Special session plods on

By By Terry R. Cassreino / assistant managing editor
Sept. 15, 2002
After meeting in session for 10 days, and wrangling over procedural rules for five of them, you have to wonder if state legislators are serious about doing anything on medical malpractice insurance.
Senators had insisted a final bill also include civil justice reform, more commonly called tort reform. House members, though, refused because that issue wasn't on the special session agenda.
And Gov. Ronnie Musgrove who could have moved the session along at a clip by adding tort reform to the agenda has sat on the sidelines and watched the political shenanigans.
Musgrove just wants to escape the session politically unscathed, hoping that voters will blame the impasse solely on the Legislature come election time in November 2003.
But in reality, no one will escape unharmed. There's enough blame to share among lawmakers and Musgrove for what has been the strangest, most unproductive lengthy special session since 1990.
That year, Gov. Ray Mabus called lawmakers to Jackson in June to fund his $182 million education reform package what he envisioned as a sequel to the landmark Education Reform Act of 1982.
Lawmakers plodded through a two-week session, rejected much of Mabus' funding proposals, effectively killed his education reform package and laid the foundation for his election defeat in 1991.
Then, as now, the Legislature failed to act because of a lack of firm leadership from the executive branch. Then, as now, the Legislature dealt with an uncompromising governor who was unable to connect one-on-one with lawmakers.
This time, Musgrove doesn't have anything personal at stake like Mabus' education reform package.
But Musgrove's increasing inability to work with lawmakers got the special session off to a bad start and has kept it that way thanks largely to the governor's conditional agenda.
Musgrove originally called the session to consider private prison funding. Once approved, he said, lawmakers could consider medical malpractice. Once that was settled, he said, then they could consider general tort reform.
Those plans were scuttled when a state court ruled the prison funding was a non-issue. Musgrove, though, is still requiring lawmakers to solve medical malpractice before tackling tort reform.
Hence the hangup: Senate leaders hoping to finish the session early had tried to add tort reform to medical malpractice. House members said they couldn't because it wasn't on the agenda.
Strike one for Musgrove.
Had Musgrove placed tort reform on the session agenda, it's likely House and Senate leaders would have ended their stalemate and quickly finished the session. But he didn't.
And it took state Attorney General Mike Moore to break the stalemate among House and Senate negotiators. Moore said lawmakers couldn't add tort reform to the malpractice proposal.
That brings us up to date.
House and Senate negotiators now are focused solely on medical malpractice, wrangling over a bill to help doctors who can't buy insurance from companies that fear multimillion-dollar jury verdicts.
The negotiators three Senate members and three House members have been at it so long that now they are taking pot shots at each other rather than trying to compromise.
Witness a heated exchanged between state Rep. Percy Watson, D-Hattiesburg, and state Sen. Tommy Robertson, R-Moss Point. Watson accused Robertson, a lawyer, of knowing nothing about legal liability.
Strike one for House and Senate members.
Negotiations continued work Saturday and the Legislature could have something to consider today. If so, the debate then would shift to general tort reform and the marathon session would continue.
The only thing that appears certain is that the session likely won't continue beyond Sept. 10. If it does, lawmakers would lose their $1,500 monthly out-of-session stipend.
You want to see lawmakers balk at something? Just try to take that away from them.