OurTupelo

Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s reluctance to investigate or prosecute campaign finance violations last year prompted other state leaders to call for reform and more enforcement.

Now Fitch is calling for — wait for it — campaign finance reform and more enforcement. This appears to be at least in part political damage control, trying to get out front in an area where she’s drawn slings and arrows.

Fitch, whose own campaign is largely funded by out-of-state special interests, in a brief media tour with conservative media outlets said she wants to put a halt to “out of state influencers” with deep pockets meddling in Mississippi elections.

But oddly, in announcing this crusade, Fitch offered an open call to out-of-state influencers to dump unlimited amounts of money into Mississippi elections.

Fitch, in her press release announcing her call for reform, said — contrary to more than 30 years of legal interpretation and practice — there is no limit to the amount of money out-of-state corporations can donate to a Mississippi candidate. She even put it in italics, for emphasis on her attempted nullification of one of the few stringent campaign donation rules Mississippi has.

This goes against at least 30 years of legal interpretation and practice. Mississippi candidates and campaigns, bless their hearts, have operated under the assumption that out-of-state corporations face the same $1,000 a year donation limit as in-state corporations.

In its written campaign finance guide for Mississippi candidates, the secretary of state’s office for decades has advised candidates: “Corporations, incorporated companies, and incorporated associations are prohibited from contributing more than $1,000 per calendar year, directly or indirectly, to a political party, candidate for office or political committee.” The current 2024 guide for candidates includes this same language that does not make a distinction between out-of-state and in-state corporations.

Fitch’s office did not answer questions about her new interpretation that such limits don’t apply to out-of-state corporations. It would appear that only months ago — on Aug. 4, 2023 — Fitch herself appeared to believe that limit applied. She announced, after months of inaction on major campaign finance complaints, that her office was investigating whether a PAC run by lieutenant governor candidate Chris McDaniel’s campaign treasurer tried “exceeding corporate contribution limits” by shuffling out-of-state money through PACs.

But now, Fitch contends out-of-state corporations do not face the state’s $1,000 limit law. This is likely based on the wording of that law, which says, “It shall be unlawful for any corporation … organized under the laws of this state” to exceed $1,000 a year in donations to a candidate. But that law also says this applies to any corporation “doing business in this state.” This language, similar to corporate law and rules elsewhere in Mississippi regulations and those of other states, has been generously interpreted. Doing business in this state can mean many things, including making a donation to a candidate, and hence out-of-state corporations have been at least in practice limited to $1,000 a year.

READ MORE: Chris McDaniel, Lynn Fitch and the case of the missing $15,000

It would appear Fitch — the only statewide official with clear authority to investigate and prosecute campaign finance violations — is going through some legal contortions in an effort to avoid having to do so. Many political observers believe this is because she has higher political ambition, perhaps for the governor’s office, and doesn’t want to draw ire from the more conservative wing of the GOP by clamping down on campaign finances.

In a radio interview last week, Fitch said, “We’re allowing out-of-state influencers to determine and to pick who the candidates should be in our state … (and) We’ve got to have enforcement.” She said there were instances last election that were “clearly unethical and clearly immoral … but they weren’t criminal under our laws.” She said she wants lawmakers to fix that. Others have said Fitch’s office has campaign enforcement power that she refuses to exercise.

Fitch’s call for reform and limiting out-of-state money in Mississippi rings a little hollow. A majority of Fitch’s own campaign money, according to her 2023 finance reports, came from out-of-state businesses: about $727,000 of $1.27 million.

Fitch also appears to get lots of money from out-of-state interests to whom her office awards contracts. Records show that Fitch signed at least nine AG office contracts last year with out-of-state law firms (law firms and other forms of limited liability companies do not face a $1,000 limit) that had donated more than $300,000 to her campaign.

Secretary of State Michael Watson declined comment on Fitch’s call for reform and statement that the $1,000 limit doesn’t apply to out-of-state corporations. Watson has called for major reforms and last summer appeared to take a dig at Fitch when he said he wasn’t seeking more power for his office.

“But when people do not do their jobs,” he said, “I will stand in the gap for Mississippians.”

READ MORE: Chris McDaniel, Lynn Fitch show that Mississippi might as well not have campaign finance laws

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who filed several campaign finance complaints with the AG’s office against his primary opponent McDaniel last year, has also called for reform and more enforcement. On primary election night when his victory was evident, Hosemann said campaign finance reform would be a top Senate priority this session.

