Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood cried foul this afternoon on the less-than-sunshiney manner in which the House Sunshine Act was introduced and passed out of committee in less than 18 hours. Hood said he didn't even get a chance to read the bill, which Speaker Philip Gunn sponsored, that would usurp some of his constitutional rights as the state's chief legal officer because he was up until 2 a.m. preparing briefs for the Thursday Supreme Court hearing about Pardongate. Here's the verbatim statement from Hood's office on the Sunshine Act:
AG Warns New Bill Will Cause Chaos for State's Legal Business
Contact: Jan Schaefer
Public Information Officer
601-359-2002
[e-mail missing]
Jackson, MS—Attorney General Jim Hood today is warning that House Bill 122 introduced last night under the cover of darkness and passed out of the House Judiciary A Committee early this morning by Speaker Philip Gunn of Clinton and Representative Mark Baker of Brandon violates the constitution which gives the Attorney General the sole authority to speak in court with one voice on behalf of the state. The bill would allow state officials, agencies, boards, commissions, departments or institutions to hire their own outside attorneys over the Attorney General.
General Hood, who had a budget committee hearing this morning at 8:30 before the Senate, asked Mark Baker, Chairman of the House Judiciary A Committee, to give him a day to read the bill before he held a hearing on it, but Baker refused. When General Hood asked Baker to at least wait until he could finish his Senate budget hearing, Baker refused. When General Hood was allowed to leave the Senate Appropriations sub-committee hearing early, he went into the House hearing, but Baker refused to recognize General Hood so that he could advise the Committee members of the constitutional problems with the bill.
General Hood stated, "The people elected Philip Gunn, Mark Baker and me to work together, regardless of party. The least they could have done would have been to give the Committee members an opportunity to hear from the people's lawyer the truth about the bill. It is obvious that by the way they introduced this so-called "sunshine bill" under the cover of darkness last night and passed it out of committee at 8:30 this morning that they did not want the people to hear the truth. I hope the voters in Speaker Gunn's district in Clinton and Chairman Baker's district in Brandon will call them tonight and ask why they railroaded a bill through without even giving the people's lawyer an opportunity to speak to the committee."
State law makes the Attorney General the Chief Legal Officer of the State intrusted with management of all legal affairs of the state, and prosecution of all suits, civil or criminal, in which the state is interested, having power to control and manage all litigation on behalf of the state, and to maintain all suits necessary for enforcement of state laws, preservation of order, and protection of public rights. Kennington-Saenger Theatres, Inc. v. State ex rel. District Att'y, 196 Miss. 841, 18 So. 2d 483 (1944).
HB122 seeks to strip the Attorney General's constitutional authority and amend several state statutes in the process.
"The Attorney General is put in place to defend the state's interests and to provide a unified voice to the state on all legal matters," said Attorney General Hood. "If this bill passes, then agency heads with agendas and interests of their own will be allowed to pursue those interests on the taxpayers' dime over the states interest as a whole with no oversight. We have had several cases where agency directors have been sued for sexual harassment. Their interests have been to spend money defending a losing case; whereas, the state's interest was to settle the case and save money on lawyers."
Take for example, a recent case where the Department of Revenue hired their own lawyers who attempted to settle a case for approximately $3 million. The Attorney General pursued the same case and received $100 million for the state. Moreover, the $4 billion the state recovered from tobacco companies would have never occurred had this law been in place.
"What you have here is nothing more than an attempt to weaken the power of the Attorney General and to create a "good ole boy" system of doing legal business in this state," said Attorney General Hood.
"I am so disappointed that I was not even allowed to address committee members, many of whom are newly elected lawmakers, to provide them with my perspective concerning the dangers of this bill," said Attorney General Hood. "The chairman of today's hearing refused to even allow me to testify."
The Attorney General added, "This bill creates a system ripe for cronyism, chaos, more government, duplication of services and is a severe waste of taxpayer dollars. It is not in the public interest or the way our constitution intended. Corporate wrongdoers and other criminals will celebrate if this bill passes. I hope lawmakers will see through this ludicrousness and do what is right."
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