The Mississippi Legislature reconvened this week in Jackson and has quite an extensive agenda of items expected to come up in the 2018 session.

From Medicaid and infrastructure to the budget and funding public education, there is a lot on the table to be discussed and hopefully passed by legislators.

Our locally elected legislators know this session will be an active one.

Rep. Oscar Denton believes funding Medicaid is a priority for our state. “We cut Medicaid’s budget last year, and if we don’t do something to increase it, it’s going to affect a lot of people in this state.”

State Sen. Briggs Hopson thinks the state may move toward putting 100 percent of Medicaid recipients under managed care “because it will be more cost effective to make sure people take care of themselves rather than wait until there is a catastrophic illness that will cost more to treat.”

He also believes the state budget is a priority “because I believe we need to be good stewards of the tax money we get from the citizens and make sure we allocate that money where it will help the state most.”

Both Hopson and Denton expect a state lottery bill to come up during the session. Denton is in favor of passing such a measure, while Hopson is non-committal at this point on whether he would vote in favor of a state lottery.

Denton will also introduce legislation to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag.

Kevin Ford, who was elected in a special election to fill the unexpired seat of Alex Monsour, will be spending the first few days getting acclimated to the state house but has plans to introduce some bills this session.

The session has all the makings of being a busy one. We just hope it will be a productive one.