Calls for Mississippi campaign finance reform are fairly common, particularly during statewide election years. But actual reform is rare. In 2017, after a more than a year-long investigative series by the Clarion Ledger, lawmakers did pass a law ending the practice of Mississippi politicians spending campaign donations for personal expenses — a practice dubbed “legalized bribery.”

But otherwise, Mississippi’s weak campaign finance laws for decades have only been tweaked and changed piecemeal. The laws are now a confusing, often conflicting, patchwork. For instance, the new law on spending for personal expenses conflicts with some existing law that was left intact.

And enforcement has been nearly nonexistent.

It’s unclear whether sweeping reform such as that being proposed by Watson will be addressed this legislative session. Generally lawmakers are loath to police their own campaigns or give more enforcement power to any other office holder. Some have said the appointed Ethics Commission should be given more authority and enforcement power, as many other states have non-elected entities policing campaign finances.

Fitch’s Democratic challenger in last year’s election, attorney Greta Kemp Martin, campaigned unsuccessfully on reform and enforcement of campaign finance laws.

“It’s amusing to see Attorney General Fitch’s newfound interest in election laws,” Martin said last week, “especially considering there was no apparent concern leading up to Election Day. Enhance penalties, reform and clarity are needed in Mississippi campaign finance for sure. But AG Fitch has not shown that enforcement of even the minimal laws currently in place has even been a priority for her office … Further, this sudden interest has me curious as to whether AG Fitch has taken a look at her own financial reports, especially when it involves out-of-state donations.”

Fitch did not provide great detail on her “reform package” in her press release or subsequent interviews. Her office did not answer questions on what specific bills might be forthcoming or which lawmakers would be filing them.

But Fitch did say she wants more transparency and truthfulness in campaign finance reporting, suggesting “adding a penalty of perjury to all campaign finance reports, which can carry up to 10 years in prison.” She also called for improving the civil penalties for violations and “giving the secretary of state authority to do his job” of making public campaign finance reports easy to read and search.

Despite most everyone else already thinking it’s the law for decades, Fitch wants to prohibit “all corporate contributions over $1,000 — not just those made by Mississippi corporations, which is current law.” (Those italics are by her.)

In her press release, Fitch said: “We have devised a package of reforms that will tighten the laws to keep outside special interests from meddling in our elections, to give Mississippi voters the tools to know who is trying to influence their vote, and to hold bad actors accountable.”

The post Attorney General Lynn Fitch wants campaign finance reform and more enforcement — wait, what? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi State University, home to the largest undergraduate student body in the state, made strides earlier this month towards its goal of being carbon neutral by 2042.

The school announced on Feb. 6 that it was installing on its campus 3,420 solar panels — which it expects to start generating power by this summer — claiming it as the largest such project among Southeastern Conference colleges. The project also includes upgrading 54,000 lighting fixtures with LED bulbs. Officials say the additions are a major step in reaching the 2042 goal, which the school set for itself in its 2012 climate action plan.

“We think renewable energy is one of our primary methods of reducing our footprint,” Saunders Ramsey, executive director of MSU’s Campus Services, told Mississippi Today. “We’re doing all we can to be good stewards.”

MSU isn’t the only Mississippi college with carbon neutrality or sustainability targets: The University of Southern Mississippi’s climate action plan aims for the school to be carbon neutral by 2050. The University of Mississippi has taken similar measures, including tracking its greenhouse gas emissions. In 2013, Alcorn State University launched a sustainability program looking to expand recycling and use more efficient vehicles.

Ramsey said the recent improvements cost the school $7.6 million altogether — about $5 million for the LED lights and $2.5 million for the solar panels — minus a $265,000 rebate it received from Tennessee Valley Authority. But the added efficiencies in energy usage will eventually save money for the university.

“We’re thinking within seven or eight years that you’re starting to look at a profitable venture,” Ramsey said. “The savings that you’ve realized from an alternative energy source and a reduction of energy usage actually becomes a net positive and you’ve paid your debt off.”

He estimated that the school will save $700,000 a year with LED light fixtures and $200,000 a year with the new solar array, which are being installed and maintained by consultant Entegrity.

Les Potts, MSU’s interim vice president for Finance and Administration and CFO, said the college’s other energy efficiency projects over the years have included a 500-car garage powered entirely by solar panels, as well as a thermal storage system that makes ice at night, when energy demand is low, and then melts it during the day for cooling needs.

