Greg Stewart is director of Beauvoir, the last home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Stewart is among those pushing a ballot initiative to enshrine Mississippi’s flag design in the state constitution.
Stewart said Wednesday the first proposed initiative will die because sponsors don’t like the way Attorney General Jim Hood rewrote the summary voters would see if the measure gets on the ballot.
In a ruling Tuesday, Hinds County Circuit Judge William Gowan said he won’t second-guess the attorney general’s power to write a summary for any citizen-sponsored initiative.
Every initiative must have a title, or short description of a proposed constitutional amendment, before sponsors can circulate petitions to try to get it on the statewide ballot.
Flag amendment sponsors wanted the so-called Initiative 54 title to refer to the flag that’s now in use as “the 1894 flag.” Instead, it refers to the “current” flag.
Stewart said he worries legislators might remove the Confederate emblem from the state flag before an initiative comes up for a vote and the term “current” flag would no longer be accurate. The earliest the question could be put to voters would be 2018.
Mississippi PEP 