At the Anderson United Methodist Church earlier this month, 14 candidates vying for the mayor of Jackson sat hip-to-hip on the red carpeted stage. 

Just four had experience serving as an elected official in government, while the rest included longtime businessmen, a child care development professional, the founder of a local nonprofit, a Christian rapper and a talk-radio host.

It took more than 45 minutes just for everyone to introduce themselves.

This year’s mayoral contest — a wide-open race with 19 mayoral candidates — should be a sign of healthy democratic engagement, and in some ways, it is.

“From our point of view, it just states that right now, this time, the community is highly engaged, and people are excited and feel the charge to step up to help Jackson’s future,” said Henry Goss, the communications director at the nonprofit MS Votes. 

But for Jackson voters trying to make sense of a race with a dearth of campaign analysis and no reliable polling, democracy here is beginning to feel more like a puzzle than a privilege.

“It cuts both ways,” said Christopher Berry, a University of Chicago political scientist who studies municipal elections. “On the one hand, we know that democracy requires choice, and so when you see we have 12 candidates, you might say that’s great for democracy.” 

But it’s possible, he continued, for voters to have “too much choice.”  

READ MORE: Click here for more information about all of Jackson’s municipal candidates

The 2009, 2013 and 2017 mayoral elections each saw similarly stacked races of about 15 candidates. But with incumbent Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba under federal indictment and myriad issues at the front of voters’ minds, many Jacksonians are struggling to whittle down the crowded field to a few of the most serious candidates.

Independent candidates have been campaigning, adding to the number of bodies on any given stage, but most voters in the April 1 primary will be choosing between 12 Democrats to start — still a daunting number.

“When you give me 12 candidates and I don’t have time to become more informed about them, is that enhancing democracy or undermining democracy?” Berry said. “The answer is probably both.” 

Many just aren’t sure how to make their decision.

“It’s too many daggone people,” Valerie Brown, a voter, said outside the Smith Robertson Museum after the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign forum last week. “I don’t even know where these people come from.” 

Brown did everything an informed citizen should: The 51-year old mail carrier attended a two-hour candidate forum, listened to the six men on the stage, and asked a question.

She still left not knowing who she’s voting for. 

“Why are you just now coming,” Brown said she’d like to ask the candidates she’s never seen before. “Where have you been? What have you done prior to coming here? So if you just fell from the sky, what you gonna do different?” 

Brown, who ultimately decided to vote for Lumumba, had been considering someone new this election, like candidate Marcus Wallace, a former mayor of Edwards with whom she has her own experience: Years ago, he donated to a toy drive she helped organize. 

Connections matter to Jackson voters, said Nsombi Lambright-Haynes, the executive director of OneVoice, a nonprofit organization focused on civic engagement that sponsored the forum at Anderson UMC. Lambright-Haynes is also Lumumba’s campaign coordinator. 

“In my experience being a Jackson resident, people tend to choose the person that resonates with them the most, the person that they kind of feel touches them in the most personal way,” she said. 

At several forums, Lumumba has leaned on his relationships with the city’s activist community, commenting on how many faces in the room he recognizes.

Wallace has repeatedly drawn attention to his status as a graduate of Callaway High School, while personal injury attorney Delano Funches touts his alma maters Jim Hill High School and Jackson State University.

At last week’s forum at Forest Hill High School, Kim Wade, an independent candidate with a popular conservative talk-radio show, kept making the teenage audience laugh. 

“I noticed that too,” said Jeremiah Wilson, a Lanier High School senior who is voting in the April 1 primary. 

“But I told them, you can’t just go off this one conference,” he added. “You gotta do your research, see what these people really are.” 

Name recognition also matters. John Horhn, who’s running for mayor for the fourth time and secured the backing of a number of influential groups, including the public worker’s union, has served in the Mississippi Legislature since 1993. 

Voters may remember Socrates Garrett, a longtime city and state subcontractor and founder of the Mississippi Link newspaper. The same goes for David Archie, whose antics as a Hinds County supervisor kept his name in the headlines.  

“Of course, everybody knows David Archie,” Brown said. 

And, in a city that’s 85% Black, political party makes a difference. Though the Democratic primary is a competitive race, Jackson hasn’t gone for a Republican or independent candidate in half a century, since before the parties were what we know them as today.

“As long as voters know the party of the candidate, they can make a pretty good choice even without much further information about the individuals,” Berry said. 

That’s one advantage of the two-party system, he added. In political science, a voter is considered “informed” if they end up voting for the candidate they would have chosen had they consumed the entirety of the candidate’s backgrounds and positions, even if the voter is really only working from limited information.

“It might still turn out to be bad,” Berry said. “I might be voting for a guy who turns out to be a bad guy, but if that’s the vote I would’ve taken with all the research, then that’s the best vote I could’ve cast.” 

In rare cases, a voter’s choice could simply come down to who’s at the top of the ticket. When Jackson voters go to the polls, each ballot in the Democratic and Republican primaries will list the candidates in the same alphabetical order, the city clerk, Angela Harris, confirmed. 

In the Democratic primary, every ballot will start with Archie at the top. This could give Archie a 1-2% bump, Berry said. It’s small, but in a crowded race, it could make a big difference. 

“Ballot order effects are real,” he said. “It is true. Candidates higher on the ballot tend to get more votes.” 

Archie’s name will be followed by James “Blue” Butler, a retired plumbing contractor, Lakeisha Crye, a mental health nurse practitioner, Funches, Garrett, Tim Henderson, a military consultant, James Hopkins, a community activist, Horhn, Lumumba, Kourtney Christopher Paige, Wallace and Albert Wilson, a nonprofit founder.

