Leaders of some of the state’s organized labor unions, a traditional bedrock of Democratic Party activism, encouraged their members on Saturday to support Brandon Presley’s campaign for governor.
Speaking near the state Capitol on Saturday, Robert Shaffer, president of the Mississippi branch of the AFL-CIO, said members should vote for Presley because he supports issues such as restoring the state’s ballot initiative and has listened to concerns the unions have raised in the past.
“He’s a been there, down to earth guy,” Shaffer said of Presley.
Several organized labor groups have endorsed Presley, a Democrat, and donated money to his campaign, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Presley, in return, has not shied away from the organizations and even touted them at the Saturday event.
“When we see the union label, it means American made,” Presley said.
Mississippi, like many Deep South states, is a right-to-work state, which means participation in any union is voluntary and cannot be made a condition of employment. As a general rule, employment is at will, meaning that an employer can terminate an employee for any reason with a few exceptions.
The Democratic candidate said Saturday his plans to reduce the state’s grocery tax, the highest such tax in the nation and reduce taxes for car tags would benefit the union members.
He acknowledged, however, the Republican-dominated Legislature likely would not support efforts to repeal the state’s right-to-work law and remain skeptical of some labor reforms.
“I’m not oblivious to the fact that Mississippi’s not going to create a Department of Labor or overnight become an organized labor state,” Presley said. “But I believe organized labor should have a fair chance to voice their concerns on issues.”
Shaffer, the labor leader, also said members should not support Republican Gov. Tate Reeves’ bid for reelection because he remained opposed to expanding Medicaid to the working poor.
“What he’s done is left out the middle class trying to work for $7 or $8 an hour with no insurance,” Shaffer said. “In return, the only way they can get any help is to go to the emergency room, and they can’t pay the bills.”
Reeves, Presley’s Republican opponent, is one of the leading critics of Medicaid expansion and reiterated his opposition to the policy on Thursday morning to reporters at the Mississippi Economic Council’s Hobnob event.
The governor said the state’s health care system could not sustain adding more people to Medicaid rolls, and he instead believes the solution to Mississippi’s low health insurance rate is to recruit more jobs to the state.
“We are going to continue to work to create more opportunities in our state,” Reeves said. “We’re going to continue to invest in our people through workforce development and workforce training because we want upward mobility for our people.”
Francine Thompson, a senior field representative for the national AFL-CIO, told Mississippi Today on Saturday that volunteers from some of the labor groups are calling and visiting homes of other labor organization members, called “labor-to-labor canvassing,” on behalf of Presley.
Over the next 10 days, they plan to strategically target people in Gulfport, Jackson, Marshall County and Tunica County.
Certain Mississippians can cast in-person absentee ballots at county circuit clerk’s offices from now until Nov. 4, and the general election between Reeves and Presley will take place on Nov. 7.
Levi Coffin Memorial Credit: Indiana Historical Bureau
Abolitionist Levi Coffin was born in North Carolina. His home in Newport, Indiana, became known as the “Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad.”
In 1821, his cousin ran a Sunday school for Black Americans, but when slaveholders rebelled against this, the school was forced to close. After he and his family moved to Indiana, he began working on the Underground Railroad.
“The Bible, in bidding us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, said nothing about color, and I should try to follow out the teachings of that good book,” he said. “I thought it was always safe to do right.”
He helped thousands of Black Americans find freedom, and after the Civil War ended, he became a leader in the Western Freedmen’s Aid Society, raising more than $100,000 (the equivalent of $2.66 million) in a single year for African Americans who needed food, clothing, funds and education. His autobiography, “Reminiscences of Levi Coffin,” was published a year before his 1877 death.
In 1902, a 6-foot monument was built to mark his grave, and his former home became a National Historic Landmark.
Welcome to The Homestretch, a daily blog featuring the most comprehensive coverage of the 2023 Mississippi governor’s race. This page, curated by the Mississippi Today politics team, will feature the biggest storylines of the 2023 governor’s race at 7 a.m. every day between now and the Nov. 7 election.
