After perhaps the most intense vote-whipping he’s done as House speaker, Republican Jason White prevailed on a major school-choice bill, but only by a razor-thin, two-vote margin, with the future of the legislation uncertain.
Despite the heavy lifting and House Bill 2’s passage after a four-hour debate, the final vote count could have been tied if every member had voted.
The 122-member House passed the school-choice bill by a vote of 61-59. Fifty-nine Republicans and the chamber’s two independents voted for the measure. Seventeen Republicans, though, joined all of the chamber’s 42 Democrats to oppose it.
Two House members — Republicans Price Wallace of Mendenhall and Clay Deweese of Oxford — did not vote.
Deweese was marked present on the House’s roll for the day. Wallace was marked absent.
After the House concluded its four-hour debate on the school choice bill, Deweese, as chairman of the Appropriations C Committee, immediately presided over a roughly hour-long budget hearing to hear testimony from the Division of Medicaid.
After the committee meeting, Deweese told Mississippi Today that he was “unavailable” to vote on the school choice bill. When asked why he was unavailable, he didn’t answer the question and walked off into a suite of legislative offices where the public isn’t allowed.
He did not respond to a separate follow-up question asking how he would have voted on the measure if he were available.
A legislative tactic that lawmakers can deploy is what’s commonly called “taking a walk,” or leaving the chamber and not voting on a bill. Often, this is a way to avoid drawing the wrath of legislative leadership or voters back home.
The two-term lawmaker represents Lafayette County, which contains two A-rated school districts. Oxford School District Superintendent Bradley Robertson penned an opinion essay for Mississippi Today in October arguing against school-choice legislation.
Wallace, on the other hand, was not seen at the Capitol on Thursday and was marked absent on the roll. Wallace, a farmer, later told Mississippi Today that he didn’t take a walk. He was repairing some broken farm equipment and could even supply a picture of what he was trying to fix.
Wallace said if he had been present at the Capitol, he would have voted against the school-choice measure.
Whenever a speaker puts their full weight behind a policy, it’s long been the realpolitik that House members can gain the speaker’s favor by voting with the leader. Voting against a speaker can get a member demoted, or back-benched or make it difficult to pass their own legislation.
In the Mississippi House, the speaker wields enormous influence by helping control which bills die and which ones become law. He also decides which members lead committees and can remove them as leaders.
Last year, White removed Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes, a Republican from Picayune, as the leader of the House Drug Policy Committee.
White never said why he yanked her from the committee, but the Pearl River County lawmaker said it was because she pushed back against White over disagreements on legislation that sought to regulate pharmacy benefit managers.
While the House debated the lengthy bill on Thursday, Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar, a Republican, told Mississippi Today the Senate still doesn’t have the votes to pass a robust school choice package, as the House is pushing.
He also alluded to moves by House Republican leaders to finagle over votes in Wednesday’s committee meeting, such as asking some members to skip the meeting instead of voting no.
“The Senate position is what we passed, and I’m going to support the Senate position,” DeBar said. “I’ve got votes on a single bill, I’m not twisting arms or asking people to walk. I’ve got the full support of the Senate. When the House bill gets here, if it gets here, we’ll deal with it in due course.”
After the vote, White told reporters that he is not pressuring House members to vote a certain way and said arm-twisting was something previous House speakers would do.
“I think pressure comes to bear from voters and politics, not from a heavy hand in leadership,” White said.
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