Rep. William Shirley spent most of Wednesday standing and pacing near his desk.
Shirley, a Quitman Republican, had asked Speaker Philip Gunn for a point of personal privilege, which lawmakers use to speak about issues that are important to them.
In recent weeks, Shirley has made several attempts to require colleges and universities to fly the state flag. All of the state’s public four-year schools have stopped flying the flag because it bears a Confederate emblem that many Mississippians find offensive.
When Shirley finally took to the well, the podium where legislators address the entire House of Representatives, he said nothing.
Instead, he pulled two small flags from his jacket pocket — a Mississippi state flag and a white flag, the traditional symbol for surrender. He waved the flags and walked away from the podium.
Before the session began, lawmakers offered 22 bills about the flag, including to abandon it. None survived the legislative process. In the past 10 days, as lawmakers have considered funding proposals for colleges and universities, Shirley has repeatedly attempted to amend legislation to require any state-funded institution of higher learning receiving taxpayer money to display the state flag.
These proposals have gone through several rounds of procedural back and forth. Most recently, Shirley also unsuccessfully attempted to include a flag mandate on the appropriations bill for the Institutions of Higher Learning.
Only one remains, a bill allowing the University of Southern Mississippi and Mississippi State University to build tax exempt dorms. That legislation was held on a procedural motion, but supporters of the bill have indicated that it’s unlikely to survive if the flag provision remains.
Meanwhile, the Senate delayed action for about 30 minutes Wednesday morning as leaders watched House action on the college-funding bill. The House voted to remove the procedural hold and send that legislation to the Senate.
Because legislators in both houses are trying to take Friday off, delayed or no House action on that bill on Wednesday would have forced the Senate to act on the bill. Had that Senate action been taken Thursday, senators would likely have had to return to the Capitol on Friday.
When Shirley indicated he would yield his efforts on the bill on Wednesday, the Senate adjourned after the recess.
It’s unclear whether Shirley’s action Wednesday means he plans to jettison all future attempts to attach flag requirements to college-funding bills. When approached by reporters, he declined to comment.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dcee83b51b4648f7ddfdd1858809796b15fcf785893644e7f183f76af5788fba.jpg
If nothing else, compromise for the sake of Mississippi,
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76fc1b077143edbef6b80ae93ae5d0010288fe2f79d3655b09797357663b481b.png
Windell