Reeves unhurt by Tea Party report
Within Mississippi’s conservative community, the early takeaway from the 2012 session is that some discord exists as the new Republican majority in the Mississippi Legislature seeks to accommodate GOP traditional Chamber of Commerce establishment types along with evangelicals and Tea Party members.
Such was evident in the Mississippi Tea Party’s somewhat pyrrhic attack on Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves through its issuance of a “legislative report card” that gave Reeves failing marks for his performance supporting the Tea Party’s position on illegal immigration enforcement as embodied in House Bill 488. The Tea Party report card offered this assessment: “Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves assigned the bill to the Judiciary B Committee, chaired by Democratic state Sen. Hob Bryan (whom he knew not to be an advocate of enforcement). Predictably Bryan let the bill die in committee, thus preventing a floor vote and killing the bill. Losers were taxpayers and legal working citizens. Winners were agricultural and construction interests who benefit from cheap illegal labor.”
Sid Salter
4/21/12
Magnolia Tribune