OXFORD — The buzz of the annual “Good Ole Boys and Gals” political event on Thursday wasn’t the stump speeches from high-profile politicians ahead of the Nov. 7 statewide election. It wasn’t the big season Ole Miss football is having, and it wasn’t even the sweet-smelling BBQ chicken.
It was Gov. Tate Reeves’ poll numbers and the growing likelihood of a Nov. 28 gubernatorial runoff between Reeves and his Democratic challenger Brandon Presley.
One consultant at the event who is not affiliated with the Reeves campaign said they had reviewed a recent poll that showed the incumbent governor several points under 50%. A significant portion of voters, the source said, remained undecided or said they will cast votes for Gwendolyn Gray, an independent candidate.
“There have been several polls in the last 10 days that almost guarantee he’ll be in a runoff election,” the consultant, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak frankly, said. “I would think the Democrats are smelling blood in the water.”
Gray has publicly announced that she is no longer seeking the office and supporting Presley. Her announcement, however, came too late because state officials had already printed ballots, so her presence on the ballot created a runoff probability.
If no candidate on the general election ballot receives more than 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters will participate in a runoff election on Nov. 28, just five days after Thanksgiving.
Another consultant at the event said they had also reviewed recent polling numbers and doubted if Reeves could garner an outright majority on the first ballot, though they declined to share the specific numbers.
“I’ve crunched the numbers, and anyway you slice it, I’d be preparing for a runoff if I was them,” they said of the Reeves campaign.
A third consultant speculated that while the governor hasn’t hit the 50% mark in some public polls, they don’t believe it will actually translate into a runoff scenario on Election Day. They believe undecided voters will get Reeves over 50%.
With insiders digesting poll numbers, baked beans and coleslaw at the event on Thursday, it was notable that so many attendees were openly speculating about the fact an incumbent Republican governor in a reliably red state may not win on the first ballot.
Reeves, in his speech to the event’s attendees, did not directly mention the runoff possibility, but he appeared to hint at the trouble he’s had reaching 50%. In his stump speech — well, technically a “bench speech” as the candidates at the event stand on an old, wooden bench — he said the only way he could win the general election is “if conservatives show up to the polls.”
“I’m proud of the fact that we’re winning in every poll out there, even in the ones where they fake the outcome,” Reeves said. “But none of those polls matter. The only poll that matters is the one that’s taken on Election Day.”
One person who was noticeably absent was Presley, who currently represents Oxford as north Mississippi’s public service commissioner and has attended the event in previous years. John Morgan, one of the event’s organizers and an Oxford alderman, told attendees that Presley’s campaign initially indicated they would come and participate, but he did not show.
Reeves seized on Presley’s absence at the festival, located in the Democrat’s home turf of north Mississippi and roughly an hour away from his hometown of Nettleton.
“I’m going to be honest with you: I’m not at all surprised that my opponent didn’t have the guts to show up in north Mississippi tonight,” Reeves said. “He’s probably in California or New York meeting with billionaires who are funding his campaign.”
Presley, in a statement to Mississippi Today, did not address his absence but criticized Reeves’ rhetoric.
“Tate Reeves talks real tough and acts real wimpy,” Presley said. “I look forward to cleaning his clock across my home region of North Mississippi on Election Day where I’ve been elected four times.”
Partisan brinkmanship may have been on display between the two candidates for governor, but there were unifying moments on Thursday to mark the death of Johnny Morgan, a former state lawmaker who first organized “Good Ole Boys and Gals” in the mid-1980s.
Morgan, a notable entrepreneur who was a cousin to the Oxford alderman, died in a plane crash in June and was widely viewed as a political powerbroker. House Speaker Philip Gunn, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and Reeves all paid tribute to Johnny Morgan in their speeches.
1) A lecture series continues today at Galloway United Methodist Church in downtown Jackson. Galloway, the home church of Gov. Tate Reeves, is hosting faith leaders who will advocate for Medicaid expansion, among other things. Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison wrote last month about the series. Here’s how Reeves’ pastor Rev. Cary Stockett framed it: “We want it understood that this is a kingdom of God issue, grossly ignored right in the middle of the Bible Belt. We want the people who quote John 3:16 to understand that it matters to Jesus that there are people (our Mississippi neighbors) without real access to good healthcare … and so it should matter to us, too.”
