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Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield, investigative reporters for the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today, have been selected for 2024 New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship.

The program, led by Dean Baquet, a former executive editor of The New York Times, gives journalists the opportunity to produce signature investigative work focused on the state or region they’re reporting from. Mississippi Today’s 2023 reporting in partnership with the Local Investigations Fellowship has been named as a finalist for the 2024 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.

“It has been so rewarding to help reporters turn their ideas into stories, and to produce work that has a huge local impact,” said Baquet. “It has also been exciting to work closely with newsrooms across the country, to see how many of them are doing great coverage sometimes against the odds.”

Mississippi Today and The New York Times’ yearlong examination of abuses by sheriffs departments in Mississippi is the most comprehensive examination of law enforcement misconduct in these communities to date. This series led to legislation that would require sheriffs and deputies, for the first time, to get law enforcement training and would give the licensing board the power to investigate law enforcement misconduct. Officers involved in the abuse have been indicted in state and federal court. 

READ MORE: The complete “Unfettered Power: Mississippi Sheriffs” series

Howey and Rosenfield will build on the high impact of the 2023 investigation of Mississippi sheriffs, delving deeper into law enforcement issues in Mississippi through the 2024 New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship.

“Brian and Nate getting to keep reporting here is invaluable to Mississippians’ understanding of one of the most important stories of our time,” said Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief. “This innovative partnership with the Times has made their reporting so much more impactful. We’re proving that strong investigative journalism is so necessary at the local level.”

The work produced by fellows will be primarily edited by Dean Baquet; Chris Davis, deputy for the Local Investigative Reporting Fellowship; Kathleen McGrory, investigations editor; Adam Playford, data and investigations editor; and Rebecca Corbett, a senior investigative editor at The Times. 

To support the data work of the fellows, Big Local News, a data-sharing journalism lab based at Stanford University, will be working with the fellows on obtaining and analyzing data for their projects and providing ongoing training on investigative data techniques.

The fellowship was introduced to help develop the next generation of reporters to produce accountability journalism at the local level. In addition to producing signature investigative work, fellows will receive frequent training opportunities to learn investigative reporting techniques, make trips to the Times’ New York offices and attend conferences for additional training and mentorship. 

Brian Howey has a master’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism and has written about policing, homelessness and conservation issues for local and national publications. 

Nate Rosenfield was recently awarded a grant by the Brown Institute for Media Innovation to design a tool using large language models that will help reporters gain new insights into the regulatory process. 

The post Mississippi Today reporters chosen for The New York Times Local Investigative Fellowship appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A House plan to dissolve the member-elected board that governs Mississippi’s massive public employee pension plan and replace it with a board dominated by political appointees died Tuesday in the Senate Government Structure Committee.

The bill’s death angered House Speaker Jason White, who called the move “irresponsible.”

Sen. Chris Johnson, R-Hattiesburg, chairman of the committee, said Tuesday afternoon — hours before a deadline for action on the measure — that he would not call the bill up for consideration. Instead, he called for the current board to become more transparent by livestreaming all of its meetings.

He also urged the board to delay the start of its plan to increase by 5% the amount public entities, state and local governments, school districts and universities and colleges must contribute to the program.

The 5% increase is scheduled to begin with a 2% increase in July and be phased in over three years.

That planned increase, which board members said their financial experts reported was needed to ensure the long-term financial stability of the Public Employees Retirement System, caused controversy in the Legislature. It led to the House plan to replace the existing elected board. The House acted after many state agency heads and local officials said the increase would cause financial distress and a possible reduction in services.

As of now, the board’s plan to increase the amount governmental entities contribute to their employees’ paychecks for retirement benefits from 17.4% to 22.4% over a three-year period remains in effect.

Ray Higgins, executive director of PERS, did not say whether the PERS board would heed Johnson’s advice.

