The Mississippi House has passed legislation to give the state’s officer training board the power to investigate law enforcement misconduct.
“We’re glad that it’s moving forward,” said Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell.
House Bill 691 now moves to the Senate, where the fate of its own version, SB 2286, is uncertain.
Tindell said he’s happy to see “continuing conversations on how to improve the board and its oversight.”
If the bill becomes law, he anticipates the Mississippi Board on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training would hire two or three investigators who would investigate matters and make recommendations.
“Ultimately,” he said, “it’s going to be up to the board.”
The bill comes in the wake of an investigation by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today and The New York Times into sheriffs and deputies across the state over allegations of sexual abuse, torture and corruption.
For the first time, deputies, sheriffs and state law enforcement would join police officers in the requirement to have up to 24 hours of continuing education training. Those who fail to train could lose their certifications.
Other changes would take place as well. Each year, the licensing board would have to report on its activities to the Legislature and the governor.
The board’s makeup would be changed to include the public safety commissioner and the director of the Mississippi Law Enforcement Officers’ Training Academy.
The bill calls for a nine-member board with the governor having four appoints – two police chiefs, a sheriff and a district attorney. Other members would be the presidents of the Constable Association, the Mississippi Campus Law Enforcement Association and the sheriff’s association (or designee).
A school voucher bill died Thursday – a deadline day – when House leaders opted not to bring it up for consideration.
House Bill 1449, which was first introduced as a far reaching, universal voucher bill allowing public funds to be spent on private schools, had been amended to create a committee to study the issue. But on Thursday the bill died when it was not brought up for consideration, killing not only universal vouchers, but the prospect of studying the use of vouchers.
“Even though it was just a study committee, the code section was still alive,” meaning spending tax dollars on private schools could have been reincorporated in the bill later in the process, said Rep. Daryl Porter, D-Summit.
“We wanted it to die – at least I did,” he said.
There might be bills alive where some form of voucher legislation could be enacted, but the most far reaching – the Mississippi Student Freedom Act — will no longer be alive during the process.
The bill was unique in the legislative process because it would not have placed any limitations on who could receive vouchers – referred to as a scholarships in the legislation. House Education Chair Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, said when he filed the legislation he just wanted to start a conversation on the contentious issue and indicated then the bill would not survive.
Even after the bill was changed to a study committee, Mississippi Today reported that House leaders were saying it would be killed in the House and not advanced to the Senate.
Thursday was the deadline for original floor action on bills in the chamber where they originated.
When Brandon Allred woke up in the hospital after suffering heat stroke and a series of seizures at work, all he could think about was how much it was going to cost.
It was a legitimate concern: Seven years later, he’s still paying off the medical debt.
“It’s not just anxiety,” the 35-year-old father said, “but also the conscious, embarrassing fact that I’m living in one of the richest countries in the world and I am a natural born citizen and I have to sit here day by day and think ‘I dream of healthcare.’ I dream of a day where I can get all my teeth fixed and not have to worry about that. Or maybe I can figure out what was going on with me with those seizures.”
Allred, a prep cook and the primary provider for his six young daughters, works full-time but falls into Mississippi’s coverage gap, where he says health care is but a “pipe dream” and a “whimsical idea.”
Brandon Allred, 35-year-old father of six, works full-time but falls into Mississippi’s coverage gap. He is still paying off medical debt from a hospital visit seven years ago. Photo: Courtesy of Brandon Allred
The coverage gap is made up of low-income workers who make more than 28% of the federal poverty level — the maximum income allowed to currently qualify for Medicaid in the state — but less than the 100% of the federal poverty level needed to get subsidies that would make private insurance plans affordable. And it’s surprisingly big, comprising roughly 74,000 Mississippians, according to a recent KFF study.
If Medicaid were expanded in Mississippi – one of only 10 states that has not done so – Allred and tens of thousands of other working Mississippians like him would be covered. Income-eligible adults without children would also be covered.
It’s estimated that 123,000 uninsured Mississippians would gain coverage under expansion – that includes the 74,000 people under the poverty level and an additional 49,000 uninsured adults whose income is between 100% and 138% of the FPL. That means that under expansion, a family of four could make up to $43,056 and qualify for Medicaid.
