House Speaker Jason White on Monday laid down a plan for the 2026 regular session with bold, potentially controversial ideas targeting several political initiatives, some of which are being worked on in Washington, D.C., in Congress and other ideas already having opposition from the state Senate.
“The House is going to continue to champion what we call bold initiatives uplifting our communities and strengthening our families and knowing the brighter future there in Mississippi,” White, a Republican from West, told attendees of a Stennis Capitol Press forum at Hal and Mal’s on Monday, June 30, in downtown Jackson.
Of the issues he discussed, White said he plans to tackle four key areas during what lawmakers refer to as the legislative off season, which typically lasts April through December. The Legislature meets in January, and its session ends in spring.
Those areas are a total reform of the state’s education system, expanding voter rights and access, making changes to the state’s public retirement system and addressing infrastructure needs within the City of Jackson, the state’s capital city.
The discussion on his goals comes just a week after White established several taskforce committees to study big issues he wants to address in the 2026 regular session.
Below is what you need to know about his goals for 2026:
Mississippi Speaker of the House Jason White, R-West, speaks at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024.
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K-12 reform/school choice
White has not been coy about his desire to continue debate about school choice, a loaded term than often refers to the spending of public dollars on private school education.
School choice legislation that would have allowed for students in D- and F-rated school districts to use the sate’s share of their education funding to pay for a private school was pushed through a House committee, though it ultimately died at the Speaker’s direction.
Other choice-related bills dealing with public-to-public school transferring, consolidating school districts and homeschooled students playing sports at public schools were also dead by the end of the last session.
Some of those items, such as portability and school district consolidation, died in the Senate Education Committee without any discussion.
White formed the Education Freedom Committee now to study a reform of how the state funds education and how it can help give students as many education options as possible.
“I would like to start by expanding it to some other student groups, mainly based on income and poverty,” White said.
To this end, White wants to put several school school choice bills that died in the 2025 session all into one piece of legislation, saying it would mirror the strategy he took with House Bill 1, a massive tax reform bill that among other things, set up an eventual end to the state’s personal income tax.
White said much of the reform in Mississippi relating to school choice will depend on what happens with education reforms in Congress.
House Education Chairman Rob Roberson was appointed chairman of the taskforce committee.
Expanding voter access
White told eventgoers he is going to focus in on several voter issues that failed during the 2024 and 2025 sessions.
White’s Voter’s Rights Committee will focus on returning the state’s ballot initiative, returning the right to vote to many of those who have been disenfranchised and also expanding access to the polls via early voting.
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All three of those issues died in the Legislature the past two sessions, but White said he is confident he and his team will work with Senate leadership on the issues going forward.
In the 2024 session, a measure to restore suffrage to people convicted of nonviolent felonies was blocked by Senate Constitution Committee Chairwoman Angela Hill. Similarly, a House proposal to restore the ballot initiative was also blocked by Senate Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Committee Chairman David Parker, who tried to pass a different, unsuccessful version through the Senate.
In the 2025 session, similar measures on disenfranchisement and ballot initiatives died in the House, with some House members citing lack of support from their Senate counterparts.
Early voting on the other hand, died in the Senate both in 2024 and 2025. This past session, it nearly passed out of the Legislature but was held back by a parliamentary motion.
Retirement system funding
White said he will again pursue establishing recurring funds for the state’s retirement system, which currently has about $26.5 billion in unfunded liabilities.
During the 2025 regular session, the House tried to establish funding for the Public Employment Retirement System of Mississippi, or PERS, via lottery tax revenues. White also during the meeting floated the idea of legalizing mobile sports betting and using tax revenue from it to fund PERS with annual dollars.
White’s committee on PERS will work to identify ways to shore up the system and reduce its unfunded liability.
Jackson infrastructure needs
One of Jackson’s biggest issues, historically, has been its water and sewer system, which are currently in the hands of federally appointed third party water manager Ted Henifin and his water utility management organization, JXN Water.
In the 2024 session, Parker unsuccessfully tried to push through legislation to create a nonprofit water utility board comprised of local and state political appointees. The bill would have effectively stripped the City of Jackson from regaining control of its water system.
White said he does not want that to happen and wants to work with city leadership to find a way to assist the city in regaining control of the water and sewer system once Henifin’s receivership is over in 2027.
As for what kind of assistance White would propose, he said he’s letting the Capital Revitalization Committee, led by Rep. Shanda Yates, I-Jackson, come up with ideas but that it should be a multi-faceted approach.
Grant McLaughlin covers the Legislature and state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: School choice, voter access, retirement system reforms coming in 2026