OurTupelo

Attorneys and judges statewide are voicing opposition to a bill that would make joint custody of children the standard in all divorce cases. If the proposal becomes law, tens of thousands of Mississippi parents could be affected by the policy, which only exists in five other states. 

Proponents say the legislation would level the playing field for fathers and courts would reserve the right to award sole custody in cases that warrant it. But family lawyers who spoke to Mississippi Today say overriding a presumption of joint custody will be difficult and too many vulnerable parents will not receive sole custody when that’s best for them and their children. Critics say the legislation will not work well in practice, and it may violate the state constitution. 

While lawmakers are still hashing out details, versions of the bill garnered overwhelming support in both chambers. 

John Hatcher, a Booneville-based attorney, served as chancery court judge for eight counties in northeast Mississippi for 12 years. He told Mississippi Today he believes the bill is well-intended, but thinks it would be a “travesty if it passes.”

Judges should give children an impartial hearing without preference for a particular outcome, and there should be no presumption that each parent deserves equal time parenting, Hatcher said. 

“No person can have property rights over children,” Hatcher said. “They are not chattel.”

The legislation is also arguably at odds with the Mississippi Constitution, Hatcher said. Under state law, the chancery court has complete jurisdiction over divorce, alimony and the matters of children. Hatcher sees this bill as an attempt to diminish the court’s power. 

“Now the Legislature is going to be the superior guardian?” said Hatcher. “It’s wrong. I don’t believe it’s constitutional.”

Mississippi Today spoke to eight divorce attorneys in the state about the issue. They all said they were against the bill. Seven said it would be detrimental to women and children. 

Mack Varner, who has been practicing family law for 50 years in Vicksburg, was shocked to hear the bill’s author, Rep. Shane Aguirre, a Republican from Tupelo, is not an attorney but an accountant. Only 25% of Mississippi’s lawmakers are attorneys, and most don’t include family law in their area of practice. 

“The bottom line is, they don’t know what they’re doing,” Varner said. 

If passed, Varner believes the legislation would help fathers evade child support. 

“In a lot of instances, they don’t want joint custody,” Varner said. “They just don’t want to have to pay child support.”

Even under the current system, there are women who have joint custody but end up providing the majority of caregiving.  

Pamela Stokes of Madison endured a decade-long custody battle with her ex-husband, whom she divorced in 2006. In the beginning, they agreed on joint custody of their three children. But the children were primarily living with her, said Stokes, because her ex-husband was regularly intoxicated and unable to care for them. 

Mississippi Today reviewed court records showing that in 2010, the court ordered Stokes’ ex-husband, Robert Martin III, to undergo regular drug and alcohol testing. Martin did not respond to a request for comment from Mississippi Today. 

Stokes said she had almost no money after her divorce. She had to reinvent herself several times, worked in real estate and government contracts and eventually established her own swimming pool business, which she still operates. The money her ex-husband gave Stokes in monthly child support payments didn’t even cover the cost of daycare, she said, much less activities, food or clothing. As a single mother, she said the odds were stacked against her.

“They rape you financially and reduce you to poverty,” Stokes said of the legal system. 

What is in the best interest of children?

Research shows co-parenting is good for many children in low-conflict situations. But parents in low-conflict situations are often amicable and agree to joint custody outside of the court, experts told Mississippi Today, while cases that are litigated are typically more contentious. Those experts say mandating that courts use joint custody as a standard only serves to tie judges’ hands. 

While judges would still have the final say, a presumption can be difficult to override, said Douglas NeJaime, a family law professor at Yale Law School. And Mississippi’s legislation offers no exceptions for cases involving domestic violence or high conflict. That is problematic, NeJaime said.

“Those people might stay married rather than get divorced and have to confront this presumption of shared parenting time,” NeJaime said. 

Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula, and Sen. Joey Fillingane, a Republican from Sumrall, serve on the Judiciary A Committee, where Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann originally sent the bill. Wiggins and Fillingane, two of six lawmakers tasked with deciding the final details of the bill, told Mississippi Today that the bill would create more equal opportunity for fathers to be involved in their children’s lives. Wiggins and Fillingane both practice family law and said they see the legislation as progressive and reflective of families today.

“In 2026, we shouldn’t be giving preferences to one gender over the other as it relates to custody,” Fillingane said.

