Justice Department officials sent a letter Thursday to the Lexington Police Department, raising questions about its use of force, fines, arrests and “discriminatory policing.”
“Lexington must stop jailing people for outstanding fines without assessing their ability to pay,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke for the Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney Todd Gee for the Southern District of Mississippi wrote in a joint letter.
City Attorney Katherine Riley responded Thursday, “We welcome the Justice Department’s presence, and we think it’s going to be a positive to the city of Lexington, to the police department and to the people. We are working to make better changes.”
Last April, Justice Department officials put out a letter explaining that courts needed to determine a person’s ability to pay before putting them behind bars.
On June 10, Lexington police arrested attorney Jill Collen Jefferson, who was filming a traffic stop from her car, and she spent the weekend in jail. The arrest came after she filed lawsuits against the city of Lexington and its police department for allegedly abusing its Black residents.
She was convicted, and a judge has since rescinded those misdemeanor convictions.
Jefferson called the Justice Department’s actions Thursday “a step in the right direction, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. The police department targets, harasses and violently abuses Black and brown residents. The extremely egregious behavior of these officers should not only be acknowledged, but we need action so this abuse comes to a full stop. The people of Lexington need justice.”
She said she looks forward to what else Justice Department officials find “as they continue their investigation.”
In November, Clarke announced that the Justice Department had opened a civil rights investigation to determine whether the Lexington Police Department engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violated the Constitution and federal law.
“Specifically, we will assess whether the police department uses excessive force; violates people’s civil and constitutional rights during stops, searches and arrests; engages in discriminatory policing; or violates people’s rights to engage in speech or conduct protected by the Constitution,” she said in a press conference.
In Thursday’s letter, she wrote that the Lexington Police Department “may not force people to remain in jail because they cannot afford to pay a fine or processing fee. LPD may not require payment as a condition of release unless it has conducted an appropriate assessment of the person’s ability to pay. If the person cannot afford to pay the fine, LPD may not jail them unless there are no alternatives that would satisfy its interests in punishment and deterrence.”
In a statement, Clarke said, “It’s time to bring an end to a two-tiered system of justice in our country in which a person’s income determines whether they walk free or whether they go to jail. Unjust enforcement of fines and fees is unlawful, and it traps people and their families in a vicious cycle of poverty and punishment. There is great urgency underlying the issues we have uncovered in Mississippi and we stand ready to work with officials to end these harmful practices and ensure the civil and constitutional rights of Lexington residents are protected.”
Gee noted that a third of those residing in Lexington “live below the poverty line. The burden of unjust fines and fees undermines the goals of rehabilitation and erodes the community’s trust in the justice system. Each step we take towards fair and just policing rebuilds that trust. Lexington and LPD can take those steps now, while our investigation is ongoing.”
In the joint letter, Justice Department officials warned police against seeking unlawful arrest warrants for people who owe fines.
These bench warrants “are not predicated on any ability-to-pay analysis,” the letter says. “They do not demand that the person come before the court. Instead, they order LPD to arrest the person and jail them for a certain number of days unless they pay the outstanding fine that they owe.”
Justice Department officials asked Lexington officials “to assess the serious concerns” identified in the letter and share how they plan to remedy them.
“We will continue to examine whether there is a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers that deprives people of their rights related to the collection and enforcement of fines and fees in violation of federal law,” the letter said.
UPDATE 2/29/24: This story was updated to include the comments of civil rights attorney Jill Collen Jefferson,
Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, is a second-term lawmaker who has been outspoken on the need for Medicaid expansion and on a number of women’s health issues. Summers authored House Bill 1154 this session to ensure access to contraception.
After the fall of Roe v. Wade in June of last year, the federal constitutional right to contraception became a topic of national discussion. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called on the Supreme Court to review Griswold v. Connecticut, the landmark decision in which the court ruled that married couples have the right to access contraception.
Soon after, 195 Republican members of the U.S. Congress, including every Mississippi Republican in the House, voted against the “Right to Contraception Act,” which would have codified the right to contraception under federal law. Since then, some state legislatures have introduced bills to restrict access to contraceptives or allowed health providers to refuse to provide or cover contraception.
The Dobbs ruling made access to contraception more critical in Mississippi, which has among the country’s highest rates of unplanned pregnancy and maternal mortality and the highest rate of infant mortality.
Gov. Tate Reeves has been unclear about his stance on contraception, refusing to rule out contraceptive bans or define what he considers contraception versus “abortion-inducing” pills and devices.
Editor’s note: This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
Mississippi Today: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? What have you been focused on in past sessions and what’s on your agenda this session?
Zakiya Summers: I am Zakiya Summers. I serve as state representative for House District 68, which covers Hinds and Rankin counties. I’m in my second term, so this is my fifth session. The first term was a bit of a learning curve even though I had been a part of the policy advocacy table for a number of years, it’s different when you’re in the belly of the beast. I really prioritized five issue areas: education, election reform, increasing access to health care, infrastructure and economic development. We were pretty successful during the first term – we got a few things passed through our work with colleagues across the aisle.
