BIPEC grades: business tool or 'partisan ploy'?
A business group gave out its annual report card for Mississippi legislators on Wednesday and recognized the 25 senators and 50 House members who received an A.
As usual, the Business and Industry Political Education Committee gave Republicans mostly high grades, Democrats lower grades. These were based on their votes on 19 bills this year. The bills were mostly tax breaks, anti-business regulation and lawsuit-protection measures and included a $415 million multiyear tax cut, the largest tax cut in state history. Sen. Willie Simmons, D-Cleveland, was the only Democrat to receive an A, although eight Senate and 24 House Republicans failed to receive the top grade and a “Business and Jobs Champion” designation.
Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn praised the lawmakers gathered at the Capitol for a news conference and photo session with BIPEC leaders. They said the A-graded lawmakers are those willing to make “tough decisions” and votes.
“Government does not create jobs,” Reeves said. “Government’s role is to create an environment which encourages those in the private sector to invest capital and create jobs. Despite what some of our bureaucrats around this building think, government is not an employment agency.”
Dr. Randy Easterling, BIPEC Chairman, said the report card “has long been a resource that we keep on our desk … for the business community to see the measured performance of our legislators and their support for the growth of jobs and economic development.”
But at least one industry official at the event on Wednesday said he might have calculated the grades a little differently. Many business leaders — including the Mississippi Economic Council — had pushed lawmakers to increase taxes and/or fees to raise at least $375 million a year for road and bridge maintenance.
“We wanted a highway bill this year,” said Tone Garrett, director of the Mississippi Asphalt Pavement Association. “Everybody would have failed or had their grades lowered if that had been on there. The one bright spot was Tate Reeves — he at least put the mechanics for it out there in a bill. It’s just unfortunate the tea party folks had their way. All the folks in North Mississippi getting all the roads built with bonds wouldn’t vote for it, so we’re getting deeper in debt to build I-269 and not doing the other work we need.”
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BIPEC is a nonprofit association that tracks backgrounds, voting records and key positions of members and candidates for the Legislature, state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. BIPEC grades have in the past become issues in state elections.
Besides taxes, business regulations and lawsuit protection, this year’s BIPEC grades were based on education bills — one that mandates school superintendents be appointed rather than elected, another that would expand charter schools and another that strengthens the “Third Grade Gate” measure to prevent social promotion of third-graders who cannot read well to fourth grade. All were measures pushed by the GOP legislative leadership.
House Democratic Leader David Baria, D-Bay St. Louis, who received a D, said the BIPEC grades are “highly partisan” and based on votes “oftentimes having questionable relationship to legitimate business interests.”
Baria said that if the grades were truly based on legislative support for business, Republican leaders should have low marks for failure to pass a road bill and for passing a religious objections bill that many business leaders decried and which drew negative national publicity as being discriminatory to gay people. He said the large tax cut amid revenue shortfalls also shouldn’t receive high marks.
“So, it is disingenuous for BIPEC to focus its partisan failing grades on those with the least impact on the creation of the terrible economic conditions in our state,” Baria said. “BIPEC grades are merely a partisan political ploy.”
Contact Geoff Pender at 601-961-7266 or gpender@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @GeoffPender on Twitter.