Critics of expansion argue that anyone, even if they’re not offered health insurance through their employer, can purchase it through the marketplace. Those plans exist, but are so expensive that for those in the coverage gap, they practically do not exist.
Other critics of expansion argue that because there is a chance that some privately-insured Mississippians would switch to Medicaid under expansion, that’s reason to keep the 123,000 uninsured Mississippians uninsured — and turn down at least $1 billion a year in federal money to cover most of the cost.
Private insurance plans, especially ones with low premiums, have high deductibles that can easily run $5,000 a year. A plan with a deductible on the higher end of that spectrum would equate to about $400 a month – on top of premiums and copays – that an individual would need to pay in order for insurance companies to start picking up the slack.
A majority of uninsured adults make slightly too much to qualify for Medicaid under the present eligibility criteria, and so have no path toward health care.
As it stands, Medicaid eligibility for adults in Mississippi is very limited.
Firstly, Medicaid in Mississippi doesn’t currently cover childless adults – period. And even adults who have children would need to be making less than 28% of the FPL to be eligible for Medicaid. For a family of two, such as a single mother and her child, 28% of the federal poverty level would be about $5,700 a year, or $475 a month.
That means that a working mother making incrementally more, such as 29% of the FPL, would not qualify for Medicaid but would have to use nearly her entire salary if she were to pay out of pocket for a private insurance plan through the marketplace. This is an obvious impossibility for someone paying for rent and food and other basic necessities.
Nobody knows that better than Lakeisha Preston, a single working mother who couldn’t afford the deductibles on her insurance plan, and therefore was stuck paying out of pocket for a bout of pneumonia that put her in the hospital in 2019.
Over four years later she’s still paying off that medical bill – which forced her to move back in with her parents and take out personal loans.
“I had health insurance, it’s just that the deductibles were so high,” Preston explained. “I don’t go to the doctor all the time, and of course you have to meet the deductible first before the insurance covers you. So I was in that predicament.”
Ironically, Preston works at a federal Medicaid call center. She helps thousands of people, with incomes similar to hers, enroll in Medicaid in states with Medicaid expansion. As a Mississippian, she cannot get that coverage.
Preston said: “As a call center worker, I expect more from the state of Mississippi.”
Mississippi lawmakers have debated the need for expansion — mostly over partisan political reasons — for over a decade, despite the state’s abysmal public health metrics and pleas from doctors, hospital leaders and other health providers.
On Thursday, the deadline day for bills to pass their original chambers, Care4Mississippi, a coalition of 36 organizations whose goal is health care for all Mississippians, held a press conference at the Capitol. Doctors and health officials shared experiences from the frontline and urged lawmakers to pass expansion bills.
“As a pediatrician, I have seen firsthand the impact of parents’ health on their children,” Dr. Anita Henderson said during the press conference. “Children need their parents, and their parents need to act healthy, mentally, physically, and able to engage with their children. I have seen patients whose parents worked, sometimes two jobs, and lacked health insurance … The men and women in Mississippi are living almost a decade less than the people of Hawaii.”
Dr. Anita Henderson speaks to the media about Medicaid expansion during a press conference at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, March 14, 2024. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
This is the first year since Medicaid expansion was offered to states under the Affordable Care Act in 2014 that Mississippi Republican legislative leadership is considering it seriously. A House Republican bill overwhelmingly passed the full House and now sits in the Senate – which just killed its own expansion bill, according to Medicaid Chair Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven.
But Allred said that after a decade, lawmakers aren’t moving fast enough or treating the situation for the health care crisis that it is.
“If there was a state that needed to have a red flag pinned on it to say ‘you have a medical emergency to take care of,’ it would be Mississippi,” he said. “And we need a rethinking of what health care is for our citizens in the state.”
Allred saw his father lose all his money as he battled cancer in the last six months of his life – despite the fact he’d worked hard at one company for 30 years. Growing up, his mother warned him not to let a medical debt go to collections, and said it always felt like “the medical industry was there to be feared.”
