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Candidates running in Jackson’s general election June 3 have doled out nearly half a million dollars vying for public office, with state Sen. John Horhn far in the lead with nearly $200,000 in campaign expenditures since the beginning of the year.

The Democratic nominee for mayor reported raising $350,000 this year and holding less than $25,000 in cash-on-hand, according to campaign finance reports due Tuesday.

Note: View a full list of reported contributions and expenditures from mayoral and council candidates and links to individual reports at the bottom of this story.

Second in spending in the mayor’s race was independent candidate and businessman Rodney DePriest with just over $72,000 in expenditures. He raised nearly $90,000 and had about $17,000 in cash-on-hand this week.

Horhn and DePriest face two other independents and a Republican, who combined have raised less than $5,000. Independent candidates Zach Servis and Lillie Stewart-Robinson reported spending about $1,600 and $1,300, respectively, while Republican candidate Kenny Gee did not file a report on time, but told Mississippi Today he’s spent $700 out-of-pocket.

A sixth mayoral candidate, conservative talk radio host and local businessman Kim Wade, who ran as an independent, recently announced he was dropping out of the race, though the city clerk told Mississippi Today that Wade did not file termination paperwork so his name will appear as normal on the ballot. He endorsed DePriest and did not file a campaign finance report on the deadline.

Another high-dollar race is the election for the Ward 1 council seat between incumbent Councilman Ashby Foote, who is running as an independent for the first time after being elected as a Republican, Democratic nominee Jasmine Barnes and independent candidate Grace Greene. The three have collectively spent nearly $90,000.

Ward 7 Democratic candidate Kevin Parkinson far out-raised his independent opponent, Ron Aldridge, $45,000 compared to about $14,000, and Republican candidate Taylor Turcotte did not file a report, though the ad agency owner told Mississippi Today she has conducted her own advertising without donors and would file a report soon.

Two political action committees also filed reports outlining their participation in Jackson elections this year: MS PAC and Capitol Resources PAC, which contributed to incumbent Ward 4 Councilman Brian Grizzell ($1,000) and Horhn ($2,500), respectively.

Both Horhn and DePriest reported that some of their largest donations, ranging from $5,000 to $10,000, came from LLCs. While Mississippi law limits donations from corporations at $1,000, LLCs that are taxed as sole proprietorships are not included in that cap. There are no limits on contributions from individuals or political committees.

Horhn’s largest donations include $12,500 from former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale and $5,000 each from a law firm located in Tippah County, Hern Law Firm PLLC, two Madison-based professionals, insurance executive Brian Johnson and physician Billy Wayne Long, and Jackson architecture firm M3A Architecture PLLC.

DePriest’s largest donation was $10,000 from Clinton-based equipment rental company HIJACK LLC. He also received $5,000 donations from Barksdale and several Jackson-based professionals including real estate agents John Dinkins and Warren Speed, lawyer Cody Bailey, surgeon Matt Jones, physician James Clay Hayes, and an executive’s spouse Mollie Van Devender. He also received $6,000 from Raymond-based property management firm MDMW Investments and $5,000 from Texas resident Matt Wiggins.

As is common in local elections, several candidates did not submit reports by the deadline, including incumbent Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes, who told Mississippi Today he would file shortly, and his opponent Marques Jackson, who said he would file Thursday after checking his bank statements to ensure accurate reporting.

UPDATE: After the publication of this story, Stokes filed his report and the city clerk supplied it to Mississippi Today.

Editor’s Note: Jim Barksdale is a Mississippi Today donor and served as a founding member of the Mississippi Today board of directors. Donors do not in any way influence our newsroom’s editorial decisions. A list of Mississippi Today donors can be found here, and Mississippi Today’s board of directors can be found here.

Lawmakers on Thursday finally passed a $7.1 billion state budget to fund government agencies, but it wasn’t a master class in legislative statesmanship. 

Senators complained about their House counterparts, House members fought bitterly among themselves about budget details and lawmakers knowingly passed a bill that conflicts with federal Medicaid regulations. 

The public display of bickering took place during a special legislative session because lawmakers couldn’t agree on a budget during their regular session earlier this year, which was also mired in Republican infighting. Gov. Tate Reeves called them back to Jackson this week to pass a budget before the new fiscal year begins July 1. 

“Yes — this should have been completed in regular session,” Reeves wrote on social media. “But once clear that was no longer an option, the two sides worked diligently to find an agreement that met my specific criteria and passed it while minimizing costs of a Special Session.” 

The Senate wrapped up its work Thursday evening, after debating whether it should approve the state Department of Health’s budget, after lawmakers realized it contained a provision that could jeopardize $1.2 billion in federal Medicaid money for Mississippi. 

The 52-member chamber approved the budget and said they had a guarantee that Reeves would veto the provision out of the agency’s budget. 

Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann thanked the senators for their work, but he accused House leaders of working in bad faith by renegging on some prior budget agreements and by filing bills that were outside Reeves’ parameters for the special session. 

“There were three more significant bills that came from the House, which were not on the governor’s call and did not reflect the agreement of the House, the governor and the Senate,” Hosemann said.  

Senate Democrats opposed almost all of the budget bills in the special session because they complained they did not receive any advance drafts of the bills ahead of the session. 

Hosemann told Mississippi Today that he shared a budget summary with all senators on Sunday and encouraged them to ask questions about the budget to Senate leaders ahead of the special session. 

Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons, a Democrat from Greenville, attempted to replace agency funds frozen by the federal government with state funds, but Republican senators used procedural tactics to defeat the measures. 

The House finished its work on the budget in the early hours of Thursday morning after working all Wednesday night to approve, debate, and question the spending bills. 

House leaders struck a more conciliatory tone with Democratic members late Wednesday, after the two factions, earlier in the day, butted heads over the budget process and House Speaker Jason White threatening to remove a member from the chamber. 

Like their Senate colleagues, House Democrats grew frustrated that they were largely kept in the dark about the specifics of the budget and used a constitutional provision to force the reading aloud of lengthy budget bills. 

Irate at the filibuster tactic, White, a Republican from West, and his leadership team refused to answer any questions from Democrats if they continued to request that bills be read. 

White posted on social media that he shared a digital copy of a budget summary with House members on Tuesday and placed a physical copy of the summary on their desks on Wednesday. 

“When I was elected Speaker, I stated my goal was to bring more order and timeliness to the budget chaos while allowing all House members time to read and review the spending bills before they are asked to vote on them,” White said. “While we may not have perfected that process yet, as Speaker, I will maintain the goal of transparency and working in an orderly fashion.”

It appeared the House would continue to bicker over the budget after Republicans refused to allow members from both parties to ask questions in a House Appropriations Committee meeting, prompting further outrage from Democrats. 

“So, we’re not allowed to debate any piece of legislation in this process, is that correct?” Democratic Rep. John Hines of Greenville asked. 

“That’s correct,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Read, R-Gautier, responded. 

Read and other appropriations leaders cited the Democrats’ earlier filibuster tactics as the reason for not allowing them to ask questions. 

But some Republicans complained that the committee moved too fast for them to understand what was being proposed.

Rep. Becky Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, during the committee meeting, asked a committee leader to repeat his brief explanation of an amendment to the budget for the State Auditor’s Office. 

Rep. Sam Mims V, a Republican from McComb, declined to repeat his explanation of the amendment and continued to speed through the budget. 

The committee meeting showcased how, in recent years, rank-and-file lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, have complained they aren’t provided budget details in time to vet and debate the bills and how individual members have virtually no input in the budget process.

But longtime lawmakers said the special session this week was one of the worst budget-making cycles they’ve seen in roughly a decade. 

“I understand that we’re in the minority, and Republicans are in a supermajority, but there’s just no dialogue taking place,” Rep. Bryant Clark, a Democrat from Pickens, said. “This is the straw that broke the camel’s back.” 

Despite the chaos from the committee meeting, Democrats on the House floor stopped asking for bills to be read Wednesday night into Thursday morning, and Republicans chose to answer their questions. 

The most substantive debate on the House floor occurred over the Mississippi Development Authority’s budget, the agency responsible for economic development.

Rep. Robert Johnson III, the Democratic leader, offered four amendments to the agency’s budget, but the GOP majority voted against them mostly along partisan lines. 

Johnson, a Democrat from Natchez, tried to amend the legislation to reduce the amount of money counties are required to contribute to economic development projects in areas with extremely high poverty rates or failing school districts. 

Rep. Karl Oliver, a Republican from Winona who leads an appropriations committee, opposed the amendments because he said he did not want the new proposals to jeopardize earlier agreements he reached with Senate leaders. 

Most agencies in the proposed budget will see flat funding with no major increases or decreases. But many agencies will see a drop-off starting July of millions of dollars in “one-time” money, either federal pandemic funds that are drying up or state cash for projects that lawmakers are withholding this year. 

Under the budget agreement, lawmakers are planning to leave about $1 billion unencumbered. Some legislative leaders say this is prudent, given federal cuts and uncertainty in Washington. Others question whether state agencies will suffer, and contractors go unpaid on already started projects, from not having capital expense money allocated in the coming year.

Some highlights of the spending agreements House and Senate leaders have reached for the coming budget year:

Medicaid: $969.9 million, a 6.69% increase

K-12 education: $3.34 billion, a .4% decrease, primarily due to a decrease in enrollment

Universities: $838.4 million, a .4% decrease

Community colleges: $299.4 million, a .22% increase

Department of Corrections: $438.2 million, a 4.4% increase

TOTAL GENERAL FUND BUDGET: $7.135 billion, a 1.57% increase

Senate leaders on Thursday realized improper spending of $1.9 million in the Health Department’s budget bill sent over by the House could jeopardize $1.2 billion in federal Medicaid money for Mississippi.

But after it passed the measure Wednesday night — despite having been warned about the problem — the House went home. It declared its work for a special session to set a state budget done, and the Senate could either concur, or … lump it.

It left the Senate holding the bag.

The Senate was left with some onerous choices: Pass a bill with a known disastrous flaw and hope the governor can fix it with a line-item veto, stay in Jackson with senators twiddling their thumbs at taxpayer expense until the House is by law forced to return in three days, or kill the bill. This would leave the Health Department without a state budget as the new budget year looms on July 1, and the governor would have to force lawmakers back into yet another special session to fix it, at taxpayer cost.

After hours of debating what to do and talking with the governor’s office, the Senate opted for the former option — it sent the flawed bill to Reeves after securing his promise that he would veto the element of the legislation that jeopardized Medicaid funding.

“I think today, if we were in the grocery store business, we’d be hearing over the intercom system, ‘cleanup on aisle five, cleanup on aisle seven, cleanup on aisle 14.’ It’s been a mess. We’ve been doing a lot of cleanup today,” said Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, a Republican from Southhaven. “The governor has assured us he will line-item veto this bill … I’m going to trust him, he’s never lied to me.”

