Delbert Hosemann, a Republican candidate for the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office, was campaigning in Laurel this week for what he hopes will be his new job.

If the name sounds familiar to people in Jones County, it is probably because Hosemann ran unsuccessfully for the state’s Fourth Congressional District’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998. He is predicting a better result this time around, though.

“We have more donations than all the Democrat and Republican candidates (for Secretary of State) put together,” Hosemann said during a meeting with the Laurel Leader-Call editorial board. “I’ve been pretty humbled by the amount of people who remember me from eight years ago.”

Hosemann said he strongly supports U.S. District Judge Allen Pepper’s recent decision requiring Mississippi to have a voter identification program.

“This is probably the biggest change in voting since the 1965 civil rights decision if this stands,” Hosemann said. According to Hosemann, the security of the election process could be called into question without requiring a photo identification.

The challenge will be getting photographic identification to the people who do not have a driver’s license or student identification, according to Hosemann.

“My proposal is going to be to go to every county with a photographic device and go to the senior citizens homes and go to the churches and go everywhere that anybody who may not have a driver’s license may be,” Hosemann said. “It’s going to be costly, but I think it’s worth it.”

Hosemann also has some goals besides a voter identification program. The first involves Mississippi’s 16th Section lands.

“We received $51 million in revenue from (16th Section lands) in 2005. Nobody has a list of what those (lands are leased for). It’s not public. Within the first 90 days I’m going to publish that list.”

He also wants to publish a list for what was paid for timber sales on 16th Section lands. Around $17 million of the $51 million in revenue was from timber sales, according to Hosemann.

Additionally, Hosemann wants to form a committee to rewrite the state’s business code. “We can have the best business code in the country, and there’s no reason we can’t all focus on it,” Hosemann said.

He hopes to create a business court system for the state as well. “You can’t get a trial date for three or four years now,” Hosemann said. “Business doesn’t operate like that anymore.”

Hosemann said not only will a business court move business cases along faster but will also free up circuit courts for tort and criminal cases.