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Republican House members chose Jason White as the chamber’s next speaker, elevating a new person to one of the most powerful political roles in Mississippi for the next four years.

The 79-member GOP caucus met Wednesday morning at the Annandale Golf Club in Madison, according to multiple lawmakers. Unanimously and without dissent, the caucus threw its support behind White, a three-term lawmaker from West, to become its new leader. They also elected Manly Barton, a lawmaker from Moss Point, to become the new speaker pro tempore and second in command.

“I appreciate the trust my fellow Republicans have now placed in me as the nominee for Speaker,” White said in a statement. “I am energized going into the 2024 Legislative Session, and I look forward to addressing the challenges and opportunities facing our state with conservative policies and principles.”

The closed-door meeting this week is technically an unofficial coronation of the speaker. After this week’s vote, House Republicans, who hold a two-thirds supermajority in the 122-member House, are expected to stick to this week’s vote and unanimously elect White and Barton on the opening day of the 2024 session, formalizing the decisions they made on Wednesday.

White, 50, was first elected to the House in 2011 as a Democrat, but he quickly switched to the Republican Party that next year. He represents portions of Attala, Carroll, Holmes and Leake counties and previously led the House Rules Committee and the House Management Committee. 

White will replace Philip Gunn, a Republican from Clinton, who announced last year that he would not seek another term for his House seat. White was one of Gunn’s top lieutenants and most trusted advisers over the past three terms.

The speaker is not a statewide office position, but it carries power and influence similar to a statewide post. The speaker appoints committee leaders in the House and helps drive policy decisions during a legislative session.

Similar to the speaker of the U.S. House, a majority of the Mississippi House’s members must agree on a person to lead the chamber. But since the GOP gained a tight grip on the Capitol’s lower chamber, they typically meet behind closed doors to decide on a leader. 

After the private meeting, the formal, public vote during the start of the new, four-year term has mostly become a predictable affair with little drama. 

Barton was first elected to the House in 2011 and sworn into office in 2012. He represents portions of George and Jackson counties and previously chaired the House Local and Private Committee.

The speaker pro tempore presides over the House when the speaker is absent and often serves as a key advisor to the speaker. 

Lawmakers will convene at the Capitol on Jan. 2 for the start of the 2024 session.

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Lebby, the Ole Miss-Missouri controversy, the Southern Miss overhaul, the Iron Bowl Miracle, Georgia-Alabama, Patrick Shegog and a fabulous State Championships slate. This might be the most newsy week of the football season, so the Cleveland boys have plenty to cuss and discuss.

Stream all episodes here.

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Longtime state Rep. Earle Banks, a Democrat from Jackson who pleaded guilty in May to evading the payment of federal taxes, has been sentenced to two years of supervised probation and ordered to pay nearly $85,000 in restitution.

Banks, according to news reports, has already paid the restitution.

Banks, who was recently reelected after running unopposed for the Mississippi House, was sentenced Monday in federal court for the Southern District of Mississippi by Judge Carlton Reeves.

The maximum penalty Banks could have faced was three years in prison and a fine of $250,000 followed by one year of supervised release.

Banks will continue serving in the Mississippi House during his probation. He has been a member of the House since 1993.

The Mississippi Constitution prohibits people convicted of most state or federal felonies from serving in elected office. But Section 44 of the state constitution does not bar people convicted of federal tax crimes from serving in elected office.

According to court documents unsealed in May, Banks received more than $500,000 in 2018 but only reported income of $38,237 on his federal income tax return.

Banks’ attorney Rob McDuff said in May, “Mr. Banks has cooperated with the U.S. attorney’s office and today had the opportunity to speak directly to the judge and admit that he made a mistake in failing to report on his tax return the proceeds from the sale of land that had belonged to his family for many years.”

Banks is an attorney, funeral home director and ran unsuccessfully for the state Supreme Court in 2012.

READ MORE: Longtime state Rep. Earle Banks pleads guilty to federal tax crime

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As the state seeks to set his execution date, Willie Jerome Manning continues to maintain his innocence, challenging a double-murder conviction that his attorneys say was based on unreliable evidence, including the recanted word of a jailhouse informant and forensics the Justice Department deemed faulty. 

Manning was convicted of the shooting deaths of Mississippi State University students Tiffany Miller and Jon Steckler in 1994. He has pursued appeals and post-conviction relief that have questioned the state’s evidence and testimony that served as the foundation of his conviction. 

