The Clarion-Ledger Editorial, 4/27/8
The 2008 Legislature convened in January amid the high political drama of the most contentious partisan battle over control of the leadership of the House of Representatives since Reconstruction.
From that fracas emerged the survival of the Democratic leadership regime of House Speaker Billy McCoy, but only by the narrowest of margins. The House was fractured and angry on both sides of the leadership battle.
Those factors – coupled with the resilient political strength of Republican Gov. Haley Barbour to command partisan discipline and the brokering of a meaningful coexistence between new GOP Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant and the Democratic majority in the Senate – could have made for 2008 legislative session mired in gridlock and infighting.
The Legislature is maturing into a relatively new paradigm of two-party politics that more closely resembles the federal model in Congress rather than Mississippi’s historical legislative dominance of governors.
Magnolia Tribune