The move allowed senators to pass the state budget and conclude the special legislative session, but only after senators on Thursday plodded through the passage of numerous bills the House had sent over after it pulled an all-nighter and left town. They complained the House had sent numerous jacked-up bills over and then skedaddled, leaving little recourse to fix problems.

In this case, the problem was the House’s Health Department budget proposal, which allocated $1.9 million to Methodist Rehabilitation Center. This would make the center whole after paying more in provider taxes than it is receiving in directed payments from Medicaid.

But the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services deems this improper and says certain entities cannot be exempted in such a way. Provider taxes must be imposed uniformly to meet federal law and CMS regulatory standards. This means the tax must be applied across the board as it relates to similar providers of that type.

To meet these requirements, states attest they will not refund certain providers and, in essence, hold them harmless from the tax. Providing a special appropriation to reimburse one hospital for the tax they pay appears to violate these requirements, which could jeopardize the provider tax for all hospitals in Mississippi.

Provider taxes, which are helping prop up hospitals in Mississippi without Medicaid expansion, are under extreme scrutiny in Congress right now because of issues like this.

The bill originated in Republican Rep. Clay Deweese’s budget subcommittee. Deweese could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

House Public Health Chairman Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, said he found out about the issue after the bill passed out of committee in the House on Wednesday, before it came before the full House for a vote.

“We were so late in the game when we discovered it, it had already passed through appropriations,” Creekmore said. “It was in Clay’s committee, of course I had some influence over that, but it was Clay’s call to let it ride.”

Neither House Speaker Jason White nor Gov. Tate Reeves on Thursday immediately responded to requests for comment.

Senate leaders on Thursday said they were in communication with the governor’s office and he had assured them he would line-item veto the House’s SNAFU.

READ MORE: Legislative session crashes, budget dies over feuding between GOP House, Senate leaders: Legislative recap

In a social media post on Thursday afternoon, Reeves did not mention the health budget error, but he acknowledged he had meetings with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann throughout the day about “concerning” items in some bills. He urged senators to knowingly pass the bills with errors so he could issue a veto and end the special session on Thursday.

“We have identified a few minor items that are concerning in a few — of the over 100 — bills that must be passed,” Reeves said. “I believe it is important that the Senate pass these bills as is to get the Session completed … and I will use my constitutional authority to deal with the concerning items to protect Mississippi citizens, businesses, and taxpayers. The best thing for taxpayers is no doubt for the Special Session to be wrapped up today, and I appreciate everyone working with us to get that accomplished.”

Some senators lamented that setting a budget, controlling the state’s purse strings, is the domain of the Legislature, not the executive branch, and they bristled at the idea of Reeves having to fix problems through vetoes because the House left and refused further parlay.

The saga marked the second instance in recent months where a consequential error evaded the notice of lawmakers and threw a wrench in the legislative process.

During this year’s regular legislative session, the Senate accidentally passed a typo-riddled bill to eliminate the state income tax. Instead of a long, cautious phase-out of the income tax, the Senate accidentally approved a phase-out that would happen at a much faster clip, as the House had wanted. The House leadership realized the Senate’s error and ran with it. Reeves later signed the typo tax bill into law.

READ MORE: Gov. Reeves signs typo tax overhaul bill into law to phase out income tax, trim grocery tax and raise gasoline tax

More broadly, rank-and-file lawmakers in recent years, both Democrat and Republican, have complained they aren’t provided budget details or drafts of major bills in time to vet and debate them. Senators on Thursday said there were numerous other bills sent from the House with errors or changes that had not been agreed to by both chambers.

“We need to remember that this is the same legislative session where we inadvertently, or advertently, sent over legislation with a typo in it, figured out there was a typo in the legislation, and it was still sent to the governor and signed as is,” said Sen. Rod Hickman, a Democrat from Macon. “And now we’re saying we’re going to trust this same process to fix an error that we all know about, and we’re all on the record knowing about, that could jeopardize this entire (Medicaid) program.”

Jasmine Barnes has been following the headlines about dysfunction in Jackson’s City Hall since college, taking notes on government meeting minutes and financial records. 

The auditor at the Mississippi Department of Transportation had wanted to run for city council for years, but she started seriously considering it after purchasing her first family home in Northpointe, a northeast Jackson neighborhood, in 2019. 

It seemed to her like the city could use her accounting expertise, but she was uncertain if a young Black woman could be a viable candidate in Ward 1, an area long known as Jackson’s “white Republican bastion.”  

“I knew that if you’re gonna run against a white Republican in a ward like this, you’re gonna have to have your A-game,” she said. 

In an attempt to convince Barnes, her campaign manager and friend sent out a poll in late December, asking frequent voters in the ward if they were satisfied with the incumbent Ashby Foote, the founder of a financial services company who was elected to the council in 2014 as a Republican and has not faced a serious challenger since. 

Over half of respondents said they would consider somebody else, Barnes said. 

Now, as Ward 1 residents start voting for the June 3 general election, Barnes and fellow challenger, independent Grace Greene, are creating stiff competition for Foote who is also running as an independent. 

The hotly contested race reflects what political observers and ward residents have known for years now: Northeast Jackson is not quite the “white Republican bastion” it once was. 