It’s likely the Democratic primary will go to a runoff April 22, which Berry said will help voters narrow the field to the most serious candidates. 

“The whole institution of the runoff is meant to remedy the problem you’re describing of ‘too many candidates, too many choices,’” he said, before adding, “in an ideally functioning system.”  

Regular Jacksonians are trying to help each other make sense of it all. 

John Zehr, a copywriter in northeast Jackson, said he was tired of complaining about the government in Jackson and wanted information on the candidates that came from an authoritative, unbiased source. He’s not very politically involved, but conservative-leaning, and has been dissatisfied with news media coverage.

So with the help of ChatGPT (and a few politically savvy Jacksonians), he came up with questions, contacted all the candidates he could, and posted Zoom-recorded answers from the 10 candidates who responded to a website he named “IWantToBeYourMayor.com.”

Voters can watch the primary source of information on the candidates — themselves — and use a scoresheet Zehr created to determine who they should vote for. He estimates he put more than 100 hours of work into the website, strictly as a community service.

“I think the problem with democracy, as it exists today, is that it’s marketing and spin, right,” he said. “I wanted a format where, without any input from me … what would come out of the candidates would be unfiltered.”

In a video introducing the website, Zehr also encouraged voters to attend forums, get with the candidates face-to-face, “look them in the eye, see what kind of gut feel you get from them, and if you can discern whether or not they’re the kind of people who really know what they’re talking about and people who keep their word,” he said.

The post With 19 mayoral candidates, do Jackson voters have ‘too much choice’ this election? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill to overhaul Mississippi’s tax system — one that many lawmakers inadvertently voted for because of typos — into law on Thursday.

This sets Mississippi on a path to become the first state to eliminate an existing income tax, when the tax is phased out in about 14 years.

Reeves said the law marks a turning point in the state’s history and that it would make Mississippi a magnet for corporate investment and workers from other states.

“Today is a day that will be remembered not just for the headlines, not just for the politics, but for the profound generational change it represents,” Reeves said at a bill signing ceremony in front of the Governor’s Mansion. “I must say, it feels like it’s been a long time coming, but after many, many, many years of hard work, we can all stand together and say that we have accomplished income tax elimination in the state of Mississippi.”  

Mississippi is currently reducing its income tax rate to 4% from a previously passed tax cut being phased in. Beginning in 2027, the new law will reduce that rate by .25% over four years until it reaches 3%. In 2031, the tax will only be reduced if certain revenue “growth triggers” are met. 

The law also reduces the sales tax on groceries from 7% to 5%, raises the gasoline tax from 18.4 cents a gallon to 27.4 cents a gallon over three years to fund infrastructure and changes the contribution model of the public employee retirement system. 

House leaders have long pushed to eliminate the state personal income tax in relatively short order. The Senate had urged a longer-term approach, arguing it would be unwise to slash a third of the state’s revenue in uncertain economic times. Senators last week had conceded to eliminate the income tax, but only with economic growth “triggers” as safeguards — the tax wouldn’t phase out unless the state saw robust economic growth and controlled spending. It would have likely taken many years.

Or so they thought. The Senate bill had typos that essentially nullified the growth triggers and would eliminate the income tax nearly as quickly as the House proposed. The House passed the flawed bill on to the governor, who signed it into law Thursday.

In a social media post last week, Reeves, who did not mention the bizarre series of events that helped send the bill to his desk, said “liberal activists” were “making claims of errors, omissions, mistakes, and changes.” Since then, both House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov Delbert Hosemann, both Republicans, have acknowledged the legislation signed into law Thursday contained errors. 

Hosemann downplayed the typos at the ceremony. 

“Some of y’all are focused on a typo in the bill, and I’d use the biblical analogy, let he who has not had a typo cast the first stone.” 

Reeves said the tax overhaul will lead to economic dynamism and attract new residents to Mississippi, but local officials and experts remain divided on whether eliminating the tax will actually benefit the state’s economy and whether citizens will reap many of the benefits that politicians claim they will. 

Neva Butkus, a senior analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said her projections show that once Mississippi abolishes its income tax, it will likely result in a $2.6 billion reduction to the current $7 billion general fund budget, revenue that the poorest state in the nation could use to provide core government services.

“What the state is essentially committing to is a very extreme and dramatic loss of revenue during a very tumultuous time during which the state might be reckoning with large federal cuts to social programs that many Mississippians rely on,” Butkus said. “And they’re doing all of this while creating a windfall for the state’s wealthiest residents in the poorest state in the union.” 

Mississippi’s decision to eliminate the tax without raising another tax to offset the general fund loss comes as President Donald Trump’s administration and the GOP-controlled Congress are considering sweeping budget cuts and freezing federal grants that fund many state services. 

Mississippi’s economy and budget are among the most reliant on federal spending in the nation. If the federal government significantly slashes any federal programs, the impact will almost certainly trickle down to the state level. 

The ITEP’s data shows that Mississippians who make less than $19,300 a year, the poorest of the poor, already spend around 12.4% of their income on taxes. In comparison, Mississippians who make over $362,000 annually only contribute 6.9% of their income to taxes. 

Once the tax cuts take full effect, Butkus said that disparity is expected to widen even more, especially since the new law will raise the gasoline tax by 9 cents a gallon to fund road and bridge infrastructure. 

“When you’re replacing progressive income taxes with regressive revenue, that becomes a problem,” Butkus said. 

Conversely, Joe Bishop-Henchman, the executive vice president of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, believes the law’s growth triggers — even with the errant decimal point typos defanging them — mean the state can responsibly eliminate the tax without decimating its budget. 