2) Presley has a busy weekend ahead. On Saturday, he’ll campaign in Ridgeland, Vicksburg, Yazoo City and Pike County. On Sunday, he’ll campaign in Pascagoula, Gulfport and DeSoto County. That’s a lot of ground to cover. We haven’t seen Reeves’ schedule, but it’ll almost certainly be as crowded.
3) Are candidates spending any time in debate prep? The one and only debate of the cycle will be held Wednesday, Nov. 1. It is sure to be a contentious, bitter affair. If you’re in the Jackson metro area, come to Hal & Mal’s for a Mississippi Today watch party. We’ll stream the debate live at 7 p.m. on the big screen, and we’ll host some live analysis as soon as it ends.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann told Mississippi business leaders Thursday he wants to make the state’s 15 two-year colleges tuition free.
Speaking at the annual Mississippi Economic Council’s Hobnob event, designed to allow the state’s business leaders to hear from political leaders, Hosemann said providing free tuition for community college students would help grow the Mississippi economy. He said in recent years the Legislature has expanded public pre-kindergarten programs, and he believed expanding higher education opportunities is the next logical step.
“We want to have the best economic life we can have for our citizens,” said Hosemann after his Hobnob speech at the Mississippi Coliseum. “You do that by educational opportunities.”
According to Hosemann’s office, 28 counties already have put in place local programs to provide free community college tuition. Under Hosemann’s plan, those counties probably would be able to divert their funds to expanded educational opportunities for their citizens.
Many of the counties offering free community college tuition are located in northeast Mississippi. In the past, Rep. Jerry Turner, R-Baldwyn, who represents a portion of northeast Mississippi, offered a proposal similar to Hosemann’s, but it did not make it through the legislative process.
The program, which already is offered in some other states, is called “the Last Dollar” program. People entering community college are required to apply for any available grants and scholarships. The amount of the tuition not paid for by the grants and scholarships would be paid for by the state.
Hosemann said a bill will be drafted to be considered during the 2024 session.
The program would cost the state $25 million annually when fully enacted, Hosemann estimated.
He also said most likely students would be required to meet certain standards in high school to be eligible for the program. And he said it would most likely be fashioned in a way to enhance opportunities for those going into high demand areas, such as medical fields.
Hosemann already has met with the Community College Board to discuss the program.
Hoseman is seeking his second term as lieutenant governor. He is considered to be a heavy favorite for reelection on Nov. 7 against Democrat Ryan Grover, who did not speak Thursday at Hobnob.
A man paroled earlier this year after serving 18 years in prison for the double murder of his father and stepmother was arrested last week for driving under the influence. Now the family of one of his victims is questioning why the Parole Board decided to release him in the first place.
At the age of 17, James Williams III was sentenced in 2005 to two consecutive life sentences for the fatal shooting of his father, James Jr., and stepmother, Cindy Lassiter Mangum, in 2001.
A 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that those who were juveniles should be eligible for parole. The Parole Board decided in April of this year, despite pushback from Mangum’s family and lawmakers, to grant Williams’ release.
“The family wants to know if the Mississippi State Parole board still feels that the community is better served to have James Williams in the community drinking and driving than be incarcerated for the double murders that he is guilty of committing,” her family said in a Thursday statement.
The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department confirmed Williams, now 38, was arrested Oct. 20 for a first offense DUI and released the next day on bond.
While nobody was injured while Williams allegedly drove while intoxicated, Mangum’s family said his arrest is an opportunity for the Parole Board to see that it made a mistake, and that mistake could have cost others their lives.
He is expected to appear before the Parole Board about whether the DUI arrest violated his parole. Mangum’s family hopes the board will return Williams to prison.
A representative from the Parole Board was not immediately available for comment Friday morning. A spokesperson from MDOC said any decision about Williams is up to the Parole Board.
