Local and Private legislation is a different animal in the Mississippi Legislature than most truly realize.
It is customary, and in some minds, required for such legislation to need unified local support to get these bills out of committee and on to the floor in either chamber. Committee chairmen tasked with overseeing Local and Private legislation give local lawmakers great latitude with those bills impacting their communities.
With that understanding, one legislator, even a minor one, can exert oversized influence to essentially kill local and private bills should he/she disagree with his fellow delegation or local city and county officials.
No other legislation is handled quite in this way.
That would appear to be what is at play with the story below from WTOK.
Word around the Capitol is that State Rep. William Shirley used his singular influence to block the bill that would have allowed the donations from Clarke County to continue to their Multi-County Community Service Agency for the food box program.
The other counties requesting similar means all easily passed the Legislature.
4/5/17