In 2024, Ward 1 was recorded as having 1,000 more Black residents than white, a ratio of nearly 50% to 45%, after redistricting prompted by the 2020 census. That same year, the ward voted overwhelmingly for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump during the presidential election.

To be sure, Ward 1 is still the city’s whitest ward, home to influential Republican donors who live in some of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the state. And these voters carry greater weight in municipal races, where turnout is lower, a trend that historically favors the affluent and conservative. In this year’s Democratic primary, Ward 1 recorded the highest voter turnout in the city – 30% versus 23% citywide – leading some pundits to cry Republican interference.

Jackson’s demographics by U.S. Census block group

Hover over each dot to learn more.

Ward 1 is economically diverse, with some of Jackson’s biggest mansions as well as several apartment complexes. 

But many of the ward’s civically engaged residents, regardless of race, political party or the nexis of the two, are united by shared interests, such as preserving property values in an area that has not suffered as much as other parts of the city from population loss, crime or divestment but where there is financially more at stake. 

“I’m gonna go back to: We need help,” Madeline Cannon, a Ward 1 resident for nearly 60 years, said as she was leaving a candidate forum at the Briarwood Presbyterian Church last week. “Right now, I’m looking for a leader. I am a Democrat. I’ve been a Democrat all my life. But we’re just looking for a leader.” 

For residents, their relationships with their council person matters much more, Cannon said, than political party. 

Greene said she recently experienced this firsthand at a meet-and-greet at the Country Club of Jackson hosted by a friend who is involved with the neighborhood association. Greene was prepared for residents to ask her questions about Rodney DePriest, a white businessman who is running as an independent candidate for mayor. 

Instead, Greene said nearly everyone wanted to know if she knew Horhn, who had just secured the Democratic nomination. 

“Then some of the people who were coming up to me, introducing themselves to me were like, ‘We’ve already spoken to John Horhn about this, we’re doing this … or we worked with John for years about this or he’s been supportive about this in the Senate, whatever business or philanthropic thing these people had worked on, and it was very obvious they had good relationships with him and a respect for him,” she said, “and like, in their minds, it was almost settled, even though we had a general election.” 

When Jackson adopted a mayor-council form of government and created the city’s seven wards 40 years ago, Ward 1 voters elected a Democrat. But ever since 1993, when insurance agency president Derwood Boyles stepped down, Ward 1 has been represented by a Republican. 

Political scientist Steve Rozman, a retired Tougaloo College professor who lived in north Jackson for years, has a few possible explanations for why northeast Jackson became and has remained the whitest, wealthiest and most conservative part of the city.

Jackson was developed as a segregated city, and Rozman speculated the city’s desirable land was close to the Pearl River. Indeed, one of Jackson’s most premier neighborhoods, Eastover, was developed in 1949 by Leland Speed Sr., a former mayor of Jackson, on a horse farm on low-lying land near the river. 

“Whites set up on the land that they regarded as best in the area,” he said. “A lot of the Black neighborhoods historically have not been near the Pearl River. With the municipal water system, maybe it was advantageous under more primitive conditions to be near water.” 

As the 20th century wore on, factors like redlining, higher property values and significant opposition from racist white people would have kept Black Jacksonians from purchasing homes in the city’s northeast until the 1990s and 2000s, Rozman said. 

Today, northeast Jackson is home to large apartment complexes near County Line Road and I-55 as well as a growing Hispanic population, a diversity that Barnes said people don’t often acknowledge. Instead, folks still tend to associate northeast Jackson with its tennis courts, private schools and gated neighborhoods. 

“I don’t know if it’s like a perception thing,” she said. 

In reality, the ward’s demographics represent a marked shift from 1992, when Ward 1 was 92% white, according to the Northside Sun. 

Back then, Ward 1 was one of three majority white wards in the city, along with wards 4 and 6 in southwestern Jackson. But by 2000, before the city had even received the final Census tally, Ward 1’s councilperson, Ben Allen, was telling his constituents that would no longer be possible. 

“It would be very difficult for us to get three white wards, unless some fancy gerrymandering goes on,” Allen told the Northside Sun. 

Come 2002, redistricting dropped Ward 1’s white population to 76%, according to newspaper archives. The balance would shift again in 2010, to 55.9% white and 39.7% Black.

With the exception of a few closely contested special elections, the ward has remained a Republican stronghold this century, as Democrats often failed to field any candidates. But when they did, the race could be close: In 2014, Foote was elected by a little over 100 votes against construction attorney Dorsey Carson. It was technically a nonpartisan special election, and Carson, a Democrat, reportedly “strayed from discussing his political affiliation,” while Foote emphasized his conservative values. 

Now the sole Republican on the council, Foote said when it came time for him to participate in drawing new ward lines last year, he didn’t do so with his reelection chances in mind in part because the process did not affect his constituency’s racial balance. 

Of the couple thousand voters that Ward 1 had to give up, Foote said they were about 50-50 Black-white.

Instead, Foote said his goal was to keep the shape and cohesiveness of Ward 1 “in a way that made logical sense and not get gerrymandered into something that looks like a lizard or whatever.”

The distant cousin of author Shelby Foote moved to Jackson in 1980. In 1999, he bought a home with his wife on Calnita Place, close to Jackson Academy — a feature Foote said he didn’t appreciate at the time because his children attended other schools, but has since come to see as protecting his property values. 

Plus, the cul de sac was good for his dog, Skip, a Jack Russell mix. 

“Your dog’s life expectancy goes up,” Foote said jokingly.  