Williams had been denied parole multiple times because of the nature of his crime and community opposition, but the current board found he was suitable for release and that there wasn’t opposition from the family, sheriff, district attorney or judge.
Mangum’s family said it wasn’t given notification to come before the Parole Board and express their opposition – a claim Chairman Jeffery Belk disputed in April after the board’s vote, saying multiple efforts were made before the hearing to contact them.
The family has also questioned whether Williams has changed while in prison. His attorney, Jake Howard, previously told Mississippi Today that Willams earned a GED and bachelor’s degree in Christian ministry and completed other educational and rehabilitation programs.
More than a year after Mississippi Medicaid announced it was contracting with three companies to manage the care of their beneficiaries, those contracts have not been awarded.
That’s because two companies that weren’t chosen say the selection process was unfair.
UnitedHealthcare and Amerigroup, two for-profit managed care companies, were not chosen by Mississippi Medicaid as one of its contracted companies entrusted with managing beneficiaries’ health care. The two organizations have subsequently filed protests with the state, alleging the selection process was flawed, leading to a months-long stalemate over who will manage Mississippi Medicaid beneficiaries’ care after next summer.
The stakes are high: the contracts, funded by state and federal dollars, are worth billions.
The majority of Medicaid recipients in most states are enrolled in managed care organizations. Through a lucrative contract agreement, divisions pay these companies to deliver services to beneficiaries.
In exchange for a monthly payments — regardless of whether services were or were not used by a beneficiary during that period — the managed care organization must maintain a network of providers for its enrollees and ensure enrollees are not billed for covered services.
Managed care for Mississippi Medicaid beneficiaries began in 2011 with the inception of the division’s “coordinated care program,” or its managed care system called MississippiCAN.
According to its website, MississippiCAN currently provides health insurance benefits for more than 480,000 of the state’s most vulnerable citizens, including poor adults and children, people who are disabled and pregnant people. Medicaid insures about 837,000 Mississippians total as of September.
The Mississippi Division of Medicaid is located in the Walter Sillers Building, seen here on Monday, Oct. 16, 2023, in Jackson, Miss. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Though they’re theoretically well-intentioned — to increase services for beneficiaries and reduce costs for Medicaid — managed care organizations have been criticized by politicians, patients and health care leaders for prioritizing profit and hindering patient care.
Managed care organizations’ performances can vary greatly, and which ones the Medicaid agencies contract with is up to them. That’s decided through a process called procurement.
In December 2021, the Division of Medicaid began seeking new contracts and solicited “requests for qualifications” from managed care companies. Five prospective contractors submitted proposals in March 2022.
Mississippi Medicaid announced in August 2022 that it intended to award contracts to three of those: TrueCare, Magnolia Health and Molina Healthcare.
TrueCare, a not-for-profit company, was created by hospitals along with the state hospital association to provide what they believe is better care to patients, compared to traditional managed care organizations.
Molina Healthcare and Magnolia Health are both privately-owned companies that already administer services to Medicaid beneficiaries, along with UnitedHealthcare.
Magnolia has gotten the biggest contracts of all three — almost $9.3 billion for its contracts with Medicaid since 2017, which includes $1.2 billion in the emergency contract.
Magnolia is a subsidiary of health giant Centene. The St. Louis-based company is the nation’s largest Medicaid managed care company and one of Gov. Tate Reeves largest campaign donors.
Centene was previously investigated over suspicions it was over-inflating bills to Mississippi’s Medicaid division. The company never admitted wrongdoing, though Centene settled with the state in June of 2021 for $55.5 million.
Medicaid spokesperson Matt Westerfield said there were no “rules that would exclude Magnolia from the process due to the Centene settlement” when asked why, if the company was previously investigated, it was awarded one of the contracts.
Since 2017, Molina has been paid $2.8 billion to provide services for MississippiCAN and Medicaid’s Mississippi Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to the state’s contract database. In the most recent contract, the emergency contract that runs from 2023 until 2024, the company is getting paid more than half a billion dollars.