“We appreciate the committee’s focus on PERS and their suggestions,” Higgins said. “PERS is such a very important system, not just for our membership but for the entire state. We support the continuation and sustainability of PERS and look forward to working with the Legislature in the future.”

Johnson said senators had received messages from “thousands and thousands of PERS members” who objected to dissolving the board. The current board is comprised primarily of people elected by PERS members. PERS has a massive impact on the state with about 360,000 members, including retirees, current employees and former public sector employees who have not yet retired. Under the House plan that was killed in the Senate committee Tuesday, the new board would be comprised of people appointed by the governor and lieutenant governor.

Killing the legislation “was the right thing to do,” said Ed LeGrand, past president of the Mississippi Retired Public Employee Association and a former member of the PERS board. He said he supported keeping the current board in place and had mixed emotions about recommendations to delay the increase in the employer contribution rate.

“That will be up to the current board to decide,” he said. Earlier, board members had voiced opposition to the House plan to dissolve the current PERS board.

Speaker White, R-West, said in a statement he was disappointed the Senate killed the House bill. He criticized Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann specifically for the demise of the legislation.

“The lieutenant governor and Senate’s failure to address the long-term sustainability of our state’s retirement program is irresponsible to not only PERS retirees and participants in the system but Mississippi taxpayers,” White said.

Hosemann in a statement said: “The PERS system’s long-term viability continues to be a serious concern. The Senate and the House need to work together to find a solution. Transparency and trust, from both the Legislature and retirees and employees, will be critical for us to move forward. The Senate is committed to protecting retiree and current employee benefits while balancing the budget.”

The system has assets of about $32 billion, but debt of about $25 billion. But Johnson said that debt was “a snapshot” that would be reduced by strong performances from the stock market.

He stressed that no member of the Senate Government Structure Committee supported any change in the benefits that PERS members received. He said the system had assets to meet its obligations.

The system depends on the contributions from governmental entities, a 9% contribution from employees and its investment earnings for its revenue. Some senators said they believed the board overreacted by imposing the employer contribution increase. Whether the board will heed Johnson’s recommendation to postpone the increase in the employer contribution remains to be seen. Another option would be for the Legislature to infuse funds from its current revenue surplus into the system.

But White said, “Over the next three years, and the foreseeable future if no action is taken, the proposed 5%-10% increase requested to fund PERS will also have the effect of limiting government services, and eliminating state and local government employees.”

The post Senate committee kills bill to replace PERS Board appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Senate Constitution Chairwoman Angela Burks Hill killed this year’s substantive effort to restore voting rights to people convicted of nonviolent felonies by deciding not to hold a committee meeting before a Tuesday night deadline.

Hill, R-Picayune, did not conduct a single committee meeting over the last two weeks to consider any House bills that the lieutenant governor’s office referred to her committee for consideration. The Pearl River County lawmaker wouldn’t substantively comment on why she declined to advance any bills. 

“The constitution speaks for itself,” Hill said. 

The drafters of Mississippi’s 1890 Constitution, who first enacted the provision that strips voting rights away from certain convicted felons for life, did speak loudly at the time when they wrote the document that still governs the Magnolia State today. 

“There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter … Mississippi’s constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the n—– from politics,” Mississippi Gov. James K. Vardaman said at the time.

George Melchoir of Bolivar County, a delegate to the 1890 convention, also said at the time, … “It is the manifest intention of this convention to secure to the state of Mississippi white supremacy.” 

The original disenfranchising crimes chosen at the time thought to be more likely committed by Black people.

Under the Mississippi Constitution, people convicted of any of 10 felonies — including perjury, arson and bigamy — lose their voting rights for life. A 2009 opinion from the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office expanded the list of disenfranchising felonies to 22.

Mississippi is one of only a handful of states that does not automatically restore voting rights to people who complete their sentences.