My proudest moment has been to be in a position where I was able to cast my vote to take down the Confederate flag and put up a new flag. It was very personal for me because the flag was a very traumatizing symbol, even for my husband. I was honored and privileged to be able to do that after many, many years, decades, of a lot of different people who were working on that issue for a long time.
Another bill that I’m really proud of is a law that now implements computer science curriculum in K-12 education. I thought that was extremely important because I understand that in order for us to do some of the things that Gov. Reeves talked about in his State of the State around really helping to build wealth and prosperity in the state of Mississippi, we have to prepare young people for the jobs of the future. And I know that jobs of the future will be heavily technology-based. I mean, we saw that in the huge economic development deal that we did at the beginning of the session with Amazon web services.
This year, I’m pushing the Right to Contraception Act. I’m also pushing a bill called the Crown Act which would prohibit hair discrimination in schools and I think it’s gaining some momentum.
MT: Can you tell us a little bit about the story behind the Right to Contraception Act?
ZS: The Right to Contraception Act is really an effort to be proactive and to raise the bar, elevate the message around preventative health. We’ve received so many dismal reports from health experts, from our medical health officer, from out chief health officer about the really negative, unfortunate health outcomes and health disparities we have in the state of Mississippi. Mississippi is 50th on the list in the entire country with those health disparities. And we know that when families have access to the things they need they can make the best decisions for their lives and for their families and for their future. And so we see the Right to Contraception Act as an opportunity for Mississippians to have unfettered access to contraception if they would like to have that and it will help them to make the best decisions for them.
MT: It might seem far-fetched to some people that Mississippians could lose access to contraception. But we’ve seen with recent events – IVF in Alabama, for instance – that liberties we take for granted aren’t always guaranteed. Why is it important in the Legislature to predict what may happen down the road and get ahead of it with policies and laws that preserve the liberties we take for granted?
ZS: It’s so important, especially when you see what’s happening across the landscape. We never would have thought that Roe v. Wade would be rolled back but elections have consequences. And when you don’t vote or you don’t vote for your best interests, you end up getting people in positions that can make these appointments to these courts and they end up rolling back precedents that we’ve had for decades. And it becomes more than just partisan politics – it becomes a matter of life and death.
We’ve seen with the overturning of Roe v. Wade that individuals no longer have the ability to make their own decisions about their health and their bodies. And then we also saw as a result of that decision an opinion by Supreme Court Justice Thomas that even hinted at removing the right to contraception. And then, when our governor was questioned about it, he was not clear about how he would move or what he would support or oppose around the issue.
You mentioned the IVF decision that came out of Alabama just last week. And now we’re talking about if an embryo is a person. So we’re beginning to see these – I really think they’re unintended consequences. Because I really don’t think that when the fight was around getting rid of Roe v. Wade that they even had the thought that these kinds of things would begin to roll out. And so what we want to do in Mississippi is we want to be pro-life all the way. And I actually see the Right to Contraception Act as a pro-life measure, because if we want to make sure that our boys and girls, men, women, families, are set up in the very best situation that they can possibly be in, where they can remain in a state that’s their home, but provides the conditions by which they’re not just surviving but thriving, then we should support the Right to Contraception Act because that is an important piece to this equation for them to be able to make those healthy decision for themselves.
MT: You helped author House Bill 539 on presumptive eligibility for pregnant women. It passed the House a few weeks ago now – quite early on in the session. Are you feeling hopeful that it will have more success this year than last year?
ZS: I am feeling incredibly optimistic this session. We have a speaker now, Speaker Jason White, that has encouraged and urged all of us to work on a bipartisan level. We are seeing our colleagues across the aisle actually bring us into conversations on legislation that we have been introducing for a number of years that are finally getting some light and attention. I think the energy has changed in the House and I really appreciate the Speaker, as well as the chairmen and chairwomen we have on committees right now, wanting to work with the Democrats. Because, I mean, let’s face it, we are in a super minority – we get that, we understand that. But we believe that Mississippians want us to work together, because the best ideas and the best solutions to the problems many of us face come from when we can get together and hash it out.
We know that we may not get everything we want. But let’s try to build some consensus and at least commit to working together as we move forward. And then Speaker White has also been very adamant about working with leadership in the Senate, as well. So that we can build a positive force on both ends of the Capitol and hopefully get some stuff to the governor’s desk that will be historic for the state of Mississippi.
MT: There are a couple of bills on chemical endangerment this year, which would allow for prosecution of pregnant women who take drugs during pregnancy. The author of one of the bills says it would not prosecute women for taking the abortion pill – that abortion pills are protected because they are prescriptions. But the author of the other chemical endangerment bill said that could be open for debate. What do you make of the obscurity in this legislation and do you think that obscurity is dangerous?
ZS: I think with any bill where you’re getting one perspective that’s different from the other, it’s something that we need to watch. Because it could put our autonomy at risk. And we need to know how is this going to impact the folks that live in our communities on whether or not they can access the things they need.
