06-04-2025
This week in politics: Why was Jimmy Hoffa, Teamsters Union leader, discussed in MS House?
If you know how many times the 'disappearance' of former Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa has been mentioned during debates in the Mississippi Legislature, let somebody know.
A bill to restrict union access throughout Mississippi was killed on Wednesday by a motion to reconsider just before the House gaveled out of the 2025 session. The bill was not readdressed, killing it.
Before the House adjourned for the year on Wednesday, Republicans and Democrats fiercely debated the legislation, in which several Democrats argued that unions had helped to guarantee labor rights and protections for Mississippians and Americans across the country.
At one point Rep. Oscar Denton, D-Vicksburg, asked Rep. Lee Yancey, R-Brandon, who presented the bill, who unions ever actually hurt.
Yancey quickly shot back, stating that "they still haven't found Jimmy Hoffa."
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Hoffa, who was the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1957 until 1971, disappeared suddenly in 1975. In 1981, he was officially declared dead.
Hoffa had become and still is notorious for his alleged ties to organized crime and for his disappearance. In 2003, years after his death, Frank Sheeran, a man who also had deep alleged ties to the Mafia, admitted to killing Hoffa as part of a book titled "I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank 'The Irishman' Sheeran and Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa," by Charles Brandt.
Mississippi lawmakers on Wednesday killed a piece of legislation aimed at banning most intoxicating hemp products while allowing for the sale and regulation of hemp beverages containing "low" amounts of THC, the psychoactive part of cannabis.
The bill had been put through the ringer twice in the Senate, where it first passed by only a slim margin in the first half of the 2025 Legislative Session. However, the bill died by less than a few votes in the Senate early last week.
It was held back from death by a motion to reconsider the bill, but Senate lawmakers did not take it back by the time they gaveled out the 2025 session.
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The situation will leave many of these intoxicating hemp products on Mississippi shelves, mostly in gas stations and convenience stories, for at least another year. Currently no regulations exist to restrict who, regardless of age, can purchase these products.
It's probably not common knowledge among average Mississippians, but the first sign that the 2025 session was ending early this year came when tomatoes were placed on the desks of House lawmakers, and on Thursday when they were put on the Senate's.
The tradition is a long-standing one in the Mississippi legislature and is often the sign for lawmakers to wrap up the session and go home, if for no other reason, than to plant tomato seedlings before they die on lawmakers' desks.
On Thursday, the Legislature ended the session early after budget negotiations stalled and thus stonewalled the final stretch of the session. That work stoppage on the budget came when the House skipped a Saturday working deadline day last week to hash out a budget, citing that it did not want to pass a rushed budget at the last minute without proper vetting, as is done every year.
The Senate blasted the House for not showing and then refused to consider suspending the legislature's deadlines to revive more than 100 budget proposals. The House tried to send a suspension resolution to the higher chamber, but after the Senate didn't take it up by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, the House adjourned and left the Capitol. The Senate did the same the next morning.
As House members and Senators were leaving the Capitol this week, most were seen carrying these little plants, a bit of an odd image of the session coming to a close.
Grant McLaughlin covers the Legislature and state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@ or 972-571-2335.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: State Politics: Jimmy Hoffa discussed during union debate in MS House