“The largest impact obviously is when you add this first solar array,” Potts described about the new project. “If you think about the energy costs of buildings, (the solar panels will power) only about 2%, but it is significant with an institution our size.”

MSU saw it’s largest ever freshman class the beginning of this academic year with 3,700 new students. The school’s total enrollment of 22,657 is 12% higher than it was a decade ago.

When asked if the university is on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2042, Potts said he’s cautiously optimistic.

“I think that it is plausible and realistic, but not without challenges,” he said. “I think the biggest obstacle is, when you’re looking at the last decade and a half, we’ve grown here over two million square feet in heated and cooled building space, and that is necessary for the institution to accommodate growth.”

He added that the value of adding the new solar array goes beyond the environmental and financial benefits for the school.

“One of the positives of the solar array to me is the opportunities for our students to research and learn about: how do these things operate, what is the land like that they’re on, what other uses are there, what are landowners needing from us, as our outreach is advising landowners across the state of Mississippi, ” Potts said. “How can we help them? I think it just helps us to be doing it ourselves, and it’s an ancillary benefit to the carbon reduction and responsible stewardship.”

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Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Jackson State University’s Director of Bands, Dr. Roderick Little, to talk about The Sonic Boom of the South’s incredible Super Bowl LVIII halftime performance with Usher.

Little tells the incredible story of how a text led to the Sonic Boom of the South landing on the biggest stage in the world. It’s one of my favorite interviews. Little also wanted to thank Jackson State President Dr. Marcus L. Thompson for his support. 

The post Mississippi Stories: Jackson State University’s Dr. Roderick Little appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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Higher education officials — from the presidents of each public university to the commissioner of their central governing board — all agree: Mississippi’s faculty and staff are woefully underpaid. 

“If there’s ever a group in the United State of America that deserves our applause, deserves our thanks and appreciation,” it is the faculty, University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce said during an impassioned speech at the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees meeting Thursday.

“The essence of our education is the faculty,” said Tom Duff, the billionaire owner of Southern Tire Mart who chairs IHL’s finance committee. “So they need to be fairly compensated.” 

Pay raises have “been an ongoing priority for the board,” Commissioner Alfred Rankins told Mississippi Today.

But despite several years of state-funded pay raises, Mississippi’s faculty and staff continue to make far less than those in other Southern states. An analysis of federal data shows just three institutions — University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University and University of Southern Mississippi — pay their faculty above the average salary in neighboring states of $73,163. 

Faculty also make far less than they used to. Since 2016, the average faculty member in Mississippi has actually seen a nearly $11,000 pay cut due to inflation, according to an analysis of federal data. In fall 2022, the average faculty salary in Mississippi was $68,676. 

Why is that? 

Some reasons that IHL has offered at the Capitol and during its board meeting include: General inflationary pressures on the universities, a rise in health insurance premiums and financial problems plaguing retirement for public employees.

Though it has long been IHL’s goal to bring faculty salaries up to the Southern Regional Education Board average, that has been somewhat out of reach as Rankins told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday that other states are raising pay faster than Mississippi. And, coupled with a falling number of high school graduates that means less tuition, Rankins said the universities are staring down a functional budget cut this year if lawmakers provide IHL with level funding.  

Still, the agency does not want to ask for more money than lawmakers will appropriate, and it would be “a large number” to raise faculty salaries to the SREB average in one year, Rankins told the committee.

IHL is asking lawmakers to appropriate $53 million for salaries, enough for a 6.4% incremental raise for faculty, according to IHL’s 2025 legislative funding priorities. 

“Our board structures their request based on revenue collection and what we reasonably think the Legislature will appropriate to our universities given their other priorities,” Rankins said. 

To many faculty at the University of Southern Mississippi, where more than 100 people attended a rally for fair pay Thursday, those other priorities may be the cause of the wage stagnation. A flier distributed at the rally said USM pays faculty $10,000 less than peer institutions. 

In one example, Ole Miss has its eyes this year on a $165 million residence hall, and a $49 million parking garage. Jackson State University and Mississippi Valley State University are also requesting funding for residence halls. 

“The bottom line is that public higher education in Mississippi and everywhere needs robust and sustainable public funding that prioritizes the core academic mission,” Irene Mulvey, the president of the American Association of University Professors, said at the USM rally to cheers of “hear, hear.” 