Bishop-Henchman has previously testified before the state Legislature about tax policy and said it would be ideal for lawmakers to correct the typos in the trigger language, but having some type of guardrails in place is something multiple states have enacted. 

“A value of triggers is that it still leaves room for budget growth,” Bishop-Henchman said. 

Mississippi Today spoke to mayors around the state, who were also divided on some elements of the overhaul. 

Shari Veazey, executive director of the Mississippi Municipal League, a lobbying organization that represents cities and towns, said the entity did not oppose the bill signed by Reeves because it diverts more state money from the sale tax on groceries to localities, even though the overall sales tax rate on groceries was reduced. 

“The number one priority was just making sure there was no loss of revenue when they reduced the grocery sales tax,” Veazey said. “And we don’t believe there will be.” 

Veazey said the impact on municipalities of shrinking the state general fund budget remains to be seen. 

Starkville Mayor Lynn Spruill said she had been assured by the area’s state legislators that city budgets would be kept afloat.

“The proof will be in the numbers we receive when it goes into effect,” Spruill said. “I’m relying on our legislators being accurate.”

She said cuts to the general fund might not have a big impact on her city’s ability to function, but individual taxpayers might have cause for concern. 

“I would worry about it as a resident who pays taxes, as to what that will do to the basic services the state provides,” Spruill added. “But as it relates to a direct appropriation to the city, that’s not something I’m particularly concerned about.”

The gas tax increase could cause some financial hardship, Spruill said. But Starkville, home to Mississippi State University, has better public transportation than most cities in the state. 

But in a place such as Greenville, located in the rural, poverty-stricken Mississippi Delta, some worry a slashed general fund alongside gas tax increases could make it more expensive to drive and weaken local government’s ability to provide basic services. 

“The trickle-down negative effects of this tax overhaul will not actually trickle down—it will be a huge take-away from this rural community,” said Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons. “When local governments lose the ability to fund police, fire, and other essential services, the safety and well-being of our residents are put at risk.” 

In Greenwood, located at the eastern edge of the Delta, Mayor Carolyn McAdams, said she was concerned that the law’s increased grocery sales tax diversion might not be enough to make up for revenue small towns might lose.  

“The people in these small towns like Itta Bena, Sidon, Schlater only have these convenience stores and they don’t even have grocery stores. What is that going to do to these small towns?” McAdams said. “I have to trust that they’re going to take all of that into consideration and not do anything that would be harmful to the cities and towns that make up Mississippi.” 

Reeves said the benefits would outweigh the costs: “We are saying to entrepreneurs, to workers, to dreamers: Mississippi is open for business, and we will not penalize your success. We are going to compete and we are going to win.”

The post Gov. Reeves signs typo tax overhaul bill into law to phase out income tax, trim grocery tax and raise gasoline tax appeared first on Mississippi Today.

On Noel St. in Midtown Jackson sits a bright yellow house with a child’s bike on the front porch. It’s newly constructed, with large open windows to let in the mid-morning sun. Kristi Hays moved in back in January, after months on the waitlist. 

“We love it. Me and my kids live here, and so far we love it. It’s quiet,” she said. “So it’s something new and fresh for us. It’s a fresh start.” 

At a ribbon cutting ceremony, the city and its partners unveiled the 27-unit apartment homes located just off of Mill St., with 60% of the properties designated for individuals with disabilities and adults 55 and older. The project was spearheaded by New Orleans-based low-income housing developer Gulf Coast Housing Partnership, along with Midtown Partners and the City of Jackson, Mississippi Home Corporation.

Hays, a Jackson native, said this was the opportunity of a lifetime for her. Previous homes that she moved into were older or had electrical issues. 

“I couldn’t wait to move in. It has three bathrooms, and for me and my girls, it’s a plus for us,” she laughed. 

The homes at Noel Place are newly constructed, complete with energy efficient dishwashers and in-unit washers and dryers. There’s a community space and a playground for children, as well as an outdoor gazebo for neighbors to connect socially.

“I’m blessed and grateful to be able to move into a new development that was built from the ground up,” Hays said. “I’ve never experienced anything like that to stay in a new house. It was always I moved into a house that someone else stayed in, versus something that me and my kids moved into first.” 

She said it’s not easy raising four children on her own. Having a safe, affordable home to live in gives her the space to focus on her next big goal: buying her own house. 

“It means a whole lot, with their dad being incarcerated, and me doing everything on my own, it means a lot. It’s a good deal,” Hays said. “It’s challenging but I make it do what it do. It gets hard sometimes, but I just pray about it.”

The Noel Place project took about five years and $12 million dollars in funding to complete. Jackson City Council approved providing $850,000 in HOME grants towards the construction and Midtown Partners helped the city with blight removal to get the property ready, WLBT reported.

“It’s an amazing project for multiple reasons, not only because this is an opportunity to revitalize this community,” Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba said. “But it’s an amazing project because it speaks to the future we want for our city.”

The post ‘It’s a fresh start’: Midtown Partners, Gulf Coast Housing Partnership opens doors to new apartment homes appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi could lose over $100 million in public health and mental health funding as a result of sweeping cuts of federal grants allocated for COVID-19 pandemic relief. 

The cancellation of grants awarded to the Mississippi State Department of Health totals $117,848,189, according to the Department of Government Efficiency’s “wall of receipts.” However, the site is known to include errors and does not specify which grants the cuts apply to. 

The sudden cuts have provoked uncertainty in the agency charged with wide-reaching tasks such as combatting disease and sexually transmitted infection outbreaks, regulating health care facilities and ensuring food and water safety across the state. 