And, you know, we don’t represent the demographics of our state here in the Legislature. Our population, we have more women than we do men, but the percentage here, in the House as well as the Senate, is very, very low. I think we have a total of 17 women who serve as legislators. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that because you’re a woman and you serve as a legislator that you’re going to do what’s best for women. But what I will say is that a man that has never had a uterus and has never carried a child and doesn’t understand the risks and also the fear that surrounds the ability and process of getting pregnant and having a child, it’s a real thing. When you look at the rates of our maternal mortality and infant mortality in the state, it’s something that our young women have in the back of their minds. And they want to be able to survive this pregnancy and also have a healthy child as an outcome. And then in addition to that be able to raise a child in a healthy environment. And so what we shouldn’t be doing, especially coming from a man, a man should not be telling women what to do with their bodies. I mean, that’s just the bottom line. And we should be able to get together, work with women, and work with experts that can give us the knowledge and the facts around what is good and what’s available for women and their families. Instead of doing everything we can to be punitive against women, we should be trying to help them be successful in the state.
MT: Are there any other bills you’re keeping an eye on? How are you feeling about Medicaid expansion this year?
ZS: I am so overwhelmed with Medicaid expansion. It passed out of committee yesterday and it’s going to come up in the House today. This is the first time in 10 years that we’ve even seen Medicaid expansion be put on the table. It’s a huge deal for the state of Mississippi for all the reasons I’ve talked about today with the health disparities and the negative health outcomes we have in the state. So I’m very excited about that. I am hopeful that our colleagues in the Senate will stand strong and also support this legislation and if, and I say if, a veto were to happen, that we also stand united and override that veto. Because the working families in our communities and our districts across the state are depending on this. They’re depending on us to do the right thing, to give them a chance to work, be healthy, take care of themselves, take care of their families, and achieve that dream of prosperity that Gov. Reeves talked about this week.
For the first time in more than a decade, the House of Representatives will consider legislation to restore voting rights and Second Amendment rights to people convicted of some nonviolent felony offenses.
The House Constitution Committee on Wednesday afternoon advanced House Bill 1609, a bipartisan proposal to automatically restore suffrage to people convicted of nonviolent disenfranchising felonies after they’ve completed the terms of their sentence. No committee member voted against the legislation.
“I’m very excited about this bill,” Democratic Rep. Cheikh Taylor of Starkville said. “In my opinion, this is one of the greatest bipartisan bills we’ve passed since changing the state flag.”
Under the Mississippi Constitution, people convicted of any of 10 types of felonies lose their voting rights for life. Various opinions from the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office expanded the list of disenfranchising felonies to 23.
The House measure would allow people convicted of nonviolent offenses such as bad check writing, perjury, and bribery to obtain their suffrage if they have not been convicted of another felony for five years after completing their sentence and paying any outstanding fines.
But people convicted of murder, arson, armed robbery, carjacking, embezzling more than $5,000, rape, statutory rape, and voter fraud would still lose their voting rights for life.
Constitution Committee Chairman Price Wallace, R-Mendenhall, told Mississippi Today that while he has never been convicted of a felony, he tried to look at this issue by placing himself in the shoes of someone who has had their voting rights taken away for life because of a prior mistake they made.
“They don’t have pride and citizenship anymore,” Wallace said. “They can’t go vote. They can’t voice their opinion. That’s why I feel that this is important.”
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 fully accurate because no state agency tracks people once they are struck for the voter rolls. Studies commissioned by civil rights organizations in 2018 estimated between 44,000 and 50,000 Mississippians were disenfranchised.
For someone to have their suffrage restored, a lawmaker must introduce a bill on their behalf, and two-thirds of lawmakers in both legislative chambers must agree. 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.
The House proposal would not amend the Mississippi Constitution because the constitution already grants lawmakers the authority to restore suffrage to people who have been disenfranchised.
Wallace said he intends to present the bill to the full House chamber next week. Because the plan essentially creates a process to restore suffrage to a group of people in perpetuity, two-thirds of House members, the Legislature’s highest bar to clear, must approve of the plan.
If the proposal passes the 122-member House, it would head to the Senate for consideration, where its fate remains uncertain.
The Senate Judiciary B Committee on Wednesday passed a separate proposal to restore the right to own a firearm to people convicted of nonviolent felony offenses after they’ve completed their prison sentence.
Presumptive Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women passed overwhelmingly in the Senate on Thursday and now heads to the governor.
House Bill 539, authored by House Medicaid Chairwoman Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, allows pregnant women whose net family income is 194% or less of the federal poverty level to be presumed eligible for Medicaid and receive care before their Medicaid application is officially approved by the Mississippi division of Medicaid.
The bill does not introduce an additional eligibility category or expand coverage, McGee has explained. Rather, it simply allows pregnant women eligible for Medicaid to get into a doctor’s office earlier.
Under the bill, pregnant women will be able to receive care under presumed Medicaid eligibility for 60 days after their first doctor’s visit. The hope is that by the end of the 60-day window, they will have submitted their paperwork and been fully determined as eligible for Medicaid – since a regular Medicaid application only takes 45 days to process.
