Initiatives can only be used to amend substantive or procedural aspects of Article IV, the Legislature Article, and cannot be used to amend any other articles.
Before being submitted to the electorate for ratification, initiated measures must be approved at two sessions of a successively elected legislature by not less than one-fourth of all members elected, sitting in joint session.
Before being submitted to the electorate, initiated measures are sent to the legislature, which has the option of submitting an amended or alternative measure alongside of the original measure.
In a May 2021 ruling featuring a challenge to an initiated amendment approved by voters in 2020 legalizing medical marijuana, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that the initiative process is invalid in Mississippi and can no longer be used, because the constitutional provision creating the initiative process requires signatures to be distributed among five congressional districts, but Mississippi now has only four congressional districts, thereby rendering the initiative process unusable until the constitutional provision is amended.
The Council of State Governments
1776 Avenue of the States
Lexington, KY 40511
Phone: (859) 244-8000
Email: membership@csg.org