Officials could not say Thursday how large the cuts are or what impact they will have on public health efforts in Mississippi. 

Greg Flynn, a spokesperson for the Mississippi State Department of Health, said he could not verify the amount of the cuts, but that the slashed grants were being used for vaccinations and infectious disease testing.

“Right now, we’re still working to see the potential impacts it will have on the agency,” said Flynn Wednesday. “(State Health Officer) Dr. Edney is working to make sure the mission still goes forward as they figure out how much money has to go back. Then, that will determine decisions that have to be made.” 

The health department is reviewing each of its programs to determine how much of the grant funding has already been spent, Flynn said. The clawbacks apply to funding that was not spent as of March 24.

The Mississippi Department of Mental Health will lose approximately $7.5 million in funding, said agency spokesperson Adam Moore. 

The grant cancellations surpass $12 billion nationwide, NBC first reported Tuesday, and include funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The grants were initially allocated by Congress for testing and vaccination against the coronavirus as part of COVID-19 relief legislation, and to address health disparities in high-risk and underserved populations. Health departments were allowed to use the funds for other public health efforts beginning last year, including testing and surveillance of other respiratory viruses, vaccines and health emergency preparedness, reported The New York Times.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Director of Communications Andrew Nixon said in a statement.

The funds were being used nationwide to strengthen responses to infectious disease crises, including measles and bird flu outbreaks, Dr. Joseph Kanter, the CEO of the Association and Territorial Health Officials, told CNN.

The health department is not currently considering layoffs, and has not asked the state Legislature for additional funding, Flynn said. 

Appropriations for fiscal year 2026 for state agencies will likely be finalized in the coming weeks. The agency’s funding request this year was meager, amounting to a net increase of $1.6 million dollars. 

Over half of the agency’s $600 million budget is funded with federal dollars. State appropriations account for just 15% of its total budget. 

The discontinued Department of Mental Health grants were allocated across a variety of programs and funded or supported services that include diversion coordination, school mental health programs, a program for first-episode psychosis, residential and outpatient services for alcohol and drug addiction, and more, the agency’s spokesperson said. 

The grants, allocated through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, were scheduled to expire in September. 

Some of the discontinued funding was allocated towards naloxone distribution, but the department has additional funding to maintain its availability, Moore said. 

The post Mississippi faces potential loss of over $100 million in federal cuts to health agencies appeared first on Mississippi Today.

LaKeisha Crye, one of the lesser-known Democratic candidates for mayor this year, walked into the Jackson City Clerk’s office 10 minutes before 5pm Tuesday to deliver her campaign finance report. 

This act is one of the most tangible ways candidates can demonstrate transparency and integrity around their candidacies. 

While City Clerk Angela Harris was busy gathering the other submitted reports for this reporter, who sat waiting on a wooden bench under fluorescent lights, another clerk assisted Crye, a mental health nurse practitioner who had just come from work. 

Crye asked for a stamped copy for her own recordkeeping and peace of mind.

“Coming up there to file my campaign report, that was important for me to do, and it was important for me to submit it timely,” she later told Mississippi Today. “The two people that entrusted me with their donations, it was important to me to document that and to make sure that the public also had accessibility to that.”

Not so for eight of her competitors in the Democratic primary for mayor, including incumbent Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, or 23 others running in contested primaries April 1 who failed to submit their pre-election campaign finance reports on the Tuesday deadline. 

Several said they either forgot, were unaware of the deadline, or were still collecting information to file accurate reports and many filed their reports late Wednesday. 

Crye was one of only four mayoral candidates and six council candidates (including one independent who was not required to file) who submitted the documents as required by law before Harris left for the day, according to records obtained from the City Clerk’s office.

In addition to Crye, mayoral candidates John Horhn, Delano Funches, Socrates Garrett filed pre-election campaign finance reports Tuesday, with Horhn’s squeaking in just after 5pm while Harris, the clerk, was still on site. The next day, other Democratic mayoral candidates Marcus Wallace filed with the clerk and Tim Henderson emailed his report to the Secretary of State.

Only candidates running in contested primaries were required to file the pre-election report; independent candidates who won’t appear on the ballot until the General Election don’t have to file until closer to June. Even if a candidate has not raised or spent funds, they must still file a report.

READ MORE: Click here for more information about all of Jackson’s municipal candidates.

Politicians often treat Mississippi’s campaign finance rules, which ideally exist to inform voters of the special interests at play in local government, as more of a recommendation than the law. That’s partly because the laws are poorly enforced, especially on a local level, and penalties like fines and jail time are almost never levied against violators.

The laissez faire attitude towards these reports discounts the stakes involved. 

Mayor Lumumba, after all, is facing federal felony charges in part because of campaign contributions and the manner in which he received them. He pleaded not guilty.

Last year, Lumumba was accused of taking a bribe of $50,000 in campaign donations from a group of supposed developers bidding on a project downtown, but who were actually undercover FBI agents. As part of the alleged scheme, the money would come not directly from the out-of-state developers, but would be passed through and split up between five local contributors – which prosecutors alleged was meant to conceal the bribe. The indictment also accuses Lumumba of writing $14,500 worth of checks to himself from his campaign account.

Lumumba filed his annual campaign finance report covering this time period, which appeared to contain the five $10,000 contributions mentioned by prosecutors, on the Jan. 31 deadline. The report also reflects he paid himself from the campaign several times in 2024 – $8,000 worth of payments labeled as travel, cell phone expenses, expenses for a Chicago fundraiser and water distribution – but not on the dates or for the amounts mentioned in the indictment.

