By Billy Davis

Among Panola County’s three-member delegation in the state House, Democrat Rep. Warner McBride stands as the senior member. He has served since 1992, when he was elected at age 36.

McBride currently chairs the House Transportation Committee. Other committee assignments include Wildlife,  Fisheries and Parks, where McBride has championed 2nd Amendment issues, and Appropriations.

The Panolian spoke to McBride last week after the legislature convened Tuesday for its current session.

Panolian: What is going to unfold in coming weeks, at the state Capitol, as the legislature grapples with the state’s budget woes?

McBride: The majority of the session will be dominated by the state’s budget and the $700 million budget hole. We’re looking at ways to provide for essential services, which would include public safety, education, public health and mental health. We’re going to concentrate on some of those areas.

Panolian: One source of more revenue is to increase state fees. Where do you stand on that issue?

McBride: I’m certainly not in favor of increasing any taxes at this time. I’m willing to look at some fee increases for services provided by the State of Mississippi to break even with their budget. But I’m not interested in increasing any fees beyond the cost of doing business.

Panolian: With the budget situation looming, what is the mood among legislators?

McBride: It’s somber. Last Monday I went with other legislators, who represent the Lafayette County area, to the annual Chamber of Commerce legislative breakfast. When I spoke, I told them I had sat there for five minutes looking at the crowd and nobody had a smile on their face. It was very somber.

Others got up and talked about the budget, and how bad things were, and they are bad. But you have to think about the good things. I reminded everybody of the announcement that GE plans to create 350 jobs in the next three years. Earlier this week we passed an incentive package for the plant that’s coming to Tunica County and creating 500 new jobs.

As a legislator I’m aware of others looking at this state for new businesses. Everything’s not gloom and doom.

Panolian: The governor is asking for authority to cut state budgets by more than the five percent he’s allowed to trim per state law. Should he be granted that request?

McBride: Under the law he has to cut five percent across the board. But what he wants to do is pick and choose agencies that he can cut. At this point I’m not in favor of doing that. I want to see a detailed plan – what he wants to cut.

As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I worked on some legislation this week that we thought was a compromise that exempted some agencies from those 10 percent cuts. We tried to give him a little latitude but he wants complete latitude.

Panolian: What is happening on the Transportation Committee that you chair?

McBride: You can look to see the committee try to meet transportation needs across the state. We’ve identified 100 bridges on state highways that need to be rehabbed or replaced. We want to continue our 1987 highway program, Vision 21. We will also look at the Local System Bridge Program to make sure it’s funded.  

In the Transportation Committee we will look at a myriad of other issues. One of the hot topics relates to last year, when we passed a graduated drivers license bill. It extended the time by six months for a person to get their driver’s license. It also included a texting ban for people who have an intermediate drivers license.

There will be a strong move in the Transportation Committee to expand that to all drivers – to ban the use of texting. There will also be a strong push, in the same bill, to limit the use of cell phones to hands-free kits and Blue Tooths. It will be heavily debated.

Panolian: Where do you fall on banning texting and cell phone use while driving?

McBride: I support the bans on texting and bans on cell phones. The latest studies I’ve seen on cell phones – the studies show that it’s just as bad, and just as dangerous, to use a hands-free kit because you’re still distracted. You’re thinking about your conversation instead of your driving.

Panolian: Would two bills come out of the committee separately – one for texting and one for cell phone?

McBride: It could come out (of committee) as one package or come out as a ban on texting and will get to the floor, and someone will introduce an amendment for cell phone use. That’s what happened last year, when we passed the one for intermediate drivers.

Panolian: There are other bills floating around in the Transportation Committee, one of which is the use of radar by sheriff’s deputies in unincorporated areas. It keeps coming up again and again.

McBride: It’s been batted around for six years.  As chairman I took a lot of interest in that last year and so I sought what the committee, and what the House and the Senate, thought about it. There’s just not the support there for that issue.

Panolian: Where do you stand on the issue?

McBride: I have reservations about it in rural areas. I can see the need for it in some of our larger counties – the coast, DeSoto County. I would go along with some population threshold or a pilot program.

Panolian: There is a bill in the Transportation Committee for a pilot program.

McBride: But you can’t get the votes, even for the pilot program, to get the bill out of committee.