriers to competition. Such barriers are anti-competitive, and the state should not allow them. But getting an elected official involved does not seem like the best way to head off such a problem.
The bill passed the House last week by only three votes. That margin means that even some Republicans had qualms about it. One of them, Rep. Toby Barker of Hattiesburg, said it’s a bad idea to put this kind of oversight into the hands of any governor.
Barker correctly said that GOP lawmakers should consider what they would think of professional board regulations if a Democrat, such as Attorney General Jim Hood, became governor one day. The House then voted to hold the bill, and it will die unless approved again today and sent to the Senate.
A governor already has power over professional boards: He gets to choose who serves on them. But governors do change every four or eight years, meaning there’s no guarantee of consistent political philosophy.
Legislators already have the power to check overzealous professional boards — by passing laws. It’s a surprise a majority of them were willing to give up this authority last week.
