Over 30,000 Mississippians get stories like this delivered to their inboxes for free.
Sign up for The Today, our daily newsletter, and continue to read this story.
Incumbent Speaker Philip Gunn of Clinton was selected by his Republican colleagues to continue as the presiding officer in the Mississippi House for the next four-year term starting in early January.
The Republican caucus’ decision to support Gunn for a new four-year term was expected.
The 74-member Republican caucus met at the Mississippi Agriculture Museum Thursday to throw its support behind Gunn and for Jason White of West to be the next speaker pro tem.
No other member of the caucus challenged Gunn or White for the posts.
The Republicans, who hold a three-fifths super majority in the 122-member House, are expected to vote unanimously for Gunn and White on the opening day of the session, formalizing the decisions made Thursday.
White, who has served as chair of the Rules Committee, was elected to the House in 2011 as a Democrat, but soon afterward – December 2012 — switched to the Republican Party. He was Gunn’s choice to serve as pro-tem, replacing Greg Snowden, R-Meridian, who was defeated earlier this year in a Republican primary.
Gunn has served the past two terms as speaker, replacing Billy McCoy of Prentiss County. Gunn was the state’s first Republican speaker since the late 1800s. The last Republican speaker before Gunn was Isaac Shadd, an African American newspaper owner
It was expected that Republicans would maintain their majority in the House in Tuesday’s elections. They lost one seat.
Rep. Donnie Bell, R-Fulton, said he believed both Gunn and White would do good jobs.
“They both were my desk mates. I trained both of them,” Bell joked.
Rep. Randy Boyd, R-Mantachie, also said he was satisfied with the selection.
But he added, “I don’t get too caught up in that. I know they are powerful positions, but the members will have the opportunity to vote and debate the issues.”
The pro-tem handles the management of the House staff and presides in the absence of the speaker.
The state Senate also will have to decide on a new pro-tem. Terry Burton, R-Newton, resigned from the post early in 2019 and was replaced by Gray Tollison, R-Oxford, who did not run for re-election. Many political observers believe Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, is the front-runner for the post.
Normally, the lieutenant governor plays a role in the selection of the pro-tem, though, the post is voted on by the 52 members of the Senate.
Republicans gained three seats in Tuesday’s election and now have a commanding 36-16 majority. Republican Delbert Hosemann, a three term secretary of state, defeated state Rep. Jay Hughes of Oxford to win the open seat of lieutenant governor, who presides over the Senate.
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.