As she has canvassed the ward, Barnes said she’s loved walking through the neighborhoods close to Jackson Academy. 

“I was like, man, this is a really cool community, and I just kind of love that aspect of kids walking by themselves because they feel safe enough to do that,” she said. 

That’s not the only similarity between Democrat and Republican in the Ward 1 race. When Barnes reads news articles about the city, she often ends up finding herself asking the same questions as Foote about financial transparency and accountability. 

“Jackson is in a vulnerable position, but we’re not a vulnerable city,” she said. “We have a lot that we can do internally to build our credibility, build our leverage first, and then we can go out and seek other resources.” 

Foote noted that if he were to lose reelection, the lack of a Republican on Jackson’s city council would not impact the issues of the day. 

“It’s not really about Republican values or Democrat values,” he said. “It’s really about let’s get the roads fixed, let’s make sure we have running water, let’s make sure the garbage is picked up, and let’s make sure we do it in a cost efficient manner.”

At the same time, Foote has touted in campaign materials that he is endorsed by the Hinds County Republican Party. He said his first run for office was financed by a generous donation from Billy Mounger, an architect of the state’s GOP who was good friends with Foote’s father. 

Greene, an entrepreneur who has worked as a doula, an online reseller, and an economic developer in Peru, said she chose to run as an independent so that residents of Ward 1, regardless of their political affiliation, will know she supports them. 

Greene moved to the ward in 2020 with her family after looking at homes in Belhaven, Fondren and LOHO, the neighborhood just outside of Eastover. They landed on a home in Heatherwood in part because it had an attached garage, a feature the older homes in Fondren lack. 

Plus, she wanted to raise her kids, who are enrolled in Jackson Public Schools, in a diverse environment, a decision she has talked about with other white residents during the campaign. 

“There was somebody in the neighborhood who knew me from childhood and he made a comment about the changing demographics of the neighborhood. He said how initially he thought it was going to be a negative thing, but it just turned out to not be a negative thing. I just told him, I said, ‘Well that was a positive to us when we moved here,’” she said during an interview at her office in Highland Village. 

Greene also noted that everyone in the ward is impacted by the city’s actions, regardless of whether they live in an apartment or a gated community. For instance, she said she had two kids in diapers with no trash pick up for 18 days in 2023. 

“That was a leveler across the city, cause no matter where you lived, no one had trash pickup, and we all had to figure out what to do with this,” she said. “And the fact that there was truly, really no explanation to the citizens as to why this was happening? There was no response when we reached out about it.” 

Another leveler? When it’s the state versus Jackson, that includes the Republicans who live here, too. 

Foote shared a story about the controversy surrounding the Smith-Wills Stadium. At one point, frustrated by what he characterized as a lack of transparency from the city administration around a deal to forgive $500,000 in past-due rent from the stadium’s vendor, Foote said he asked Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office for an opinion on whether the vote the council took to do so was legal.

Even though Fitch is a fellow Republican, Foote said her office told him it would be a conflict of interest to opine on his question, since Fitch is representing the state in its fight to take the stadium. 

U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate will invite feedback from capital city residents on the latest rate hike JXN Water is proposing, the utility’s manager Ted Henifin confirmed on Wednesday during an event at the Mississippi Museum of Art.

Henifin said residents will have a chance to give testimony to Wingate during the next status conference scheduled for June 16 at 1 p.m. at the federal courthouse in downtown Jackson, and that JXN Water will put out further instructions on how to participate. This story will be updated with any additional details.

The utility announced in February that it would raise rates for the second time in as many years after realizing it would need more revenue for operations and debt payments than it previously estimated. Henifin said that would be the case even if JXN Water had a 100% collections rate, adding Wednesday that the rate is now around 70%.

While the 2022 federal consent decree employing Henifin requires him to present rate increase proposals to the Jackson City Council, he only needs Wingate’s approval to enact them. In the two and half years since Wingate appointed Henifin to lead the city’s water system out of disrepair, the judge has largely aligned with the manager’s outlook.

In 2023, for instance, the judge brushed off concerns a number of advocates and residents raised over a lack of transparency and local engagement from JXN Water. Wingate also sided with Henifin in a couple of disputes with federal agencies pver part of the consent decree: During status conferences last year, Henifin criticized the Environmental Protection Agency for slowing down funding dispersals, and also asked Wingate to mandate the release of SNAP participant data to implement a water bill discount.

The judge agreed with Henifin in both instances, although a 5th Circuit U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision last month halted the release of SNAP data. Henifin said Wednesday he hopes JXN Water can work with government agencies during future SNAP re-enrollment to advertise the discount.

JXN Water initially raised combined water and sewer rates in 2024 by 13% on average. The most recent proposal would raise rates by another 12% on average, the utility says, or about $9 a month.

Last year, all city council members abstained from voting on the rate hike, the Clarion Ledger reported. But on April 22, the council voted 6-0 in opposition of the latest increase, arguing that JXN Water should improve collection rates before asking for more from those already paying.

“We felt (last year) it wouldn’t make any difference because it had to go before the judge,” Council President Virgi Lindsay said during the April meeting. “But this time I feel like it is important that I be a part of sending a message to this judge that this is excessive and it’s too much, and it’s more than our citizens should be asked to bear.

“We have got to put some of the onus back on JXN Water.”

Angered at being shut out of the process and kept in the dark on particulars of a $7-billion state budget, House Democrats filibustered on Wednesday, using a constitutional provision to force the reading aloud of lengthy budget bills.