The father of six said he hopes that by the time his daughters are grown, they won’t have to choose between paying rent or paying a medical bill. Right now, his children are covered by Medicaid. But he worries if legislation isn’t passed, they’ll be in the same predicament he’s in once they turn 18.
“I don’t want them to follow in the same footsteps as me when they shouldn’t have to,” Allred reflected. “When they’re being told their whole life they’re being raised in the greatest country in the world but they’re also being told the greatest country in the world can not take care of you.”
The Republican-controlled Senate will delay voting on a bill to expand Medicaid coverage to the working poor this week while it works to build support among members for its own version of an expansion plan.
Senate Medicaid Committee Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, on Tuesday said that he will let a Senate bill to expand Medicaid die on Thursday’s deadline to pass all Senate bills in the full chamber.
Instead, Blackwell said he plans to use the House’s Medicaid expansion bill that overwhelmingly passed that chamber last month and amend it by inserting a Senate plan. That Senate plan has yet to be made public, and Senate leaders including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann have provided scant details. The Senate’s bill to-date was a “dummy bill” that contained only code sections required to expand Medicaid with no details or new policy.
“We’re going to do a strike-all amendment on the House plan,” Blackwell said.
Blackwell did not disclose any details of an expansion plan, but he’s previously said his proposal would contain a work requirement for those who enroll in the expanded coverage — something experts have told lawmakers would not receive needed federal approval.
The deadline for Blackwell to advance the House bill out of his committee is April 2.
The decision to delay a full vote on an expansion plan allows the 52-member Senate chamber to delay a potentially bitter debate over the proposal when numerous Capitol observers have speculated the GOP-controlled chamber may not have enough support to pass an expansion measure with a veto-proof majority.
Republican Gov. Tate Reeves remains steadfastly opposed to expansion and has privately told senators he will veto any expansion legislation that reaches his desk.
Numerous studies show expanding Medicaid would provide health care coverage to at least 200,000 people in one of the poorest, unhealthiest states and that it would help the states foundering hospitals, create jobs and help the overall state economy. The federal government would pay most of the cost of expanded coverage, and under the House proposal, hospitals would cover the state’s share beyond.
Physicians from around the state convened at the Capitol on Thursday afternoon to urge lawmakers to pass a measure to expand Medicaid coverage.
The Mississippi House has voted to remove the board that currently oversees the state government pension – composed primarily of governmental employees and retirees elected by their peers – and replace it with a board dominated by political appointees.
The legislation also would block the enactment of a 2% increase in the amount governmental bodies contribute toward the retirement system.
The governing board of the Public Employees Retirement System said the extra 2% levied on the paycheck of each employee — to be paid by the governmental entities – is needed to ensure the financial stability of the massive system. PERS provides retirement benefits for most state employees, local governmental employees, and public education employees and university and community college staff.
The legislation, House Bill 1590, is the latest salvo between legislators – particularly the House leadership – and PERS officials.
Various government leaders – including House Speaker Jason White — have complained of the planned increased cost to governments.
The board has announced plans to phase in a 5% increase in the employer contribution rate over a three-year period. There has also been talk of phasing in a 10% increase in the employer contribution rate.
The first 2% increase scheduled to be enacted July 1 would cost the state $60 million, not including the cost for local and county governments. Under current law, the board has the authority to act on its own to increase the employer contribution rate, though the Legislature could change the law as the House is attempting to do with the bill it passed Wednesday.
The bill approved by the House would block the scheduled 2% increase and leave it to the new board to decide the next step in ensuring the system’s financial sustainability, said Rep. Hank Zuber, R-Ocean Springs, chairman of the State Affairs Committee.
City and county officials have told legislators they cannot afford the increase.
PERS impacts well over 10% of the state’s population. It has a membership of more than 350,000 current and former government employees who are receiving or will receive benefits.
The contribution rate for governments on each employee paycheck is currently 17.4%.
Wednesday’s House bill that would halt the 2% increase passed 85-34 with most Democrats voting against it. Supporters pushed to fast-track the measure, getting “immediate release” of it to the Senate, which could vote to send it to the governor this week.