“Willie Manning is sentenced to die for a crime he did not commit,” states the opening line of his Sept. 29 petition for post-conviction relief. 

Last month, Attorney General Lynn Fitch asked for a stay of Manning’s execution, granted in 2013, to be lifted and for his execution to be scheduled. She also is seeking an execution date for Robert Simon Jr., who has been on death row for over 30 years. 

In response, Manning’s attorneys from the Office of Post Conviction Counsel are seeking to dismiss the motion and allow him to continue to challenge his conviction. 

His attorneys said in an Oct. 10 statement that the state hasn’t responded to the petition or considered the evidence. The state said deadlines in other death penalty cases through the end of the year have prevented it from responding to Manning’s petition, according to court records. 

The court approved a Dec. 29 extension. 

As of Monday, the Mississippi Supreme Court has not yet set an execution date for Manning. 

The bodies of Miller and Steckler were discovered early Dec. 11, 1992. Steckler was shot in the back of the head and run over with Miller’s car. Miller was shot in the face at close range, and she was found with one leg out of her pants and underwear and her shirt pulled up, according to court documents. 

From the beginning, law enforcement struggled to come up with leads, including a theory that the murders were connected to a car break-in that happened outside of a university fraternity that Steckler was a member of. The sheriff believed the couple encountered Manning during a break-in and he forced them to drive to another location, where he killed them. 

It wasn’t until months after the shootings that Manning became a prime suspect. The state argued that he was caught selling items linked to Jon and taken from the burglarized car. Because there wasn’t physical evidence to link him to the murders or the car burglary, Manning’s attorneys argued that this urged the state to turn to jailhouse informants. 

Manning, who has spent more than half of his 55 years on death row, allegedly confessed to the killings to his cousin, Earl Jordan. Jordan lied about the confession and another man, Frank Parker, who was also in jail, lied about overhearing Manning talking to another man about how he disposed of the murder weapon, according to new affidavits cited in the post-conviction petition. 

His attorneys argue that the testimony of Paula Hathorn, Manning’s former girlfriend, was not entirely reliable because law enforcement pressured her for her cooperation, which included receiving a cash reward of $17,500 for being a state witness at trial, according to court documents.

She also provided the state with the link to a gun believed to have killed Steckler and Miller. An FBI firearms examiner matched bullets found on the victims’ bodies to ones removed from trees in Manning’s yard, which she said he shot at for target practice, according to court records. 

A 2013 letter from the Department of Justice said there were errors from FBI testimony about firearms and hair analysis. This led to the delay of Manning’s scheduled execution to allow the testing of evidence, including a rape kit and fingernail scrapings. 

The firearms testimony was an error because the science behind firearms examinations “does not permit examiner testimony that a specific gun fired a specific bullet to the exclusion of all other guns in the world”, according to court documents. 

A firearms expert who worked with Manning’s attorneys and commented on findings of the DOJ’s 2013 letter provided affidavits that year. In another affidavit provided this year, the expert said new research and studies have shown that firearm identification and toolmark analysis are an unreliable form of forensic science, according to court records. 

Manning should be granted a new trial based on the state’s use of scientifically invalid testimony, his attorneys argued. 

“There are already compelling reasons to question the reliability of the convictions,” the post-conviction relief petition states. “When the totality of available evidence is reviewed, there is no longer any reliable basis for Manning’s convictions to stand.”

Attorneys laid out grounds for the court to grant relief, including how the state allegedly violated Manning’s due process rights when it “intentionally or merely failed to disclose” evidence favorable to his defense, including the sheriff’s arrangement for Jordan to cooperate in exchange for reduced charges and how the overheard conversation about Manning disposing of the weapon never happened, according to court records. 

Manning has already been exonerated in another double murder case. His attorneys noted similarities in how law enforcement pursued a case against him. 

In 1993, Manning was accused of killing 90-year old Alberta Jordan and her 60-year-old daughter Emmoline Jimmerson in their Starkville apartment, and convicted for their murders in 1996. 

The Mississippi Supreme Court ordered a new trial in the case after determining the state violated Manning’s due-process rights “by failing to provide favorable, material evidence,” according to court records. Since the state’s main witness recanted his statements in sworn affidavits, then-Oktibbeha County District Attorney Forrest Allgood dismissed the charges, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. 

