Despite having a supermajority, it wasn’t always easy for Republican lawmakers to get legislation passed in the session that ended last week. Of the 2,758 bills brought to the House and Senate, 377 survived. Most have been adopted, though a few still need to be signed by the governor.

Sen. Sally Doty, R-Brookhaven, and Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, were both principal authors of 28 bills. Doty had two bills signed by the governor.

Currie had none to pass directly, though that does not necessarily mean the measure is completely dead. HB 158, which was authored by Currie and would have provided Medicaid reimbursement for long-acting reversible contraceptives, was ultimately rolled into a larger Medicaid bill and passed.

This year was Rep. Vince Mangold’s first in office, and he was not principal author of any bills.

Doty was chair of the Senate Elections Committee, and she said she made election reform a priority for the session. One hot topic was restricting the use of campaign finances for personal use.

“When I talked about it on the floor, I said it was basically common sense,” Doty said. “If it’s related to your campaign, it’s an acceptable use of funds. If it’s personal use, it’s not. The Secretary of State had a study committee working for more than a year on a lot of these changes of the election codes to clean up the language there and make it more clear. Dustin Bairfield, (Lincoln County) circuit clerk, was on that committee.”

Campaign finance reform ultimately did not pass this session. HB 797, which had initially passed the House with 120 recorded yeas and two absent, was recommitted following an unrecorded voice vote near the end of the legislative session.

“It was just a fire storm over there,” Doty said. “There was some very heated debate and people who were totally against any changes. It was a bit surprising to me.

“It failed in the House,” she said. “This was in the last 48 hours of session. They recommitted it to the conference committee, and we just never could come up with another agreement to get it out to the floor of the House.”

Doty seemed confident that the bill would pass in following years.

“Most legislation doesn’t survive the first year,” Doty said. “It’s a slow process. When I first took office, we would take up a bill, and I would start asking questions, and they would say they’ve been working on it for five years. It takes a good while to get Legislature comfortable and knowledgeable about an area so they can get a good vote. Change is not fast.”

In order for a bill to become law, it must be approved by both the House and Senate. Sometimes, legislation can die in conferences between the two where compromises are made.

Senate Bill 2418, which was authored by Doty and would have added domestic violence to the list of grounds for divorce, had nearly unanimous approval from both legislative houses.

Some senators balked when another item — separation for over two years — was added as another grounds for divorce.

“We started getting emails from the American Family Association and a few other groups that were concerned about it,” Doty said. “My colleagues certainly understand the seriousness of domestic violence. It was an additional grounds that was added by the House that killed that bill. I’m going to refile it next year and insist that nothing be added to it that might kill it next year.”

That said, Doty did acknowledge that it can be difficult to get a divorce in Mississippi, where parties have to agree to just about everything to get a divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences.

“A lot of women contact me — and men as well — who cannot get out of a marriage even though they are no longer living as husband and wife,” Doty said. “My perspective is, if a couple has been living apart for two years, that is not a marriage regardless of who moved out. Oftentimes children are caught in the middle. It causes a very stressful situation for the whole family. I think there our laws should recognize that sometimes, as unfortunate as it is, things just do not work out.”

One bill that passed in the House but not the Senate was HB 553, authored by Currie, which would have increased the penalty for human trafficking in the state and authorized a center for violence prevention.

“On the human trafficking issue, I worked very hard this year to increase the penalty,” Currie said. “Anyone that is convicted for human trafficking in Mississippi could have spent up to life in prison without parole. I’m very disappointed that that didn’t make it. I want to prevent human trafficking in the state.”

The bill died on calendar in the Senate, which means the bill was never taken up for a vote on the floor.

Currie also authored HB 616, which would have established statewide mental health intervention programs.

“I do think it’s going to be important to try and keep the mentally ill out of prison,” Currie said. “I’ll try again very diligently next year, and I got a lot of promises from legislators to help me on it.”

Of course there were bills that passed, including several tax cuts.

“We are very proud that the franchise tax was lowered,” Currie said. “It’s one of those taxes that no other state had and had begun to be very ridiculous for the state. It seems like we’re penalizing business owners for doing business in the state.”

Currie said the franchise tax will be gradually lowered until it disappears. The 3 percent tax for the lowest income bracket will also be phased out, and more quickly.

“In 2018, the 3 percent income tax bracket that applies to the first 5,000 in a tax bracket will disappear,” Currie said. “We need to first give the folks just trying to make it a break and eliminate that state income tax for them.”