Mississippi lawmakers are readying to return to the state capitol in Jackson with a new session beginning this week. Always promising to be a busy three months, we’ve compiled the following information on what to know before the gavel lands for the first time on Tuesday afternoon.
When is the session?
The 2026 session will officially begin Tuesday, Jan. 6, at noon. Per the legislature’s calendar, it’s scheduled to last 90 days and end on Sunday, April 5.
Who controls each chamber?
Even after Democrats capitalized on special legislative elections last year, Republicans still control both chambers. However, the GOP’s grip has loosened slightly, as the party’s supermajority in the Senate was broken during those elections that saw Democrats gain two seats.
Leading the Senate for his seventh session as lieutenant governor is Republican Delbert Hosemann. In the House, Republican Jason White will oversee the chamber for his third session after being elected by his peers in 2024.
What will lawmakers discuss in 2026?
This is a big question.
Per usual, thousands of bills will be filed, with hundreds making it to a floor vote. While trying to predict every piece of legislation would be a fool’s errand, lawmakers have used the offseason to tout certain ideas they’d like to see become law.
Education
In the House, which made waves last session by immediately dropping a massive tax package that went on to be signed by Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, education reforms seem to be the next big focus for Speaker White and company.
White wants school choice, and he’s made that abundantly clear. School choice refers to the ability of parents to select where their child receives an education, rather than being confined by the neighborhood they live in. This can be accomplished through open public-to-public transfers often called “portability,” expansion of charter school options, the creation of an education savings account program that would allow public dollars to be used for private school tuition, or a combination of those and other related policies.
“Education should be a powerful equalizer that you often hear politicians talk about, yet our current system often falls short of delivering quality options for all students. Economically disadvantaged communities in Mississippi have been left with few too many options for far too long,” White said in December. “We have the opportunity to dismantle systemic barriers that damage educational opportunities for our students. Every child, regardless of their zip code, deserves a fair chance to succeed.”
Critics of school choice argue it could be detrimental to the health of some public school districts, specifically those that already struggle, if per-student allocations were to follow pupils if they elected to transfer to a different school. However, White has countered that more options for students and their families should make individual districts more competitive in providing the best education possible.
It’s unclear what the appetite for school choice, or at least some form of it, will be in the Senate. Lt. Gov. Hosemann has, throughout the offseason, said he supports a limited form, such as the portability piece, but has not publicly been as all-in on school choice as White.
Both White and Hosemann agree on paying public K-12 teachers more. Teachers received a raise in 2022. But Mississippi still lags behind the national average for teacher pay and is experiencing a shortage of teachers, administrators, and school support staff statewide.
“This year, we want to do another teacher pay raise. It’s much past due for that,” Hosemann said in December.
Hosemann also wants to tighten the state’s truancy laws. Nearly 28% of students were considered “chronically” absent during the 2024-25 school year, meaning they missed 10% or more of classes. He’s floated the idea of having parents testify before a judge as to the reason for their child’s noticeable absences.
Only time will tell how each chamber will address education. White has said on social media that his side of the Capitol plans to introduce an omnibus bill of sorts, one that will be “big, bold, and sweeping” and include several education reform policies such as school choice and teacher pay raises.
Healthcare
On the issue of Medicaid expansion, proposed changes are expected to remain on the back burner due to pending changes on the federal level. However, several healthcare-related bills are expected to be introduced.
Rep. Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany who chairs the House Public Health and Human Services Committee, said he’s received “a lot of public feedback” on the idea of stipends being issued to mothers during and in the months after pregnancy as Mississippi currently battles the highest infant mortality rate in the U.S.
“My position is we need to look at this, and if it works and it saves lives, it saves money in Mississippi. I’m working on a bill to at least have the conversation,” Creekmore said in December. “If this is the most effective thing we can do in the state of Mississippi, then we don’t need to turn a blind eye to it.”
A potential private partner would be Rx Kids, a Michigan-based program that offers financial relief to mothers. The state legislature there passed a Republican-introduced bill to match money from the organization. Rx Kids founder Dr. Mona Hanna said during a joint House and Senate Health Committees meeting on Nov. 6 that $2 million in private funding is already reserved for a pilot in Mississippi and is awaiting a state match.
Creekmore is also expected to introduce a bill to make the state’s health information exchange uniform statewide and another that would mandate health insurance coverage for biomarker testing in cancer. The biomarker technology helps ensure patients get the correct treatment for the cancer they’re battling.
The legislature plans to move forward with the first year of allocation of tens of millions in opioid settlement funds. Creekmore said the Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Council has recommended a five-tier plan to the speaker and lieutenant governor that would spread the funds across 122 applicants working to fight the state’s opioid crisis.
Ballot initiative
It’s been more than four years since Mississippi residents have been able to propose new laws or constitutional amendments directly on the ballot for public vote. Sen. Jeremy England, the chair of the Senate Elections Committee, plans to make another run at changing that during the upcoming session.
“I’ve got a bill that I’ve looked at for the last couple of years on the ballot initiative,” the Republican from Vancleave said in September. “I am planning on working on that this year.”
The ballot initiative process was stripped by the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2021 over a technical flaw in the state constitution that required signatures from five congressional districts, even though the state had since been reduced to four congressional districts. The ruling came after citizens rallied to legalize medical marijuana through a grassroots campaign. Since the language of the constitution had never been updated, justices ruled 6-3 that the ballot initiative process was inoperative. In the four sessions since, lawmakers have been unable to restore it due to a lack of widespread interest, disagreements over signature thresholds, and disagreements over potential caveats that would prevent citizens from making changes to certain laws.
England did not disclose many specifics about his bill, but did say it will take into account the evolution of digital marketing and social media campaigns.
“It’s not going to be exactly what we had. It will be a little bit tougher, but it’s not going to be impossible,” he said. “The reason it’s going to be tougher is because of the changing atmosphere that we have around us with social media and the ability to get petitions signed. Back when this was first set up, you had people sitting out in front of their grocery stores getting signatures. Now, we’re able to dump a bunch of money into something and get it done.”
Before the process was stripped, the number of signatures needed to land an initiative on the ballot was at least 12% of the total voters in the most recent gubernatorial election. Online petitions were not allowed under the pre-2021 system. Democrats like House Minority Leader Robert Johnson have been adamant in recent years on restoring the process to exactly how it was.
Other potential legislation
One topic being thrown around throughout the offseason has been the legalization of mobile sports betting, something the House passed in 2025 before it died in the Senate. Another is ensuring a new retirement benefit structure passed in 2025 does not force first responders to serve an additional five years before being able to draw retirement benefits. Another is a tax rebate program endorsed by Lt. Gov. Hosemann that would result in taxpayers being handed back 15% of what they paid the state in 2023.
The list goes on and includes helping the capital of Jackson revitalize with state help, easing the process of restoring voting rights for individuals who were convicted of certain felonies, shifting control over registered apprenticeship programs to the state instead of the federal government, and distributing BP oil spill money.
It’s also worth noting that lawmakers have been tasked by a federal judge with redrawing the state’s Supreme Court map, which was deemed to be diluting Black voting power. Based on the ruling, some seats will be subject to special elections this November. However, Hosemann has asked the state’s Board of Election Commissioners to challenge the ruling.