A study by the registry found that false testimony or accusations were the single largest factor in wrongful homicide convictions between 1989 and 2012. 

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So much happening in Mississippi sports and so much upon which to comment. Here goes:

Mississippi State hired Oklahoma offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby as its head coach.

No big surprise here, at least not on this end. Lebby’s name came to mind immediately two weeks ago when Zach Arnett was dismissed. Why? Number one, given this year’s struggles, you had to figure State would go offense, and Lebby’s track record as an offensive coordinator is most impressive.

Secondly, Zac Selmon, the man doing the hiring, came to State from Oklahoma so there was a relationship there. And, thirdly, the best coaching hire State has made in recent history was surely Dan Mullen, a successful offensive coordinator at the time of his hiring.

Lebby, a 39-year-old native Texan, strikes me as a solid hire who could well turn out to be splendid head coach.That said, he faces a massive roster overhaul, not to mention a 2024 schedule that will include these eight SEC games: Georgia, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Texas.

True, with the portal and NIL, you can overhaul a college football roster more quickly than ever before. But keep in mind, where the NIL is concerned, State will be bidding for talent against many of the same schools listed in that previous paragraph, not to mention Alabama, Auburn, Oklahoma and others. 

Put it this way: Nick Saban — or Knute Rockne, or Bear Bryant, or Steve Spurrier — would have a difficult time dealing with what Lebby must deal with in the coming months and years.

Ole Miss finished 10-2, Lane Kiffin’s second 10-victory season in three years and his fourth double-digit win season in his last seven years as a head coach.

Kiffin is now 33-15 overall and 20-13 in the SEC at Ole Miss. No Rebel coach since John Vaught has been so successful.

And yet the Rebels, losers to only Alabama and Georgia this season, are ranked behind Missouri, also 10-2, in the College Football Playoff rankings and therefore the bowls’ pecking order. Can someone please explain? I cannot. 

Yes, Missouri played Georgia a lot closer than Ole Miss. But the better comparison is this: Both Missouri and Ole Miss both played home games against LSU. LSU beat Missouri 49-39 Ole Miss beat LSU 55-49. Non-conference? Ole Miss’s 10-2 record also includes a 37-20 road victory at Tulane, the Green Wave’s only defeat. On the same Saturday Ole Miss was handing Tulane its only loss in its last 16 games, Missouri was winning 23-19 against Middle Tennessee State, which finished 4-8. Missouri has not beaten a Top 25 team, while Ole Miss is 10-2 against a schedule that is among the nation’s most difficult.

Just don’t see how Missouri rates ahead of Ole Miss, who might be relegated to a non-New Years Six bowl because of it.

Southern Miss finished 3-9, and Will Hall kept his job but dismissed three assistant coaches.

I’d have kept Hall, too, and I’ll tell you why. Southern Miss played its best football the last month of the season after losing seven straight games. Much like his first USM team in 2021, Hall’s Golden Eagles continued to play hard in the face of extreme adversity. Too, he appears to have recruited well if he can hold the current class together.

Patience has been rewarded before at USM. Bobby Collins was 2-9 in his second season in Hattiesburg. Two of Jeff Bower’s first three Golden Eagles teams had losing records. And it has become increasingly apparent in recent years that Bower deserves a statue in the USM football complex.

Back to Hall: USM’s biggest of several issues in his three years has been the lack of competent quarterback play. True freshman Ethan Crawford showed some promise late this season and incoming freshman John White (Madison Ridgeland Academy) is as accurate a high school passer as these eyes have seen. They would appear to be USM’s — and Hall’s — future.

Delta State’s dream season – and Patrick Shegog’s brilliant Statesmen career – ended with a playoff loss to Valdosta State.

Valdosta scored the game’s last 10 points in the last three minutes for a 38-31 victory and avenged an earlier 49-25 home loss to Delta State.

The Division II playoffs lend much credence to the old adage that it’s really difficult to beat a really good team twice in the same season. In the first round, Delta State avenged its only regular season loss to West Florida. In the second round, the Statesmen were defeated at home by a team they beat soundly on the road back in October. Still, Todd Cooley’s Statesmen has won back to back Gulf South Conference championships, no small feat.

Quinshon Judkins or Shegog?

