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Editor’s note: Even though the 2025 Mississippi legislative session ended again without lawmakers addressing Medicaid expansion, Chuck Poole, former senior minister of Northminster Baptist Church in Jackson, writes for Mississippi Today Ideas that it is never too late to provide health care for poor Mississippians. Theoretically, Gov. Tate Reeves could allow legislators to consider Medicaid expansion in the special session that he will call in the coming days.

Like clean air, adequate nutrition, decent shelter and safe water, healthcare is a necessity, not a luxury; which is why Medicaid expansion is a morally right and true thing, not a politically red or blue thing.

We don’t need another dialogue or seminar, hearing or study to tell us what we already know. We just need to act on the truth we already have; the truth that basic fundamental healthcare is a necessary part of a healthy life; a universal need which next door neighbors Mississippi and Alabama can make more available to more people by acting to close the healthcare coverage gap for the nearly 300,000 Mississippians and Alabamians who make too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid, but too little to be able to access private health insurance. 

The fact that Mississippi and Alabama are among the 10 states to refuse to expand Medicaid is all the more bewildering when one considers the fact that year after year, in poll after poll, Mississippi and Alabama are the states that report the highest percentage of Christians; Mississippi and Alabama, annually vying for “Buckle on the Bible Belt.” 

So how is it that the states with the most Christians continue to be among the least Christian when it comes to caring for those who are most in need of healthcare access, equity and justice? The buckle on the Bible belt; in so many ways so beautiful, but in this way badly broken. 

Medicaid expansion is not a magic wand, but we do know that if we fully expand Medicaid, it will infuse new life into struggling Mississippi and Alabama hospitals, shrink Mississippi’s and Alabama’s growing maternal health deserts, create new Mississippi and Alabama healthcare jobs, and, most importantly, bring comfort and care to thousands of hard working Mississippians and Alabamians who are presently struggling and suffering in the healthcare coverage gap. 

And, we know how to pay for it; by accessing the same federal dollars that 40 other states, red and blue,  Republican and Democratic, are receiving to undergird Medicaid expansion for their residents; our federal tax dollars, funding their healthcare, but not our own.

All of which is to say that there is simply no good reason for Mississippi and Alabama to refuse to do the right thing and close the healthcare coverage gap; not someday, or next legislative session, or once we find out what the new administration in Washington might do, but now. 

As Preacher King, one of the Bible belt’s most courageous Jesus preachers, once wisely said, “It is never the wrong time to do the right thing.”

Chuck Poole retired in 2022 from 45 years of pastoral life during which he served churches in Jackson, Georgia, North Carolina and Washington D.C. The author of nine books, numerous published articles, one gospel song and the lyrics to three hymns, Poole has served as a “minister on the street” in Jackson, as an advocate for interfaith conversation, and as an ally to our immigrant neighbors. Poole and his wife Marcia now live in Birmingham, where he serves on the staff of Together for Hope.

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President Donald Trump’s first-term push to open the Gulf of Mexico and other federal waters to fish farming has come to a halt in the early days of his second term. 

A federal judge in Washington state ruled against a nationwide aquaculture permit the Trump administration sought in 2020. The wide-ranging permit would have allowed the first offshore farms in the Gulf and the likely expansion of the aquaculture industry into federally managed waters on the East and West coasts. 

The ruling, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Kymberly K. Evanson on March 17, was applauded by several environmental groups.

“A nationwide permit isn’t at all appropriate because our federal waters are so different,” said Marianne Cufone, executive director of the New Orleans-based Recirculating Farms Coalition, a group opposed to offshore aquaculture. “Florida is not Maine. California is not Texas. And in just the Gulf of Mexico, there are significantly different habitats [and] different fish species that could be affected.”

Offshore aquaculture, which involves raising large quantities of fish in floating net pens, has been blamed for increased marine pollution and escapes that can harm wild fish populations. In the Gulf, there’s particular concern about the “dead zone,” a New Jersey-size area of low oxygen fueled by rising temperatures and nutrient-rich pollution from fertilizers, urban runoff and sewer plants. Adding millions of caged fish would generate even more waste and worsen the dead zone, Cufone said. 