Ray Higgins, director of PERS, earlier told legislators that the retirement system currently has $30 billion in assets to pay retirees, but also has $20 billion in debt.
“When it comes down to the long-term sustainability of PERS, we should either fund it, change it, or eventually we may risk it,” Higgins said. “Revenue must increase, expenses and liabilities should decrease, or both.”
On Wednesday, Rep. Omeria Scott, D-Laurel, asked why the bill was trying to repeal a governing board consisting of people who were in the system.
Zuber said, “It is not any one reason. It is just so we can get a new set of eyes to review the whole picture.”
When asked about how the revenue that would be lost from not enacting the 2% increase would be replaced, Zuber said, “That is going to be left up to the new board, obviously.”
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, has said repeatedly that a priority for the current legislative session is preserving the financial integrity of the retirement system and ensuring the promises made to former and current state employees about benefits are fulfilled.
“I look forward to reading the House bill,” Hosemann said.
Before the session started, White told Higgins: “I think there has been a commitment at least around the coffee pot … that we (legislators) want to fix this long term … For myself, I would say we are not going to just increase it (the amount of government money put into the plan) 5%, 10% and hope it gets better.”
The PERS board has asked the Legislature for an infusion of cash for the system. There is a possibility that money could be pumped into the system later this session. While the board has not given the Legislature a specific amount, sources have said an additional $360 million is needed.
The new board would consist of 11 members: four appointed by the governor, three appointed by the lieutenant governor, as well as the state treasurer, the commissioner of revenue, a member elected by retirees and a member elected by current public employees.
The current PERS Board consists of a gubernatorial appointee, the treasurer, two retirees and two current state employees and a member each representing the county and municipalities, universities, public schools and community colleges. All of the current members with the exception of the treasurer and gubernatorial appointee are elected.
A shock bill to merge the Mississippi University for Women with another public institution was narrowly defeated in the Senate Wednesday by 27 lawmakers, including the Republican from Columbus.
The sponsor of Senate Bill 2715, Sen. Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, asked lawmakers to essentially defang his bill by stripping it of the merger idea and turning it into a request for the legislative watchdog to study the feasibility of MUW and the Mississippi School for Math and Science, a residential high school for academically inclined juniors and seniors.
“I’m just curious, not that it’s required, but has the administration of MUW and MSMS been informed of today’s proposal?” Sen. Angela Turner-Ford, D-West Point, asked.
“Of this proposal? Not this proposal, no,” DeBar replied.
When the bill went to a vote, lawmakers technically voted against the feasibility study, but any effort associated with the bill was killed. Since the vote was so close, the Senate could reconsider the bill before Thursday’s deadline.
DeBar said the amendment was a necessary change to his legislation because another bill that the Senate advanced yesterday, which would create a task force to study the “efficiency” of Mississippi’s eight public univerisites, was not guaranteed to pass.
In a statement, MUW’s president, Nora Miller, said she was looking forward to working to help MSMS secure funding to renovate its dormitories.
Senate Appropriations Committee member Dennis DeBar Jr., R-Leakesville, outlines proposed legislation to fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) and inject an additional $181.1 million into school budgets, during a meeting of the committee Monday, March 6, 2023, at the Mississippi Capitol in Jackson. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) Credit: AP
“We are relieved that we can return our focus to carrying out our mission, growing our enrollment and working with MSMS to get the funding to address their facility needs as part of our campus master plan,” Miller said.
DeBar’s original bill sought to relocate the MSMS to the campus of Mississippi State University. Since MSMS opened in 1988, it has been located on MUW’s campus.
But shortly before the committee deadline last week, DeBar dropped a surprise substitute to his bill, one that would have resulted in MUW becoming the first public university in Mississippi to merge with another institution. Mississippi State, and its powerful president, Mark Keenum, would take control.
MUW alumni wrote op-eds and campaigned against DeBar’s proposal. Miller, who used to be MUW’s chief financial officer and an auditor for the Institutions of Higher Learning, said the school is in solid financial health.
