THE THREE BRANCHES OF STATE GOVERNMENT 477 four years, without limits on the right of succession. The office of lieutenant governor was reestablished and charged with presiding over the upper house of the bicameral legislature. Separation of powers continued in the new constitution, and a state-supported system of public education was created. Under the Constitution of 1890 The legislature’s call for a constitutional convention resulted in Mississippi’s fourth constitution in 1890. It retained the separation of powers and the bicameral legislature. The power of the executive branch was weakened, and the governor was prohibited from reelection. Calls for a fifth constitution began shortly after the adoption of the Constitution of 1890. In 1934, Governor Martin S. Conner highlighted the need for a new constitution “to repair the state’s national image and to give Mississippi a chance to attract more industry.” In 1957, an extraordinary session of the legislature was called by Governor J.P. Coleman to consider his call for a convention to draft a new constitution. In 1985, a 350-member constitutional commission was established by executive order of Governor Bill Allain, and it did, in fact, produce a new constitutional draft. Mississippi operates under the constitution of 1890, but at least 117 provisions of the original have been added, amended, repealed, or declared unconstitutional and unenforceable by the courts of the United States. Today’s Mississippi Constitution is far removed from the original adopted in 1890. In 1944, a constitutional amendment created the Board of Trustees for the State’s Institutions of Higher Learning. The amendment effectively removed the governor’s authority to hire and fire the heads of the state’s eight public universities and assigned to the board all responsibilities for the policy and financial oversight of the schools. In the early 1980s, Bill Allain filed a suit seeking separation of the functions of the executive and legislative branches of state government, especially in the budgetary process. Prior to that suit, members of the Mississippi legislature served on boards, commissions, and agencies in the executive branch. The Mississippi Supreme Court agreed with Allain’s assertion that the Constitution of 1890 required a separation of powers, and held that legislative officials could not serve in the executive branch. The ruling strengthened the executive branch, particularly the office of governor. The Administrative Reorganization Act of 1984 carried out the Supreme Court’s mandated separation of the executive and legislative branches.