About 37,900 names are on the Secretary of State’s voter disenfranchisement list as of Jan. 29. The list, provided to Mississippi Today through a public records request, goes back to 1992 for felony convictions in state court. That number, however, may not be wholly accurate because no state agency tracks people once they are struck from the voter rolls. Studies commissioned by civil rights organizations in 2018 estimated between 44,000 and 50,000 Mississippians were disenfranchised.

The House overwhelmingly passed legislation last month that created an automatic process for people previously convicted of some nonviolent felony offenses to have their voting rights restored. 

A bipartisan pair of House members told Mississippi Today on Tuesday afternoon they were disheartened to hear that Hill declined to advance their measure in committee, given that a large majority of Republicans and Democrats supported the measure.

“I think we were taking a step in the right direction to get someone who has paid their debt to society and remained on the straight and narrow for five years to get their right to vote back,” Republican Rep. Fred Shanks of Brandon said. 

Rep. Kabir Karriem, D-Columbus, has filed legislation for years to create a pathway for people convicted of nonviolent felony offenses to regain their voting rights. Even though Hill won’t consider the legislation this year, Karriem said he intends to continue advocating for suffrage restoration.

“It seems like the Senate kills good legislation and passes bad legislation, so I’m not surprised,” Karriem said. “But we have to find a way to give people their rights back.” 

Even though the suffrage bill is dead, lawmakers can still introduce individual bills to restore voting rights on behalf of citizens, but the process is burdensome. It requires two-thirds of lawmakers in both legislative chambers to vote in favor of restoring suffrage in individual cases. 

The Legislature last year did not pass any suffrage restoration bills. A person can also seek a gubernatorial pardon, though no executive pardon has been handed down since Gov. Haley Barbour’s final days in office in 2011.

Hill’s decision to kill the bill marks the latest example in a litany of efforts to reform Mississippi’s felony suffrage process that have fizzled. 

Former House Judiciary B Chairman Nick Bain, a Republican from Corinth, led a proposal through the Legislature in 2022 that sought to clarify that people who have had a disenfranchising felony expunged from their criminal record would regain their voting rights. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed Bain’s proposal, and the Legislature did not override the veto.

The last time the Legislature substantively addressed felony suffrage was when the House overwhelmingly passed legislation in 2008 to restore voting rights to all Mississippians convicted of felonies, except for those convicted of murder or rape.

The 2008 legislation later died in the Senate, where Phil Bryant — who would later become governor and not pardon a single Mississippian convicted of any crime — presided as lieutenant governor.

The last time the Legislature successfully passed a bill that restored suffrage to a class of people was in the 1940s when then-Rep. William Winter of Grenada, who would later become governor, shepherded a measure through the Capitol that restored suffrage to all World War I and World War II veterans convicted of felonies. 

The post Senate committee leader kills felony suffrage bill without vote  appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Demote the Vote appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The journey of overcoming mental health challenges is often complex and difficult to navigate. One of the most essential resources a person can have is the support of the community around them. From the beginning of my mental health journey at the age of 16, I felt alone. If being diagnosed with depression at such a young age was not enough of a challenge, the day after receiving that life-changing diagnosis, I found out I was pregnant.

I spent many years attempting to ignore the diagnosis and self-medicate in negative ways. I experienced so many challenges being a young mother and felt stigma from many people around me. The loneliness I faced led to years of darkness that pushed me to multiple hospitalizations. I was desperate for a new way of life.

The process of getting to where I am today has come with many challenges, from navigating a diverse mental health system to finding my tribe of supporters who uplifted me in my darkest times. I found a fantastic therapist who understood my goals and pushed me to achieve more. I changed jobs, friends and environments to better connect with people who wanted to see me succeed. I also spent time finding my way back to a relationship with God. While my search for Him was not always within the walls of a church building, I can tell you that my solo, tear-filled car ride prayers were being heard and answered.

Looking back over the years, I can see that I ran from Him instead of running to Him in my darkest moments. A large part of that is from the shame and guilt I felt. I now know He was with me every step of the way and eagerly awaited me to turn back to Him.