Fish farming is an “existential threat” to the Gulf’s fishing industry, said Ryan Bradley, executive director of the Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United. Besides the “cascading negative impacts” on the environment, offshore aquaculture often undercuts the prices of wild-caught fish and shrimp, he said. The Gulf’s fishers are already facing intense competition from foreign fish farms. 

“Offshore aquaculture poses too much risk and not enough reward,” Bradley said. 

The aquaculture industry says fish farming is the only way to meet surging demand for seafood, particularly high-value species like salmon and tuna. As wild fish stocks struggle under climate change, offshore farming could help the U.S. adapt, producing food in a managed environment less affected by ecological conditions, aquaculture advocates say.

Late last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration identified five areas in the Gulf that the agency said are best suited for offshore aquaculture. The development of these “aquaculture opportunity areas” near the coasts of Texas and Louisiana received a strong push during Trump’s first term but slowed under President Joe Biden. Evanson’s decision blocks what might have been a speedy approval process for fish farms in opportunity areas.

The fight over fish farms

A cumbersome permitting process and opposition from environmentalists and catchers of wild seafood had long stymied plans for fish farms in the Gulf, which Trump recently renamed the Gulf of America. In 2020, the aquaculture industry got a big boost when Trump signed an executive order that directed federal agencies to “identify and remove unnecessary regulatory barriers” restricting farming in federal waters. 

Trump’s order led the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to issue the sweeping national permit to open nearly all federal ocean waters to aquaculture. The Center for Food Safety and other environmental groups sued, arguing that the permit failed to analyze fish farming’s threats to water quality and marine life, including several species protected under the Endangered Species Act. 

In October, an initial decision by Evanson, who was appointed by Biden, faulted the Corps for failing to acknowledge aquaculture’s adverse environmental impacts. Evanson’s latest decision vacates, or sets aside as unlawful, the nationwide permit. 

The Corps declined to comment on the decision.

Federal courts have also struck down efforts to establish offshore aquaculture in the Gulf in 2018 and 2020. 

The repeated legal setbacks should send a clear signal to the industry, said George Kimbrell, the Center for Food Safety’s legal director. 

“It has no place in U.S. ocean waters,” he said.

The aquaculture industry isn’t giving up. Paul Zajicek, executive director of the National Aquaculture Association, said expanding U.S. fish farming is critical for meeting the growing American appetite for seafood. He noted that the U.S. consumed nearly 7 billion pounds of seafood in 2022, the most recent year data was available. About 83% of the seafood was imported, contributing to a trade deficit of about $24 billion, Zajicek said. 

“The heavy reliance on imports for a foodstuff critical to people’s health not only creates a massive trade imbalance, it also creates food security and food safety issues for our country,” he wrote in an email. 

Tilting the balance of international trade is a keen interest for Trump, who on Wednesday announced far-reaching and expensive tariffs that the president says will help U.S. producers and boost the country’s economy.

Farming fish on land but not sea

The U.S. has a robust land-based aquaculture industry, producing pond-raised catfish, trout and other fish. No fish are raised commercially in federal waters, and fish farming operations are increasingly rare in state-managed marine waters. Washington state once had a large salmon farming industry, but large-scale escapes of non-native Atlantic salmon and concerns about pollution and the spread of disease led to a halt on fish farm leases in 2022 and a full ban in January. Hawaii’s state waters host the only offshore fish farm in the U.S.

Other countries have embraced offshore aquaculture on a large scale. China accounts for more than half of global aquaculture production, according to NOAA. Asian countries and Ecuador supply most of the shrimp consumed in the U.S., while farms in Canada, Norway and Chile produce two-thirds of the salmon Americans eat. 

Companies have tried to open the Gulf to aquaculture for more than a decade, yet none of the proposals for floating pens filled with redfish, amberjack and other high-value species have managed to take hold. In 2017, the federal government helped fund a pilot project that would have placed a floating farm about 45 miles from Sarasota, Fla. The project was derailed after regulators received nearly 45,000 public comments opposing it, according to Zajicek. 

