When Mississippi lawmakers were trying to negotiate a compromise on Medicaid expansion, they initially said they would conduct the negotiations in public.
That commitment lasted all of one meeting.
After the six negotiators — three from the House, three from the Senate — held that first conference committee meeting, they never met in the open again.
The Senate negotiators stood up the House negotiators at the second meeting, and after that, all of the ultimately unsuccessful bartering was done the way that Mississippi lawmakers usually like to do it — by phone, text or email or in closeted face-to-face conversations, all of it out of public view.
The experience showed how shallow is the commitment to openness in the Legislature for itself, even while lawmakers think it’s generally a good idea for cities, counties and school boards.
It’s easy to sound committed to transparency when there is no controversy or disagreement about an issue. It’s when an issue is contentious that the real test comes as to whether lawmakers really believe the public has a right to observe what its government is doing.
There was a lot to be disappointed about in the way the Legislature dealt with the question of Medicaid expansion.
It took a month after the House had passed its version of Medicaid expansion before the Senate released its version. It was another month — and less than a week before a final deadline — until negotiators sat down to try to resolve the differences between the two versions. Neither House Speaker Jason White nor Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann named a Democrat among the six members of the conference committee — a strategic mistake that failed to take into account that although Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers, it was going to take Democratic support to get to veto-proof numbers.
And then the Legislature backtracked on negotiating in the open.
None of this by itself might have produced passage of Medicaid expansion, but if all of these areas had been better handled, the odds would have improved.