The annual campaign finance report shows Lumumba raised $114,000 in 2024 and ended the year with $28,000 even in cash on hand. Though having spent $42,920.90, according to his report, he should have ended with nearly $71,000 left over. The campaign did not respond to a question about this Thursday.

As for Lumumba’s contributors and disbursements in recent months leading up to the April 1 primary, he did not file by Wednesday and the information was not available by the time this story was published. Lumumba’s campaign coordinator Nsombi Lambright-Haynes, also director of the nonprofit OneVoice, said Thursday that the campaign was working on having the pre-election report completed that day.

The other Democratic mayoral candidates who did not file by Wednesday are David Archie, James Hopkins, Albert Wilson, Kourtney Christopher Paige and James “Blue” Butler, according to records obtained by the city clerk at the end of the day Wednesday.

“When you think about the trust that has left the city of Jackson related to many reasons with campaign finance reports being one of them,” Crye said. “As a candidate for mayor here in the city of Jackson, I’m already working on restoring trust and that was one of the ways in which I wanted to do that yesterday by filing my campaign report on time.”

Horhn, a four-time mayoral candidate and state senator of 32 years, reported taking in just over $100,000 from a myriad of local powerbrokers so far in 2025, spending $51,000 of that leaving him with about $50,000 cash-on-hand. 

This doesn’t account for the roughly $65,000 he reported having in cash on hand at the end of 2024, after raising $78,000 that year and spending about $22,000. If his contribution and disbursement reporting is correct in both reports, he should have about $115,000 cash on hand leading up to the final days before the primary, which he could use if he makes it into the runoff.

In response to Mississippi Today’s request for comment about the figures, Horhn’s campaign said in a statement, “We acknowledge recent questions regarding our campaign finance reporting. We are conducting a thorough review and will file any necessary amendments to ensure full compliance.”

Funches, a local attorney, also reported receiving around $100,000 for his campaign since mid-2024, but more than $90,000 of that came from himself, starting with a $30,000 personal contribution back in June of last year. He reported spending $107,000 for a negative balance of about $7,000. 

Because his campaign collected funds in 2024, Funches was required to file an annual report on Jan. 31, but his campaign treasurer, Terilyn Hopkins, said she was turned away from the clerk when she tried to file it.

“They didn’t even look at it. They said, ‘Oh, this is not due today. It’s not due until March the 25th. So we brought it back with us,’” Hopkins said. “Which means that they have somebody down there that’s not scrutinizing the information before they make a determination.”

Harris refuted this statement, saying, “We don’t refuse nobody trying to turn anything in.”

Socrates Garrett, an eclectic businessman and longtime city contractor, came next with about $29,000 in contributions – more than half of which came from himself or his businesses – and roughly $26,000 in disbursements.

Crye has not solicited donations, but after she launched her campaign, her 85-year-old neighbor, a retired doctor, sent his wife to her house with a $10,000 check. Crye ran into another supporter, who she’d met once at a PTSA meeting, at Target, where the woman handed her a $100 bill for her campaign. Crye reported both the check and cash donations, as well as an in-kind donation of office space, on her report.

Mississippi Today attempted to contact the candidates who did not file by text Tuesday for a response to this story, in turn prompting many of them to file. Several said they were either unaware of or forgot about the deadline or were waiting on information from donors or invoices of disbursements in order to complete accurate reports. 

“I’m working at a fever pitch to submit it today,” Henderson, a U.S. Space Force consultant, texted Mississippi Today Wednesday morning. 

He later emailed his report, as he did his 2024 annual report, to the Secretary of State, which is the repository for campaign finance reports, but is not where municipal candidates typically file. The copy he sent Mississippi Today did not contain a cover sheet, so no total contributions, disbursements or cash-on-hand amounts were available. 

The clerk’s practice is to stamp the reports it receives, then send a copy to the Secretary of State. While there’s some confusion about whether, by law, candidates can file with either the clerk or the state office, the Secretary of State told Mississippi Today that municipal candidates must file with their local clerk, and did not include Henderson’s report among the list of candidates whose reports they possessed.

Democratic mayoral candidate Marcus Wallace, a construction company owner and former mayor of Edwards, said he mixed up the deadline dates, and filed Wednesday. His campaign has received $195,000 – $140,000 from himself and much of the rest unitemized – which he used to purchase a $75,000 bus with a $12,000 wrap.

Another Democratic mayoral candidate David Archie, a consultant and former county supervisor, said he would “get it done soon,” but did not Wednesday. 

In addition to 12 Democratic mayoral candidates, there are three running in the primary as Republicans. Republican mayoral candidate Wilfred Beal said Wednesday he didn’t know he had to file a report because when he went to City Hall to file the earlier report in January, he said the clerk told him he “wasn’t required until next year.”

His two Republican opponents are Kenneth Gee, who filed a report full of zeros Wednesday, and Ponto Downing, who did not file and could not be reached.

Twenty-five council candidates are running in contested Democratic primaries and just five filed reports on Tuesday. When reached, several of the council candidates were surprised to learn about the deadline and asked Mississippi Today to explain the process for filing. One asked for the name of the city clerk.

Three incumbent council members facing primary challengers – Ward 2 Councilwoman Tina Clay, Ward 4 Councilman Brian Grizzell and Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley – did not file reports Tuesday.

When reached Wednesday, Grizzell and Hartley said Harris did not remind them about the deadline as she usually does, and both filed shortly afterward. Ward 2 Councilwoman Tina Clay, an insurance agent, thanked Mississippi Today for its message but did not file by Wednesday.

Harris said she only sends emails to remind the council members to file in non-election years.

