Mississippi House receives governor—s veto messages; refers several bills back to committees

The Mississippi House of Representatives on the opening day of its 2025 legislative session received partial veto messages from Governor Tate Reeves that removed multiple line-item appropriations and listed several bills the governor has vetoed. Members then approved motions sending several bills back to committees for further review and completed organizational business, including committee notifications and an adjournment to reconvene at 2 p.m. the following day.

The governor—s partial veto messages were read into the record. In the message on House Bill 1830, the governor stated, "I—m returning House Bill 1830. I—m vetoing section 1, line 7 through 15, providing a $14,025,000 appropriation to the secretary of state for grants from the secretary of state land improvement fund." In a separate message on House Bill 1707, the governor cited Article 4, Section 73 of the Mississippi Constitution as the basis for exercising line-item veto authority and listed multiple appropriations he struck, including a $1,000,000 appropriation to the city of Jackson for planetarium renovations and a $500,000 appropriation to the city of Greenville for park repairs and renovations.

Why it matters: line-item vetoes remove specific spending items while leaving the remainder of an appropriation bill intact; affected local…