A day after fighting over the state education budget, the Mississippi House replayed arguments Thursday – and passed a bill loaded with contradictory messages.

The session included a fit of pique with a north Mississippi lawmaker offering and then withdrawing a measure to shut down all Vicksburg casinos starting July 2, apparently in response to a delaying maneuver by Rep. George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg.

Rep. Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, withdrew his proposal before the House was forced to vote on it and after his colleagues reminded him hundreds of people would be thrown out of work and a significant chunk of state tax revenues would disappear.

Flaggs had been demanding to have bills read aloud in full to protest action on an education funding bill, which pushed the session late into the night. The House was in session again this morning and Flaggs was not available.

Holland proposed to withdraw operating licenses from the Vicksburg casinos effective July 2. &#8220It is just about as germane to the process as what we have been through for the past two hours, so, I’m just going to ask you to support my amendment,” he said.

House Gaming Committee Chairman Bobby Moak, D-Bogue Chitto, urged House members to take a deep breath.

&#8220Let’s don’t let our emotions here tonight overrun the thing we’re really here debating, and that’s how to deal with the state budget,” Moak said. Four casinos in Vicksburg provide about $16 million in direct gaming taxes to the state each year. Holland then withdrew the amendment.

Before going home for the night, members approved a plan they had rejected Wednesday. It allows budget negotiators to consider phasing in full funding of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program over the next four years.

But the bill still also stakes out an opposing position the House had approved Wednesday, calling for full funding of MAEP when the new budget year starts July 1.

&#8220I can take a Number 2 pencil without an eraser and balance this budget and fund education,” Flaggs said in support of full funding in the coming year. When other House members seemed to favor a phase-in, Flaggs exercised the right all lawmakers have to require full readings.

MAEP is a school funding formula designed to ensure that every district receives enough money to meet midlevel accreditation standards. It was put into state law in 1997 and phased in over several years.

The formula has been fully funded only once, during the state election year of 2003. The state is now about $188 million behind on the $2 billion-plus MAEP formula.

House Education Committee Chairman Cecil Brown, D-Jackson, is pushing the plan to phase in full funding of MAEP over the next four years. Brown says he is trying to take a &#8220practical” approach to solve the recurring problem of having a formula in law but putting too little money into it.

He said a phase-in would at least put state leaders on record to fulfill the promises of the formula.

House Appropriations Chairman Johnny Stringer, D-Montrose, said if lawmakers demand full funding of MAEP in the coming year, other state services will be hit hard.

With a phase-in of education funding, &#8220no one’s going to get hurt,” Stringer said.

Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, sharply criticized those pushing the phase-in.

&#8220This is the worst setback for public education in my entire legislative career,” said Bryan, who’s been in the Senate 22 years and was one of the chief proponents for MAEP when it became law.

&#8220How does it possibly improve anything to remove a statute that says public education will be funded and replace it with a statute that says public education will be funded later?” Bryan said.

The state association of school superintendents has voted unanimously to oppose a phase-in.

The 2006 legislative session is set to end in early April, and the House and Senate will spend much of their energy trying to finish a budget before then.

But that work could slow to a snail’s pace. Flaggs – apparently upset about a potential phase-in rather than immediate funding of MAEP – said he plans to have every bill read aloud as it comes up for a House vote. The state constitution allows any member to demand that a bill be read aloud, but the process is time consuming and it already has caused other lawmakers’ tempers to flare.

Flaggs started having bills read aloud Thursday afternoon, stretching an already long work day into the night and keeping House members at the Capitol at a time many of them had hoped to be at a party a few blocks away.

House Speaker Billy McCoy, D-Rienzi, squelched other members’ attempts to block Flaggs from having the bills read.

&#8220It’s an exercise in tedium we must endure,” McCoy said.