The House Republican leadership, forced to break out a computer speed reading system nicknamed the “Demon chipmunk,” was angered by the Democrats’ move.

Republican Speaker Jason White at one point threatened to have a Democratic member removed from the chamber, and refused to allow debate on the budget bills because they were being read aloud, which further infuriated Democrats.

“Lady, you are not recognized. Lady, we will maintain order or you will be removed from the room,” White told Democratic Rep. Zakiya Summers of Jackson during a heated exchange.

The Demon chipmunk droned on into Wednesday night, and House members prepared for a long night finishing up the passage of bills. The Senate adjourned until Thursday after passing all its budget bills on to the House without such hitches.

The tense legislative standoff unfolded after lawmakers failed to pass a state budget during the 2025 regular session earlier this year. Gov. Tate Reeves called them back into special session to set a budget and prevent a government shutdown once the new budget year begins July 1.

The Republican-controlled House and Senate during the regular session were mired in political infighting over tax cuts and increases and capital projects, including many pet projects lawmakers wanted for their districts.

Reeves called them back into special session only after Republican House and Senate leaders said they had an agreement on the more than 100 bills that make up the $7-billion state budget.

Democrats in both the House and Senate said the majority kept them in the dark as they haggled on a budget in recent weeks, and that legislative leaders would not even provide details on particulars of the budget bills, even as they prepared to begin voting on them.

In recent years, rank-and-file lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, have complained they aren’t provided budget details in time to vet and debate the bills.

That dispute spilled onto the House floor on Wednesday, as White’s refusal to allow debate prompted a series of rebukes from Summers. 

“Mr. Speaker, why are you treating the members like this?” Summers asked.

White responded that he was within his rights and that he would allow bills to either be read or debated, not both. 

Summers then approached White on the dais, where the two argued about legislative procedure. 

“You’re entitled to your opinion,” White told her. 

Summers later attempted to quote Bible scripture, and White threatened to remove her from the chamber if she spoke again about an unrelated topic. 

In committee, House members said the budget proposal did not provide adequate funding for health care, child care and other social services, especially as federal funding cuts loom. House Republicans said the proposed budget keeps funding for most agencies at the same level as the current budget year, with slight increases for health insurance and public pension costs.

On education, for instance, Republicans said the proposal, correcting for an overpayment last year, funds K-12 education at the levels lawmakers have promised, including full funding of a new per-student formula. 

Across the Capitol, the Senate approved its budget bills much quicker than the House, but faced similar complaints from some Democratic members.

The Senate Appropriations Committee used a procedure to pass all of its bills at once without any debate. But senators later spent a few hours discussing and voting on the bills on the floor. 

Senate Democrats did not delay the passage of the budget, but they did vote against some of the bills or voted present because of how fast the Republican leadership pushed the budget through the Capitol. 

Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, said several Democratic senators refused to vote in favor of the bills because they found it unreasonable that Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosmeann and Senate leaders would not distribute drafts of budget bills ahead of time. 

“Our votes were a statement — a principled stand for a better process,” Simmons said. “We remain committed to working in good faith with our colleagues across the aisle, but we will continue to speak out and act when the process fails the people we are elected to serve.”

Hosemann, the Senate’s presiding officer, said he sent all senators a budget summary on Sunday and encouraged them to ask Senate leaders questions about the proposed budget. 

“I think the budget is prudent and conservative,” Hosemann said. 

Most agencies in the proposed budget will see flat funding with no major increases or decreases. But many agencies will see a drop-off starting July of millions of dollars in “one-time” money, either federal pandemic funds that are drying up or state cash for projects that lawmakers are withholding this year. 

Under the budget agreement, lawmakers are planning to leave about $1 billion unencumbered. Some legislative leaders say this is prudent, given federal cuts and uncertainty in Washington. Others question whether state agencies will suffer, and contractors go unpaid on already started projects, from not having capital expense money allocated in the coming year.  

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, noted that universities have been working under a four-year plan for construction projects and maintenance and that no money is being allocated for that.

“So if an elevator goes out, or a roof needs repair, that’s got to come out of a university’s (operating) funding?” Blount said.    

Sen. Rita Potts Parks, R-Corinth, who presented the IHL funding bills, responded, “We could not come to agreement with the House (on capital projects spending), so here’s where we’re at.”

Capital expense money, or surplus revenues, has been the main delay in the two chambers agreeing to a final budget. Senate leaders only wanted to only use surplus cash to fund state projects, but the House wanted to use a large amount to fund local projects, in addition to state projects. Such local spending bills, which in recent years have been between $200 million to $400 million, are often called “Christmas tree” bills, because they contain some lawmakers’ pet projects.

The two chambers remained at loggerheads, so they decided to not fund state or local projects.  However, the Senate approved a measure on Wednesday that would allocate $5 million for a project at the Mississippi Children’s Museum and $13 million for improvements to LeFleur’s Bluff State Park, both in Jackson. The House has yet to consider the measure.

Some highlights of the spending agreements House and Senate leaders have reached for the coming budget year:

Medicaid: $969.9 million, a 6.69% increase

K-12 education: $3.34 billion, a .4% decrease, primarily due to a decrease in enrollment

Universities: $838.4 million, a .4% decrease

Community colleges: $299.4 million, a .22% increase

Department of Corrections: $438.2 million, a 4.4% increase

TOTAL GENERAL FUND BUDGET: $7.135 billion, a 1.57% increase

Advocates who oppose the death penalty and are organizing to halt further executions in the state stood outside the Mississippi Supreme Court Wednesday to send a message to the justices and the attorney general: Stand down. 