Grizzell, a consultant, reported raising and spending about $15,000 and Hartley, a retired environmental administrator, reported raising $1,900 and spending about $1,100. 

Ward 1 Democratic candidate Jessica Carter, a regional director for a progressive advocacy group, said she filed her report on the deadline day by emailing it to the Secretary of State but was informed she needed to file with the city clerk and got it in on Wednesday. She’s raised and spent about $3,000.

Her opponent Stephen Thompson, who also filed a day late, made one donation of $850 to his campaign. The other Ward 1 Democratic candidates, Jasmine Barnes and Rhoda Barnes, did not file Wednesday.

“I’m disappointed in being a little behind but I would rather take the risk of being a day or two late with solid information vs missing,” texted Ward 1 candidate Jasmine Barnes, a certified public accountant. She emailed her report to the clerk Thursday.

When Mississippi Today visited the clerk’s office Wednesday, Clay’s only challenger in the Ward 2 Democratic primary, Marcus Cheatham, was standing at the glass partition in the clerk’s office, wrangling with Harris about what all the reporting entailed.

“I have to do all this?” he lamented, his cellphone up to his ear with an ongoing phone call. He was referring to the antiquated hardcopy campaign finance form, which contains fields for each donor that most candidates fill out in writing, and was relieved when the clerk told him he could attach a spreadsheet. He said he emailed his report to the clerk Wednesday night.

Ward 3 does not have a contested primary. 

Grizzell’s only primary opponent in the Ward 4 Democratic primary, Malcolm May, did not file by the end of Wednesday and could not be reached.

One of Hartley’s primary opponents, Ward 5 Democratic candidate Charles Alexander, filed his report on time to record that he’s raised $0 and spent $15. The third candidate in that race, ReJohnna Brown-Mitchell, did not file Wednesday.

Of the nine Democratic candidates running in the primary for Ward 6, a seat left open by outgoing councilman Aaron Banks, just one filed his report on time. That candidate, Emon Thompson, owner of a local IT company, has raised and spent $13,000.

Another candidate in that race, Jackson fire fighter Jonathan Cottrell, filed Wednesday after hearing from Mississippi Today and responding, “Let me get there.” He’s raised $1,250 and spent $2,025.

Similarly, Ward 6 candidate Daniel LaPatrick Walker, a water treatment engineer, said Mississippi Today brought the campaign finance report deadline to his attention. He went down to the clerk’s office just before close Wednesday in hopes of obtaining a blank form.

Walker told Mississippi Today he wishes the clerk offered an electronic filing option for the reports. “It would make it a lot smoother for candidates,” he said. 

The clerk did not have reports Wednesday from the other candidates in Ward 6, Lee Bernard, Lashia Brown-Thomas, Brad Davis, Antonio Porter, Lee Scott and George Monroe, though Monroe told Mississippi Today he had completed it late Wednesday. Scott and Bernard said they would file Thursday.

Candidates in Ward 7 appear to be more up on the campaign finance rules. Three of the five council candidates in the democratic primary filed on deadline day, with a fourth filing one day late.

Two vying for the seat left open by outgoing Councilwoman Virgi Lindsay are fundraising especially big, Kevin Parkinson and Quint Withers. Turner Martin also filed his report on time.

Kevin Parkinson, manager at a Pennsylvania-based education nonprofit has raised $33,000, his biggest donor of $4,000 being an education equity Political Action Committee. He hired political consulting firm Chism Strategies to assist with the campaign.

Quint Withers, an oil company accountant, has pulled $25,000, with the largest $5,000 donations coming from a Jackson individual listed as retired.

Turner Martin, manager of the city’s art center, has raised about $1,700.

Bruce Burton, who filed Wednesday, reported $0. Corinthian Sanders did not officially file, but he had attempted to email his report to the clerk days before the deadline.

“Now far as them checking it, processing paperwork or responding is another thing,” Sanders said in a message to Mississippi Today.

Independent Ron Aldridge, who filed a report though he was not required, has raised more than $7,000 and spent about $1,800.

Tom Hood, director of the Mississippi Ethics Commission, spoke with Mississippi Today Thursday about the confusion surrounding reporting requirements, processes, and the lack of teeth to hold nonfilers accountable.

“The cause is the law,” Hood said. “The law is so screwed up, nobody knows what it means, nobody knows what to do with it. It’s just a total scrap heap. Only the Legislature can fix it and they had multiple opportunities this year and all those bills died.”

Hood said the public should not automatically equate campaign finance mishaps for malfeasance. “Most of the stuff that a lot of people think is corruption is really just incompetence,” Hood said.

The post Under shadow of campaign finance scandal, 31 Jackson candidates miss filing deadline appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann needed some Democrats to help pass the Senate’s original tax overhaul plan, because some far-right Republicans opposed it.

And he needed those Democrats again to pass a counter-offer to the House (one which famously included some crucial typos).

Had negotiations over the tax overhaul continued as expected — they ended because the Senate typos accidentally supported the House position and the House and the governor ran with it — the House Republican leadership might well have also needed more Democratic support to hold the line against Senate demands.

This presented the minority Democratic Party in Mississippi with an opportunity it hasn’t had in recent years: some leverage with the dominant Republican supermajority in the Legislature.

Democrats (and rural Republicans for that matter) could have, in exchange for helping the GOP leadership get the income tax elimination some have long coveted, demanded more equity in how the state divvies up money for roads and other infrastructure and economic development.

But they didn’t use that rare opportunity.

Will they have it again soon? Maybe.