For the same services in the same time period, United received nearly $8.4 billion. The current emergency contract pays out more than a billion dollars for their services over the course of a year.
Companies involved in the process have seven days to file protests before the agency can officially award the contracts. Then, the contracts go to the state’s procurement review board for final approval.
Following Medicaid’s announcement about the new contracts in August, UnitedHealthcare, which had a contract with the agency the prior year, and Amerigroup, the two companies that were not chosen, submitted protests.
It’s unclear what United’s claims are. Mississippi Today did not have a copy of their protest at the time of publication.
Amerigroup’s protest alleges that Mississippi Medicaid failed to conduct a “blind” evaluation process, didn’t follow the state’s rules for contract procurement, the process was structurally flawed and “outside influences” affected its fairness.
Amerigroup cites several instances where it says companies shared identifying information. According to the protest, TrueCare revealed its connection to the Mississippi Hospital Association by mentioning the health information exchange program, which allows hospitals to share important information about patients with each other. It’s the only company with access to the exchange because of its association with hospitals.
Amerigroup also takes issue with Molina including a company-specific vaccine incentive program, “curved” graphics similar to their logo and “well-known” Molina food insecurity initiatives in its proposal. Magnolia’s proposal included mentions of its partnership with Adelade and AT&T, which would have been enough to identify them, the protest claims.
Magnolia and Molina did not respond to Mississippi Today’s requests for comment regarding these allegations. TrueCare’s CEO Richard Roberson declined to answer questions because “under the Division of Medicaid’s rules, all offerors are prohibited from making public disclosures to the media regarding the procurement.”
The “outside influences” cited by Amerigroup’s protest refers to a letter Sen. Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven and chairman of the Senate Medicaid Committee, sent to Mississippi Medicaid Executive Director Drew Snyder on Dec. 3, 2021, a few weeks before the procurement process began. Blackwell in the letter vouches for TrueCare and criticizes the performances of the current managed care organizations.
Westerfield said the letter was “never seen by any evaluator, nor was any evaluator made aware that it had even been written.”
“It had no effect on the RFQ process or outcome,” he said.
The protest also includes a screenshot of texts between Drew Weiskopf, a consultant assisting with the evaluation, and Margaret Middleton, a lawyer for Mississippi Medicaid. In the texts, Weiskopf appears to insinuate that the evaluators were able to identify the companies — he refers to their “urge to standup (sic) and shout ‘I know who this is!’” and uses a GIF from the movie Elf in which a character identifies Santa Claus. The texts were allegedly sent during the evaluation meetings scoring the blind proposals.
“The texts do not reflect that any evaluator expressed knowledge of any Offeror, nor could the texts have done so, as no expression was ever made,” Westerfield said.
The Division of Medicaid’s response to the protests, which was to affirm its decision to award the contracts to the three managed care organizations, were issued this past summer. Both organizations appealed the agency’s decision to the procurement review board, and both of those protests are still pending.
As a result of the ongoing complaints, Medicaid extended the contracts of the current managed care organizations — United, Molina and Magnolia — and then issued one-year emergency contracts to them. Those contracts, which began in 2017, will be in place until June 2024.
Violations during the “blind” portion of the process have previously derailed Mississippi Medicaid’s procurement process.
Medicaid Executive Director Drew Snyder told lawmakers at a Senate Medicaid Committee hearing last February that “following theinstructions for blind evaluations is one of the perilous spots where procurements can go off the rails.”
“I’m sure more than one agency can share a story of a lengthy procurement that had to be terminated because every vendor revealed some kind of identifying information about itself,” he said.
During a Medicaid procurement for different services two years ago, the agency confirmed that a company’s name appeared in a footnote, which delayedthe process.
During the current procurement for managed care contracts, Medicaid said it took several steps to ensure the process was fair, including extensively reviewing submissions, including an independent review by a government office that plays a major role in state procurement processes, which found no problems. The agency also required mandatory training for procurement evaluators, who were “told repeatedly to inform [the Division] if they found any identifying information,” according to the agency.