“That means compensation for the faculty,” she added. “The people, without whom, you would not have a university.” 

At the IHL meeting, Rankins, Boyce and Duff all said that investing in dormitories and athletic facilities supports pay raises for faculty, not just because the universities rely on tuition.

“There’s no contradiction because you’re talking about a separate pool of money,” Rankins said. “Salaries come from the general E-and-G appropriations. Capital funds are typically bonded. It’s different funding.” 

Boyce said Ole Miss, where the enrollment cliff is not an issue, needs to fund updated facilities to accommodate its growing enrollment because tuition now makes up about 75% of the university budget. 

It’s IHL’s purview, Boyce added, to come up with a legislative request for faculty raises. Unlike with capital projects, Ole Miss does not enter the session with a specific dollar amount for faculty raises that it will ask lawmakers to fund. The university sets the actual percentage raise that faculty receive after the session. 

“We use almost every penny of what they give us for faculty and staff raises, and that’s why it’s so important to us to gain their support,” Boyce said of lawmakers. “That’s not to say we wouldn’t obviously reach into tuition dollars. It all flows together and works together. It is not a case of one versus another. It’s a case of what the demand is.” 

In an emailed statement after the IHL meeting, Boyce said Ole Miss has raised nominal employee salaries 11% over the past three years and hopes to provide another raise this summer to “attract and retain high-quality employees.”

“We have been fortunate to experience several years of growth as an institution, in part because we are focused on continuing to improve the student experience and quality of life for our employees,” he said. “We also have to grow enrollment to ensure academic quality and offer new programs, which requires us to build facilities to house and educate more students.”

Duff said IHL’s request is made in collaboration with the university presidents like Boyce. In years past, IHL has told the university presidents they need to give faculty a larger raise, though Duff didn’t specify which year that happened. 

“It is our constant endeavor to make sure they’re paid appropriately,” Duff said of faculty. “To think that we don’t see those salaries is incorrect.” 

Though Duff said that he can’t say the money the state of Mississippi is spending on athletic buildings could not be better spent on faculty salaries, it is a fact that students want better facilities. 

“It’s a great question,” Duff said. “But fortunately or unfortunately, schools cater to the demands of the students and to the demands of the economic reality we’re in.”

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Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said Thursday the Senate will have a bill by Monday’s deadline to expand Mississippi Medicaid to cover the working poor.

Hosemann said the bill will likely contain a work requirement and cover roughly 230,000 adults who make too much to currently be eligible for Medicaid, but too little to afford private insurance. As it stands, these adults — if they’re not pregnant or disabled — have no access to preventative care, leading to Mississippi’s abysmal public health metrics, such as the lowest life expectancy in the country.

This marks the first time, after a decade of partisan debate, that a Mississippi Republican leader has taken an affirmative step toward expansion.

Hosemann, who is still loathe to use the words “Medicaid expansion,” said he hopes lawmakers pass such a plan into law.

“I have tried to tell everybody this: Stop saying Medicaid expansion,” Hosemann said. “What we are looking at is providing health insurance for working people. How you couch that is up to you but the interest I have had for a while is: We need to have a better labor force participation rate. That right now is the lowest in the country. But to get to that point … I’ve got to have healthy people.”

Hosemann said the Senate proposal will likely increase Medicaid eligibility to people making up to 138% of the poverty level. That would be an annual household income up to about $43,000 for a family of four.

New House Speaker Jason White — who replaced longtime Speaker Philip Gunn this year — has been outspoken about the state’s health care crisis, calling on Republican lawmakers to consider expansion. Gunn had blocked Medicaid expansion legislation, and even thwarted serious debate or consideration.

Many Capitol observers expected White and the GOP House leadership to be the first out of the gates this session with expansion legislation. But even after House Democrats unveiled an expansion bill the House leadership still hasn’t brought out a version or provided details of what it might propose.

Governor Tate Reeves — vehemently opposed to expansion, calling it “welfare” — has the power to veto a bill if it passes the Legislature. If he vetoed an expansion bill, two-thirds of lawmakers would have to vote to override the veto for it to become law.

Last session, the Legislature passed a measure to provide 12 months of postpartum coverage for mothers. This session, legislatives leaders are focusing on addressing the coverage gap, in which hundreds of thousands of adults go without health care. That is, until unaddressed health issues render them disabled, qualifying them for Medicaid, or land them in an emergency room — the most expensive place to receive health care.