My most recent challenge was the loss of my mother to the same mental illness that lives in me. It’s a scary thing to see how something so invisible to the world around us can make a person want to leave this world. Without the love and support of others around me, I don’t think I would be where I am today. I actively sought out a community of people who could understand the complex grief that comes from losing a loved one to suicide.

The internet and virtual calls are excellent resources I wish I had known about when I struggled so deeply in my younger years. I realized that I wasn’t alone in my grief, anger, sadness and fear. Others around me could lift me and remind me that if all the love in the world could have kept my mother here, she would be with us today. I had to learn a hard lesson in life; my God did not fail when my mother passed, nor did He fail me when things didn’t go my way when I was younger.

My mother’s death isn’t the end of her story but the beginning of mine. If I could tell my younger self one thing, it would be to simply LIVE LIFE.

I spent many years struggling to keep my head above water while putting on a show so no one could see what I was going through. I now take time to speak up and out about mental health challenges not only to individuals experiencing it personally, but also to family members, friends and community leaders in the hopes that we can create a climate that supports individuals who are experiencing mental health challenges.

People experiencing mental health challenges can often feel misunderstood or ashamed to share their feelings and experiences with others. The isolation can deter individuals from seeking help or even staying motivated to seek treatment. However, with support from community members, individuals can be resilient and continue the fight to achieve their own version of wellness!

That is where CROP, Congregational Recovery Outreach Program, comes into the picture. CROP is a community-based, grant program, funded by the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, Bureau of Behavioral Health Services, Division of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Treatment Services, in partnership with the Mississippi Public Health Institute. CROP’s ability to teach, train, and refer individuals to gain more knowledge about mental health is what matters the most.

CROP aims to educate communities to stop stigmas, embrace those who are struggling, and challenge the systems around us to acknowledge that mental health matters. I am forever grateful to the community members who were there for me during my struggles. I know that CROP and the Mississippi Mental Health Faith-Based Summit can help educate others and help those experiencing mental health challenges.

It’s FREE and open to the public. You are invited to the “Mississippi Mental Health Faith-Based Summit” happening on Thursday, April 25, 2024, from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM at the Jackson Convention Complex, located at 105 E. Pascagoula Street, Jackson, MS 39201. To learn more or register for free visit CROP.

The post Breaking the Silence appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A week since Jackson resident Dau Mabil was last seen walking on his usual path, family and community members are pleading for his return and for anyone with information to come forward. 

Dau Mabil, a Belhaven Heights resident, went missing March 25 after going on a walk without his phone. Video footage showed him near Jefferson Street between Fortification and High Street around 12:15 p.m., which is when he texted his wife about going to walk around his usual area, from home toward downtown and back.  

“We just don’t know after that footage what happened and why he’s not home,” Karissa Bowley, Mabil’s wife, said Monday. “… I’m trying to make sure nothing is happening to him. We’re just trying to find out information.”

Neighbors, members of the community and beyond took action, searching the area, putting up flyers, sharing information online and asking people to check any personal home security for any sightings of Mabil. 

At a Monday press conference, Bowley was joined by Bul Mabil, Dau’s brother who lives in Texas, and Jeff Good, a Jackson restaurant owner who is friends with the family and owns Sal & Mookies, where Dau Mabil works. They encouraged people to share any information that can help find him. 

The Department of Public Safety shared information about Mabil as a missing person on its Facebook page two days after he was reported missing. 

The family filed a missing persons report with the Capitol Police last week. That force is handling the case because Belhaven, Belhaven Heights and downtown fall within the Capitol Complex Improvement District. Bowley hopes Capitol Police will work with the Jackson Police Department. 

Mabil was one of the “Lost Boys” of Sudan who came to Jackson in 2000. 