“We vehemently deny any rumor or speculation” the university is at risk of closure, Miller told Mississippi Today on Wednesday.
DeBar’s bill came on the heels of a failed effort by MUW to change its named to “Wynbridge State University of Mississippi.” Legislation to do that was proposed by Rep. Donnie Scoggin, R-Ellisville, the chair of the House Colleges and Universities Committee, but never made it to the floor.
That campaign, DeBar told Mississippi Today before Wednesday’s vote, seemed to decrease public confidence in MUW’s leadership, but it was not an impetus of his bill. He also said he had heard concerning stories about the state of the facilities at MSMS. The high school has requested $51 million to renovate the dorms.
On the floor, Sen. Chuck Younger, R-Columbus, commended DeBar for his dedication to improving education in Missisippi, calling DeBar’s efforts “beyond greatness.” DeBar is the chair of the Senate Education Committee.
“I appreciate your hard work, but bigger isn’t always better sometimes,” Younger said before voting against the bill. “I love Mississippi State, but I love the W, so it’s a hard situation for me to be in, but anyway my hat’s off to you.”
DeBar responded by acknowledging the tough situation Younger was in and added that he just wanted to help the bright students at MSMS. He noted he had no complaints with MUW’s administration but that it was still important to gather data on the situation.
“If the report comes back and says we need to upgrade the W, upgrade MSMS where they’re located, so be it, I’ll be the champion, obviously,” he said.
Yesterday, the Senate advanced a bill from Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, to create a task force to study “efficiency” in the state’s public university system. Boyd has said the goal of the task force is to help the universities weather the impending decline in the number of high school graduates going to college in Mississippi, and she has held a hearing on the topic.
Several lawmakers voiced concern the bill was a trap-door attempt to close universities, particularly the three smallest institutions by enrollment: MUW, Alcorn State University and Mississippi Valley State University.
Boyd denied this.
“We as a legislative body can stick our heads in the ground and continue to let these universities fail, or we can actually step up and do something about it,” she said. “If you want things to remain the same, if you want to see some of these universities with continuing declining populations, then you vote no on this bill. But if you want to see this system grow, if you want to see our universities prosper, then you vote yes on this bill.”
UPDATE 3/13/24: This story has been updated to clarify the Senate vote.
The senator behind a bill to merge Mississippi University for Women with another public institution said he fears the regional college would be at risk of shutting down if lawmakers don’t act this session — something the university has denied is the case.
Sen. Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, told Mississippi Today he feels confident he will bring Senate Bill 2715 to the floor before Thursday’s deadline, but he’s still tinkering with the legislation.
“Instead of potentially losing a whole campus, a whole university, let’s find a way to make sure something can stay there,” he said.
“My thought was, ‘okay, if we don’t do anything now, there’s a possibility that the W could be shut down completely,” DeBar said. “I’m not saying it will happen, but I’m sure it’ll be talked about with the feasibility study, the task force.”
Nora Roberts Miller, president of Mississippi University for Women, speaks to the media about the school’s opposition to a legislative bill suggesting the university be merged with Mississippi State University, on the steps of the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Nora Miller, the MUW president, has said the university is in solid financial health because it has no debt. The university is working to increase enrollment — an effort, Miller has said, that could be helped by a more gender-neutral name.
“We vehemently deny any rumor or speculation” the university is at risk of closure, Miller said.
To counteract misconceptions, MUW is circulating a one-pager with facts about its success, such as the campus enrolling the highest percent of Mississippians of any public university.
“The W has met IHL’s financial sustainability measures, has no debt, and is recognized as a best value,” she added in a statement. “We produce more degrees per 100 undergraduate FTEs than any other institution in the IHL system. Sounds like a good investment to me.”
If SB 2715 passes, MUW would become the first public university in Mississippi to merge, according to its governing board, the Institutions of Higher Learning. The college would be taken over in 2025 by Mississippi State University, a behemoth institution less than 25 miles away that, unlike MUW, has not struggled with enrollment.
