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Then, unbelievably to both parties, the bill was killed in the Senate Elections Committee at the hands of Sens. Joey Fillingane, Merle Flowers and Billy Hewes - all Republicans. They cited opposition to the bill's inclusion of early voting provisions, as well as its allowance of first-time, non-violent felons to re-register to vote after paying their debt to society.
House Republicans and Democrats alike, who spent six hours debating the bill in an uncanny display of compromise on such a hot political issue, believe the three senators killed HB 1533 to preserve the voter ID issue for future political use. By doing so, they have hurt their own careers and the Republican Party in Mississippi, some fellow lawmakers believe.
"They have a lot of fences to mend right now," District 92 Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, said of the Senate Republicans. "They said they weren't going to send up that bill with all of that in it. Why didn't they send it back to us amended? You're not going to get everything you want in a bill. I wish parts of it weren't in there, too, but it would beat dead people voting."
Currie said she was "shocked" when news of HB 1533's death was announced, and she believes the three senators may have overstepped the will of their party.
"I know the governor and lieutenant governor had some heartburn about the suffrage and early voting, but no one ever said kill it," she said. "You work with it, fix some of it, but you don't just kill it. The end result is what matters."
Currie is not impressed with the idea of putting voter ID on a referendum during the next election. Neither are Democrats, who took the bill's death easier than Republicans like Currie, but were surprised nonetheless.
"You win some, you lose some and some you just quit on, I guess," said District 91 Rep. Bob Evans, D-Monticello. "Of course, most of the bills that I thought had at least a chance to survive partisanship, that's where most of them go to die. I guess that's the equivalent of the elephant graveyard."
Evans said the death of HB 1533 at Republican hands would significantly lessen the importance annually attached to the issue - even if it is included in a referendum - and would even the political playing field between the Republicans and Democrats.
"How are they going to justify themselves being able to use that as a political issue anymore when the Democrats gave them a bill and they killed it?" he said. "To me, that puts to rest that particular issue."
District 53 Rep. Bobby Moak, D-Bogue Chitto, said the three senators' supposed plans to save voter ID as an election issue when seeking higher office in the future would backfire when angry Republican voters turn out to strike down their careers.
"I think the flaw in their plan is that they probably bought themselves some opponents in the next Republican primary," he said. "That's their flaw - and they don't see it. But everybody else does, and they're lining up to get them."
District 39 Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, D-Brookhaven - a member of the Senate Elections Committee - could not be reached for comment.
