2026 LEGISLATIVE SESSION

After the Gavel: Mississippi

Republicans hold 34 of 52 Senate seats and 78 of 122 House seats this session, majorities in both chambers but short of the two-thirds vote Mississippi requires to override a governor's veto (35 needed in the Senate, 82 in the House), a threshold the Legislature tested and missed on at least one override vote in April 2026. The Senate margin narrowed after Democrats flipped three seats in special elections held April-December 2025, ordered by a federal court to create additional Black-majority districts, breaking the Republican Senate supermajority that had held since 2019.

After the Gavel analyzed bills from Mississippi's 2026 Regular Session, organized into 10 posts. Some are grouped by theme, because a single bill rarely tells the whole story and related bills, read together, usually do.

This is our read of the bills. We encourage every reader to read the legislation for themselves and reach their own conclusions.

Every post links to the enacted session law it draws from. Every claim here traces to the legislation or a named outside source.

HB1546
Mississippi Is Closing One Door for Traffickers and Buyers, and Opening One for Their Victims.

HB1546 permanently bars expungement for felony procuring or promoting prostitution, shields trafficked minors from liability for offenses committed while being trafficked, and gives victims new tools to clear their own records.

1 Bill
SB2821
Mississippi Passed the Death Penalty for Child Rape. The Bill Says the Supreme Court Already Struck This Down.

SB2821 creates capital sexual battery for the abuse of a child under 12, cites Kennedy v. Louisiana directly, and enacts the death sentence “notwithstanding” it, betting on the Supreme Court to reconsider.

1 Bill
SB2096
Mississippi Just Told Every County What Election Cybersecurity Has to Look Like.

SB2096 sets mandatory minimum cybersecurity standards for the state's centralized voter system, backed by real compliance checks and a January 2027 deadline.

1 Bill
SB2588
Mississippi Will Check Every Voter on Its Rolls Against a Federal Citizenship Database Every Year.

SB2588 adds a second citizenship check to voter registration, an annual statewide database sweep, and a 90-day safe harbor so a single flag can't remove anyone right before a federal election.

1 Bill
SB2710
Mississippi's Most Contested Bill This Session Didn't Touch Gun Ownership. It Touched Gun Crime.

SB2710 routes more juvenile firearm-involved violent crime to adult court, adds stolen-firearm-trafficking sentencing tiers up to 40 years, and creates a new felony for shooting into a group of people.

1 Bill
SB3124
Mississippi Widened Who Can Get a Tax Credit for Pregnancy Centers. It Also Narrowed Who Counts as One.

SB3124 opens the Pregnancy Resource Act tax credit to every Mississippi taxpayer, while tightening eligibility to centers that neither refer for nor facilitate abortion. The $10 million cap stays the same.

1 Bill
HB538
Mississippi Closed the Holes in Its Own Sanctuary-City Ban.

HB538 broadens an existing sanctuary-policy ban to every level of government, adds a mandatory ICE-cooperation duty, and lets the Attorney General sue officials who don't comply.

1 Bill
SB2114
Mississippi Wrote New State Crimes for Illegal Entry. Will They Survive the Same Fight Holding Up Texas's Law?

SB2114 pushes 287(g) cooperation with ICE, creates new state crimes tied to illegal entry, and sunsets itself in 2028, the kind of built-in caution that signals its drafters expect a lawsuit.

1 Bill
HB1613
Mississippi Made Mailing Abortion Pills a Drug-Trafficking Crime.

HB1613 pairs a tougher drug-trafficking threshold with a new crime for distributing or prescribing chemical abortion drugs, built with explicit medical exceptions and enforced civilly by the Attorney General.

1 Bill
HB1662
Mississippi Courts Must Now Start From Equal Parenting Time.

HB1662 creates a rebuttable presumption that joint custody with equally shared parenting time serves a child's best interest, with strong carve-outs for family violence and applies only to new custody orders going forward.

1 Bill

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