A spokesperson for Gov. Tate Reeves’ office did not respond to questions. But the bill faces an uphill battle in the Mississippi House because the entire local delegation is against it, multiple lawmakers told Mississippi Today.
“In my four years, I have not seen anything like that before where a bill has been dropped concerning an area and the local delegation is completely caught off guard,” said Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus.
That was the case with another Senate bill that passed earlier this week and would remove the city of Jackson’s long-term control over its water and sewer systems.
“The people that these bills impact the most were not a part of the remedy that is being presented,” said Sen. Angela Turner-Ford, D-West Point. “I think people should expect that — even if you’re told no. There should be some sort of dialogue.”
DeBar said his bill was not intended to be a potshot at MUW. Originally, it was meant to address concerns about the Mississippi School for Math and Science, a residential high school for academically inclined students that has been housed on MUW’s campus since it opened in 1988 and enrolls around 240 juniors and seniors.
MSMS is dealing with deteriorating infrastructure and has requested about $90 million to renovate the dorms andother facilities. A grant agreement between MUW and the Mississippi Department of Education stipulates that MSMS is to “provide the major repair and renovation funds” for its facilities, not MUW. But the university also plays a role in “routine” maintenance of MSMS.
Still, the large request, DeBar said, made it seem like no one had planned for MSMS’s future.
“The feedback I got on the original bill was not, you know, ‘hey the students have better academic opportunities at the W,’” he said “It was, ‘hey we’re concerned that if you move MSMS the W will shut down,’ basically, and for me that wasn’t a good reason to keep these 11th and 12th graders where they’re at and hold them back potentially.”
And, Miller appeared to lose confidence after the failed name change earlier this year, though that wasn’t the impetus of the bill, he said. So DeBar thought moving MSMS to Mississippi State — a idea from its former director — would put the high school in better hands, those of the university’s powerful president, Mark Keenum.
“I just wonder if we’re gonna put $51 million into new dorms or rehabbing dorms, why not put it into a facility or a place where the kids can achieve success,” DeBar said.
DeBar said he hadn’t spoken to Mississippi State or MUW before dropping the bill. The lieutenant governor gave Keenum a call before the committee.
“I never talked to Dr. Keenum or Nora before the bill came up in committee,” DeBar said, though he’s spoken with Miller since then, as well as the mayor of Columbus.
In response to questions about if Keenum opposed the bill, Sid Salter, Mississippi State’s vice president for strategic communications, said the president had “no additional comment” beyond a statement issued last week.
“We appreciate the institutional confidence in MSU that this proposal implies, but I emphatically reiterate that MSU did not seek and has not requested this action from legislative Leaders,” Keenum said last week. “We have the utmost respect for MUW’s unique legacy, as well as the important role it continues to play in higher education in our state.”
No lawmaker who spoke to Mississippi Today has seen reports to indicate the proposed merger would result in savings to the state of Mississippi. DeBar said a fiscal note has not been requested on the bill because he doesn’t think it will cost money.
“The campus would remain open,” Turner-Ford said. “The needs that it has would continue, staff would be required. There’s still building maintenance issues that would remain, so I don’t see how it would be cost-savings unless … some of the more top-tier administrators would no longer be in place.”
At a photo op on the Capitol steps yesterday to commemorate the 140th anniversary of MUW’s charter, Miller said the bill would not save money because MUW and MSU already explored consolidating software systems in 2009 and decided not to because of the cost.
“We really do change lives not only of our students but of their families going forward,” Miller said. “It’s a special place. Big box schools aren’t for everyone.”
UPDATE 3/13/24: This story has been updated to clarify an MUW statement regarding enrollment numbers.
Dorie Ladner, “a giant in the civil rights movement,” has died. She was 81.
“My beloved sister, Dorie Ladner, died peacefully on Monday, March 11, 2024,” her sister, Joyce, posted on Facebook. “She will always be my big sister who fought tenaciously for the underdog and the dispossessed. She left a profound legacy of service.”
She said the date for a memorial service will be announced at a later date.
Civil rights veteran Flonzie Brown-Wright was featured with Dorie Ladner in the 2002 documentary, “Standing on My Sisters’ Shoulders,” which premiered at the Kennedy Center.
