Mississippi Secretary of State

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The Mississippi Secretary of State is one of the constitutional officers of the U.S. state of Mississippi.

The current officeholder is Delbert Hosemann.

Divisions

The six divisions of the secretary of state office include:

  • Business Services: The largest division of the secretary of state, it also has the highest amount of revenue largely from registration fee and fines/penalties resulting from legal enforcement work. The responsibilities involved for the division are filing annual reports,maintaining a databases of the Mississippi's businesses, enforcing Uniform Commercial Code and Corporation law.
  • Public Lands: administration and supervision of Mississippi public lands. These lands are made up of 16th section lands (land set aside to earn revenue for public schools), agency held lands, public trust tidelands, tax forfeited lands, and the county map.
  • Regulation and Enforcement: investigates charity and securities fraud, registers the entities and also handles registration for funeral registration.
  • Education and publications: oversees the publication and distribution of state and agency documents and coordinates the educational and constituent programs.
  • Elections: is responsible for Campaign Finance Disclosure; Lobbyist Registration and Reporting forms; Election Officials Training; Certifying Election Results. All material relating to elections is open to the public.
  • Policy and Research Division: is responsible for reviewing and updating Mississippi’s business laws, as well as other laws and policies administered by the secretary of state. This division includes various committees which examine and revise different aspects of these laws.

Qualifications

The fee for party candidates is $200 made payable to the appropriate state party executive committee. There is no fee for independent candidates but 1,000 signatures must be submitted.

  • at least 25 years old
  • a citizen of the state five years

Role in the initiative process

Filing the initiative

A sponsor of an initiative must file first with Secretary of State. The initiative is then sent to the attorney general to be reviewed for its legality and impact on the state financially. Once the measure receives its certificate of review from the Reviser of Statues, the certificate and measure are then sent back to the secretary of state.

The secretary of state will notify the sponsor of the assigned ballot title, summary and serial number. At this point the sponsor is allowed to appeal the ballot the the court system and begin the process all over again or they are allowed to begin printing petition slips on in accordance with the Secretary of State's guidelines. Only then is the sponsor allowed to begin collecting signatures.

Signature verification

All signatures must verified by the circuit clerks before the signatures are submitted to the secretary of state. If an initiative is able to gather enough signatures, it must be filed with in 90 days prior to the start of the next Legislation session (or in the first week of October). At this time the Secretary of State will collect a $500 fee to cover the administration and publishing costs.

The secretary of state will judge if there are insufficient signatures or if the time for filing is past. If any of these occur the Secretary of State must reject the measure. Sponsors may appeal the decision within 10 days and the courts will rule on the decision "With all convenient speed."

If signature requirements are met and the measure is filed in time, then the secretary of state will file the complete text and accompanying petitions with the Clerk of House on the first day of the next Legislative Session. At this time the chief legislative budget officer will establish the financial impact of the measure and submit it to both chambers. The legislature will then have four optional responses:

  • Ignoring the initiative
  • Ignore the measure, which means measure will go to popular vote within 4 months
  • Adopt it as submitted by a majority vote in both House and Senate
  • Amend it before adopting through both chambers, in which case both versions will appear on the November ballot as separate measures
  • Reject it and offer an alternative measure
  • In this case a voter is allowed to cast 2 votes. Either one vote supporting the measure (whether its the original or alternative) and rejecting the other or they may reject both measures.

Voter Education

In Mississippi the secretary of state is also required to disperse pamphlets and arrange hearings for voter education. The pamphlet includes ballot titles; summaries; arguments or explanations for and against each measure or an alternative that is limited to 300 words; and a fiscal analysis of each measure prepared by the chief legislative budget officer. If the sponsor of the initiative does not prepare an argument or explanation then the Secretary of State is charge with doing so.

The contents and full text of each measure must be published in at least one newspaper in every county by the Secretary of State once a week for 3 consecutive weeks prior to the election. There must also be at least one public hearing held in each congressional district. A notice for public hearings must be posted at least 30 days before each hearing.

Contact Information

Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 136
Jackson, MS 39205-0136

Physical Address:
401 Mississippi St.
Jackson, MS 39201-1004

Phone:601-359-1350
Fax:601-359-1499

See also

External links

References

Portions of this article were adapted from Wikipedia.

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