“No evaluator ever notified DOM that he or she knew the identity of any Offeror, nor did any evaluator make any statement in the evaluation process inferring that he or she knew the identity of any Offeror,” Westerfield said via email.
The fate of the contracts now rests with the procurement review board, which has not yet set a date to hear the protests.
It felt more like church than a health summit at moments inside Duling Hall on Thursday.
The Better Health Summit, hosted by the poverty-focused nonprofit Together for Hope and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, brought together faith leaders, medical experts and health care advocates in Fondren for one common cause: improving health care in Mississippi by expanding Medicaid.
Summit attendees, no matter their backgrounds, echoed versions of the same question: Why haven’t political leaders, in a majority-Christian state, seen Medicaid expansion as an issue of morality?
Though panels at the summit ranged from accessing community-based health care to retaining physicians in rural Mississippi, speakers framed the issues around Medicaid expansion, and how far the policy measure would go to improve the livelihoods of working-class Mississippians.
Dr. Daniel Jones, former president of the American Heart Association, former chancellor of the University of Mississippi, and dean and professor emeritus at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, speaks during the Better Health Summit event at Duling Hall in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Dr. Dan Jones, the former president of the American Heart Association and former chancellor of the University of Mississippi and dean and professor emeritus at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, spoke freely at the summit, finally without his ties to state institutions, he said.
He told stories from his stints in Iran, North Korea and South Korea as a medical missionary, and how it compared to the care he was able to provide under Mississippi’s health care system.
While abroad, when Jones diagnosed people with hypertension and diabetes, he knew they were going to be able to access long-term care and medications, he said.
In Mississippi, Jones had to tell a patient he’d need to get his leg amputated. The man, a logger, knew he’d had diabetes for three years but was unable to access health care because he couldn’t afford health insurance.
After the amputation, the logger, as a disabled person, finally became eligible for health insurance through Medicaid.
“In our country, you had to lose a leg before he had access to health care,” he said. “When I went home that night after seeing that patient, I was so frustrated … I said, ‘What an insane world we live in. Today, I told a man he was going to lose his leg for a condition that was absolutely 100% preventable. And it was our country, our state, who let him down and allowed that to happen to him.’”
He drew a contrast between those countries — where health care is generally considered a right, not a privilege — and Mississippi, a state where most of its residents are Christians, yet it took an amputation to get someone insured.
“It’s easy to think living where… people don’t have reasonable access to health care is okay, because it’s just the way it is,” he said. “It’s not.”
Jones echoed his faith and how he sees Medicaid expansion as a spiritual issue.
“I hope when I stand in the booth a few days from now that my first priority will not be what is going to be the economic impact on my family when I cast this vote,” he said. “I hope one of my thoughts is … are we going to do something that Jesus would approve of doing — to provide health care access to the most vulnerable in our community.
“It’s time for action.”
Medicaid expansion has remained a top issue in the upcoming election, perhaps most prevalently featured in the gubernatorial race.
Republican incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves has remained opposed to the policy change, reiterating his opposition as recently as last month, while Democratic challenger Brandon Presley has vowed repeatedly to expand Medicaid on his first day in office, if elected.
People in the faith community are increasingly calling for Medicaid expansion, including leaders at Reeves’ own church, which is hosting a series of lectures this weekend about how providing access to health care is a Christian value.
Mississippi is one of only 10 states that has not expanded Medicaid.
Research shows that over its first few years of implementation, expansion would bring in billions of dollars to Mississippi. That money is needed — the pandemic weakened an already-frail health care infrastructure, and now nearly half of the state’s rural hospitals are at risk of closure, partially due to money lost caring for uninsured patients.
Event-goers attend the Better Health Summit event at Duling Hall in Jackson, Miss., on Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Kimberly Hughes, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network’s government relations director, stressed how critical insurance coverage is in the fight against cancer. Mississippi has one of the highest cancer mortality rates in the nation.
“Cancer is curable if it’s caught early, and it’s only caught early if it’s screened for, and screening requires appropriate health insurance,” she said.
Hughes described the types of Mississippians who expansion would cover — veterans, working parents and low-wage workers.