The C Spire Conerly Trophy will be awarded Tuesday night at Country Club of Jackson, and it appears a two-horse race. Ole Miss running back Quinshon Judkins, last year’s winner as a freshman, and Shegog, the former South Panola star, are far and away the leading candidates. Judkins rushed for 1,054 yards and 15 touchdowns as a sophomore after rushing for 1,567 yards and 16 TDs last year. Shegog accounted for 41 touchdowns — 32 passing and nine rushing — this season. The most eye-popping Shegog stat: 32 passing touchdowns vs. two interceptions.

No doubt, Judkins has far more professional football potential. Indeed, his punishing running style reminds this writer so much of the great Walter Payton. But this award is not about pro football potential as the note that accompanied the ballots states: “You should choose the nominees who have made the most impact for their team during the 2023 season. Do not take into consideration their NFL prospects, only their collegiate play for the 2023 complete regular season.”

Regardless, either Shegog or Judkins would be a worthy Conerly winner.

The post Opinions on State’s hire of Lebby, on Kiffin, on USM keeping Hall, and the Conerly Trophy appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Update: Incumbent PSC Commissioner Brent Bailey said he will likely not challenge his loss to state Rep. De’Keither Stamps.

After a review of Hinds County election materials Monday, incumbent Public Service Commissioner Brent Bailey said he will likely not mount a challenge of his loss to state Rep. De’Keither Stamps in the Nov. 7 election.

“At this point, it does not appear that we will file a petition to contest the election,” Bailey said late Monday afternoon. “While we will continue the examination process and my team feels that some affidavit and absentee ballots were inappropriately accepted and some box security irregularities have been observed, we have weighed the time and expense of a petition to contest and feel resources would best be utilized elsewhere.”

The commissioner-elect, Stamps, on Monday urged Bailey to help with a smooth transition for the office, which regulates public utilities and sets the rates they can charge customers.

Original story: Incumbent Public Service Commissioner Brent Bailey’s examination of ballots and other materials in his loss to state Rep. De’Keither Stamps resumed Monday, after a judge’s order postponed the probe over Thanksgiving.

Bailey is weighing whether he will contest his loss to Stamps over voting problems in Hinds, the state’s largest county and the largest in the 22-county central PSC district. On Election Day earlier this month, multiple Hinds County voting precincts ran out of ballots or didn’t have proper ballots. There were reports of voters going home without casting their votes, even after some precincts stayed open late amid confusing, dueling emergency judicial orders that night.

The central district PSC race was neck-and-neck, and Stamps, the Democrat, wasn’t declared the winner until a week after the Nov. 7 election. He won by a 2,134 vote margin with 50.4% of the vote — roughly the same margin by which he lost to Bailey, the Republican, in 2019.

READ MORE: Public service commissioner says he’s inspecting election materials after close loss

Stamps has called Bailey’s examination and possible challenge sour grapes on Bailey’s part. The race, particularly in the homestretch and during the long wait for finality, saw much mudslinging and bitter feelings between candidates. Stamps has called for Bailey to concede and help him with a smooth transition for the office. Stamps has noted that he conceded to Bailey in 2019 and moved on, given a similar outcome of votes.

Last week, after Bailey gave notice to Stamps he was examining election materials, Stamps filed for an injunction. He said Bailey failed to provide him a three-day notice of the examination as required. A judge agreed, and delayed the examination until Monday.

In an interview on Monday morning, Bailey said he believes he still faces a deadline of 5 p.m. to legally contest the election, but that the examination can continue regardless. He said he was out of town for a PSC meeting, but had representatives looking over things at the courthouse. He said as of midmorning Monday he had little information from the exam and had not made a decision on a challenge.

“We’re just still evaluating things, exercising our right to examination,” Bailey said. “… Our understanding is that the deadline to contest the election is 5 p.m. today, a hard and fast deadline … I still have not made a determination on that.”

Stamps on Monday afternoon said he had seen nothing during the examination of election materials that would warrant a challenge from Bailey.

“I would be the first one to cry foul — even to my own detriment — if there were something there,” Stamps said. “But some of these boxes he’s talking about — I beat him like 230 to 23. Even take off 20% of the margin, if I’m beating you by that much, I just don’t see anything that could change something.”

Stamps said he has, however, seen something concerning with votes in Hinds County — they are way down from what he believes is “purging” of voter rolls.