“We’re looking at the part of people who aren’t already covered that would fit into this workforce – maybe a working mom with a child or two children, how do we get her continued health care after the postpartum period,” Hosemann said. “One of the most economic ways is to have the federal government pay for it, so that’s of real interest to me. So if I can get the federal government to pay for some or all of this, I’m going to do that.”

Hosemann said he would like to see a work requirement in any expansion bill, and he would also like to see a requirement that recipients make a contribution toward their health insurance.

“When I get a plan that covers working people, I would like for them to make some contribution to their health care,” he said. “I think that’s important, I think that’s self dignity, you become part of the system when you’re paying some part of it.”

Hosemann, who has been working on addressing the coverage gap for several years now, said he was convinced when Louisiana expanded Medicaid in 2016. 

“When Louisiana did this several years ago, there was a great concern that people would move from the private market to the public,” he explained. “Well it didn’t happen. It’s maybe, like, 1% difference.”

Mississippi is one of 10 states not to expand Medicaid to cover the working poor. Proponents of expansion say the state is leaving more than $1 billion a year in federal money and thousands of new jobs on the table by refusing expansion.

Regardless of whether a House or Senate version of a bill is ultimately successful, Hosemann said he hopes that headway is made on increasing health care coverage of working Mississippians.

“I’ll be a proponent of a plan like this. I’m very hopeful that the Senate will pass one. I’m very hopeful that the House will address one, as well … We’ve been working on it a long time. Because of my current maturity, I don’t much care who gets the credit. My goal is to have working people have health care. If somebody else gets the credit – the governor or members of the House – I don’t really care much about that.”

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Where there is smoke…

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Not a single Mississippi team is ranked in the Division I college baseball preseason polls, which is unusual. Not one.

Not Mississippi State, the 2021 national champion and a program that has been to the College World Series 12 times and qualified for 39 NCAA Tournaments.

Not Ole Miss, the 2022 national champion, which has won eight NCAA Regional championships since 2005.

Not Southern Miss, which has won three NCAA Regionals since 2009, has hosted back-to-back Super Regionals and averaged 44 victories a season over the last seven full seasons.

There are significant reasons why the national pollsters give the Mississippi schools so little respect:

• State won only nine of 30 SEC games last season mostly because pitches didn’t go where the Bulldogs aimed. Last season, the Bulldogs walked a whopping 321 batters in 453 innings. That right there will get you beat. Little wonder the Bulldogs’ earned run average was 7.01. No matter how well you can hit — and State can swing it — you will not succeed giving up seven earned runs a game.
• Ole Miss followed its storybook national championship season of 2022 by winning only six SEC games last year and suffering a losing record (25-29) overall. It was almost as if the Rebels had made a deal with the devil during that storybook championship run, because just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong in ’23.
• Southern Miss won 46 games last year and came up one victory short of the CWS, but must replace six position starters, one of the best starting pitchers in its history Tanner Hall and an All America closer in Justin Storm. And, oh yeah, Christian Ostrander replaces the venerable Scott Berry as the Golden Eagles’ head coach.

Clearly, all three Mississippi schools enter the 2024 season, which begins Friday, with much to prove. Nevertheless, history tells us one or more will surprise the national pundits and be in the championship hunt at season’s end.

All three open Friday:

• Ole Miss plays four-game seres at Honolulu beginning Friday night against a good Hawaii team that finished 18-12 in the baseball-strong Big West Conference in 2023. This is no cupcake opener. Hawaii swept Tulane and won two of three games against Big Ten teams at Minneapolis last spring. Hawaii also won 19 of 26 home games, including its last nine.
• Mississippi State will play host to Air Force, another quality mid-level program that is picked to finish third in the Big West Conference. Air Force won the Big West two years ago and was the runner-up last year.
• Southern Miss will open against Marist (NY) College of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC). The Marist Red Foxes have made seven NCAA Tournament appearances, none since 2017. Marist was 16-36 a year ago.

To solve last season’s pitching problems, Mississippi State head coach Chris Lemonis brought in Justin Parker, who has been successful handling pitchers at both Indiana and South Carolina. The educated guess here is that Parker’s mantra has been simple and to the point: Throw strikes. Lemonis believes the talent is there. If the Bulldogs can successfully mix and match pitchers and not give so many free passes, this is a lineup that can swing it. Outfielder Dakota Jordan is rated the No. 27 prospect in this summer’s Major League Draft by mlb.com.