Fathers should receive a fair hearing and be considered for custody, said Kelly Williams, a Ridgeland-based attorney and a child welfare law specialist certified by the National Association of Counsel for Children. But she said this happens under the current system. 

Doling out more rulings of 50-50 custody might give the appearance of equality, she said, but it will make the system less equitable – particularly for survivors of domestic violence, parents in low-income households and stay-at-home mothers. 

More importantly, the argument that fathers deserve a system they perceive to be more fair is misguided, William said. 

“We don’t take the focus off the best interest of children to satisfy or level the playing field for litigants,” Williams said. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

The bill is still in negotiations. The Senate made minor changes to the House bill, but both chambers’ versions would make joint custody the standard in all divorce cases if Gov. Tate Reeves signs the bill into law.

Lawmakers must agree on language by 8 p.m. Monday for the bill to survive, and the legislation would then go to the full House and Senate for a final vote. 

County and state officials are coordinating with volunteers in Carroll County to wrangle what they said is one of the five largest wildfires ever in Mississippi. As of Monday morning, the inferno had spread across 4,246 acres, or 6.6. square miles, the county’s fire coordinator Jake Hurst said.

There have so far been no injuries or damages to any structures, Hurst said. As a precaution, officials on Friday evacuated 10 homes along County Roads 218, 360 and 163.

Officials are still investigating the cause of the fire, which Hurst said began on Wednesday last week. Hurst said a lot of “fuel” in the area from the recent tornadoes and ice storm, like dead trees and limbs and also young pine trees, helped the fire gain momentum.

“It was thick, highly fueled terrain,” he described. “The dryness, the low humidity, the wind, anything you needed for a perfect storm, per se, we had from Friday until yesterday (Sunday).”

Based on information from the Mississippi Forestry Commission, the wildfire is the largest ever in Carroll County, and one of the top five largest in the state’s history, Hurst said. MFC did not respond to calls Monday to confirm.

“This honestly looked like something you would see in California on the news type of fire,” he said. “It was definitely something I hope I never have to deal with again. It was very challenging in the terrain and environment we were in. It was one for the history books for sure.”

Like many places across the country, Carroll County relies heavily on volunteer firefighters. Hurst, the only paid firefighter in the county, said 25 volunteers have worked on this response. The county is working together with the Mississippi Forestry Commission and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to attack the fire. Groups including the Cajun Navy and Red Cross are helping to feed first responders.

To contain fires of this size, he explained MFC will bring in bulldozers or plows to create “fire lanes,” which put a boundary around the fire to prevent it from spreading. A helicopter is also being used to drop 100 to 150 gallons of water at a time on certain “hotspots,” he added.

“A firetruck and water will not contain them,” Hurst said.

As of Monday officials had the fire 70% contained. The fire as of Saturday was 40% contained and had spread to 3,000 acres, Gov. Tate Reeves said on social media at the time.

WASHINGTON — Certain names will be familiar to the Supreme Court in the latest case involving a Black death row inmate from Mississippi, with arguments set for Tuesday.

Doug Evans, a now-retired prosecutor with a history of dismissing Black jurors for discriminatory reasons, knocked all but one Black person off the jury that tried and convicted Terry Pitchford.

Judge Joseph Loper allowed it to happen. The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction.

READ MORE: Mississippi Today investigation reveals details of jury selection in the case of death row inmate Terry Pitchford.

Just seven years ago, in a case involving the same district attorney, trial judge and state high court, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the death sentence and conviction of Curtis Flowers because of what Justice Brett Kavanaugh described as a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of Black individuals.”

Seven of the current nine justices were on the court then.

The Supreme Court has in recent years taken a dim view of defendants’ claims in capital cases, especially in the last-minute efforts to stave off execution. Last week, the court turned away the appeal of Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed over the dissent of three liberal justices, who believe he should be allowed to test evidence that he has argued would exonerate him.

Claim of racial discrimination

But the court in December agreed to hear Pitchford’s appeal relating to a claim of racial discrimination that, in other cases, has gained traction even among some conservative justices.

Pitchford was sentenced to death for his role in the 2004 killing of Reuben Britt, the owner of the Crossroads Grocery, just outside Grenada in northern Mississippi. Pitchford, now 40, was 18 when he and a friend went to the store to rob it. The friend shot Britt three times, fatally wounding him, but was ineligible for the death penalty because he was younger than 18. Pitchford was tried for capital murder and sentenced to death.