“Stop and think about people that you know, people that you love, people that are your neighbors that have no health insurance that could greatly benefit from it,” she said.
Rev. Jason Coker, a Baptist pastor and the president of Together for Hope, described his wife’s experience as a cancer survivor and wondered how other people could undergo the same thing without knowing they have access to treatment.
Though emergency rooms by law cannot turn down patients, other medical facilities can, making preventative treatment near-impossible to come by without health insurance.
“If we as the state of Mississippi are big Christians, super Baptist, if we can’t understand that as a moral issue, our religion is dead and worthless,” he said.
He described the connection between poverty and poor health outcomes, emphasizing the need for expansion.
According to Coker, 53 of the state’s 82 counties are in “persistent poverty,” and expansion would impact 200,000 to 300,000 Mississippians.
“People getting access to health care … We think that it is a moral obligation on our states to do that,” Coker said.
As Reeves and other state leaders who oppose expansion have derisively referred to Medicaid expansion as adding more people to “welfare rolls,” Coker warned Mississippians to take heed and reflect on themselves.
“So much of our politics in this day is bound up in that idea of who deserves state aid. Who deserves our help? You can only ask that question if you are standing in the seat of power,” Coker said. “We have elected officials in this state … who had the power to do something, and decided not to do it because they didn’t think someone else deserved it, or was worthy of it.
“And make no bones about it: That’s as deeply rooted in white superiority as anything that we know and our lived experience in the state of Mississippi. We call it racism. But it’s more than racism. It is white superiority.”
Gov. Tate Reeves’ campaign says a cease-and-desist letter from a solar energy company had nothing to do with changes made to a campaign advertisement that accused Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley and the company of violating state law.
Two commercials, which have run on TV stations across the state and online, accuse Presley, a current Mississippi public service commissioner, of violating state law by taking campaign contributions from Silicon Ranch and other solar energy companies that generate electricity to sell to public utilities.
Earlier this month, Silicon Ranch, through Jackson attorney Will Manuel, sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Reeves campaign, arguing the company is not a public utility and has not violated any state law by donating to the Presley campaign.
After the letter was sent and reported by Mississippi Today and others, the Reeves campaign began running a slightly different commercial. The new ad still says Presley violated state law by taking donations from “green energy companies he regulates,” but the ad no longer uses the names of the Silicon Ranch officials who made the contributions or a prominent photo of a solar energy executive.
The Reeves campaign said on Wednesday it did not change the ad because of the cease-and-desist letter and the possibility of being sued.
“We stand by everything in the first ad,” a Reeves campaign spokesman said in a statement. “It was because the first ad had already been seen throughout the state. The second ad had been finalized before their letter. The story is about Brandon Presley’s obvious corruption, and the individual companies that he worked over are side characters. In the past, it was corrupt public service commissioners like Brandon Presley who were arrested — and the companies are not on the ballot.”
Both versions of the ad are still on the Reeves campaign’s YouTube page.
State law does prohibit public service commissioners from taking campaign donations from public utilities and their representatives.
Silicon Ranch has developed facilities in Mississippi to produce and sell electricity to public utilities. Public utilities are defined in state law and in general as entities that provide electricity for the public.
But the Silicon Ranch cease-and-desist letter to the Reeves campaign cited a 2017 Public Service Commission order approving Mississippi Power’s plan to purchase electricity generated in Lauderdale County from Silicon Ranch.
That PSC order states that “petitioner Silicon Ranch is not a public utility and the project is not utility property under the laws of the state of Mississippi. It is further ordered that petitioner Silicon Ranch is not subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction except for the requirement of obtaining a certificate of public convenience and necessity.”
Incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves told business leaders Thursday that Mississippi is thriving, but that would change if voters don’t reelect him in two weeks as out-of-state, radical liberals would take over.
“Over 80% of my opponent’s money is coming from out-of-state,” Reeves told about 1,500 business leaders at the state chamber of commerce’s annual Hobnob event in Jackson. “… What do they think they are buying? It’s not just to change governors. They want to change Mississippi. If you are a radical liberal, a thriving Mississippi doesn’t work for you … Are we going to hand the state over to the Biden administration and let their guy take the keys?”
