The Mississippi governor announced that if the state legislature votes to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag, he will sign the bill.
Governor Tate Reeves’ statement comes as Mississippi lawmakers can consider a measure on the flag as early as Saturday.
“The legislature has been stagnant for days as it considers a new state flag. The discussion of the 1894 flag has become as divisive as the flag itself and it is time to end it. If you send me a bill this weekend I’ll sign it, “Reeves said in a tweet on Saturday morning.
Mississippi is the last state in the nation to present the Confederate emblem on its flag, and Reeves has previously said that any changes to the flag should be made by popular vote instead of the legislature.
However, he acknowledged in a Facebook post on Thursday that vetoing that legislation would be “useless.”
But he said in his tweet on Saturday that the state will still need to rally people around a flag change, even if the move comes from legislation rather than a popular vote.
“We should not have the illusion that a vote on Capitol Hill is the end of what must be done: the work before us to unite the state and I intend to work day and night to do it,” Reeves said in his tweet. . . “We must find a way to unite. To heal our wounds, to forgive, to resolve that a page has been turned, to trust each other. With God’s help, we can.”
State Representative Robert Johnson III, the Democratic leader of the state House of Representatives, told NBC News on Friday that all the votes needed to change the flag “appear to be there.”
“Supporters of a flag change worked overnight to secure the remaining votes necessary for a successful vote to change the state flag,” Johnson said. “The votes to make that change are in the House and appear to be in the Senate. It is quite possible that a first step will be taken in the House today by passing a suspension of the rules to take a bill to remove the current state flag “
The current flag was first adopted in 1894 and features red, white, and blue stripes with the Confederate battle emblem in the corner. Proposals to change the flag have repeatedly come up in the state chamber, but they have always died. In 2001, Mississippi voters had the opportunity to change the flag through a public referendum, and 64 percent decided not to.