The case has been making its way through the court system for 20 years. In 2023, U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills overturned Pitchford’s conviction, holding that the trial judge did not give Pitchford’s lawyers enough of a chance to argue that the prosecution was improperly dismissing Black jurors.

Mills wrote that his ruling was partially motivated by Evans’ actions in prior cases. A unanimous panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling.

In the course of selecting a jury, lawyers can excuse a juror merely because of a suspicion that a particular person would vote against their client.

The Supreme Court tried to stamp out discrimination in the composition of juries in Batson v. Kentucky in 1986. The court ruled then that jurors could not be excused from service because of their race and set up a system by which trial judges could evaluate claims of discrimination and the race-neutral explanations by prosecutors.

In Pitchford’s case, the prosecution excused four of the five remaining Black people in the jury pool and defense lawyers objected. Loper, the judge, accepted all four explanations and moved on without analyzing whether race was the reason, Mills wrote.

Issues in Pitchford’s case

The Supreme Court case focuses on whether Pitchford’s lawyers did enough to object to Loper’s rulings and whether the state Supreme Court acted reasonably in ruling they had not.

Joseph Perkovich, who will argue Pitchford’s case Tuesday, said the record in the case clearly favors his client. Loper “did not grasp he had to a constitutional duty to determine whether the reasons the district attorney gave for striking the Black citizens were credible and truthful,” Perkovich wrote in an email. “The judge simply failed even to try to discharge that critical duty, despite the defense’s efforts.”

In the state’s written filing, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch defended the state Supreme Court decision and said Evans did not inappropriately strike Black people from the jury.

Pitchford should be released or retried if he wins at the Supreme Court, his lawyers argued in written filings. Mississippi said the case should return to the state Supreme Court to review his arguments that the jury strikes were discriminatory.

Flowers was tried six times in the shooting deaths of four people. He was released from prison in 2019 and the state dropped the charges against him the following year, after Evans turned the case over to state officials. Evans stepped down from his job in 2023.

On its own, Mills wrote, the Flowers case does not prove anything. But he said that the Mississippi Supreme Court should have examined that history in considering Pitchford’s appeal.

“The court merely believes that it should have been included in a ‘totality of the circumstances’ analysis of the issue,” Mills wrote.

Lawmakers on Sunday night passed much of the state’s budget for next fiscal year, planning to spend nearly $7.4 billion, $225 million more than the current year, or about a 3% increase.

Although lawmakers by late last week said they had reached agreement on most major spending, they still have some details to hash out and pass on to the governor for his consideration. Legislative leaders said they hope to finish work and end the 2026 regular session as early as Wednesday.

Lawmakers appeared to reach agreement through the weekend on two major spending items – the K-12 education budget, including a teacher pay raise, and how much extra to pump into Medicaid, hoping to avoid a shortfall in the coming year after agency leaders warned them federal pandemic funds that had helped keep the agency afloat have been depleted.

Lawmakers announced Friday they had reached an agreement on a teacher pay raise of $2,000, far short of the $5,000 the House had proffered and $6,000 the Senate had approved. Legislative leaders said the expected Medicaid shortfall and other fiscal issues forced them to reduce the proposed raise. The Senate on Sunday night passed the $3.3-billion education budget, but the House did not. Some lawmakers and education advocates said they are holding out hope that lawmakers might increase the raise with some last-minute negotiations, albeit doubtful.

For Medicaid, lawmakers increased the agency’s spending by about $200 million, with a $35 million “deficit appropriation” to cover the remainder of this fiscal year through June, and an increase of $165 million for the coming budget year.

Lawmakers have a deadline Monday night for filing agreements on general bills and constitutional amendments.

Some major agency budget agreements lawmakers announced over the weekend:

Quote of the Week

In Brief

Charter school bills dead

Even though there were a handful of charter school bills on the table when the session began, most have died as the session comes to a close.

House Bill 1395, which now contains the Senate’s teacher pay raise proposal, includes a provision that would make it easier for school districts to get rid of unused buildings and clarifies the process that gives charter schools first dibs.

It’s the only major charter school bill still in play, aside from the K-12 appropriations bill that gives the charter authorizer board its annual allocation, according to the board’s executive director Lisa Karmacharya.

The board’s main request — which would have allowed charters to expand into areas beyond those with failing districts — is dead.