Presumptive eligibility would cost the state roughly $567,000, compared to the $1 million it can cost the state to care for just one extremely premature baby receiving care in a neonatal intensive care unit – “a minimal investment for a tremendous benefit to women in our state,” McGee said in committee.
Only four Senators voted No on the bill. They were: Angela Hill, R-Picayune; Kathy Chism, R-New Albany; Michael McLendon, R-Hernando and Mike Seymour, R-Vancleave.
At the time State Auditor Shad White announced arrests in what he called a historic public embezzlement bust, which involved officials funneling welfare funds to a pharmaceutical startup, White had information that Gov. Phil Bryant was a “key team member” in that company, a new lawsuit alleges.
In the four years since, the complaint from a defendant in the case alleges that White and the Mississippi Department of Human Services has “actively concealed Bryant’s role” in the scandal.
Investigators gathered text messages revealing that during Bryant’s last year in office, the governor consulted Jake Vanlandingham, the CEO of the experimental concussion drug firm called Prevacus, and former NFL quarterback Brett Favre while hundreds of thousands of federal welfare funds flowed to their project. Texts show Bryant, who as governor oversaw the welfare agency, then agreed to accept interest in the company after he left his post.
But officials withheld the relevant texts from Nancy New, who was charged with fraud for funneling the funds to Prevacus, for over two years, a new court filing alleges. New, who claims she was acting on the governor’s direction, didn’t even allegedly have access to the documents when she pleaded guilty to the state charges in April of 2022.
“Most damning perhaps, OSA (Office of the State Auditor) failed to produce Vanlandingham’s phone and text messages to Nancy New and Zach New in criminal discovery,” reads a new third-party complaint against Bryant from New’s son Jess New. “Instead, OSA withheld evidence from the News until long after a plea had been entered in state court.”
In response, a spokesperson for the auditor’s office said it would have been the responsibility of the prosecutor, in this case the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office, which secured the initial indictments, to release discovery materials.
“The Auditor’s Office turned over all evidence to the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office in a timely manner well before any guilty pleas were entered,” the auditor’s spokesperson Fletcher Freeman said in a statement. “This is a desperate attempt to try and discredit not only the State Auditor’s Office but also the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office, which together stopped the largest public fraud scheme in Mississippi history.”
Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens similarly said in an email that his office has a legal duty to serve all criminal defendants with discovery. “Despite Mr. New’s claims, the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office did not deviate from its discovery obligations in this case, and all material was timely disclosed pursuant to Mississippi law. Any claim to the contrary is simply false,” he wrote on Wednesday.
Jess New, a Jackson attorney and director of the Mississippi Oil and Gas Board, is a defendant in the extensive civil litigation MDHS has filed against 47 people or companies in an attempt to recoup the misspent funds. MDHS’s complaint alleges Jess New received welfare funds as a contractor for his mom’s nonprofit Mississippi Community Education Center and attempted to profit from personal interest in the pharmaceutical project. While his mother and brother Zach New have pleaded guilty to state charges, Jess New has not been charged criminally.
On Wednesday, Jess New requested the judge allow him to file a third-party complaint against Bryant, who is not a defendant of the civil suit. While other defendants have asked that Bryant be added to the suit, this is the first time a defendant has attempted to actually bring a complaint against Bryant.
“MDHS has labeled the use of welfare grants to fund Prevacus as ‘an illegal transaction,’ yet MDHS continues to refuse to include Bryant as a Defendant despite overwhelming evidence of Bryant’s principal role in the ‘illegal’ transaction,” reads Jess News’ complaint, filed by his attorney Allen Smith.
An attorney for Bryant, who has not been charged in the state or federal welfare scandal-related cases, did not respond to Mississippi Today’s request for comment on Wednesday.
A gag order in the case has prevented parties or their counsel from providing any information or clarification to the public. The complaint details Bryant’s entanglement with Prevacus starting with their introduction in late 2018 until the arrests in 2020, using much of the same written communication included in countless news reports and court filings.
What’s unique about Jess New’s filing this week is how it describes the events leading up to the arrests and the flow of information afterwards — raising questions about exactly what law enforcement knew when.
White began quietly investigating the welfare agency in mid-2019 when he learned about suspicious payments by then-MDHS Director John Davis to professional wrestling brothers Brett and Teddy DiBiase.
Investigators eventually unearthed checks from New’s nonprofit to a concussion drug firm called Prevacus and subpoenaed Vanlandingham for documents in late December of 2019.
“On January 23, 2020, Vanlandingham responded by forwarding emails and documents to OSA that expressly mention Bryant and indicate his involvement with Prevacus since 2018,” Jess New’s complaint reads.
The email was dated Dec. 29, 2018 — just three days after Bryant attended a dinner for Prevacus and four days before Davis and New met with Vanlandingham and Favre “at Bryant’s direction,” the lawsuit alleges, to commit the funding.
“Governor Bryant is very supportive of future relations including drug clinical trials and manufacturing in the State of Mississippi,” Vanlandingham’s email reads. “I would like nothing more than to work with you all and Brett to bring benefit to Southern Miss University as well.”
