Last month, we reported about a bill by a Mississippi legislator that called for the name change in the Gulf of Mexico. This week, Mississippi lawmakers actually had to OFFICIALLY vote to DROP the satirical bill, yet a couple of other bills went through committee.
From a local Mississippi report:
Mississippi lawmakers scrambled Tuesday to meet their first major deadline of the 2012 session, thinning out the list of bills and constitutional amendments they'll consider during the next two months.
Among the proposals that died are constitutional amendments that would've limited the governor's pardon power, defined life as beginning at fertilization and given legal rights to fetuses.
Also dead is a satirical bill to rename Mississippi's portion of the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America." Its sponsor, Democratic Rep. Steve Holland of Plantersville, said he filed it to spoof immigration-enforcement proposals, although the humor was lost on people who called him a bigot.
"It's deader than a corpse I'm burying in my funeral home," Holland, who's a funeral director, said Tuesday.
Several major proposals are still living, including bills to create charter schools and to allow local law enforcement officers to check people's immigration status. [ED: our emphasis]
Where is the joke now? Looks like Mississippi could be the next Arizona, South Carolina, and Alabama