In the months leading up to the legislative session, Senate leaders made clear their disappointment in the performance of the state’s charter schools. Most of Mississippi’s few charter schools are considered “failing” by the state Department of Education. – Devna Bose

Prison health reforms killed again

Senate Corrections Committee Vice Chairwoman Lydia Chassaniol, a Republican from Winona, has again killed a vehicle for prison health care reforms.

Chassaniol, who has been running the committee while Chairman Juan Barnett, a Democrat from Heidelberg, is out with an illness, declined to either concur with House’s changes or invite more negotiation on SB 2041. House Corrections Chairwoman Rep. Becky Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, had the House insert her proposals into the measure after Chassaniol killed them with an earlier committee deadline.

The proposals in the now-dead Senate bill included a policy requiring the creation of a hepatitis C program and an HIV program aimed at improving the treatment of prisoners and taking the power to award health contracts away from the Department of Corrections. But the later proposal is still alive through the budget process lawmakers are aiming to finish up this week. Lawmakers could spend over $480 million on the Department of Corrections over the next fiscal year, and Currie hopes to condition some of the spending on the implementation of reforms. – Michael Goldberg

New law defines artificial intelligence

Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law a bill to create a state definition for artificial intelligence.

HB 1723 defines AI as a “machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments.”

This is now the third state law enacted to deal with AI. The other two deal with deepfakes in political attack ads and sexually explicit deepfakes of children. There were other bills attempting to regulate AI this session but they all appear to be dead. – Katherine Lin

Supreme Court redistricting heads to final negotiations

House and Senate negotiators are haggling over legislation to redraw the Mississippi Supreme Court districts.

House Speaker Jason White named Republican Rep. Kevin Horan of Grenada, Republican Rep. Jansen Owen of Poplarville and Republican Rep. Joey Hood of Ackerman as the House negotiators.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann named Republican Sen. Brice Wiggins of Pascagoula, Republican Sen. Joey Fillingane of Sumrall and Republican Sen. Dean Kirby of Pearl as the Senate negotiators.

A federal judge ruled that one of Mississippi’s Supreme Court districts violates the federal Voting Rights Act because it does not give Black voters a fair shot at electing a candidate of their choice. The judge gave the Legislature a chance to adopt a new map during the 2026 session.

Lawmakers have not yet unveiled a new map for the three districts, and legislative leaders have said they’re waiting to see if the U.S. Supreme Court’s pending ruling in the Louisiana v. Callais decision will impact.

Negotiators have until Monday to file their initial compromise proposal. – Taylor Vance

Reeves vetoes medical marijuana bills

Gov. Tate Reeves has vetoed two bills authored by Rep. Lee Yancey, a Republican from Brandon, that would have eased some regulations on medical marijuana in Mississippi.

The first, HB 895, would have removed the requirement for patients to have a follow-up visit with their doctor six-months after obtaining access to cannabis, would have extended the length of validity of registry ID cards and would have lifted the limit on potency for tinctures, oils and concentrates. In his veto message, Reeves wrote that the legislations would erode safeguards “to minimize the potential diversion of medical marijuana for recreational purposes.”

The second bill, HB 1152, would have created new pathways for patients who suffer chronic, progressive, severely disabling or terminal illnesses that do not meet the current qualifying conditions under Mississippi’s Medical Cannabis Act to access the drugs, including people from other states. Reeves said he agreed with the original intent of the bill, but opposed amendments that would have extended the right to try medical cannabis “to every person on the planet” and posed “an unreasonable risk of pushing the medical marijuana program in the direction of facilitating recreational use.” – Michael Goldberg

By the Numbers

$108 million a year

Total cost of the teacher pay raise compromise lawmakers reported reaching over the weekend.

More Legislative Coverage

Lawmakers strike deal on lower, $2,000 teacher pay raise. Educators say they ‘desperately need’ more

At one point weeks ago, dueling offers of raises from the Senate and House had reached $6,000. Read the story.

After House kills pharmacy benefit manager reform, speaker asks governor to call a special session

The lone remaining bill intended to enhance the regulation and transparency of pharmacy benefit managers died Thursday after the Mississippi House of Representatives chose not to advance the Senate’s versions of the bill or pursue further negotiations on an issue that has long divided the chambers and lawmakers within them. Read the story.

