Difference between revisions of "Joey Fillingane"

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Joey E. Fillingane (born January 10, 1973), is a lawyer from Sumrall, Mississippi, who has since 2008 represented District 41 in the Mississippi State Senate. A Republican, his district includes Covington, Forrest, Jefferson Davis, Lamar, and Smith counties in the southern portion of his state.^[1]

A native of Hattiesburg, which is located in both Forrest and Lamar counties, Fillingane graduated in 1994 from the  University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg and in 1998 from the Mississippi College School of Law in the capital city of Jackson. He has been engaged in the private practice of law since 1999 and served briefly as an assistant district attorney for Lamar County. He sings in the choir and teaches Sunday school at the Oral Baptist Church in Hattiesburg.^[2]

After two terms in the District 101 seat in the state House, Fillingane won the District 41 Senate seat in 2007 over the Democrat Gerald Buffington, 9,817 to 7,296. The seat was previously held by Democrat Billy V. Harvey. Fillingane's House seat was held for one term thereafter by his father, Harvey A. Fillingane.^[3] In 2015, Fillingane won his third term in the Senate by defeating the Democrat Reggie Blackledge, 10,745 votes (58.8 percent) to 7,529 (41.2 percent).^[4]

Fillingane is the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a member of these other committees: (1) Constitution, (2) Economic Development, (3) Elections, (4) Judiciary A, (5) Judiciary B, and (6) Judiciary B, (7) Public Health and Welfare, and (8) Universities and Colleges.^[2]

In 2009, Senator Fillingane voted to increase the cigarette tax and co-sponsored the measure to require photo identification to vote in Mississippi. In 2011, he sponsored restrictions on employers who hire illegal aliens. In 2012, he voted to establish charter schools in Mississippi, In 2013, he supported the bill which requires that prescriptions that lead to abortion be administered by physicians. In 2014, he voted to prohibit abortions in Mississippi past twenty weeks of gestation of the unborn. He also backed the proposal that abortion counseling not be mentioned by crisis pregnancy centers in the state, but that measure failed to gain Senate approval. In 2016, he voted to prohibit state funds to the large abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. He backed HB 1523 to guarantee within Mississippi protections for religious beliefs and matters of moral conscience in regard to Christians being mandated to service homosexual activities. This particular vote ignited the ire of Fillingane's homosexual younger brother, Jonathan H. Fillingane, a resident of San Diego, California, who called the legislation discriminatory and "backwards" and termed Republican Governor Phil Bryant "ignorant" for signing the bill into law.^[5]

In 2017,  Representative Fillingane co-sponsored the prohibition against local governments pursuing sanctuary city policies. In 2017, he backed the legislation which authorizes additional methods of execution in Mississippi and co-sponsored another measure to declare as a hate crime the targeting of law-enforcement officers by the lawless element. He voted to retain a private contractor to audit Medicaid.^[6]

See also

Other Mississippi Republican state senators (incomplete listing):

• Chris Caughman
• Dennis DeBar
• Sally Doty
• Angela Hill
• Billy Hudson
• Dean Kirby
• Philip Moran
• Joseph Seymour
• Michael Watson
• Charles Younger

References