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Mississippi's House of Representatives kicked off its 2000 legislative session Tuesday by making Democrat Ronnie Musgrove the Magnolia State's new governor.

Mississippi's lieutenant governor since 1996, Musgrove, 43, garnered 86 out of a potential 122 House ballots. His Republican competitor Mike Parker -- whom Musgrove bested by a mere 8,343 popular votes in the November general election -- got 36 House votes. Mississippi's House has 86 Democrats, 33 Republicans and three Independents.

The Musgrove/Parker contest was the longest gubernatorial race in state history and had to be decided by the House because Mississippi's constitution requires the House to intervene when a gubernatorial candidate fails to earn at least 50 percent of the popular vote. Musgrove had 49.6 percent of the popular vote, compared with Parker's 48.5 percent.

The constitutional provision was inserted in 1890 in a post-Civil War effort to try to keep African-Americans out of Mississippi's governor's mansion.

The governor's election wouldn't have gone to the House had Parker conceded to Musgrove, but he refused, earning criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike. The move blocked Musgrove, who as lieutenant governor headed the legislative budget committee, from putting together a transition team.

Musgrove's elevation "probably won't produce any enormous changes, because one the things that's distinctive about Musgrove is that he's more conservative than some of the recent Democrats who have been governor," says Larry Logue, a political science professor at Mississippi College, in Clinton, Miss.

Musgrove is "a big supporter of education -- he pushed it when he was in the (state) Senate, and he pushed it when he was lieutenant governor," Logue says.

Musgrove succeeds two-term Republican Gov. Kirk Fordice, the Magnolia State's first GOP chief executive since 1874. His elevation is viewed as another major Southern victory for the Democrats, who wrested the Alabama and South Carolina governor's mansions from the GOP in 1998.

While campaigning against Parker, a former congressman, Musgrove proposed improving school discipline by limiting class size for students in kindergarten to third grade to 15 pupils. He has also said that pay for Mississippi teachers should be raised to meet the Southeastern average, an issue that triggered a major ruckus with Fordice.

Musgrove has said that although Mississippi has a budget surplus, he'd favor revamping the state's tax code before investigating whether tax cuts are feasible.

Mississippi's House of Representatives kicked off its 2000 legislative session Tuesday by making Democrat Ronnie Musgrove the Magnolia State's new governor.

Born in northern Mississippi in 1956, Musgrove didn't have a silver-spoon existence while growing up in a rural area near Batesville. He worked his way through the University of Mississippi Law School before winning a state senate seat in 1987. Musgrove is married to a school teacher and has two children.

"He has empathy for people less fortunate in the state -- he will be a builder of bridges between races in the state," says William Winter, a former Mississippi Democratic governor from 1980 to 1984.

Winter expects Musgrove to raise Mississippi's "economic level" while providing "well-directed and well-organized government."

Musgrove's Democratic lieutenant governor, Amy Tuck, won her independent race in November, making her only the second woman in the 20th century to have won a statewide campaign in Mississippi.

Tuck is very familiar with Musgrove and his style, having been the Mississippi Senate's secretary -- that body's top administrative post -- for three years while Musgrove was lieutenant governor.

Tuck was elected to the Senate at the age of 26 in 1993.

In other business before Mississippi's legislature Tuesday, Democratic challenger Travis Little defeated Democrat Tommy Gollott for the position of Senate vice president.