The lawsuit alleges Vanlandingham attached a document listing “key” Prevacus “team members,” which included Bryant. In another email he produced to the auditor’s investigator, Vanlandingham told his investors that a “great deal of this has been funded with the help of folks in Mississippi including the Governor.”
“Bryant is a necessary party to this lawsuit, but the State of Mississippi, through MDHS and OSA, have actively concealed Bryant’s role. Bryant’s joinder as a Defendant is essential to Jess New’s ability to adequately defend himself,” Jess New’s complaint reads. “MDHS seeks to improperly blame Jess New for grant funds that Bryant directed to Prevacus. Jess New is entitled to show the jury that Bryant directed these grant funds to Prevacus while Governor in order to benefit himself, personally, and his business associates.”
In mid-January of 2020, while Vanlandingham was dealing with the subpoena from the auditor’s office, he was simultaneously making arrangements with Bryant to give him “a company package for all your help.” Bryant had just left office; texts indicate he was waiting until that date to enter into business with Prevacus. Shortly after, Bryant joined a new consulting firm and by Feb. 4, 2020, he was confirming a meeting date and location with Vanlandingham.
The same day, a Hinds County grand jury handed down indictments against the welfare officials. Equipped with at least some documents indicating Prevacus’ connection to welfare funds involved Bryant, White made his arrests the next day.
In response to the arrests, then-U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst’s office issued a release revealing that White had not included the FBI in his investigation, despite the scheme involving federal funds. White, a Republican, had previously worked on Bryant’s gubernatorial campaign and was appointed to his position by Bryant to fill a vacancy. White explained that he went to the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office, run by a Democrat, to avoid the appearance of political influence and for the ability to act quickly compared to the federal authorities.
But the arrests also resulted in another thing: Bryant ending talks with the company at the center of the scandal, texts show.
When news broke of the arrests, Bryant texted Vanlandingham to ask about the charges. The scientist told the former governor he’d been subpoenaed and “just gave them everything.”
“Not good…” Bryant wrote.
Five days later, White visited the local FBI offices to turn over his investigative file. Within hours, he also publicly named Bryant as the whistleblower of the case. To explain, White said that Bryant had relayed the initial intel about suspected fraud — the small tip regarding Davis and the wrestlers — in mid-2019.
The same morning, Bryant texted Vanlandingham, “I was unaware your company had ever received any TANIF funds. If some received anything of benefit personally then Legal issues certainly exists. I can have no further contact with your company. It is unfortunate to find ourselves at this point . I was hoping we could have somehow helped those who suffer from Brain Injuries. This has put that that hope on the sidelines.”
White’s office retrieved this and other texts from Vanlandingham’s phone after executing a search warrant on his Florida home on Feb. 19, 2020.
Defense attorneys for the News wouldn’t see these texts, according to the latest lawsuit, until Mississippi Today published them more than two years later.
Medicaid expansion, which for more than a decade has been blocked by legislative leaders, passed the House Wednesday 98-20 in less than 15 minutes and now advances to the Senate.
House Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, explained the policy as a “moral imperative” and said it “should transcend politics.” She also said that lawmakers have yet to propose a viable alternative to expansion to deal with Mississippi’s lack of health care access and poor health outcomes and that “‘No’ is not a policy that has helped.”
No questions followed McGee’s explanation of House Bill 1725. The bill passed with more than the two-thirds majority needed to override a potential veto from Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who for years has opposed Medicaid expansion and reiterated his opposition multiple times during his successful reelection campaign last year.
The measure now heads to the Senate, which is also working on its own version of an expansion bill, as lawmakers consider making Mississippi the 41st state to expand Medicaid.
Authored by new House Speaker Jason White, R-West, and McGee, the bill would expand Medicaid eligibility to 138% of the federal poverty level or about $20,000 annually for an individual. The bill contains a work requirement for recipients of Medicaid expansion, but states that the expansion would go into effect even if the federal government does not approve the work requirement.
“Finding affordable access to health care is not only compassionate, but it is a smart investment in our workforce,” White said in a press conference after the floor vote. “As this bill is transmitted to the Senate for their consideration, I want to acknowledge that they, too, are drafting legislation that will provide health care accessibility options … Today we have sent them a conservative plan that addresses our shared goal to provide health care coverage for hardworking, low-income Mississippians.”
White expressed optimism the governor would sign the bill, saying he believed Reeves recognizes the importance of expanding health care access. Reeves has vehemently opposed Medicaid expansion, calling it “welfare” and “Obamacare.”
“A healthy workforce projects to a healthy economy,” White said. “… I’m not anticipating a veto at this point. I’m anticipating a business-minded, reasonable governor who weighs all options and all things and I think he is just that — in spite of what others may think.”
McGee in the press conference said: “Moving beyond a decade of simply saying ‘no’ to finding a workable solution to health access takes effort. But it’s a task I believe lawmakers from both parties in both chambers are up for … Most importantly I’m excited about the hundreds of thousands of working Mississippians that now and in the future could have a way toward a better, healthier quality of life.”
