Minor: GOP lawmakers like anarchists

The trouble with Republicans running the show in the Mississippi Legislature and the U.S. House is that they are not dedicated to making government work.
They are dedicated to crippling government so that it doesn't work. Another word for that is anarchy.
Start with Mississippi. A perfect example is a top issue right now: adopting Initiative 42, a constitutional amendment mandating full funding of the state's 18-year-old public education budget formula.
The formula is aimed at adequately funding schools in poorer districts. That issue had hauled a dozen states into court in the late 1980s and 1990s where they were ordered to enact equity funding laws. In some instances, judges of the highest state courts wrote detailed plans that must be followed.
In Mississippi hundreds of citizen education advocates, tired of seeing the GOP-controlled Legislature fail to fully fund the state's 1997 Adequate Education Program, launched a ballot initiative campaign to write a funding mandate in the state constitution. The initiative petition was signed by more than 200,000 voters.
A group of legislative Republicans moved to throw a monkey wrench into adoption of Initiative 42 by placing an alternative proposition next to it which would effectively nullify 42, the first time an alternative proposition has ever been placed on the ballot in the 25-year history of Mississippi's ballot initiative law.
In effect, Republicans in one fell swoop would nullify a half century of progressive landmark education programs enacted by the Legislature. They include the 1953-54 Minimum Foundation Program which equalized schoolteachers' salaries between races and launched a multi-million dollar school construction plan; William Winter's 1982 Education Reform Act, which installed public kindergarten as part of the state system and substantially upgraded required teacher and student achievement standards; then lastly, the 1997 equity education funding formula, which has kept the state out of court.
Each landmark education enactment came after months of legislative struggle and narrowly passed tax hikes to implement. Except for the 1997 MAEP, the education programs were enacted when Republicans held only a few legislative seats. Kirk Fordice, the first Republican governor in a century, vetoed MAEP when it passed in 1997. Notably, his veto was overridden (requiring a two-thirds vote) with crucial support from four Republican lawmakers.
After seizing control of both branches of the Legislature in 2012, Republicans soon found their ranks divided by an incursion from the far right tea party faction. The first test came in the 2014 Republican senatorial primary when longtime GOP Sen. Thad Cochran narrowly avoided being upset by state Sen. Chris McDaniel of Ellisville. A tea party favorite, McDaniel campaigned on the theory Cochran had not been conservative enough in his 42-year congressional career.
Barely failing to unseat the revered Cochran, the tenacious McDaniel was not soon silenced. When Republican U.S. House Speaker John Boehner suddenly announced he was resigning at the end of this month rather than fight the right-wing "Freedom Caucus," McDaniel chimed in with his pleasure to see his fellow radicals had claimed another scalp in the party establishment.
You might say that McDaniel is our resident anarchist down here. What he had to say in his savage attempt to bring down the scholarly Cochran gives you a clue that he cares nothing about governing, only to repeal everything President Obama favored.
Obviously he and a few Senate colleagues he lured to join his ill-fated Senate caucus had dreams of recreating the GOP as the Party of No. He and other extremists may find that party has no future.

Bill Minor is a contributing columnist. Contact him at P.O. Box 1243, Jackson MS 39215.