Legislators have introduced hundreds of new bills in the House and Senate since the Mississippi State Legislature convened in early January. The 2024 legislative session will last longer than usual because some members were newly elected in 2023 and need time to learn the legislative process. Legislators have until February 19 to introduce new bills. It will likely take several days after the 19th for staff to post all new bills on the legislative website.
Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann assigns introduced bills to their related committees in the Mississippi Senate. (Senate bill numbers start with an S.) Speaker Jason White does the same thing with newly introduced bills in the House. (House bill numbers begin with an H.) Chairpersons of committees decide whether to bring bills up for votes in committees. If the committee doesn’t vote on a bill, it “dies” and goes no further.
If there is a bill you have feedback about, one of the most helpful things you can do at this point is call the chairman of the committee to whom it is assigned (committee assignment is hyperlinked right under the bill, and you can see who chairs committees at this link) and let them know if you think they should vote the bill out of committee—or let it die. You can leave messages for committee chairs at the Capitol switchboard at (601) 359-3770.
Families as Allies is following this list of bills related to these areas:
- Mental Health
- Child Welfare, including foster care and adoption
- Juvenile Justice/Criminal Justice
- Education
- Special Healthcare Needs/Healthcare
- Transparency and Accountability
- Child Care
- Medicaid (does not include Medicaid expansion due to the sheer number of those bills)
- Disability Rights
Inclusion on the list does not imply that we endorse the bill. It just means the bill’s subject is related to our work.
We appreciate Chairmen Hob Bryan and Sam Creekmore holding public hearings about mental health. We encourage you to listen to the 2/6/24 hearing about community mental health centers (CMHCs) with Jerry Mayo, former CMHC director and the 2/13/2024 hearing about the Department of Mental Health (DMH) with Wendy Bailey, DMH executive director.
We remain gravely concerned about people, some as young as 18, being held in jail without charges while awaiting commitment evaluations or awaiting placement after the commitment process. We are particularly alarmed that the DMH does not appear to know about or assume responsibility for people in jail without charges before commitment evaluations. However, Ms. Bailey explained DMH does fund community-based services that could help people who are in jail.
We shared these recommendations for future hearings in our January 31 newsletter and recommend them even more urgently now:
- Couch all discussions about civil commitment in the context that the overarching goal must be to have a responsive and effective system of care in which civil commitment is rare and is only an option when there is an imminent threat of danger.
- Invite people who have gone through the commitment process and their families to share their experiences, especially if law enforcement held them in jail instead of at a care center.
- Be very cautious about legislating or mandating that families take steps to get treatment for their loved ones before pursuing commitment. Such mandates could inadvertently put the family or the person with the mental illness at risk for harm.
- Ensure laws that already exist are being maximally used to keep people who need mental health care out of jail. We recommend an examination and public discussion about this law that the legislature passed in the late 1990s:
“The State Board of Mental Health shall have the following powers and duties:
……
To establish mental health holding centers for the purpose of providing short-term emergency mental health treatment, places for holding persons awaiting commitment proceedings or awaiting placement in a state mental health facility following commitment, and for diverting placement in a state mental health facility. These mental health holding facilities shall be readily accessible, available statewide, and be in compliance with emergency services’ minimum standards. They shall be comprehensive and available to triage and make appropriate clinical disposition, including the capability to access inpatient services or less restrictive alternatives, as needed, as determined by medical staff. Such facility shall have medical, nursing and behavioral services available on a twenty-four-hour-a-day basis. The board may provide for all or part of the costs of establishing and operating the holding centers in each district from such funds as may be appropriated to the board for such use, and may participate in any plan or agreement with any public or private entity under which the entity will provide all or part of the costs of establishing and operating a holding center in any district.” (emphasis added)