Lawmakers revive ice storm relief after governor’s veto

After Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed a bill that attempted to provide low-interest loans to local governments impacted by Winter Storm Fern, lawmakers on Wednesday night revived the program in another piece of legislation. Read the story.

Lawmakers on Sunday evening finalized the bulk of the state’s $7.36 billion budget for the next fiscal year to fund state agencies and signaled they will conclude their 2026 session by the end of the week.

Legislators still have to pass final budgets on Monday for roughly eight state agencies, but they are on track to spend roughly $225 million more on state services than the current year, or about a 3% increase.

House and Senate leaders told reporters that state spending is growing this year primarily because they’re giving teachers a $2,000 pay raise and pumping more money into the state’s Medicaid program.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, said lawmakers had very little wiggle room left for other large spending items once an increase in Medicaid and education spending was factored into the overall budget.

But Sen. Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory, said state money is spread thin over the needs of state agencies largely because of recent tax cuts and the ongoing phase-out of the state income tax passed last year.

“It’s very obvious this budget is the first splash of water from what could be a Category 5 hurricane,” Bryan said. “These are self-inflicted structural deficiencies.”

Below are agreed amounts lawmakers said they reached on major state agency budgets over the weekend:

Some other highlights from Sunday night’s budget work includes: 

K-12 education budget still not passed 

The House did not join the Senate in passing the proposed framework for a $3.4-billion K-12 education budget, an increase of about $121 million over the current year. The House skipped over the education budget because the Senate had at that point failed to deliver a report on agreements negotiators reached on other education policies, House lawmakers told Mississippi Today. 

After the House skipped over the education budget bill on Sunday, Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar hand-delivered the “conference report” for general education legislation, which includes a teacher pay raise proposal and changes to math and literacy programs, about three hours after the House began plowing through its appropriations calendar.

“I don’t know why they wouldn’t pass it yet,” DeBar said. “Everything I have discussed in the appropriations bill is in that conference report, and a few other things that we incorporated.”

The Senate education chairman did not explain why the Senate hadn’t already sent the House a report for general education legislation by the time lawmakers reconvened on Sunday afternoon, only that the report had been in “drafting.”

House Education Vice Chairman Kent McCarty, a Republican from Hattiesburg, said the House was not going to approve the massive education budget without reviewing legislative agreements on a host of other education priorities. 

“We received the conference report just before 5 p.m. on Sunday evening,” McCarty said. “The budget came up on the calendar hours before. So no, we’re not going to vote on a budget that accounts for half of the general fund and spends millions of new dollars on new programs for literacy, math, and teacher pay without even having a chance to read the conference report that authorizes those programs.”

The House can still pass the K-12 education budget on Monday before a deadline for appropriations and revenue bills. If it doesn’t approve the education budget, lawmakers would have to push back deadlines or come back in a special session to approve an education budget. 

Medicaid costs spike

Both chambers voted to spend $1.17 billion to fund the Mississippi Division of Medicaid, the second largest expense for a state that struggles with abject poverty and poor health. 

Lawmakers were stunned earlier this year by the division’s initial request for a $390-million increase in state funding over the current year, despite the state Medicaid program’s enrollment dropping to its lowest level in over a decade. 

Lawmakers were also baffled, in part, because of a $160-million discrepancy between the agency’s request and a November budget proposal from Gov. Tate Reeves, whose office oversees the Division of Medicaid.

But House and Senate leaders ultimately settled on funding the agency at a $165 million increase from the current year, and also provided an extra $35 million to cover a shortfall in this year’s budget.

A big reason why the state is having to spend more state dollars on funding the agency is that federal pandemic relief dollars that for years bolstered it are now depleted. 

Hopson said providing more state funds to the Division of Medicaid left very little wiggle room in the budget for other spending increases. 

“Medicaid is always an item that we never know exactly what it’s going to be, but you just base it on the best estimates,” Hopson said. 

The agency’s budget increase this year is covered in part with $100 million in capital expense money, or cash reserves, something Hopson said was the first time in recent years that the Legislature has spent what lawmakers call “one-time money” on recurring expenses.

Additional child care assistance stripped from DHS

Lawmakers approved a nearly $50 million cut to the budget for the Department of Human Services, which provides public assistance programs and social services for children, low-income individuals and families. 