At Ole Miss, Mike Bianco has taken a page from Lane Kiffin’s football book and added significantly to his roster from the transfer portal. The Rebels’ 2024 success – or lack of same – will depend greatly on the contributions of these transfers: first baseman Jackson Ross (Florida Atlantic), shortstop Luke Hill (Arizona State), third baseman Andrew Fisher (Duke), outfielder Treyson Hughes (Mercer) and pitchers Kyler Carmack (Arkansas State) and Liam Doyle (Coastal Carolina). That’s a lot of new faces – and there are more – but when you were 6-24 and dead last in your conference, new faces are a good thing.

Yes, Southern Miss lost two All Americans on the mound, but Ostrander believes his 2024 pitching staff will be deeper and possibly even more talented. The starting lineup likely will include only two players (right fielder Carson Paetow and designated hitter Slade Wilkes) at their 2023 positions, but speedy and athletic Nick Monstere moves from second base to centerfield. Ostrander, too, added several notable portal transfers, including shortstop Ozzie Pratt (BYU), second baseman Nolan Tucker (Valparaiso) and outfielder Billy Butler (Rhode Island). Look out for talented freshman shortstop Seth Smith, son of former Major Leaguer Jason Smith, to make an impact somewhere before his rookie season is over.

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Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield are examining the power of sheriffs’ offices in Mississippi as part of The New York Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship.

Mississippi lawmakers have introduced a bill that would increase oversight of law enforcement officers and give state authorities more power to punish misconduct after a series of scandals was uncovered across the state last year.

The law would give the state agency that certifies law enforcement officers the ability to investigate claims of police misconduct.

If lawmakers pass the bill, the Mississippi Board on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training will gain the power to respond directly to complaints or allegations, putting Mississippi on par with states that regulate officers more aggressively.

If the board ruled that conduct violated professional standards, it could revoke an officer’s certification, potentially ending that officer’s career in Mississippi.

Under current law, the board can accept complaints but cannot investigate them. The agency largely has focused on running criminal background checks on new officers applying for certification, ensuring they have met basic training requirements and tracking where officers work.

All Mississippi law enforcement officers are currently required to become certified except sheriffs, who are elected officials and are exempt from certification requirements.

The proposed law comes after The New York Times and Mississippi Today published a series of articles last year revealing allegations of sexual misconduct against two sheriffs and exposing a decades-long reign of terror by a group of Rankin County deputies who called themselves the Goon Squad.

Also last year, five Rankin County Sheriff’s Department deputies and a local police officer pleaded guilty to federal charges for breaking into the home of two Black men, torturing them, threatening to rape them and then shooting one of them in the mouth.

For years the state ignored or was unaware of allegations of jailhouse rape, brutal beatings and corrupt acts by sheriffs and their deputies.

The revelations have led to increasing calls from the public for accountability.

In Rankin County, just outside Mississippi’s capital, Jackson, billboards have sprung up encouraging residents to report police brutality and hate crimes to the F.B.I. The local chapter of the NAACP has repeatedly demanded Sheriff Bryan Bailey’s resignation.

“They’re tasked with protecting and serving, but they’re not protecting and serving. They’re harassing, they’re terrorizing, they’re torturing,” said Cardell Wright, president of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. “We have to have oversight if we’re going to abate any of these issues that are happening in our communities.”

State Representative Fred Shanks, a Rankin County Republican who introduced the bill in January, said it would require all officers to complete annual training, a provision he said could improve community relations with the police and protect law enforcement agencies from lawsuits.

“This is both pro-law enforcement and pro-citizen,” he said. “The more training you have, the better you’re going to be.”

Mr. Shanks was personally impacted by one law enforcement officer’s actions in Rankin County.

According to an investigation by the local district attorney, Sheriff Bailey improperly used grand jury subpoenas in 2014 to obtain phone records belonging to his girlfriend, Kristi Pennington Shanks, who is Mr. Shanks’s ex-wife.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation examines police shootings, deaths in custody and other misconduct when a local department asks for help. Mr. Shanks’s proposal would add a second layer of oversight and could expand the kind of misconduct that is reviewed in a state that has historically resisted police oversight.