They said Mississippi is headed down a deadly road with the scheduled June 25 execution of 79-year-old Richard Jordan, the state’s oldest and longest-serving death row inmate. In the past several years, Attorney General Lynn Fitch has also asked the court to set execution dates for Willie Manning, Robert Simon and Charles Crawford. 

“These folks on death row are humans, and we can’t continue to be human if we continue to have a fixation on snuffing them out,” said the Rev. Jeff Hood, a spiritual adviser to death row inmates across the country who has also communicated with those in Mississippi’s death row.

The Arkansas resident has witnessed nine executions since 2022, which is when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that they could be allowed into the chamber if the inmate requested it. 

His work is based on meeting the death row inmates where they are and helping members of the public see that executions don’t have to be the answer. He said his faith is centered around the idea of helping “who is ostracized the most” as a way to serve God. 

Hood directly addressed justices of the Mississippi Supreme Court and elected officials like Fitch and Gov. Tate Reeves, saying they can support and approve executions, but they have never had to witness one or carry one out. 

He described the worst execution he witnessed, that of Kenneth Smith in Alabama, who struggled against the restraints and his veins looked like “a million ants under his skin.” That sentence was carried out using nitrogen gas – an execution method Mississippi has allowed if lethal injection is not available. 

For lethal injections, he saw how the drugs flowed in through a line into the person’s body and how their breathing began to labor. Jordan is a lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the drugs used for lethal injection. 

Mitzi Magleby, a Mississippi-based prison reform advocate, began to tear up when she shared how a looming execution weighs heavily on the death row inmates. It’s extremely depressing and it affects their mental health, but she said they try their best to keep their spirits up. 

She said to consider the person Jordan has become since entering prison nearly 50 years ago. He’s held a job for most of that time, he’s stayed out of trouble and has changed for the better. 

“We know his life is worth saving,” she said. 

Abraham Bonowitz, co-founder and executive director of Death Penalty Action, hosted a virtual version of the Wednesday press conference. He noted that Jordan is one of six people who have a scheduled execution in the month of June. 

Bonowitz talked about how Jordan is a Vietnam War veteran with three tours of duty, and with the recent passing of Memorial Day, he asked people to consider the effect of combat. 

Jordan returned from the war and didn’t receive the support and services, which Bonowitz said is an experience of other veterans, some of whom ended up in prison or worse. A 2015 Death Penalty Information Center report estimated that at least 300 veterans were on death row.   

Jordan asked the U.S. Supreme Court in March to hear his case and that petition for writ of certiorari is awaiting a decision. That petition centers around his access to a mental health expert separate from the prosecution to develop and present sentencing mitigation as an indigent defendant, which was established as a constitutional right through the U.S. Supreme Court’s Ake v. Oklahoma decision. 

The petition states he was not diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from his combat service in Vietnam, but instead incorrectly as having antisocial personality disorder. 

Hood said he’s built relationships not just with the death row inmates, but also their families and sometimes the family members of victims. He and Magleby said they consider the impact on families. 

“I think 50 years is torture for any family that’s been through this,” Hood said when asked about the family of Edwina Marter, the victim of Jordan’s crime. 

With death penalty cases, families are put through years worth of appeals and recurring news stories, which isn’t always the case for those sentenced to life without parole, Magley and Hood said. 

Death Penalty Action has started a petition to stop Jordan’s execution, and as of Wednesday it has received 840 signatures. It’s a similar petition that the organization uses to collect signatures for all pending executions, including other death row inmates whose executions have not yet been scheduled. 

Bonowitz said the plan is to deliver signatures of the petition to the governor and the organization is encouraging people to call his office asking for him to halt the execution. 

Members of churches and community groups can also take action by ringing bells at the time of the scheduled execution, which is through a project called For Whom the Bells Tolls. 

One of Mississippi’s longest-serving current state senators, who published a memoir about how education helped him move from picking cotton to teaching science to making laws at the state Capitol, is resigning.

Democratic Sen. David Jordan of Greenwood is a retired educator who has served in the state Senate since 1993. His district serves parts of Leflore, Panola and Tallahatchie counties.

“I hate to leave, but my wife of 71 years … she needs me home,” Jordan, 92, told his colleagues during a special legislative session Wednesday. He said he will resign by the end of June.

As a member of the Legislative Black Caucus, Jordan has pushed to protect voting rights and increase funding for Mississippi’s three historically Black universities. He was also instrumental in legislators’ decision in 2020 to remove a Confederate battle emblem that had been on the state flag since 1894.

Senators gave Jordan standing ovations Wednesday as they adopted a resolution honoring his service.

“Today, we gather to honor a man whose life and career have been a testament to unwavering dedication, profound wisdom and an unyielding commitment to justice,” said Senate Democratic Leader Derrick Simmons of Greenville.

Jordan’s parents were sharecroppers in Leflore County near Greenwood, and Mississippi was strictly segregated during his early years.

Simmons said Jordan has been an inspiration and “a pillar of strength during a time of profound change” in Mississippi and the United States.

Jordan helped secure $150,000 from the state for a 9-foot-tall bronze statue of Emmett Till that was unveiled in Greenwood in October 2022.

