Bills awaiting debate in the Mississippi Legislature are designed to diffuse a political battle over state funding for anti-smoking programs, former Attorney General Mike Moore says.
House Bill 1115 and Senate Bill 2760 say legislators — not a judge — would direct $20 million a year to a private, nonprofit group called The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi.
Moore, chairman of the Partnership’s board of directors, said he asked lawmakers to make the change.
“In an overarching effort to try to end the controversy that has continued for years and years about how the Partnership money is appropriated and to get the talk radio silent and to get all the politics and nuisances out of this successful program, we are going to attempt to make sure that the money is appropriated by the Legislature to the Partnership,” Moore said Tuesday.
For the past five years, an order by a Gulf Coast chancery judge has directed money to the Partnership. The money is part of the state’s settlement of a lawsuit that Moore, a Democrat, filed against cigarette makers in the mid-1990s.
The lawsuit sought reimbursement of public costs of treating sick smokers. Moore negotiated a settlement in 1997 that’s bringing the state more than $100 million a year, and state law directs most of the money into a health care trust fund.
Republican Gov. Haley Barbour and other critics say lawmakers, not a court, should make decisions about the $20 million that’s going to the Partnership.
Critics call the Partnership a political tool for Moore, who did not seek a fifth term in 2003 as attorney general .
Barbour spokesman Pete Smith said Tuesday that the governor’s staff needs to review the bills.
Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, a Republican, said a legislative committee that studied the Partnership last year recommended routing the money through the regular state appropriations process. “I have said all along that the Partnership does great work,” Tuck said.
The Partnership spends money on a host of programs, including smoking cessation, school nurses and anti-tobacco ads aimed at teenagers.
“The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi has succeeded precisely because, in this state, politicians kept their promise about why they brought the tobacco lawsuit,” Matthew Myers, president of the Washington-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said Tuesday in Jackson.
Barbour, state Treasurer Tate Reeves and others filed a lawsuit last year challenging the Partnership’s court order. In December, Jackson County Chancery Judge Jaye Bradley ruled that the suit can proceed.
Bradley’s ruling did not take the payments away from the Partnership. But it did put this year’s $20 million on hold, meaning the money cannot be spent until the dispute is resolved, officials said.
Moore on Tuesday said he’s worried that if the case goes to trial, Partnership employees would not get paid until the court dispute is resolved.
Evelyn Fort, a Partnership volunteer in Natchez and Adams County, goes into schools and churches to speak to young people about the health hazards of smoking. She said it’s important that the state continue putting money into tobacco prevention programs, either through a court order or through legislation. “The Partnership has done wonderful work because it helps to defray poor children away from tobacco products,” Fort said.
The “Partnership Funding Bills Seek to end Political Feud”
Originally written By : Emily Wagster Pettus
The Associated Press
The Associated Press