“It’s long overdue for Mississippi to change a lot of their policies, a lot of their training” related to law enforcement, said Representative Jeffrey Hulum III, a Democrat from Gulfport who said he planned to co-sponsor the measure with Mr. Shanks.

Mr. Shanks wrote the bill with Sean Tindell, the commissioner of the state’s Department of Public Safety. Mr. Tindell oversees several statewide law enforcement agencies, including the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the law enforcement training academy. Mr. Tindell said that while he and his colleagues had discussed changing the law in the past, the conduct brought to light in 2023 was a factor in pushing for the bill this year.

“I think it’s OK to look in the mirror and say, ‘Hey, maybe we need to make some changes,’ and this could be that opportunity where everybody feels the same way,” he said. “We can look at a bill like this as a way to improve the overall profession and the perception of that profession.”

Mr. Shanks said that if his proposed law had been in place, many of the events that became public in 2023 could have been investigated by the certification board, even if prosecutors did not bring criminal charges. In some of those cases, charging an officer was made difficult by statutes of limitation or the high bar of evidence required to win a criminal conviction.

Mr. Tindell said leaders of both the Mississippi Sheriffs’ Association and the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police supported the new bill, giving it a healthy chance to reach the House floor for a vote. A House committee will decide whether to move the bill forward in the coming weeks.

State Senator Juan Barnett, a Democrat from Heidelberg, introduced another measure that could double criminal penalties for law enforcement officers who are convicted of abusing their power.

Legislators have not decided whether to hear that bill. Joey Fillingane, a Republican and the chair of the judiciary committee in the State Senate that will decide if the bill advances, did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Barnett said the national push for greater accountability for law enforcement officers inspired him to sponsor the bill.

“We just want to make sure that people feel like they are getting protected and served by the men and women who are in uniform,” he said.

Mississippi Today political reporter Taylor Vance contributed reporting.

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The Mississippi Court of Appeals on Wednesday affirmed a decision to permit a proposed military site in North Gulfport, despite local and environmental advocates’ concerns that the site could contaminate public waters.

In 2019, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality Permit Board approved the proposal from the Mississippi State Port Authority. The Port Authority is seeking to build a storage facility for the U.S. Department of Defense to serve as a link between Camp Shelby in Hattiesburg and the state’s ports.

The decision this week follows a 2022 ruling in the Harrison County Chancery Court that reached the same conclusion. The appellants in the case included North Gulfport residents John Johnson, Glenn Cobb and Lattie Grubbs, the Anointed Temple AOH Church, as well as two local organizations: EEECHO Inc. and the North Gulfport Community Land Conservancy, Inc.

The appellants, represented by ACLU-MS and Earthjustice, argued that the MDEQ Permit Board failed to consider whether the proposed site would store explosive ammunition. Attorneys working with the appellants say they discovered this possibility through a “Port Planning Order” they obtained from a records request only after the Permit Board approved the site.

Residents are also concerned because the project, which would require filling three acres of wetlands, would be located on the former home of a fertilizer company that operated in the early 1900s. In 2009, the state ordered a remediation plan for the property after finding illegal levels of arsenic and lead. As part of the plan, the contaminated area has been capped off with a 10-inch layer of clay and a 4-inch layer of topsoil.

Explaining the court’s ruling, Judge Jim Greenlee wrote that the project’s proposal only said that ammunition might be stored at the site, not that it was a necessary part of the project. Thus, the ruling argues, the Permit Board didn’t have to consider the impact of storing ammunition in order to issue a water quality certification.

The appellants also argued that the Permit Board should have redone its public notice process to inform residents that the site may store ammunition. But, Greenlee wrote, “The joint public notice was complied with the applicable regulations, and it was not deficient simply because it did not mention the single reference to explosive ammunition in the (Port Planning Order).”

In her dissent, Judge Deborah McDonald countered that very point.

“The strategic port criteria state that the port should preferably be able to receive and store up to 188 tons of explosive ammunition…” McDonald wrote. “Further, I believe the possibility of storing such highly explosive ammunition near such a site to be a ‘pertinent issue’ of which the nearby community should have been informed in the public notice…”

Attorneys for the appellants released a statement on Thursday disagreeing with the ruling.

“We are extremely disappointed with the court’s decision,” Earthjustice attorney Rodrigo Cantú said. “This allows the Permit Board to endanger the health and safety of a historically black community by ignoring the possibility of storing explosive ammunition in a residential area.”

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