Till, 14, was Black and had traveled from his home in Chicago in August 1955 to spend time with relatives in the Mississippi Delta. Wheeler Parker, who was 16 at the time and had traveled with his cousin Till from Chicago, said he heard Till whistle at a white woman shopkeeper outside a country store in Money.

White men kidnapped Till from his great uncle’s rural home four nights later. They tortured and shot the teenager, then tossed his body into the Tallahatchie River, weighted down by a cotton gin fan.

The lynching became a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement after Till’s mother insisted on an open-casket funeral in Chicago and Jet magazine published a photo of his mutilated body.

In his 2014 memoir, “David L. Jordan: From the Mississippi Cotton Fields to the State Senate,”  Jordan recalled being a college freshman in 1955 and going to the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner to watch part of the trial of the two white men charged in the killing of Till. An all-white jury quickly acquitted J.W. Milam and his half-brother Roy Bryant, the husband of shopkeeper Carolyn Bryant.

“I could tell by the actions of the jury that they were not serious,” Jordan said in a 2017 video interview in the Florida State University archives.

Jordan has long been active in the Greenwood Voters League, which works to encourage Black participation in elections.

He became one of the first Black members of the Greenwood City Council when he was elected to that office in 1985. He served 36 years on the council before choosing not to seek reelection in 2021.

He was able to serve in two elected offices simultaneously because Mississippi law allowed one person to hold two offices in the same branch of government. The council seat and the Senate seat are both in the legislative branch.

Three weeks after a medical biller announced it would no longer be working with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi, moms in the state face out-of-pocket costs of over $100 per session for breastfeeding help – and are calling on lawmakers and the state’s largest private insurer to step up. 

Although Blue Cross has always restricted which lactation consultants it considers in-network – generally only covering services in hospitals provided directly after birth – moms with Blue Cross insurance previously had a workaround. A third party biller called The Lactation Network (TLN), which contracts with lactation consultants, covered the costs for women with the insurance. 

However, on April 30, TLN sent out a letter to consultants saying their organization was not being reimbursed by insurance companies and could not afford to continue fronting the money to cover moms with certain health insurance – including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. 

TLN did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Mississippi Today.

“You’re sitting there like: I’ve got to feed my baby, and something’s not right, and I can’t get help,” said Patience Pierini, a Gulfport mom of two. “… If, more than anything, people need nourishment, why is this not being covered?”

The recent development has prompted moms and lactation consultants to ask why Blue Cross never covered these services directly in the first place – which nurse practitioner and lactation consultant Laken Miller called “even worse” than dropping the coverage. 

“We didn’t know before that the Lactation Network was just bridging the gap, and understandably, it was a cost that they couldn’t continue to absorb,” said Miller, who is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) – the highest form of accreditation in lactation care – in Laurel.

The only in-network lactation consultants currently covered by Blue Cross in Mississippi are physicians, who do not generally operate outpatient clinics focused solely on breastfeeding care. But there’s nothing stopping the insurance company from working with non-MD lactation consultants, explained Marsha Walker, president of the National Lactation Consultant Alliance.

Blue Cross operates independently in each state, and the restrictions on lactation services vary significantly. In Tennessee, they are slightly more lax than Mississippi, with the insurance company working with certified lactation consultants who also have nursing degrees, two consultants told Mississippi Today. 

Blue Cross also did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today about why it does not cover non-physician lactation care in Mississippi or if it has plans to in the future. 

Insurance companies are required by federal law to cover breastfeeding support, counseling and equipment. But they’ve been allowed to meet this requirement while offering limited access to few providers, or only covering virtual consultations, explained Walker, who is also a registered nurse and IBCLC.

“The (Affordable Care Act) does say that breastfeeding counseling needs to be covered, but it doesn’t say how – and that’s the problem,” Walker said. “It’s general in scope, leaving it up to the insurers to figure out how to adhere to that.”

There were 97 IBCLCs in the state in 2023, but the vast majority of those work in hospitals and provide support to mothers during their stay following birth – which is typically long before mature milk comes in and various breastfeeding problems surface, Miller, the lactation consultant and nurse practitioner, explained. 

Miller said she only knows of four IBCLCs besides herself working outside of hospitals in the state. 

Last week, Miller and her colleagues sent a letter to state lawmakers asking that the Legislature ensure insurance companies are adequately fulfilling their obligation under the ACA to cover lactation care.

“We recognize that BCBS supports breastfeeding … However, the reality is that thousands of mothers in Mississippi will no longer have access to no-cost lactation services from private practice IBCLCs due to no available in-network or out-of-network providers,” the letter read.

Covering lactation services yields a huge return on investment for insurance companies, explained Walker, if it prevents even one infant’s stay in the neonatal intensive care unit for a condition like necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a severe gastrointestinal condition in premature infants that is made more likely by a diet of formula. 

“If you do not cover breastfeeding, it comes back to haunt you later on with the increased amount of money they’re going to spend on diseases and conditions that are preventable by breastfeeding,” Walker said.

One study estimated each baby who is breastfed for three months saves private insurance companies $750 compared to those who are never breastfed. 

For new moms, whether they have access to timely care will make or break their decision to breastfeed, explained Erin Mattingly, a Jackson-based IBCLC who also signed the legislative letter.

“When parents run into trouble in that 10-day to two-week period, if they don’t have access to help, the vast majority of them will quit breastfeeding,” Mattingly said. “Because it’s very difficult to push through a situation that feels dire when you are postpartum and recovering from a birth and learning a new baby.”