Both chambers voted to spend about $103 million on the agency, a 32% reduction from this year’s $152 million appropriation. The diminished spending on human services prompted opposition from House Democrats, who took umbrage with the removal of a provision that would have appropriated an additional $15 million in child care assistance. 

“If we are not providing money for child care assistance, parents are not going to be able to go to work,” said Rep. Zakiya Summers, a Democrat from Jackson.

Rep. Clay Deweese, a Republican from Oxford, said the overall reduction to DHS’s budget was the result of one-time federal money drying up this year. Justifying the removal of additional child care funding, Deweese said lawmakers were constrained by other costs, such as the increase for Medicaid this year.

“It is difficult putting this together,” Deweese said. “This is how this year’s budget came in, and this is what both chambers agreed upon.”

Rep. John Hines, a Democrat from Greenville, said the Legislature’s decision not to approve the additional child care funding was indefensible given Mississippi’s high concentration of residents living in poverty.   

“I don’t know why it is so hard in the poorest state in this country to take care of working-class people,” Hines said. 

Reform on prison spending dies in negotiations

Lawmakers approved a slight reduction to the budget for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, reversing an earlier framework that would have resulted in more spending on state prisons. 

Under the new budget agreement, Mississippi will spend $434 million on the Department of Corrections, nearly $18 million less than the current fiscal year.

Efforts by House Corrections Chairwoman Becky Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, to condition the agency’s spending on reforms to prison health care policies did not survive negotiations with the Senate. 

The Senate has blocked proposals to improve health care in Mississippi’s prisons, some of which have come to light through an ongoing Mississippi Today investigation. 

Currie said she plans to try again next year.

“Next year is the last year of the term, and I’m looking forward not backward,” Currie said. “I’ve tried hard, it is very frustrating, but all we can do is look forward. We have to fix this.”

A smoother budget process

This year’s budget process appears to be remarkably smoother so far than last year’s, when lawmakers failed to adopt a budget because of political fighting between the two legislative chambers. 

Gov. Tate Reeves was then forced to call legislators into a special session during the summer last year to pass a budget. 

Political pundits wondered if the same thing would happen again this year, considering the two chambers had killed the other’s main legislative priorities. But it appears budget negotiators have avoided much of the political infighting that plagued last year’s budget.  

“I’ve been doing this for about six years now, and this is the smoothest I’ve ever seen it go,” House Appropriations Committee E Chairman Karl Oliver said.

Based on the recent party primary elections results for the United States Senate seat, even Mississippi Democrats see a glimmer of hope for the November general election.

Granted, it is only a glimmer. Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith remains a heavy favorite in Mississippi to win reelection this November and continue the GOP dominance in the state.

But across the nation, Democrats are licking their lips, believing based on turnout in party primaries and special elections, that they have an excellent chance to capture a majority of the U.S. House seats and a reasonable opportunity to win a majority in the Senate.

Time will tell, but multiple results across the nation have bolstered Democrats’ hopes as President Donald Trump remains unpopular. The belief is that strong performances in current party primary elections and special elections will bode well for the Democrats nationwide in the November midterm election, when one-third of the U.S. Senate seats and all of the 435 U.S. House seats will be on the ballot.

Democrats continue to overperform and even win in Republican strongholds. Heck, even Trump is now represented by a Democrat in the Florida state House. A Democrat just won a special election to represent the area that includes Trump’s beloved Mar-a-Lago.

In ruby red Texas, surprisingly more people voted in the Democratic primary for the United States Senate than did in the Republican primary. The 2.3 million Texans who voted in the Senate primary where James Talarico, a state House member and Presbyterian minister, defeated U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, represented a record in the Lone Star state for a Democratic primary.

The large Democratic turnout occurred even though the hotly contested Republican primary included U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Many believe that the strong turnout in the Democratic primary could portend Republicans losing the Senate seat in November.

The Texas party primary totals are of note because the mechanics of elections there are much like those in Mississippi. In both Texas and Mississippi, people do not declare before Election Day as a Republican or Democrat. They select on Election Day in which primary to vote.

Unlike Texas, in the recent Mississippi primary for the Senate, more people, though not significantly more, voted in the Republican primary.

On the Republican side, a little more than 156,000 people voted in the election where incumbent Hyde-Smith faced one challenger. On the Democratic side, just under 150,000 voted in a three-way race where Lowndes County District Attorney Scott Colom won as easily as Hyde-Smith did on the Republican side.

