
Although the party proper hasn’t taken a stance on changing the state flag, the chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party says it’s time.
“My personal view is that now is the time for Mississippi to retire its current flag and adopt a flag that unifies all Mississippians,” state Republican Party Chairman Lucien Smith said in a statement Wednesday. His statement comes as GOP legislative leaders try to whip votes in their Republican supermajority to change the flag and remove its controversial Confederate battle emblem.
It’s a heavy lift – changing the flag this late in a legislative session would require a two-thirds vote of lawmakers. Many Republican lawmakers oppose changing the flag, particularly without a popular vote on the issue. Some who want the Legislature to change it fear a backlash from their constituents.
And the state’s Republican governor – the de facto head of the state GOP – opposes the Legislature changing the flag.
Smith’s office stressed that while he was not making the statement for the state GOP, he was making it “in his role as chairman of the party.”
Smith’s statement appears to differ from those of Gov. Tate Reeves, who has refused to say whether he supports changing the flag. He has said that any change to the flag should be made by popular vote, not by elected lawmakers. However, on Wednesday night, Reeves indicated he would not veto a legislative flag change.
The state Democratic Party and its chairman, former longtime lawmaker Bobby Moak, support the Legislature changing the flag. The party issued a statement on June 19 endorsing change of the flag.
While the push to change the flag has long been led by Democrats, Moak, and at times the Democratic Party proper, have faced criticism for being reticent to take a strong stand on changing it, particularly on the Legislature changing it without a popular referendum.
On Thursday, Moak said any past reluctance was “the party getting behind our elected officials and not in front of them.” He said the Democratic Party is unified on changing the flag and on lawmakers doing it now.
“I think the Legislature should do it and act on it before the session gets out,” Moak said. Later, he added, “My personal statement is also that of the party.”
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.