“From last time, I’m down over 10,000 votes for me,” Stamps said. “To me, that’s the bigger issue. That’s what’s caused me to be in this situation, and I think that has played a role even in the governor’s race … We wouldn’t even be here having this conversation or this whole rigamarole.”

Stamps said he doesn’t begrudge Bailey for exercising his right to review and potentially challenge the process, but again called on the incumbent to help with a likely transition.

“There is no way a judge could call for a new election and have one by Jan. 1,” Stamps said. “I’m just saying, can you be mature enough to challenge it, and still help with a transition at the same time. We still have to stand up a new office by then and be ready to go. It’s about the integrity of the office and serving people.”

The three-member, elected Public Service Commission regulates public utilities and the rates they can charge customers. If Stamps’ victory stands, the commission will have three new members starting in January: two Republicans and one Democrat (Stamps).

The other two PSC seats were decided in the August primary, with Republican state Rep. Chris Brown winning the northern district seat and Republican challenger Wayne Carr winning the southern district seat.

Current Northern District Commissioner Brandon Presley ran unsuccessfully for governor this year, and Carr defeated current Southern District Commissioner Dane Maxwell in the Republican primary in August.

READ MORE: Stamps declared winner of Central District PSC seat

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If Mississippians want to qualify to run for state office as a Republican, they’ll first have to open their wallets wider than ever.

Mississippi Republican Party leaders voted last year to increase candidate qualifying fees, the amount a candidate has to pay to run for office, to the maximum amount allowed under state law for all federal, statewide and regional offices in the state.  

Mississippi GOP Chairman Frank Bordeaux told Mississippi Today the fee increase is comparable to the figure the Republican Party in other states requires for their candidates to run for office.

“This increase is a way for us to make sure we can continue to provide quality resources to our Republican nominees,” Bordeaux said. 

The Democratic Party, on the other hand, opted to keep their fees the same as prior years. 

Qualifying fees for all political offices, regardless of party affiliation, were previously spelled out in statute. But state lawmakers in 2022 voted to give political parties a range for how much they can charge candidates and allow the party leaders to choose the specific amount. 

The minimum fee parties can charge gubernatorial candidates, for example, is $1,000, and the maximum amount is $5,000. The Democratic Party opted to keep their fee at $1,000, while the GOP decided to raise the fee to $5,000.

New GOP candidate qualifying fees: 

• U.S. Senator: $5,000 (previously $1,000)
• U.S. Representative: $2,500 (previously $500)
• Governor: $5,000 (previously $1,000)
• Other statewide offices: $2,500 (previously $500)
• Transportation Commissioner: $2,500 (previously $500)
• Public Service Commissioner: $2,500 (previously $500)
• District Attorney: $250 (unchanged)
• State Legislature: $250 (unchanged)

Republican state Sen. Joey Fillingane of Sumrall argued in favor of the 2022 legislation during the legislative session and said at the time that the main reasons for the new law was to give parties more latitude to conduct their primary elections and ensure only serious candidates run for office. 

“I think we had a situation not too long ago where maybe a truck driver put his name on the ballot, didn’t campaign, didn’t really run,” Fillingane said. “He was running his 18-wheeler truck and ended up winning a major party primary for a major office in Mississippi. And I think you can argue that was a direct result of having extremely low filing fees in that particular race.”

Fillingane was referring to Robert Gray, a truck driver who won the 2015 Democratic nomination for governor and was handily defeated by former Republican Gov. Phil Bryant. 

Opponents of the recent legislation believed higher qualifying fees could bar candidates from running for office and deter a competitive democratic system. 

The final version of the bill passed the House 84-31 and the Senate 33-10. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed it into law. 

Bordeaux doubted increased fees would keep candidates from entering the Republican primary because serious candidates are usually able to raise larger amounts of money. He pointed to the state’s recent gubernatorial election, when the Republican and Democratic nominees for the office collectively raised over $17 million this past year. 

This is now the first time under the new law that the state Republican Party has raised its qualifying fees. The new fees will primarily impact the Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race next year, when incumbent U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker is up for reelection. 

Wicker, a Tupelo resident, has previously announced he’s running for reelection. But two lower-profile candidates, Republican state Rep. Dan Eubanks of DeSoto County and retired Marine Col. Ghannon Burton, announced they intend to challenge Wicker in the Republican primary. 

