If there is any one photo that better captures the essence of the 2016 legislative session in Mississippi it came Friday with Governor Phil Bryant sitting at his desk, grinning like the Cheshire cat after having signed the guns-in-church bill. The governor is surrounded by lackeys, all also grinning, apparently at having been given an opportunity to have been photographed with the governor for this auspicious occasion.
And there in front of them, placed conspicuously on the governor’s desk, is his holstered handgun placed atop a conspicuously worn Bible with a copy of The Reagan Diaries conspicuously thrown in for good measure.
I don’t care if you take your gun with you to the churchhouse or to the outhouse, but the governor’s need to have posed his gun with the Bible as a prop for a photo op reminds me of Murphy’s Principle of Inversion. Taken from the Murphy’s Canon of Principles, this one simply states that the less real significance in a public act, the more there is a need to bring out a dog and pony show to make it look important.
This, during a legislative session that has failed to address rampant conversion of legislators’ campaign funds to their personal use and has ignored any option of raising funds to repair our crumbling roads and bridges. This, during a legislative session that looks like it will gut the services of state government to balance the budget on the backs of the everyday folks in this state in the name of providing tax cuts that will mainly go to big bidness.
There’s another principle that I have observed over the years among elected officials. Most of them — state legislators, for instance — are intelligent people who go to Jackson with a sincere desire to serve the best interests of the voters who put them there. It’s after they get to Jackson that the wheels seem to come off. Once there, the herd mentality takes over and the collective IQ seems to drop to the level of the dumbest cluck among them instead of rising from an exchange of different opinions and ideas.
The herd mentality has been compounded with one party having a veto-proof “supermajority.” Now, the majority can conduct governance with the arrogance of not even having to listen to a different point of view, much less having to compromise on some legislation.  Not only can the supermajority party —  the same would be true if there were a supermajority of Democrats in the Mississippl Legislature — can ignore the opposing party altogether, it can stifle dissent within its own ranks.  Woe — orchestrated, party-discipline, ostracizing woe — to a maverick who breaks ranks. That’s where we are as the first supermajority session of the Mississippi legislature sunsets.
Meanwhile on Bryant’s desk there was one more curious icon, not as conspicuous but there nonetheless. It was a pair of tiny cowboy boots mounted on a wooden plaque, no doubt an acknowledgement of the governor’s footwear preference.
Or perhaps those are the shoes he’ll leave behind to fill.