Tobacco money ruling upheld

The Sun Herald, 6/15/7

The annual diversion of $20 million of tobacco settlement money to a smoking-cessation program was wrong, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The Supreme Court upheld a December 2006 order from a Jackson County chancery judge, who said only the Legislature could appropriate money to tobacco-cessation programs.

Barbour said the Supreme Court’s decision “emphatically confirms what has always been obvious – only the Mississippi Legislature can appropriate the state’s money.”