“You do this because you have been called to do this,” she said. “Dorie was truly true to her calling. I absolutely loved her spirit and her willingness to share and take on an issue she felt was right.”
Cynthia Goodloe Palmer, executive director of the Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, said Wednesday, “We are deeply saddened by the passing of our fellow freedom fighter. Her legacy will live on in infamy, and we will do all we can to continue the fight for freedom.”
Stuart Rockoff, executive director of the Mississippi Humanities Council, described Dorie Ladner as “a giant in the civil rights movement” and “a vital part of the grassroots effort to change Mississippi and America.”
The sisters grew up in Palmer’s Crossing, where they were mentored by NAACP leaders Clyde Kennard and Vernon Dahmer Sr.
The Ladner sisters attended Jackson State University and became active in the movement. University officials expelled the sisters when they protested the 1961 arrests of nine Tougaloo College students, who had dared to integrate the all-white library in downtown Jackson.
Afterward, the sisters attended Tougaloo College and joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Dorie Ladner even escorted Fannie Lou Hamer to register to vote.
The sisters worked with NAACP leader Medgar Evers. And when he was assassinated in 1963, they marched in protest toward the Capitol.
“I started singing, ‘Oh Freedom,’” Dorie Ladner recalled. “They brought the dogs out. I got in a truck to keep from being bitten.”
Starting with the 1963 March on Washington. Dorie Ladner participated in every major civil rights march through 1968.
In late 1964, she and other SNCC leaders worked in the movement in Natchez. A bomb destroyed the building next to where they were staying.
She told author John Dittmer that Natchez Police Chief J.T. Robinson informed her, “The bomb was meant for you. I’m surprised you haven’t been killed already.”
After her movement work, she earned her master’s in social work, counseling emergency room patients, visiting schools and working with the Rape Crisis Center.
She received the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy Humanitarian Award. In 2014, she received an honorary doctorate from Tougaloo.
She continued to fight for causes she believed in. “We will not be moved,” she said in a 2017 interview. “Oh, hell, no. Too many lives have been lost and battles fought.”
On May 4, the Humanities Council plans to honor the Ladner sisters with a new Freedom Trail Marker in Palmer’s Crossing.
The Senate on Tuesday passed bipartisan legislation that would allow no-excuse early voting in Mississippi for 15 days before Election Day, including the Saturday before.
Eight Republicans in the 52-member, GOP majority chamber voted against Senate Bill 2580. The measure now heads to the House.
Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England, a Republican from Vancleave, said during debate over the bill that the measure adds security to elections because it requires voters to cast a ballot in person at their county circuit clerk’s office.
“I think this is a bill that number one our constituents are asking for,” England, a Republican from Vancleave, said. “This issue has been discussed with constituents and we’re one of only three states that don’t do this currently. This is, in my opinion, … a step in the right direction.”
Mississippi allows in-person absentee voting before elections, but voters must meet criteria, such as being over 65 or disabled, or provide one of a handful of valid “excuses,” such as being out of town for work on election day and follow a long list of rules and procedures.
The new measure would allow “no-excuse” voting for all registered voters and eliminate in-person absentee voting. England also said the new system would replace in-person absentee voting, but that mail-in absentee ballots would still be accepted if a registered voter meets the legal criteria.
If the new proposal becomes law, voters using the new early voting system would have to cast their ballots at their circuit clerk’s office and provide a valid photo ID as they currently have to do on Election Day. If passed, the new system would go into effect in 2026.
Republican Sen. Jeff Tate of Meridian is a former elections commissioner, and he voted against the bill because he believed it was a “step in the wrong direction.”
“We don’t need election season,” Tate said. “We need to appreciate the institution of Election Day voting.”
The bill now heads to the House for consideration where its fate remains uncertain. House Speaker Jason White would likely refer the legislation to the House Elections Committee for, which is led by Rep. Noah Sanford, a Republican from Collins.
England said he has communicated with Sanford about the legislation, and he doesn’t believe the House would reject the proposal.