The qualification period for the U.S. Senate, according to the Secretary of State’s website, opens on Jan. 2 and closes 10 days later on Jan. 12. 

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Incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves garnered 50.9% of the vote in winning reelection on Nov. 7 — the closest Mississippi governor’s race since 1999.

Reeves garnered 418,233 votes (50.9%), Democrat Brandon Presley received 391,614 (47.7%) and independent Gwendolyn Gray received 11,153 votes (1.4%), according to final county-by-county voting totals posted this week by the secretary of state’s office.

Reeves beat Presley by 26,619 votes — a considerably tighter margin than the governor’s race four years ago, when Reeves defeated Democrat Jim Hood by 45,028 votes to win a first term in the Governor’s Mansion.

The secretary of state’s office did not receive the final results from all 82 counties until this week. Counties have a certain time period after the election to count late-arriving mail-in ballots and affidavit ballots. In the coming days, Watson will certify the results, but the final totals already can be found on the secretary of state’s website.

A Democrat has not won the governor’s mansion in Mississippi since 1999, when Ronnie Musgrove prevailed with a plurality of the vote. Musgrove received 49.6% that year compared to 48.5% from Republican Mike Parker.

In 2019, Reeves won his first term as governor by defeating then-Attorney General Jim Hood 51.9% to 46.8%. While the percentage difference was closer in the 2023 election, Hood won more total votes in 2019 than Presley did this year. Hood received 414,368 votes in 2019, while Presley received 391,614 votes in 2023. In 2019, 63,911 more people voted than this year.

Presley narrowly captured three counties in 2023 that Hood did not win in 2019. Those counties were Lowndes, Grenada and Forrest. The 2023 election marked the first time since 1979 for a Democrat to win Forrest County. But Presley also lost two counties in 2023 that Hood won in 2019. Four years ago, Hood won the counties of Madison and Lafayette. Both those counties flipped to Reeves in 2023.

Those counties, along with Hood’s home county of Chickasaw and Oktibbeha, are the only majority white counties to vote for the Democrat in either election.

RESULTS: Mississippi statewide election 2023

Reeves will be the first Mississippi governor elected to a second term with a smaller percentage of the total vote than he received in winning his first term. It is important to note, though, that Reeves is only the fourth governor elected to consecutive terms. Mississippi governors have only been allowed to serve two terms since the late 1980s.

Also, Reeves received a much smaller percentage of the vote than the winners of the other seven statewide offices — all Republican.

For instance, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, in winning reelection, won 490,956 votes or 60.7% of the total. The Democratic candidates for the other seven statewide posts ran lower profile and lower budget campaigns than their Republican opponents.

Presley, a four-term public service commissioner for the northern district, ran an aggressive campaign, outraising Reeves in 2023. The incumbent, though, came into the election year with a massive campaign war chest that dwarfed that of Presley.

In the first year in which a gubernatorial race could possibly have gone to a runoff, Reeves avoided that historic scenario by just 15,466 votes. Under a new state law, if no candidate for statewide office garners a majority vote, the top two vote-getters advance to a runoff.

Reeves ultimately prevailed by running up large margins on the Gulf Coast, in Presley’s home area of northeast Mississippi, and in certain areas of east Mississippi.

Presley garnered 54,006 votes in Democrat-rich Hinds County compared to 13,634 for Reeves. But despite Presley’s much ballyhooed get-out-the-vote effort in Hinds, Hood still garnered 2,125 more votes in Hinds in 2019 than did Presley in 2023.

Overall, the vote total in Hinds was down 4,182 in 2023 compared to 2019. It is difficult to say whether Hinds County election problems in 2023 caused fewer people to cast ballots. But Hinds had problems with long lines and with some precincts running out of ballots for extended periods of time.

Final results from other statewide races

Lieutenant governor:

Republican incumbent Delbert Hosemann: 490,956

Democrat Ryan Grover: 317,347

Attorney general

Republican incumbent Lynn Fitch: 470,270

Democrat Greta Kemp Martin: 339,948

Secretary of state

Republican incumbent Michael Watson: 481,895

Democrat Ty Pinkins: 328,067

Treasurer

Republican incumbent David McRae: 472,705

Democrat Addy Lee Green: 337,008

Auditor

Republican incumbent Shad White: 474,313

Democrat Larry Bradford: 334,418

Insurance commissioner

Republican incumbent Mike Chaney: 480,514

Democrat Bruce Burton: 329,214

Agriculture commissioner

Republican incumbent Andy Gipson: 467,901

Democrat Robert Bradford: 342,172

The post Final election results: 2023 was the closest Mississippi governor’s race since 1999 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A private, for-profit Texas-based organization is seeking to reopen St. Dominic Memorial Hospital’s behavioral health beds in Jackson, according to state Health Department records. 

