state officers". In 1988, a group of state legislators made up of Oliver E. Diaz Jr., Isiah Fredericks, Stephen Hale, Ayres Haxton, Diane Peranich, John Reeves, Thomas Reynolds II, Ed Ryan, Margaret Tate, Dewayne Thomas, Rey Vecchio, and Bill Wheeler planned on bringing a test case to restore the referendum process. Their petition was for a referendum to hold a constitution convention to rewrite the state's constitution, but they failed to receive the required 7,500 signatures. The group submitted another petition with 8,100 signatures in 1990, to remove the constitution's ban on state lottery system and it was rejected by Secretary of State Dick Molpus. Attorney General Mike Moore filed a lawsuit against Molpus in Hinds County Circuit Court on March 28, to allow the referendum to appear on the ballot. Molpus supported the creation of a referendum system, but opposed the petition stating that the signature requirement was too low, as 7,500 signatures accounted for less than 1% of the voters, and instead supported having the signature requirement be 8% of registered voters. The circuit court ruled against Moore on June 29, and the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled unanimously to uphold its decision on April 3, 1991. State Senator Rick Lambert sponsored legislation supported by Molpus to create a referendum system that required signatures from equaled to 10% of the votes in the most recent gubernatorial election. Governor James P. Coleman called for the creation of a new constitution in 1957, but was unsuccessful despite calling a special legislative session. Former Governor Bill Waller, Governor William Allain, Secretary of State Molpus, Attorney General Edwin L. Pittman, Auditor Ray Mabus, and Treasurer Bill Cole called for a new constitution in the 1980s. In 1985, Allain formed a commission, with Coleman as its chair, to study the state's constriction. Allain appointed more than three hundred people to the commission with nine committees that focused on the executive branch, legislative branch, county government, economic development, municipal government, judicial, agriculture and forestry, higher education, and elementary and secondary education. Influences Following the end of the American Civil War in 1865, Mississippi elections were wrought with deadly violence and voter intimidation as white supremacist terrorist organizations such as the "Red Shirts" used armed force and violent terrorism in order to prevent black voters and their white allies opposed to the Democrats, from casting ballots for the Republicans. Many Republicans, black Mississippians, and their white