The federal government pays 90% of the cost for those covered by Medicaid expansion. Various studies have concluded Medicaid expansion in Mississippi would be a boon for the state economy and provide health care coverage for about 200,000 Mississippians — primarily the working poor. For the first four years, there is projected to be no cost to the state because of $600 million in additional federal funds, offered as an incentive to expand Medicaid.
The bill also has a built-in repealer, meaning the program would automatically end after four years — unless the Legislature chooses to renew it. This likely made it more palatable to Republicans on the fence.
McGee called it a “free pilot program” during a committee meeting and said “if it doesn’t work out, if we decide that our health outcomes have not improved, if it costs too much for the state, if for any reason we do not believe that it is doing the things that we want it to do, the program will simply repeal in 2029.”
Unlike the proposal Senate leaders say they are crafting, the House bill would not make expansion contingent on the Biden administration approving the work requirement. That’s important, since during the Biden administration CMS has rescinded work requirement waivers previously granted under the Trump administration, and has not approved new ones.
Every lawmaker who voted against the measure was a Republican. Several of those lawmakers refused comment after the vote, including Reps. Greg Haney, R-Gulfport; Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes, R-Picayune and Timmy Ladner, R-Poplarville.
Rep. Bill Kinkade, R-Byhalia, voted against the expansion bill, but said that could change if the measure is improved.
“I’m not convinced that the work component is as solid as they are saying it is,” Kinkade said. “I think this is a step in the right direction, and the conversation is going in the right direction on what we are trying to accomplish, but I was just not ready to vote for this measure right now. The narrative has got to change.”
Rep. Jill Ford, R-Madison, said, “It was an easy No vote for me … I represent one of the most conservative constituencies in the state, and my constituents do not support this. This was not about me. It was about the will of my constituents.”
On the other end of the spectrum, all the Democrats in the House, such as House minority leader Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, voted for the proposal.
“I kind of felt like it was going to be a great day,” Johnson said. Driving to the Capitol Wednesday morning, he said, he reminisced with former House Democrat leader Bobby Moak about how long they had been working to expand Medicaid.
While Johnson said he wished the bill included components of the House Democrats’ plan to provide more private insurance options for people who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid expansion, he said he told his fellow Democrats he would vote for the Republican bill and believed that it would help thousands of Mississippians.
Tamara Grace Butler-Washington, D-Jackson, is a freshman House member who worked years ago for the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program touting the need for Mississippi to expand Medicaid.
“It is a momentous occasion, especially for a freshman legislator to see this, knowing for how long it has been an issue,” she said.
Both Johnson and Butler-Washington praised the leadership of the House for passage of the bill.
Speaker White acknowledged his House colleagues for the overwhelming vote, his Republican colleagues for “strong support on an issue we have neglected for so long,” and the Senate for also drafting expansion legislation.
“In most uncomfortable times is where we make our best marks,” White said at the conclusion of the press conference.
BAY SAINT LOUIS — Mississippi Gulf Coast residents gathered at the Hancock County Library in Bay Saint Louis on Tuesday ready to voice their opposition over the use of the Bonnet Carré Spillway, which in recent years has plagued the Coast fisheries and the area’s overall economy.
But the public meeting, they learned, is part of a much broader effort by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reevaluate how it manages the Lower Mississippi River, which stretches from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to the Gulf of Mexico. The meeting on Tuesday was the first in a series the corps is holding over the next two weeks.
“It’s people, and it’s the environment, and it’s how do we balance all of our missions in this study considering the sediment and water budget in the Mississippi River, and how can we manage the overall study area in the best way possible for the next hundred years,” said Elizabeth Behrens, chief of the Environmental Studies Section for the corps’ New Orleans District.
Elizabeth Behrens, Chief of Environmental Studies Section for the Corps’ New Orleans District. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
The goal of the study, which will be a five-year effort, is to recommend specific projects around flood control, floodplain management, navigation, environmental restoration, hydropower and recreation, among other purposes.
General project ideas that the corps is already considering include: balancing water and sediment throughout the river and tributary system, reconnecting the river to its floodplain in certain areas, stabilizing channels, reducing flood risk for disadvantaged areas and changing the use of existing structure.
In the first stage of the study, the corps is traveling to cities throughout the Lower Mississippi River plain to hear what ideas residents have. Additional Mississippi meetings will take place in Stoneville on Feb. 28, Natchez on Feb. 29, and Vicksburg on March. 11 (visit the corps’ study website for details on meeting details and how to submit feedback).
One of the existing structures that the corps may reevaluate is the Bonnet Carré Spillway, which the agency built in the late 1920s and early 1930s as part of the federal government’s response to the Great Flood of 1927. The spillway’s purpose is to divert incoming flood waters from New Orleans. When the Mississippi River reaches a certain height, the corps opens the Bonnet Carré, sending water into Lake Ponchartrain that eventually flows into the Mississippi Sound.
The corps has operated the spillway for roughly 90 years, but never as frequently as the last decade. In 2019, for the first time ever, the it opened the spillway twice in a calendar year.
The resulting influx of freshwater into the Mississippi Sound has historically disrupted the habitats of species such oysters, shrimp, crabs and even dolphins. The 2019 spillway openings devastated the populations of those species in the Sound, and subsequently local fisheries and the tourist-driven economy on the Coast as well.