The brothers fled South Sudan when a civil war broke out and escaped to Ethiopia, only to have to leave when a war broke out there. About 20,000 Sudanese boys fled the country during this time. 

From a North Kenya refugee camp, the brothers were among 50 boys who came to Mississippi with the help of Catholic Charities, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and Millsaps College, the Clarion Ledger reported in 2014. 

Bowley said it’s encouraging to hear people be hopeful and offer support to help find her husband. 

“The help gives me a distraction from the despair,” she said.

Anyone with information on Mabil’s whereabouts can contact Crime Stoppers, 601-355-8477 or www.P3tips/116; Karissa Bowley, (601) 566-5739; or Capitol Police, (601) 359-3125.

The post Jackson community rallies to find missing Belhaven Heights resident appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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Note: This editorial anchored Mississippi Today’s weekly legislative newsletter. Subscribe to our free newsletter for exclusive access to legislative analysis and up-to-date information about what’s happening under the Capitol dome.

The evening before a Senate committee was scheduled to vote on a Medicaid expansion bill, Gov. Tate Reeves invited about 20 Republican senators over to the Governor’s Mansion for a frank conversation.

The second-term Republican governor, who has blocked expansion for more than a decade, privately told the senators on March 26 they should vote against the bill and reminded them that he would veto anything lawmakers sent to his desk this year. More specifically, Reeves told the group that he had problems with the exceptions the Senate bill would make to the work requirement. If you’re going to pass an expansion plan, he told them, it should unequivocally require that Medicaid recipients hold jobs.

The following day, a Senate committee ignored Reeves’ request and approved the original bill with the work requirement exceptions. On March 28, when the bill came up for a vote on the Senate floor, one of Reeves’ closest Senate GOP allies, Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, introduced two amendments: one that would force struggling mothers to work to receive Medicaid benefits, and another to force people with disabilities to work to receive Medicaid benefits. But the Reeves-proxied amendments failed, and the original bill passed with support from more than two-thirds of the chamber.

READ MORE: Senate passes Medicaid expansion ‘lite’ with veto-proof majority

Several of the governor’s staffers, phones glued to their hands, scurried around the Capitol shortly after the vote. They’d lost yet another battle in the war their boss has waged.

Reeves lost real ground in his opposition to Medicaid expansion last week, unable to exert his influence even in the Senate, the friendly chamber that likely serves as his best shot at winning. Every tactic he’s employed has been thwarted, and he’s running low on political capital. And he apparently knows it.

“This week was not a great week in our fight to beat Obamacare Medicaid Expansion,” Reeves acknowledged in a long social media post on Saturday. The post named and thanked the 16 Senate Republican “patriots” who voted no. Most of those no-voters were at the Mansion earlier in the week.

Medicaid expansion would provide health insurance to about 200,000 working Mississippians — many of whom have never been able to otherwise afford it in the nation’s poorest and unhealthiest state. Passing the policy, as 40 other states including many GOP-controlled ones have done, would provide a jolt of life to small towns and the rural hospitals that are keeping those towns alive. It could bring more than $1 billion annually in additional federal money to the state, freeing up hundreds of millions that could be spent on anything state leaders want, not just on health care.

But Reeves overlooks the health and economic benefits of the program simply because, he argues, it is an expansion of welfare. Never mind the fact that countless studies show most people who would take advantage of the health care program would be employed, or that both proposals in the GOP-led Legislature this year would require those people to work. The governor has also failed to mention the fact that Georgia’s Medicaid program, which does include a work requirement as the state battles the federal government in court, is a dismal failure, costing Peach State taxpayers millions of dollars to administer a restricted program that is serving few people.

READ MORE: Mississippi lawmakers look to other states’ Medicaid expansions. Is Georgia worth copying?

When the governor told the group of Republican senators last week that he wanted them to remove some of those work requirement exceptions, it may not have been about the work requirement at all. Reeves knows better than anyone that the federal government has rejected 13 states’ previous efforts to place stringent work requirements to their expansion plans.