While Democrats in Mississippi did not make as strong a showing as they did in Texas, they still have reason for optimism.

After all, in the last Mississippi Senate primary held in a midterm, when the office of president was not on the ballot, many more people voted on the Republican side than in the Democratic contest.

In 2018, 157,170 voted in the Republican primary where incumbent Roger Wicker’s only opponent was little known Richard Boyanton.

On the Democratic side the same year, 87,931 people voted in a six-candidate field that included then-state House Democratic leader David Baria, state Rep. Omeria Scott and philanthropist Howard Sherman, the husband of Meridian native Sela Ward, an Emmy winning actress.

Not surprisingly, Wicker won comfortably against Baria in November.

In the 2019 party primaries for Mississippi governor, significantly more people voted for the Republican candidates than the Democratic candidates. At one time, when Democrats had firm control of the state, Republican primaries seldom even occurred. But now it is the Republicans who control the state.

One of the first significant Republican primaries occurred in 1987 for governor. But in that race only 18,855 voted in the Republican primary compared to the 802,572 who voted on the Democratic side.

In the 2000s as Republican strength in the state continued to grow, their primary eventually surpassed the Democrats’ primary in terms of turnout.

The question is: Will the relatively strong showing for the Democrats in Mississippi in their recent U.S. Senate primary portend any surprises for November?

The Mississippi Legislature is set to vote on its own plan to spend opioid settlement money, counting on power it does not yet have to send nearly $60 million across the state. 

House and Senate negotiators released the plan late Friday, and both chambers face a Monday deadline to approve final versions of budget bills. The opioid settlement spending plan only loosely resembles the advice of a state council tasked with overseeing most of the funds, which was submitted last winter.

Legislators are moving toward giving themselves the power to spend the settlement money without following the council’s advice. The legislative line item amounts rarely match the council’s recommendations, and would even send money to some organizations the council never vetted. 

Lawmakers made updates to seven different appropriations bills —  the Attorney General’s Office, the State Department of Health, the Department of Mental Health, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the Institutions of Higher Learning, the Administrative Office of Courts and the Department of Employment Security. Each instructs the agencies to use and distribute the lawsuit money for specific purposes when the next fiscal year starts July 1.

The appropriations will not be final until the House and Senate approve each agency’s budget and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signs the budgets into law. 

Mississippi Today turned the list of budget appropriations it identified from Friday’s update into a database, comparing them to the advisory council’s recommendations. The newsroom put in public records requests for applications of every organization that applied for opioid settlement funds last fall, and it linked application narratives it has for the listed line items. 

Like every state, Mississippi started receiving tens of millions of dollars in the early 2020s from companies accused of contributing to over a million American overdose deaths. Unlike every state, Mississippi had spent less than $1 million as of last fall on addressing that crisis — the purpose of these funds. 

The Legislature controls 85% of Missisisppi’s opioid settlement funds, expected to total about $421 million by 2040. For three and a half years after the state received its first payment, as others across the country sent their money to address the addiction crisis, the funds Mississippi lawmakers controlled have only been used to pay attorneys fees. 

Last spring, the Legislature created a law to spend most of the money it controls and set up an advisory council to solicit, review and recommend projects to address opioid addiction. Then, lawmakers were supposed to review those recommendations. 

Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who has managed the funds since 2021, led the advisory council and carried out that plan. She sent the council’s list of recommendations to legislative leaders in December, highlighting that the state government had just over $100 million of opioid settlement funds it could use.

While Fitch and state lawmakers set aside some opioid settlement funds for the Legislature to use on any non-addiction purpose it sees fit, last year’s law instructed that lawmakers spend most of the money with the advice of the advisory council — only permitting legislators to accept or reject its recommendations. 

But Friday’s updated budget bills show lawmakers want more decision-making power. The plans released frequently modify the advisory council’s recommended amount and send money to fund efforts the council hasn’t considered. While current laws don’t permit that, lawmakers are close to passing a bill that would create power to modify how much funding the council recommends. 

Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford and lead sponsor of the reform bill, told Mississippi Today on Thursday it was her hope to have that law enacted before the Legislature finalizes this year’s opioid settlement distributions. It still needs to pass the House and be signed by the governor before it would become law.

