JACKSON, MISS– Trained election commissioners, certified poll workers, the ability to change voter registration information online–all of it was to make your trip to the ballot box easier, but that bill didn’t make it to the governor’s desk to become law.
And Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann says he knows why.
“For hours there was discussion about campaign finance reform,” says Secretary Hosemann, “it died. It was never brought up again.”
But Secretary Hosemann says the campaign finance reform proposals were not part of the original 400 page bill. He says the senate committee added finance reform.
“It passed the House one hundred and twenty to nothing,” says Hosemann, “then it went to the Senate…and it passed fifty to nothing.”
The Secretary of State notes just how rare it is that a bill gets full bipartisan support and he says there were many positive changes in the bill:
“We would educate election commissioners. We would rotate those election commissioners so you don’t have chaos when you have five new ones. We would require them to have certain basic knowledges to go forward, we would certify poll workers.”
But when campaign finance reform proposals called for changes in bookkeeping campaign money and punishing misuse were brought into the bill, it failed in the Senate by voice vote, and then died in Senate committee.
Questions were brought up regarding using funds for paying for funerals, travel expenses, and how to log gifts from constituents before it died in the Senate.
Secretary Hosemann says he hopes this campaign reform will be brought up in a special session.