Former Biloxi mayor Gerald Blessey speaks at a meeting for the Army Corps’ Lower Mississippi River Comprehensive Management Study in Bay Saint Louis. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Gerald Blessey, former mayor of Biloxi, said at Tuesday’s meeting that the corps needs to make changes to the spillway’s protocol before the end of the five-year study.
“We can expect more and more water (coming down the Mississippi River),” Blessey said. “There will be more floods. We can’t wait five years to start working on solutions.”
In response to the 2019 openings, Blessey and other Coast leaders organized the Mississippi Sound Coalition to call attention to the issue. Last month, the Coalition filed a lawsuit against the corps, alleging the agency violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act by lowering the salinity and causing “direct and indirect mortality of many resident bottleneck dolphins.”
On Wednesday, a Mississippi state Senate committee passed the “Mississippi Comprehensive Coastal Conservation and Restoration Act of 2024,” a bill that would create an advisory board to work with state agencies in restoring coastal habitats.
The corps will take input on its new Mississippi River study from the public until April 2.
Behrens, the corps staffer, said the study is a historic effort in developing how the federal government manages the Mississippi River.
“This is really unprecedented,” she said. “We’ve been operating on the river since the (1920s), and we’ve been operating it off of a consistent program for a while, so this is a monumental effort. A lot of people who are no longer even living looked forward to the day that we would look again at the Mississippi River and balancing it for all these missions.”
The Justice Department is accusing the state of Mississippi of violating the constitutional rights of those held in four prisons: the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, the South Mississippi Correctional Institution and Wilkinson County Correctional Facility.
“Our work makes clear that people do not abandon their civil and constitutional rights at the jailhouse door,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division told reporters in a press conference Wednesday. “The unconstitutional conditions in Mississippi’s prisons have existed for far too long, and we hope that this announcement marks a turning point towards implementing sound, evidence-based solutions to these entrenched problems.”
Department officials released a 60-page report Wednesday that centers on the three prisons besides Parchman. The report concluded that the Mississippi Department of Corrections “does not adequately supervise incarcerated people, control contraband, and investigate incidents of harm and misconduct. These basic safety failures and the poor living conditions inside the facilities promote violence, including sexual assault. Gangs operate in the void left by staff and use violence to control people and traffic contraband.”
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke speaks to media via Zoom during a press conference at the Thad Cochran U.S. District Courthouse in Jackson, Miss., after six law enforcement officers pleaded guilty to brutalizing and assaulting two Black men during a home raid that ended with an officer shooting one of the victims in the mouth. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Clarke said one major reason for this problem is that vacancy rates for correctional officers run between 30% and 50% at these prisons.
“It should be corrections officers running prisons, not gangs,” said U.S. Attorney Todd Gee for the Southern District of Mississippi. “When inmates are forced to join gangs, they bring that violent culture with them when they are released.”
A former gang intelligence officer estimated that more than half of those inside the Central Mississippi prison belong to gangs, according to the report. In recent years, the percentage of validated gang members inside Wilkinson was as high as 90%.
“The strength of prison gangs inside the MDOC facilities that we investigated is so great that even some staff members have gang affiliations and are on the gangs’ payroll,” the report says.
A coordinator attributed the gangs’ strength “to staff corruption and estimated that more than half the staff are on the payroll of gangs,” according to the report.
Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain has repeatedly vowed to put the gangs out of business and replace them with faith-based alternatives. The Justice Department concluded that “these efforts are inadequate. MDOC’s statewide gang coordinator could not share any metrics that assess the effectiveness of their gang control strategy. Nor do MDOC’s measures appear from our review to have broken the gangs’ stranglehold over MDOC facilities.”
The report also alleged that housing practices at some prisons “create a substantial risk of serious harm. MDOC holds hundreds of people at Central Mississippi and Wilkinson [a private prison run by MTC] in restrictive housing for prolonged periods in appalling conditions. Restrictive housing units are unsanitary, hazardous, and chaotic, with little supervision. They are breeding grounds for suicide, self-inflicted injury, fires, and assaults.”
MDOC officials have not responded to a request for comment about the Justice Department report. MTC, which operates Wilkinson, said in an emailed response that the Justice Department’s conclusions about the Wilkinson prison were drawn from visits conducted nearly two years ago and it has made “many improvements since.”
“While some challenges are inherent in operating a correctional facility, especially at facilities that house high-security inmates like Wilkinson, we continue to enhance the services we provide,” MTC said.
“The report serves as a reminder of the broad challenges faced by most, if not all, correctional facilities in all jurisdictions. These include staffing, contraband, and inmate behavior.”
Management & Training Corporation (MTC) was founded on a mission to help people improve their lives through education, training, and rehabilitation. We invest often and heavily in programming.
These constitutional violations are “systemic problems that have been going on for years,” according to the report.
In 2019, the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica published a series of stories on these prisons, exposing grisly violence, gang control and subhuman living conditions, noting that lawmakers had known about these issues for years and had done little to fix Parchman and the other prisons.