Democratic challenger Brandon Presley, a longtime state public service commissioner, former Nettleton mayor and cousin of Elvis, said Reeves is “petty and vindictive.” He said Reeves traffics in “cheap, partisan politics and corruption,” doesn’t work will with others and ignores major challenges the state faces.
“Partisan politics has got us in a ditch in Mississippi,” Presley said. “I don’t want to be governor for one political party — I want to be governor for everybody … When Brandon Presley is elected governor, you won’t have to write a campaign check to come see your governor … I’ll get along better with the Republican House and Senate than Tate Reeves does, because I respect them.”
Most candidates for statewide office spoke Thursday at the Mississippi Economic Council’s Hobnob, highlighted by the gubernatorial candidates. It’s likely the last major forum where the two will speak before their single televised debate on Nov. 1, with the general election Nov. 7. The debate promises to be a lively one, as the two hurled barbs at each other during and after their Hobnob speeches.
“My opponent doesn’t have any original thoughts,” Reeves said. “My opponent takes his talking points directly from the Democratic National Committee, and they poll test it and say, hey, do you think this will work in Mississippi? But what he’s often done, particularly on the transgender issue, is that he told people what he really believed … and started getting attacked not only by hard conservatives and strong conservatives and Republicans, he was getting attacked by independents and even left-leaning Democrats that his position on transgender surgeries for minors was the wrong position. He changed his position. It’s all poll tested by the Democratic National Committee.”
Reeves has made transgender issues a major focus of his campaign. In ads and campaign stumping, both Reeves and Presley have accused each other of lying on the issue.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley speaks during Mississippi Economic Council’s 2023 Hobnob at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Unlike Reeves’ rosy picture of the state of the state Thursday, Presley said, “We’ve got serious problems in Mississippi, problems that require the attention of a governor.” He said the state faces a health care crisis, with dozens of hospitals facing closure, and a corruption crisis — the welfare scandal in which tens of millions of dollars meant to help the poor in Mississippi were stolen or squandered.
“Tate doesn’t want to talk about it,” Presley said. “Thirty-four of our hospitals are at risk of closure … We have a solution staring us in the face, but for the pettiness of Tate Reeves. We have given our money away to 40 other states long enough. We will expand Medicaid as one of the first things I do. It’s not a partisan political issue … It’s called common sense.”
As for the welfare scandal, Presley told the crowd, “You as business owners ought to be as mad as anyone else. This was money that could have been used for workforce training programs, for child care for workers … But instead, his personal trainer, the guy that teaches Tate Reeves how to do jumping jacks, got $1.3 million in taxpayer dollars.”
Reeves, who served two terms as treasurer and two terms as lieutenant governor before being elected governor in 2020, told the business leaders Thursday the state has done better than ever under his watch.
“Our population is growing,” Reeves said. “Jobs and businesses are moving in to every region … In the old days, there were a lot of people out looking for jobs. But as people in this room can attest, now we have jobs looking for people.”
He said the state has also seen great gains in education, made record investment in infrastructure and enacted large tax cuts.
“It’s a clear indication that conservative policies work,” Reeves said. He reiterated his opposition to Medicaid expansion, referring to it as “welfare” and said his recently announced plan to tax hospitals more to draw down more federal Medicaid reimbursements is a better plan.
Reeves urged the crowd to get out Nov. 7 to make their choice for governor and said, “The billionaires in California and New York and Washington, D.C., have made their choice.”
Presley said the governor’s race is “tight as a tick … neck and neck,” according to recent polls, and he believes his campaign “has the wind at our back.”
“People in Mississippi are ready to turn the page on Tate Reeves and ready to turn the page on the corruption and ready to have a breath of fresh air in state government,” Presley said. “We are going to be working as hard over the next 12 days as we have the last 10 months. I’m going to be awake while Tate Reeves is sleeping, and I’m going to be where he is not.”
