Indicted Officials Could Be Removed Under Proposed Bill

By Josh Mitchell

Corinth Today News Editor

State Rep. Nick Bain, D-Corinth, plans to sponsor a bill that would provide a way to remove indicted elected officials from office.

Currently, an elected official can stay in office while they are under indictment, Bain said. There is really no process to remove an indicted elected official, he added.

Bain stressed that his bill would still protect the official’s right of being innocent until proven guilty.

For instance, if an elected official was removed from office and turned out to be innocent, he or she could be made whole on the pay that they did not receive after being removed, Bain said.

The goal is to protect the due process rights of the indicted elected officials but to also do what is best for the citizens, Bain said. He hopes his bill will help address government corruption issues.

He does not know what the process to remove elected officials from office under his bill would be at this time but said it could be some type of hearing.

Bain also plans to file another bill dealing with government corruption “to give cities and counties a guideline on what they can and can’t do.”

Out-of-State Athletes

He is also working on a bill that deals with students who live in another state and want to play sports in Mississippi. If a student from Tennessee has been cleared to go to school in Alcorn County, the student should also be able to play sports here, Bain said.

But he said those out-of-state athletes cannot play sports due to a “private entity.” His bill would give students from another state the same rights as other students, he said.

“If they’ve been admitted, recognized as a student of that district, they shouldn’t be prohibited from taking that extracurricular (activity),” Bain asserted.

Road and Bridge Funding

Bain said other big issues in the Legislature this session will be road and bridge funding.

Corinth Mayor Tommy Irwin has proposed that the Legislature pass a bill to allow Corinth residents to vote on whether they want to raise the sales tax to fund road and bridge improvements.

But the mayor’s proposal to allow a citizen vote on a sales tax is seen by some in legislative leadership as a tax increase even though it would simply allow a citizen vote, Bain said.

“Those types of bills do not have a very strong history in our Legislature,” he said.

However, Bain said, “I look forward to working with the mayor and board of aldermen to find a way to get the resources that the city needs to take care of its infrastructure, to take care of its roads and bridges.”

There are other ways to provide local governments with more road and bridge funding, such as increasing the allotment of sales tax that cities get from the state, Bain noted.