There’s a very good chance Republican leaders will soon need to find more state revenue, and as the saying goes, the only crop government grows is taxes. Coming back and re-adding safeguards and increases to other taxes that got lost in the tax overhaul in-fighting among House and Senate Republicans will likely be a hard sell for many GOP lawmakers, and Gov. Tate Reeves most assuredly would oppose it. Legislative leaders might very well need Democratic help.

But for now, enough Democrats played checkers instead of chess and went along with the GOP plans in both the House and Senate that the Republican leaderships didn’t have to cede anything. Instead, Democrats helped pass an historical measure to eliminate the state income tax and shift to more “regressive” taxation which would benefit wealthy Mississippians and locales and shift more burden onto poor and less-affluent people and areas. It promises to exacerbate the generations-long unequal distribution of wealth and government resources in Mississippi.

Shy of stopping the GOP push for income tax elimination and more regressive taxation — it’s unclear whether Democrats and a handful of Senate Republicans who opposed the plan could have done that — Democrats could have come up with their own tax elimination/overhaul plan. Or at least demanded some concessions.

For instance, as it stands, the new tax structure will most likely have people in rural Claiborne County — the poorest county in the nation — coming out of pocket more with gasoline taxes that will largely go to fund major roadwork in prosperous, growing counties such as Madison. Some metrics show the most overtaxed people in Mississippi aren’t in areas like Madison or Rankin Counties — with already low property taxes and more likely to reap benefits of an income tax cut — but in counties and cities in the Delta.

Transportation leaders, perhaps understandably, direct road projects to areas that are already growing. The relatively small amount of new money from the increase in gasoline taxes in the new structure is likely to follow that pattern.

State economic development spending and focus are on areas that are already seeing growth, and where the local governments can afford to develop industrial parks and infrastructure to lure development. Earlier this session, local Delta government officials rallied at the Capitol pointing out that they’ve been told they have to develop shovel-ready industrial parks for the state to direct development and jobs their way. But they noted many locales can’t even scrape up a few million to do so from their meager tax bases.

Places like the Mississippi Delta, the southwest and many other areas in the state are faced with a vicious cycle. They’re losing population and tax base because of mechanized agriculture and numerous other factors. They can’t raise the money to break the cycle, and for years the state has been too cash strapped, and politically and racially divided, to provide any help.

Now, with the new tax plan cutting more than $2 billion from the state’s $7 billion general fund, there’s about to be a lot less money for government to spend, shy of some miraculous economic growth in the poorest state in the country. So, how and where it’s spent will be even more crucial, dire for poor, rural areas of the state.

And in recent years, when the state has had some extra money to spend from unprecedented federal largesse after the pandemic, it’s not been spent based on need. It’s been spent on the political spoils system.

State government has for years sent capitol projects money to local governments via “Christmas tree” bills. The most powerful (nearly always Republican) lawmakers direct the spending to their districts. It’s based on raw politics, not state needs.

Hosemann before the 2024 federal elections explained to DeSoto County Republican Party officials that all areas of Mississippi need infrastructure funding from the state and, “the way you do that is to make sure you elect good, conservative people” to maneuver the spoils system.

As the GOP leaders plotted and planned how to keep local governments “whole” as they tinkered with trimming the sales tax on some food and considered general sales tax increases, Democrats could have demanded they address the wildly inequitable state sale tax diversion, which helps keep wealthy areas wealthy, poor areas poor. For instance the per capita state sales tax diversion for the largest city in Issaquena county is $19, compared to the largest in Rankin County, $970.

If the state’s going to have a major reduction in revenue like the more than $2 billion income tax elimination, Democrats and Republicans in poorer areas could have demanded at least a modest increase in equitability to local governments in poor areas. Or perhaps more agriculture tax incentives where farming is the only economic activity. Or a more regional approach to sales or use tax diversion, instead of only to individual cities, and include a formula that distributes the diversion at least partially based on needs.

There’s been talk of consolidation and regionalization in government and education in Mississippi for years, and Democrats have often fought it, in part because the few instances of consolidation and regionalization have appeared punitive and were foisted upon areas that had little say in it. Some Democratic strategists have more recently opined poor areas should demand more regionalization and consolidation, but demand it be done more even handedly than, say what Jackson has had to contend with.

The current system of state spending continues to divide the state not only by wealth, but often by race.

House Minority leader Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, said he recently commissioned the Legislature’s watchdog committee to crunch some numbers on capital projects and economic development spending and found, “70% of the money is spent in majority white counties and 30% in majority Black counties.”

“We focus on areas that are already rich and enrich them even more,” Johnson said.

Johnson and other Democratic leaders clearly realize their missed opportunity in the Republican tax fight.

Senate Minority leader Derrick Simmons, said: “Time and time again, I’ve seen where (Democrats) have had the ability to exert our power, yet we have fallen short by not voting in solidarity with the working people of Mississippi.”

Johnson said he believes Democrats will soon have another opportunity to have a say in Mississippi’s taxation and spending, “because the bill that passed is disastrous” and Republicans passed it on knowing it has flaws.

Because of Republican fighting, it lacks the growth and spending “triggers” Senate Republicans said were prudent in deleting nearly a third of the state’s revenue, and it lacks the off-setting 1.5% sales tax increase House Republican leaders said was prudent.

“And I think, in the words of (state Rep.) Omeria Scott, who tried to point out a lot of these things to everybody, I think we’ll be able to say, ‘I told you so.’”

The post GOP tax battle gave Mississippi Democrats golden opportunity. Instead, they just went along for the ride appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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The Mississippi attorney general’s office now has the authority to enforce some federal immigration law, including identifying people in the country without authorization and initiating removal proceedings for those booked in a jail. 