The Senate bill, as passed last week, is not exactly loved by advocates of greater health care access. In fact, Mississippi would still not be considered an expansion state if it’s passed into law because it doesn’t draw down a greater federal dollar match and it insures much fewer people than traditional expansion would.

And, importantly, the Senate bill would not allow any expansion program to go into effect unless the work requirement is accepted by the federal government — a poison pill that would temporarily delay or permanently prohibit any potential expansion program from going into effect. Looking at the recent history in other states, the governor’s lobbying against the Senate bill the past few days appears pretty simple: If he can’t stop the Legislature from passing some version of Medicaid expansion, he should try to get them to put strict work requirements in the bill because it likely won’t be approved by the feds anyways.

READ MORE: Gov. Roy Cooper, the most recent state leader to expand Medicaid, has advice for Mississippi lawmakers

Now the Senate plan goes back to the House, which earlier this session passed a real-deal Medicaid expansion plan that would insure tens of thousands more people and draw down hundreds of millions of dollars more than the Senate plan would. The House plan also included a work requirement, though it would allow a Medicaid expansion program to go into effect even if the federal government doesn’t approve the work provision.

With such different proposals from each side of the Capitol, Medicaid expansion in Mississippi is still far from a sure thing.

We can expect bitter disagreement between House and Senate leaders in the coming days as leaders from both chambers begin meeting to try to hammer out their differences and come to an agreement. And whatever potential expansion plan comes out of those meetings would still have to garner a substantial vote on both the House and Senate floors to pass.

Reeves, meanwhile, is working with all his might to block it now. And if nothing else, his last gasp would be his veto stamp, which would require yet another legislative vote against him. 

But with the governor seemingly losing more ground with his fellow Republicans with each passing week, perhaps the most critical question remaining is: Does Reeves have enough political firepower to stop this?

READ MORE: Hospitals, business leaders suffering FOT — Fear of Tate — on Medicaid expansion

The post Gov. Tate Reeves loses ground in his war against Medicaid expansion appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi will remain one of only three states that does not have in-person early voting after a House committee chairman killed legislation last week.

House Elections Chairman Noah Sanford said in a committee meeting on Thursday that he will not bring up Senate Bill 2580. The bill would have allowed 15 days of no-excuse early voting before election day. Sanford said he received concerns over the plan from some county circuit clerks, the local officials who administer elections. 

“Some circuit clerks around the state had concerns that they might have to hire an additional deputy clerk to administer early voting,” Sanford said.

Instead, Sanford, a Republican from Collins, said he would like to conduct some hearings in the summer or fall to examine the issue further and allow circuit clerks and others to present information. He said that after the hearings he would be more open to passing early voting legislation. 

Mississippi currently allows in-person absentee voting before elections, but voters must meet criteria, such as being over 65 or disabled, or provide one of a handful of valid “excuses,” such as being out of town for work on election day and follow a long list of rules and procedures.

But Mississippi does not have no-excuse absentee voting or any type of early voting. The Senate measure would have “no-excuse” voting for all registered voters and eliminate in-person absentee voting. It also would have required voters to present a valid photo ID to vote early.

Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England, the author of the bill, said he was disappointed the measure did not advance in the House, given it overwhelmingly passed the Senate along bipartisan lines. 

“We’ll see it again, though,” said England, a Republican from Vancleave. “This is something I’m definitely interested in and something voters across the political spectrum are interested in.” 

House Speaker Jason White, a Republican from West who appointed Sanford to lead the Elections Committee, previously told Mississippi Today he was not opposed to early voting, but the policy was not a major priority for him. 

Even though Sanford did not bring the measure up for a vote, it’s possible lawmakers could amend related legislation to include early voting.

The post House committee chairman kills early voting bill without a vote appeared first on Mississippi Today.