After that reporting, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and others called on the Justice Department to investigate. The department began to do that in February 2020, starting with Parchman, which the department concluded in April 2022 that those imprisoned were being subjected to violence, inadequate medical care and lack of suicide prevention.
Asked what steps those officials have taken on Parchman since the Justice Department’s 2022 report, Clarke replied, “We are aware of preliminary steps they have taken, but as laid out in great detail, the problems are severe, egregious and long-standing.”
In its latest report, Justice Department officials concluded that all four prisons are “riddled with violence. … Gross understaffing, poor supervision, and inadequate investigations create an environment where violent gang activity and dangerous contraband trafficking proliferate.”
Central Mississippi averages an assault every other day between September 2020 and June 2022, 23 of them requiring hospitalization, according to the report. South Mississippi reported nearly 100 assaults, about 4o of them requiring hospitalization. And a fifth of the more than 150 assaults at Wilkinson required hospitalization.
These numbers underestimate the violence, the report says. “In light of the large number of documented assaults …, MDOC officials cannot claim ignorance of the substantial threat of violence at these facilities.”
At Central Mississippi, camera footage showed an inmate choking and kicking a victim in the head at 3:41 a.m. on an unspecified date. Later, another assailant punched him in the face. By 8:43 a.m., the body was rigid.
It wasn’t until 8:45 a.m., five hours after the assault, that an officer ever came to the cell. It was the officer bringing the morning meal.
Medical help arrived 20 minutes later, but it was far too late. The victim, who wasn’t identified, died.
“The Warden’s report makes no mention of an officer being present on the housing unit at any point during the five hours between the assault and the [man] foaming at the mouth,” according to the report.
At South Mississippi, gang members attacked a man over $68 that he supposedly owed, the report says. “The assailants dragged the victim across different zones of the same housing unit, then after he lost consciousness, brought him to the showers and poured cold water from a garbage can on him to wake him up. Once the victim started coughing and spitting up water, the assailants continued the assault, pouring boiling hot water on him and beating him. The attackers reportedly prohibited anyone in the housing area from contacting medical [services] following the assault. After conferring with other gang members, the assailants agreed to request a security check from officers, because of the severity of the victim’s injuries. Responding staff found the victim lying on the floor behind benches. He was unable to stand up and moaned when asked questions. He had burns over 10–20% of his body, a nasal fracture, head injury, lack of cognitive response and encephalopathy (brain injury).”
The report details how often no one is monitoring the prisons’ video surveillance.
Violence at these prisons includes sexual assaults. The Prison Rape Elimination Act Manager for Central Mississippi receives between 20 and 25 complaints a month, and that number doesn’t include the attacks that go unreported.
Justice Department officials determined that staff could easily introduce contraband into these prisons.
“Drugs, cell phones, and weapons are the most common type of contraband found in the facilities,” the report says. “Many of the assaultive incidents at Central Mississippi, South Mississippi, and Wilkinson, involve contraband weapons. During one altercation at Wilkinson, an incarcerated individual sustained a laceration to his chest. Security staff recovered a piece of a kitchen knife from the scene. After an assault at Wilkinson that sent an incarcerated person to the hospital, staff recovered an eight-inch implement.”
In a single month in 2022, Wilkinson officials recovered 28 grams of meth, 8 ounces of marijuana and 10 cellphones. Over a 13-month period, South Mississippi found 1,200 cellphones, which are commonly used to “conduct business, including contraband trafficking,” according to the report.
The volume of these drugs “leads to extreme, drug-induced behaviors that contribute to violence and fatal overdoses,” according to the report. “An individual who died at Wilkinson after cutting himself and assaulting and choking his cellmate was found to have amphetamine and methamphetamine in his system.”
In addition to the lack of staff to monitor towers and videos, the report found officers “fail to do basic security tasks such as making rounds, counting incarcerated persons, and keeping doors secure. MDOC has long known about this gross understaffing and the harm it causes, but has failed to take reasonable, effective measures to fix the problem.”
Since 2020, when Gov. Tate Reeves appointed Cain, MDOC has raised starting pay for correctional officers, lowered eligibility requirements, shortened training and expedited hiring.
Despite that, the prisons are operating at “dangerously low staffing levels,” the report says. Despite significant pay raises, the pay remains lower than “other correctional agencies in the region and in other industries in Mississippi.”
MDOC also struggles to retain those it hires. One human resources officer said South Mississippi lost about half of its new hires from the previous year.
The reasons why? People aren’t prepared for the job, some have gang affiliations, and others help bring in contraband, sometimes “because of threats from incarcerated individuals,” sometimes because of “significant money being paid to officers.”
U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner for the Northern District of Mississippi said that ensuring “constitutional and humane conditions of confinement in our prisons is a key part of public safety. By allowing physical violence, illegal gang activity, and contraband to run rampant, Mississippi not only violates the rights of people incarcerated at these facilities, but also compromises the legitimacy of law enforcement efforts to protect our communities.”
UPDATE 2/28/24: This story has been updated to include MTC’s response to the report.
