As Republicans surged to take control of state government in the 1990s and 2000s, no two Democratic Mississippi politicians were more despised by members of the upstart party than Ronnie Musgrove and Billy McCoy.
McCoy served from 2004 until 2012 as the last Democratic speaker of the Mississippi House while Musgrove served from 1996 until 2000 as the state’s last Democratic lieutenant governor and from 2000 until 2004 as Mississippi’s last Democratic governor.
They also served together in the Mississippi Legislature – for a time with Musgrove as chair of the Senate Education Committee and McCoy as head of House Education.
Mississippi House Speaker Billy McCoy, D-Rienzi, responds to the compromise 2012 state government budget recommendations developed by key lawmakers on Monday, Dec. 13, 2010, in Jackson. Credit: AP Photo/Rogelio V. SolisIn more recent times, observers of the Mississippi Legislature have been perplexed with the ongoing feud that seems to be occurring between the Republican leadership of the House and Senate. That tension appears particularly intense between Senate Education Chair Dennis DeBar of Leakesville and his House counterpart, Rob Roberson of Starkville.
After the Senate Education Committee killed a House bill that, among other things, would send public funds to private schools, some school choice supporters, including House Speaker Jason White, either faked outrage or were unfamiliar with what is often part of the legislative process – bills routinely being killed.
But at any rate, after the Senate Education Committee by a vote of the members, not solely on the action of DeBar, killed the school choice proposal, Roberson killed all the Senate Education bills.
The actions were just the latest of the ongoing tensions between House and Senate Republicans. How could fellow Republicans be at such odds with each other?
“All things old are new again.”
In the 1995 session, as Education Committee chair, McCoy killed a Senate bill that was especially important to Musgrove.
The massive bill proposed a number of things, including beginning the process of the state moving to a new funding formula – the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. When eventually enacted in 1997, the formula was credited by education experts as helping Mississippi avoid losing a costly school equity funding lawsuit such as those other states had faced. In addition, among other important items, the bill in 1995 would have provided an annual $6,000 salary supplement for teachers earning master certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.
McCoy ultimately supported most of the items in the bill. And like Musgrove, McCoy played a key role in their ultimate passage into law.
But for whatever reason, perhaps because of the number of issues rolled up in the one bill, McCoy, a strong-willed Prentiss County farmer, killed the legislation in the 1995 session.
Musgrove, also from north Mississippi – a Panola County attorney and also strong-willed – was not happy. He killed the House education bills.
“I thought it was important he understood the Senate also should have a voice in the process,” Musgrove, now an Oxford resident, recalled recently.
In this Aug. 14, 2014, photograph, former Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove outlines why he was trying to get school districts to sue the state to seek payment of $1.5 billion that the state had underfunded its K-12 school formula, the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, since fiscal 2010. Credit: AP Photo/Rogelio V. SolisAnd what eventually happened? Like with all legislative sessions, accommodations and compromises were made to ensure the bills needing to be passed to keep the public schools open were passed. Legislative rules were suspended and key bills were revived.
The Mississippi Adequate Education Program was not passed that year. But it became law two years later and McCoy, like Musgrove and others, played a key role in its passage.
Despite that 1995 disagreement and many others, McCoy and Musgrove worked together to enact major changes besides MAEP, including historic teacher pay raises, the humane air-conditioning of public school classrooms, the enactment of a 1-cent sales tax dedicated to education, the inclusion of teachers on the state employee insurance program and many others.
The former governor recalls a negotiation with McCoy where he proposed taking a portion of the 1-cent sales tax and providing teachers an annual allocation to buy classroom supplies.
“He said, ‘Musgrove, that is the best idea you have had,’” Musgrove remembered.
McCoy died in 2019.
Musgrove said while he and McCoy butted heads, they both cared deeply about public education and never lost respect for each other, though they often cursed each other and killed each other’s bills.
Sometimes, that is just part of the legislative process.
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