An austere version of Medicaid expansion, which for more than a decade has been blocked by legislative leaders, passed the Senate on Thursday 36-16 – a veto-proof majority – with significant changes to the original bill and now heads back to the House for consideration.

House Bill 1725, with the Senate’s strike-all amendment, would increase Medicaid eligibility to those making up to 99% of the federal poverty level, about $15,000 annually for an individual, and would be entirely contingent on the federal government approving a work requirement of 120 hours a month. 

That’s significantly different from the version of the bill that passed the House, which increased eligibility to those making up to 138% of the federal poverty level, about $20,000 annually for an individual, and would expand Medicaid regardless of whether or not the work requirement was approved. 

Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, called the strike-all a more “conservative, responsible” option and described  it a “hand up, not a handout.” The Senate plan turns down roughly $1 billion federal dollars a year since it doesn’t qualify as “expansion” according to the Affordable Care Act.

Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who oversees the Senate, said that covering more low-income Mississippians under Medicaid would improve the state’s dismal labor participation rate – the lowest in the country. 

“If we as a society, as a state, believe we should have individuals who are working, stay in the workforce, pick up our labor force participation rate, then we need to do what Sen. Blackwell and the Senate did today.” 

Senate Democrats introduced several amendments, which Republicans, who hold a majority in the chamber, successfully opposed. The amendments called for: increasing the income eligibility threshold, changing the work requirement from 120 hours a month to 80 hours a month, and lowering a recertification requirement from four times a year to twice a year. 

The Democratic senators strongly criticized the Senate plan to reporters after it passed but voted in favor of it to keep the bill alive – in hopes that the plan will improve later during House and Senate haggling. 

“This bill was not perfect,” Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons said. “We would love to see more individuals covered. We would love not to have any hurdles or restrictions on additional access to health care coverage. But we did not want to lose an opportunity to keep this bill alive as we work through this process.”

Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, also attempted to amend the bill by removing two of the exemptions to the work requirement – for primary caregivers of children under six years old and those diagnosed by a doctor to have a disability – and requiring co-payments for individuals fulfilling the work requirement. A few hardline conservatives supported his efforts, but both amendments were ultimately shot down by senators. 

Sixteen senators voted ‘No’ on the plan: Jason Barrett, R-Brookhaven; Andy Berry, R-Magee; Jenifer Branning, R-Philadelphia; Lydia Chassaniol, R-Winona; Kathy Chism, R-New Albany; Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall; Angela Burks Hill, R-Picayune; Chris Johnson, R-Hattiesburg; Tyler McCaughn, R-Newton; Michael McLendon, R-Hernando; Rita Potts Parks, R-Corinth; Brian Rhodes, R-Pelahatchie; Joseph Seymour, R-Vancleave; Daniel Sparks, R-Belmont; Ben Suber, R-Bruce; Neil Whaley, R-Potts Camp. 

House Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, told Mississippi Today that she does not intend to agree with the Senate’s amendment and plans to hammer out a compromise in a conference committee. 

“I’m happy the Senate passed a bill,” McGee said. 

Though the Senate’s plan has stricter eligibility requirements than the House version, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, a longtime opponent of expansion, privately told senators at the Governor’s Mansion on Tuesday that he would veto the bill if it reached his desk.

If the second-term governor does veto the bill, a two-thirds majority of lawmakers in both legislative chambers would need to join together to successfully override him and pass the measure into law. Both chambers passed their versions with veto-proof majorities.

Hosemann did not directly answer whether he believes there is an appetite in the GOP-controlled Senate to override a potential veto, but he said the work requirement in the Senate bill is a “good first step” toward addressing Reeves’ concerns about the bill. 

“We’re going to get with our House counterparts here and maybe that step forward is sufficient for the governor,” Hosemann said. “I don’t think there was anybody here that didn’t feel the weight of having people who are working have a catastrophic event and not get back into the workforce.” 

House members have until April 19 to either agree with the Senate plan or to work on a compromise in a conference committee.

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