This is possible through the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Section 287(g) program. Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office is the only agency in the state that is part of the program, and her office is also one of three attorney generals to sign a memorandum of agreement to participate in the program. 

“This partnership will not only ensure that we protect our communities, but also strengthen our efforts to combat human trafficking, drug cartels, and violent crime,” Fitch said in a Thursday statement. “Together, we will make Mississippi — and our entire nation — safer than ever before.”

Once individuals are identified for deportation, they would be transferred to ICE custody. 

About half of all people detained by ICE have no criminal record, according to data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Many have minor offenses, such as traffic violations. 

Nearly 300 law enforcement agencies across the country have an active 287(g) agreement, according to current records from ICE, and nearly 30 additional agencies have pending agreements. 

As of February, participating 287(g) agencies have had over 900 encounters with people unauthorized to be in the country, handled over 600 detainers, filed over 200 charging documents, assisted with 170 removals and carried out over 150 warrant arrests, according to the most recent report from ICE. 

State and local law enforcement agencies are able to join the ICE program through a January executive order by President Donald Trump titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” 

Fitch’s office is participating in the program through a task force model. Through it, all sworn law enforcement officers with the office will be members. 

Other models of the 287(g) program include jail enforcement, where state and local law enforcement identify unauthorized people with criminal or pending criminal charges for deportation, and the warrant service officer model, which allows ICE to train and authorize state and local law enforcement to execute removal warrants on people in their agency’s jail. 

In addition to enforcement, ICE detainees are also being held in the state. Last month, private prison company CoreCivic announced it entered into contract modification for the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler to hold an additional 250 people. The facility has held ICE detainees there for years. 

The company also operates the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, which is holding the largest number of ICE detainees, averaging 2,153 a day, according to data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

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First things first: Friday, in Atlanta, Chris Beard’s Ole Miss Rebels try to achieve what no Ole Miss team has ever done before.

Should Ole Miss defeat Michigan State, the Rebels will advance past the NCAA’s Sweet 16 and into Elite 8, something that has never happened. Indeed, Ole Miss men have only reached the round of 16 once, and that was in 2001 when Arizona ended the Rebels’ dream in San Antonio. Remember?

Rod Barnes was the National Coach of the Year and should have been. Ole Miss, which finished with 27 victories, went on a 16-0 run early to take a 12-point first half lead over the favored Wildcats. And then Arizona, coached by Lute Olsen and led by future NBA great Richard Jefferson, took over and eventually won by 10.

That Arizona team would go on to defeat Illinois in the regional final and then Tom Izzo and Michigan State in the national semifinals before losing to Duke in the championship game.

Beard might not win Coach of the Year this season, but he should have been a finalist. He has taken a team picked to finish ninth in the SEC, the best league in the country by far this season, and put it in the national spotlight. And he has done it with a singular inside-the-paint presence in Malik Dia.

“Chris is just a terrific coach,” retired and much respected college and NBA coach Tim Floyd told us on this week’s Crooked Letter podcast. “He reaches his players and he does it on an individual basis. To a man, his guys are playing their basketball right now and that’s the mark of a great coach.”

Floyd, as this writer, has been amazed that Beard has guided the Rebels this far with such an acute rebounding weakness. Ole Miss ranked 15th of 16 SEC teams in rebounding margin. The Rebels have been out-rebounded by 4.5 rebounds per game. There are no readily available statistics on how many teams have reached the Sweet 16 with such a rebounding deficit, but you can bet on this: There haven’t been many.

The Rebels make up for it in other ways, mainly by protecting the basketball when they have it and taking it away from opponents when they don’t. Ole Miss led the SEC in turnover margin and it wasn’t that close.

In Michigan State, the Rebels face a team that does well in all phases, especially rebounding. The Spartans out-rebounded their opponents nearly 10 per game. If this sounds like a match-up problem for Ole Miss, well, yes, it certainly is. Again Dia, a muscular 6 feet, 9 inches, is the Rebels’ inside presence. Michigan State counters with three bigs that tall and taller. All of them rebound. All of them can run the floor.

Actually, Michigan State would be a matchup problem for most teams. It has been that way for a long, long time where Izzo is concerned. He is an old school basketball coach whose teams have been marked by two constants: rebounding and defense. They pound the boards and they guard.

Izzo’s record speaks loudly for itself: more than 700 career victories (the most in Big 10 history, surpassing Bobby Knight), 11 Big 10 regular season championships, eight Final Fours, four times National Coach of the Year, and an incredible 16 Sweet 16s.

Forget rebounding, this is the matchup that deserves the biggest exclamation point: Ole Miss, the program, has been to one other Sweet 16 in its history. Izzo, the coach, has been to 16 himself!

None of that prior history really matters when they take the floor Friday night. Kermit Davis Jr., Beard’s predecessor at Ole Miss, proved that in 2016 when he took Middle Tennessee to the Sweet 16 for the first time ever in 2016 and stunned Izzo and Michigan State in one of the NCAA’s most shocking upsets ever. Should Beard and Ole Miss knock off the Spartans, it would be nowhere near that huge an upset. Indeed, Michigan State is just a 3.5-point favorite.

Looking for an early clue on the ultimate outcome? Watch Dia. Where Ole Miss is concerned, he is the key. Floyd, who has watched the Rebels closely all season, has noted that Dia’s effectiveness is often dictated by his early shooting. If he makes baskets early, watch out. If he is off early, he sometimes seems to disappear.

Says Floyd, “When Dia is on, he is as good as any big in the tournament.”

For the Rebels to make history Friday night, they must have Dia at his best.

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