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Mississippi: House Speaker Re-elected
By Hastings Wyman
Southern Political Report
January 9, 2008 — House Speaker Billy McCoy (D) was re-elected to his key post today by the bare minimum, defeating his challenger, state Rep. Jeff Smith (D), by 62 to 60. McCoy, who has served in the lower chamber’s top position for the past four years, has been a thorn in Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s (R) side during the governor’s first term. For example, McCoy, 65, supported a proposal to reduce the sales tax on groceries and replace the revenue by increasing the tax on tobacco, a high-profile measure that Barbour opposed Smith, 58, once an ally of McCoy but now friendly to Barbour, waged a strong campaign, and though he lost, the failure of his supporters to gravitate toward McCoy once it became known that the speaker would win re-election suggests that the evenly divided house will be up for grabs when key legislation comes up. The close result, says one insider (R), “was a warning” to McCoy, not a strong reaffirmation of his influence. Barbour officially stayed neutral in the race, in part, says the insider, out of fear that lawmakers would resent his involvement. Nevertheless, all 46 of the Republicans in the House supported Smith. McCoy was backed by most of the Democrats, including virtually all of the 37 African-American representatives and by most of the white Democrats. If Barbour was Smith’s silent partner, some GOP sympathizers were suggesting that one of McCoy’s key backers was mega-millionaire trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs, currently under indictment on federal bribery charges. Other sources note, however, that although Scruggs has contributed funds to McCoy’s political action committee, he was not directly involved in the McCoy-Smith battle. Noting Scruggs’s legal problems, one source said, “I don’t think he’s concerned with anything but himself right now.” And veteran Jackson columnist Bill Minor notes that most of Scruggs’s efforts in 2007 were directed toward defeating incumbent Insurance Commissioner George Dale, who was defeated in the Democratic Primary by Gary Anderson, an African-American, who then lost to Republican Mike Chaney in the General. How much of a set-back McCoy’s re-election was to Barbour is not clear. One insider (R) says that had Smith won, “The governor would have had a better shot of getting his agenda through the legislature.” However, this GOP source also notes that “During the past four years, the governor had a strong presence in the state senate and a lot went through, despite opposition in the House.” Minor, however, says McCoy’s re-election was “pivotal” as to whether “Barbour would absolutely dominate the Mississippi legislature” during his second term. “McCoy,” notes Minor, “was the main obstacle to Barbour.” McCoy, a Democrat out of Northeast Mississippi, has a “philosophy out of the old Roosevelt Era,” says Minor. Moreover, the job of speaker of the house is a powerful one in Mississippi; the occupant appoints committee chairs, assigns members to committees and assigns bills to committees. The major legislative battle during the coming months is likely to be over the state budget, with slowing state tax revenues and the dwindling of federal hurricane relief funds contributing to spending constraints. Thus, Barbour and McCoy may well have to reach some sort of agreement on some contentious fiscal issues. “Partisanship has come to Mississippi like it never has in its history, certainly in my 60 years of covering the state,” concludes Minor. |
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