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Mississippi State Flag Amendment (2023)
| Mississippi State Flag Amendment | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Election date November 7, 2023 | |
| Topic Motto and symbols | |
| Status Not on the ballot | |
| Type Constitutional amendment | Origin Citizens |
The Mississippi State Flag Amendment (#72) was not on the ballot in Mississippi as an indirect initiated constitutional amendment on November 7, 2023.
Measure design
The measure would have asked voters to choose between the 1894 state flag which contains the Confederate battle cross and the Hospitality Flag (also known as the Stennis Flag) as the new state flag.[1]
A similar measure (#73) was also filed targeting the 2022 ballot that would ask voters to choose between (1) the 1894 state flag which contains the Confederate battle cross; (2) the Bicentennial Flag with the state seal; (3) the In God We Trust Magnolia flag that was adopted via Measure 3 on the 2020 ballot; and (4) the Stennis Flag with the words In God We Trust added.[1]
Background
Measure 3 of 2020
At the election on November 3, 2020, Mississippi voters were shown a colored picture of the new proposed state flag, named the In God We Trust Flag. Voters were able to vote either yes to adopt the new flag or no to oppose adopting the new state flag. It was approved. If the new proposed flag had been rejected by voters, the Commission to Redesign the Mississippi State Flag would have reconvened to design another flag, and voters would have voted on it in November 2021. The commission unanimously selected the final flag on September 2, 2020. The flag is shown below:[2]
House Bill 1796, which was passed by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Tate Reeves (R) on June 30, 2020, removed the official status of the state flag, which, at the time, contained the Confederate battle cross. The bill provided for the removal of the state flag within 15 days. The bill established the Commission to Redesign the Mississippi State Flag, which was tasked with designing a new state flag and reporting the recommended design to the Governor and to the state legislature. The bill provided that "the new design for the Mississippi State Flag shall honor the past while embracing the promise of the future." The Commission to Redesign the Mississippi State Flag consisted of nine members. The Speaker of the House and the Lieutenant Governor each appointed three members. The other three members were representatives from the Mississippi Economic Council, the Mississippi Arts Commission, and the Board of Trustees of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, which were appointed by Gov. Tate Reeves.
History of the Mississippi State Flag
The previous Mississippi state flag was adopted by the state legislature in 1894. The emblem on the left side of the 1894 flag included the Confederate battle cross. In 1906, Mississippi enacted a revised code of laws, and due to an oversight, the law establishing the official state flag was inadvertently repealed.[3] Voters in Mississippi decided a state flag referendum in April 2001. The measure presented voters with two potential state flags. Voters approved Proposition A, which made the 1894 Confederate flag the official state flag.
The 2001 flag referendum came about after a lawsuit brought by the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) in 1993 alleging that the use of the Confederate flag in the state flag violated plaintiff's constitutional rights to free speech, due process, and equal protection. The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the state flag's inclusion of the Confederate Battle Flag did not violate any constitutionally protected rights. The court had also found that the state flag requirements were not codified in state law and thus that Mississippi did not have an official state flag. The 2001 flag referendum was held to formally adopt a state flag and officially codify it in law.[4][5]
Mississippi became the only state with a state flag containing the Confederate flag after Georgia had removed it from their state flag in 2001. The Georgia state flag had contained the Confederate flag since 1956.[6]
Mississippi State Flag until June 30, 2020
Path to the ballot
The state process
In Mississippi, the number of signatures required to qualify an initiated constitutional amendment for the ballot is equal to 12 percent of the total number of votes cast for governor in the last gubernatorial general election immediately preceding the signature deadline—not necessarily the gubernatorial election immediately preceding the targeted election date. Beginning with the day the sponsor receives the ballot title and summary, proponents have one year to circulate petitions and receive certification from the county circuit clerks. Petitions must be submitted to the secretary of state at least 90 days prior to the beginning of the regular session—which begins in the first week of January.
The requirements to get an initiated constitutional amendment certified for the 2023 ballot:
- Signatures: 106,190 valid signatures were required.
- Deadline: Petitions must be submitted to the secretary of state at least 90 days prior to the beginning of the state legislative session—which begins in the first week of January.
Petition sponsors must submit signatures to the appropriate county circuit clerks. There are no mandatory deadlines for this review and sponsors are recommended to coordinate with local clerks to ensure timely certification. Once the circuit clerks have certified the signatures, proponents must file the entire petition with the secretary of state. Sponsors must also pay a $500 fee upon filing.
An initiative must receive a majority of the total votes cast for that particular initiative and must also receive more than 40% of the total votes cast in that election.
Details about this initiative
- Matthew Brinson proposed the amendment.[7]
- The measure was filed targeting the 2022 ballot, but did not qualify for the 2022 ballot because proponents did not submit signatures by the deadline. Since signatures are valid for one year following the date that ballot language is finalized, the measure could have qualified for the 2023 ballot.
- Signatures were not submitted by the one-year circulation deadline nor by the October 5, 2022, deadline, therefore the measure did not qualify for the 2023 ballot.[8]
On May 14, 2021, the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned Initiative 65, the 2020 medical marijuana initiative. The ruling stated that the initiative petition did not comply with the signature distribution requirements in the Mississippi Constitution and that it is impossible for any petition to meet the requirements and has been impossible since congressional reapportionment in 2001.
The six justices wrote, "... Whether with intent, by oversight, or for some other reason, the drafters of [the constitutional signature distribution requirement] wrote a ballot initiative process that cannot work in a world where Mississippi has fewer than five representatives in Congress. To work in today’s reality, it will need amending—something that lies beyond the power of the Supreme Court."[9]
The 1992 constitutional amendment that granted the power of citizen initiative in Mississippi required signatures to be collected evenly from all five congressional districts that existed at the time. It mandated no more than one-fifth of the required signatures could be collected from any single congressional district. During 2001 redistricting after the 2000 census, however, the number of congressional districts in the state was reduced to four.
Sponsors of some initiatives targeting the 2022 ballot in Mississippi filed a lawsuit challenging the Supreme Court's ruling.[10]
Click here for more information on the lawsuit and the ruling.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Mississippi Secretary of State, "Initiative 72," accessed September 2, 2020 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "Text" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ Mississippi State Legislature, "House Bill 1796," accessed June 29, 2020
- ↑ Mississippi Historical Society, "Flags over Mississippi," accessed July 14, 2020
- ↑ Mississippi 5th Chancery District Court, "The United Sons of Confederate Veterans v. Mississippi NAACP Branches, et al." May 4, 2000
- ↑ WMC Action News 5, "Remembering 2001: Voters choose to make current state flag official," accessed June 29, 2020
- ↑ Washington Post, "The NCAA is limiting its Confederate flag policy to Mississippi, despite examples elsewhere," accessed June 29, 2020
- ↑ Mississippi Secretary of State, "Initiatives," accessed September 2, 2020
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedSos - ↑ Mississippi Supreme Court, "IN RE INITIATIVE MEASURE NO. 65: MAYOR MARY HAWKINS BUTLER v MICHAEL WATSON, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI," accessed May 14, 2021
- ↑ WMC Action News, "Challenge filed to Mississippi Supreme Court’s ruling on Initiative 65," accessed June 3, 2021
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