The bill’s current version still instructs the Legislature to spend all addiction money on projects reviewed by the advisory council. However, in the Department of Employment Security’s budget bill, lawmakers instruct the agency to use $1 million of abatement settlement funds to pilot an addiction recovery-to-work program, even though the agency never submitted an application to the council. Legislators are also proposing to fund other projects that never applied for money.

It’s unclear how that would be permitted under Mississippi’s current or proposed laws. Boyd did not answer multiple calls from Mississippi Today inquiring about that on Saturday. 

Lawmakers also propose sending $4.5 million of addiction settlement funds to community mental health centers, which had expressed concerns about their operating costs.

If these plans are enacted, the Legislature would send out over $50 million the settlements require to be spent to address addiction and over $9 million lawmakers gave themselves the power to use for any public purpose. Of the unrestricted money, $5 million would go to fund clinical trials for the psychedelic drug ibogaine. 

Lawmakers’ plans for funds that must be spent to address addiction are mostly tied to applications the advisory council reviewed and scored last fall. But there are some notable exceptions. In addition to the employment department funding, lawmakers plan to send $500,000 for an organization called Hope Squad to do youth opioid prevention outreach. But it’s not clear what this organization is, where it’s based, and how it plans to prevent Mississippi overdoses. 

Another project the Legislature is looking to fund that went unlisted in the advisory council’s review is a Canton-based nonprofit called Finally First. This organization is set to receive $250,000 from the Legislature for a school addiction prevention program in four central Mississippi counties.

But the advisory council did receive an application from that organization. Mississippi Today obtained Finally First’s proposal when it submitted its November public records request to the Attorney General’s Office. It’s unclear why the application was never scored by the council, and Attorney General Office spokesperson MaryAsa Lee did not answer the newsroom’s call Saturday.

Comelia Walker, Finally First’s chief executive officer, said she submitted her application well before the council’s deadline. She said that while she’s glad the Legislature is set to fund her nonprofit’s application, it’s disappointing to learn that the council didn’t fulfill its responsibility to review every opioid settlement application.

“That kind of hurts,” she said. “Because that means we didn’t even have an opportunity initially.”

Thousands of people turned out Saturday for fun in the sun at the Hal’s St. Paddy’s Parade in downtown Jackson. It’s a decades-old tradition in Mississippi’s capital city.

The theme was “Stars, Stripes & Shamrocks — Jackson Celebrates America250.

WASHINGTON — The Associated Press captured photos of Mississippi National Guard members patrolling in the nation’s capital, where cherry blossoms have reached peak bloom and the city’s spring rush is in full swing.

The Mississippi National Guard said in mid-March that soldiers from the 890th Engineer Battalion were headed to Washington to help provide security in the city. It is part of an ongoing effort President Donald Trump started last year, deploying troops to Democrat-led cities including Los Angeles; Chicago; Portland, Oregon; and D.C. What has been billed as an effort to address crime in those cities has spurred protests and raised legal and political questions. 

Mississippi is one of at least 11 Republican-led states, along with D.C., that deployed troops. ABC News reported earlier this month that the Pentagon said the operation could continue until the end of Trump’s term, Jan. 20, 2029.

The National Park Service says the flowering blooms on the cherry trees in Washington hit their peak on Thursday, meaning 70% of the Yoshino Cherry blossoms are open. The park service says this timing is typical for late March and early April.

The Washington Post reported that the average date for peak bloom has become earlier over the past century, from April 4 to March 29, amid human-caused climate change.

The blooms last only a few days. Cool, calm weather helps them stay, but rain, wind or heat can strip petals fast.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival runs for four weeks, with music and Japanese cultural events. The Tidal Basin is where most of the trees are located, but parts of it are fenced off for seawall repairs.

The cherry blossoms date back to a 1912 gift of 3,000 trees from the mayor of Tokyo, and the Japanese government remains involved in their care and in the annual festival celebrations.

In 2024, Fumito Miyake, minister for public affairs at the Japanese Embassy, said his government’s decision to contribute an additional 250 trees would be a “birthday present” in advance of this summer’s celebration for the 250th anniversary of American independence.

Again this year, visitors are contending with a somewhat restricted blossom appreciation area at the Tidal Basin, home to the highest concentration of the trees. With the National Park Service still in the midst of a three-year renovation project to shore up the basin’s aging seawall in time for this summer’s anniversary, parts of the basin are fenced off.

More than 100 of the trees had to be cut down as part of that project and will be replanted.