If the Mississippi Legislature didn’t write ambiguous laws, what would attorneys and judges do for a living?

For one thing, legal minds might not have to ponder questions like, “What is a year?”

A majority of the Mississippi Supreme Court waded into the issue this past week in a dispute over the timing of a special election for the U.S. Senate.

Gov. Haley Barbour prevailed in his argument. This time.

The court’s 7-2 majority said the state law by which Barbour called a Nov. 4 special election “is silent ... with respect to the specific issue.”

The specific issue, the court said, was what’s to be done when a senator resigns in a year when there is a general election but the election has already taken place.

The Supreme Court did not find that Barbour was right or wrong; neither did it say Attorney General Jim Hood was right or wrong.

The court decided the Legislature had left the law’s interpretation to the governor.

The court said legislators could rewrite the law to make it less ambiguous.

The Legislature is unlikely to get involved. Legislators write most laws to apply to future events. They rarely try to make laws retrospective — to make past events legal.

Elections issues deal with a fundamental right of citizenship.

Some lawmakers called for change when Democrat Ronnie Musgrove and Republican Mike Parker tied for the electoral vote in the 1999 governor’s race and the election was kicked to the House in January 2000. Musgrove, who had won the popular vote, was elected.

Legislators did nothing to restructure the electoral process after that.

Attorneys for Barbour and Hood wrangled over what a “year” meant. Hood said a year is a calendar year. Barbour said it is a 365-day period that doesn’t have to start on Jan. 1.

Mississippi law says that after receiving official notice of a U.S. Senate vacancy, the governor has 10 days to announce an election to fill the seat. That election must be held within 90 days of the announcement, unless the vacancy occurs during a year when “there shall be held a general state or congressional election.”