Oceans Healthcare has applied to lease St. Dominic’s recently closed behavioral health beds and open its own separately licensed psychiatric hospital in Jackson. Oceans submitted its application in late October. 

In the weeks following St. Dominic’s decision to shutter its 83-bed behavioral health unit in June, advocates worried that people seeking mental health care would end up in jails or without help. Shortly after the closure, two hospitals reported having full beds and were unable to accept any more psychiatric patients. 

Meredith Bailess, senior director of marketing and communications at St. Dominic, referred all questions to Oceans. Oceans officials declined to answer any questions for this story. 

However, a records request revealed that the company has applied to reopen 77 inpatient adult psychiatric beds, with the remaining six licensed but unused. The organization’s application to the state Health Department says that the hospital is prepared to provide the same services to the community that were previously provided by St. Dominic. 

The firm’s application also includes a letter of support signed by Rep. Chris Bell and Rep. Earle Banks, two Hinds County lawmakers, as well as letters of support from St. Dominic executives, including Interim Market President Kristin Wolkart.

“It is no secret that Mississippi is facing a mental health crisis due to a lack of resources,” the representatives’ letter reads. “By approving this project, the Department of Health will enable those in my community and all central Mississippi families in crisis to obtain desperately needed healthcare closer to home.”

Eileen O’Grady with the Private Equity Stakeholder Project researches the impacts of the growing trend of private equity firms investing in health care facilities. O’Grady said while it’s generally a good thing that more behavioral health beds could open in Jackson, she is wary of any private-equity owned organization getting involved in behavioral health care. 

Massachusetts-based private equity firm Webster Equity Partners bought Oceans Healthcare in 2022. Webster Equity was founded in 2003 and is active in the health care industry. The organization’s website says it targets “companies with high-impact growth strategies that deliver the highest quality care.” 

As of June, the total market value of investments managed by Webster was $7.4 billion, according to the firm’s website. 

Private equity firms have shown growing interest in the behavioral health industry in recent years, according to a report authored by O’Grady. But because private equity firms are focused on turning a profit, patients often suffer as a result, her report concluded. 

“When I think about what they do and what the business model is, I think it can be boiled down to basically one thing: Generate the highest return possible over four to seven years,” she said. “Usually that means trying to double or triple their investment over a couple of years … That is a really short period of time to make that kind of money.” 

In order to turn that kind of profit, the firms have to make big cuts. That’s especially risky for behavioral health facilities, where vulnerable people expect to receive treatment. Instead, some private equity firms have hired untrained or unlicensed staff, have failed to hire enough staff or have neglected upkeep of facilities, according to O’Grady.

Laying people off and failing to pay adequate wages can lead to persistent understaffing, which can lead to hiring people with low levels of training, O’Grady said. At behavioral health facilities, this can create dangerous situations. 

She said there are some situations where firms can provide the financial backing needed to improve facilities. 

But she acknowledged that’s not usually the case. If the goal is making a huge profit quickly “in an industry where margins are already very thin, it is not improbable that some combination of those things can happen.”

“Generally speaking, what we’ve seen, especially in the behavioral health space, is alarming,” O’Grady said. “It is probably not a private equity firm’s fault that these hospitals closed, and it is good that they’re reopening, but I don’t think that private equity firms are the right companies to be managing behavioral health hospitals, and if they do, then there needs to be a lot of guardrails to ensure that these facilities are not just used to sort of line the pockets of rich people.”

Oceans has been increasing its presence in Mississippi. The first Oceans hospital in the state opened in Biloxi in 2019, and its second facility opened in Tupelo at the beginning of this year. Oceans’ facilities provide adult inpatient and outpatient mental health services, according to its website. 

Oceans’ application says the hospital will provide Jackson and surrounding communities with multidisciplinary psychiatric treatment for depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dementia and various other mental disorders. The application estimates that renovation of the unit will be completed at the end of March. 

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