Alan Nunnelee
Legislative Highlights

Tax Reform

Early in his career, Senator Nunnelee led efforts in the Senate to eliminate the marriage penalty in state income tax law.  A couple who was living together would see an increase of $150 per year in their state income tax if they got married.   Senator Nunnelee felt the state should support married families, not penalize them.

He also advocated a tax credit for adoption expenses.  In 2003, candidate Haley Barbour made this part of his campaign for Governor.  The Legislature adopted this in 2005.

Senator Nunnelee has voted over 150 times to lower taxes in Mississippi.

Business and Free Enterprise

Senator Nunnelee has been rated a Business Champion by the Business and Industry Political Education Committee (BIPEC) for his support of free enterprise every year that he has been in office.

Alan was an advocate for tort reform, and worked to see its passage in 2002 and 2004.  The result of tort reform has been a significant reduction in medical malpractice insurance rates and the state selling a high risk pool for medical malpractice.  The high risk pool was sold because it was no longer needed.

In addition, numerous businesses have located in the state that would not have done so without tort reform.

Medicaid

Providing healthcare to the uninsured is growing more costly each year.  As chairman of the Public Health committee, Senator Nunnelee led efforts to slow the growth of Medicaid by requiring each beneficiary to recertify once each year, and to complete this recertification face to face.  Under the Musgrove administration, they were only recertifying about 1/7 of the Medicaid population each year.  In addition, the administration used “Presumptive Eligibility” which means Mississippi presumed you to be eligible unless the state proved otherwise.  Under the law, Alan worked to get, Mississippi documents a person’s eligibility each year and that person must present financial information to prove that he or she is eligible.

In addition he worked to increase the use of generic drugs rather than more expensive name brand drugs.

Open Appropriations Process

As Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Nunnelee has made the budget process more open to the Senate membership, but more importantly to the people who are paying the bills.  The Senator believes that when Legislators expect to be inspected by the taxpayers, elected officials will do a better job. 

He has led the efforts to shine the light on the revolving door of state and local agencies who have a long time employee retire and draw state retirement and then contract with that same employee.

GED Program

Alan also led efforts to pass an innovative program where community colleges recruit students who have dropped out of school and help them to obtain their GED.  This program had accountability benchmarks for each community college.  It has been very successful.

Wellspring / Toyota

Senator Nunnelee was a leading advocate in the Senate of the Wellspring project.  This project was the first in the state that involved multiple counties partnering to enhance their economic development efforts.  Ultimately this led to the location of Toyota in Blue Springs.

Environment

Senator Nunnelee chaired the Committee on Environment from 2000 – 2004.  During that time, he resisted efforts to eliminate the Department of Environmental Quality and have manufactures report to the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.

In addition, he came up with creative legislation to deal with the emerging problem of manufacturing of crystal meth.  The legislation was the first to create a crime of possessing two or more precursors necessary to manufacture this drug.  A serious problem resulting from the manufacture of crystal meth is the theft of anhydrous ammonia from farms and farm supply stores.  This legislation gained national attention, and Senator Nunnelee was named the Friend of Agriculture by the Mississippi Farm Bureau.  The only time a legislator who was not a member of the Agriculture committee has received this award.

Pro Life

Senator Nunnelee was reelected, and in 1996 he quickly became a pro-life leader in the Mississippi legislature.  In his second year of office, he pushed through major legislation to regulate the growing abortion industry in the state.  The difficult part of this legislation was to find ways to restrict the abortion clinics that would stand up to certain challenges in federal court.  Senator Nunnelee did so, and the ultimate challenges were thrown out.

The result of Alan Nunnelee’s work in this area is that the year before he was elected, there were approximately 4,000 abortions performed in Mississippi.  Currently, there are about 2,000.  In addition, the PBS Documentary Frontline featured Mississippi and the Senator’s efforts to close abortion clinics, and the title of the program was, “The Last Abortion Clinic”.  There is currently only one abortion clinic operating in Mississippi.    
   
In addition, the Senator led the efforts to gain approval of the Choose Life car tag.  This is one of the best selling specialty car tags, and raises significant funds to go to the crisis pregnancy centers throughout the state. 

The Senator’s efforts led Mississippi as one of the first states to ban the horrible practice of partial birth abortion.  Many other states now ban this procedure because of Mississippi’s example.

Same Sex Marriage

Senator Nunnelee led the efforts to ban recognition of marriage between two people of the same gender.  After the statute was adopted, he led the efforts to put this in our state’s constitution.  This was approved by the people of Mississippi in 2003.

In God We Trust

Senator Nunnelee led the efforts to place our national motto, In God we Trust, on the classroom wall of every school classroom in the state.  Later, he partnered with Lt. Governor Amy Tuck to raise private funds for this project so that no taxpayer dollars were needed to implement it.

Protecting Children from Sexual Predators

Senator Nunnelee led efforts to protect children from Sexual predators.  In Mississippi, as in many states of the South, the age of consent was 13.  An adult 30 or 40 years old could seduce a 13 year old child and not incur any punishment.  Senator Nunnelee worked to increase this age of consent, and there are sexual predators in jail today for statutory rape who would be free had Senator Nunnelee not led the efforts to change this law.  

Health Department

Alan led the efforts to reform the Health Department.  The state’s public health efforts were being led by a state health officer who was more concerned with appearance than substance.  As a result, West Nile Deaths and TB were increasing at very rapid rates and filthy restaurants were not being held accountable.  Senator Nunnelee led the effort to fire the board of health and the state health officer.  The department is well managed today.  In addition, today all restaurants now display a letter grade of their most recent inspection so that the public can be aware of the health conditions of that restaurant.

Citizens with Disabilities

Because of his vision problems, Alan has always felt a responsibility to help those people who had physical limitations.  His work here has been through governmental agencies as well as groups outside of government.  Senator Nunnelee was named Outstanding Legislator of the year by the Mississippi Chapter of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

He was also named the Legislator of the Year by the Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities.

National Guard

When Governor Ronnie Musgrove attempted to politicize the National Guard by inserting an Adjutant General who would fire all high ranking officers who were Republican, Senator Nunnelee led the efforts to deny Senate confirmation of the Adjutant General.

Sportsman's Caucus

Alan is a charter member of the Mississippi Sportsman’s Caucus, a legislative caucus supporting the right of all Mississippians to hunt and fish and enjoy the outdoors.