Proposed farms face “a permitting system that is too lengthy, too costly, and too subject to legal challenges from groups opposed to commercial aquaculture,” he said. 

Last month’s court decision means companies may now narrow their focus and seek permits for individual projects, Zajicek said. 

That approach also won’t be easy, Cufone warned. The process for permitting each project will likely be slower and more deliberative, giving more consideration to a proposed farm’s impacts on the surrounding environment and nearby communities. 

“Claiming one size fits all doesn’t seem realistic, and the court agreed,” she said. “Now they can’t use one big permit to speed these things through.” 

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Candidates in Jackson’s 2025 municipal races raised and spent over half a million dollars, at least, on their campaigns for office, mostly in the mayor’s race.

John Horhn, a 32-year state senator from Jackson, dominated the primary election April 1, receiving over 48% of the unofficial vote after raising over $101,000 and spending about half that in 2025.

Incumbent Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and Horhn, who are expected to challenge each other in the April 22 runoff, have significantly unequal war chests after Horhn out-raised Lumumba nearly 10-to-1 in 2025 so far, according to campaign finance reports.

By Mar. 23, Horhn reported having nearly $50,000 in cash on hand while Lumumba reported having about $46,000. However, Horhn’s campaign said it would file an amended report addressing that cash on hand total, since his previous report shows he raised $80,000 in 2024 and started 2025 with about $65,000, which should have left him $115,000 cash on hand if his most recent contribution and expenditure reporting is accurate.

Lumumba’s pre-election report shows he raised just $11,000 in 2025 so far, and told reporters after the primary that he has not been soliciting donations. Though he raised nearly $114,000 in 2024.

In addition to Horhn, two other campaigns for candidates in the mayor’s race brought in more than $100,000, both of which were primarily self-funded, but money did not necessarily equate to success at the polls.

While Marcus Wallace, a contractor and former mayor of Edwards, spent by far the most of any candidate, $190,000, which included a tour bus with his photo wrapped on its side, he received just 4% of the vote Tuesday, per the unofficial count.

Lumumba received about 17% of the unofficial vote, coming in second, despite the lower-dollar campaign. He filed his campaign finance report on Mar. 31, one day before the election and several days after the deadline.

The majority of candidates were also late or failed to file, including six unsuccessful mayoral candidates and five council candidates who still had not filed reports by Election Day. One Ward 6 council candidate who is expected to go to a runoff, Lashia Brown-Thomas, did not file a report, according to documents retrieved from the City Clerk. She told Mississippi Today her roughly $2,000 campaign was self-funded.

Money raised in council races varied greatly, from just over $4,000 in the three-candidate Ward 5 race to nearly $62,000 in the five-candidate Ward 7 race.

View the breakdown of the fundraising and spending with links to reports retrieved from the City Clerk’s office below. Through a public records request for all reports, the Clerk did not provide all reports filed, so some of the data was retrieved in-person. Some candidates said they filed reports, such as James Hopkins, who said he filed Thursday, but they were not provided by the clerk.

The post Financial interests in the Jackson municipal elections appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Gov. Tate Reeves on Thursday said he will call lawmakers into a special session to adopt a budget before state agencies run out of money later in the summer and hinted he might force legislators to consider other measures. 

Hours after the Senate ended its regular session on Thursday morning, Reeves said in a press conference that he didn’t have a specific date set for a special session, but his office will work with legislative leaders to quickly adopt a budget before the current fiscal year ends on June 30. 

“I am confident that the House and the Senate will be able to work together and get this done,” Reeves said. “In fact, I have been in personal communication with legislative leadership over the last several weeks, and I don’t think they’re really that far apart (on a budget).” 

House and Senate leaders ended their session this week without adopting an entire state budget, primarily because of intraparty Republican bickering. House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann have blamed each other for blowing past the deadline to pass a budget. 

White, a Republican from West, said on social media Thursday that one of the key differences between the House and the Senate on the budget is finding a recurring revenue stream to help reduce the $25 billion unfunded liability for the public employee retirement system. 

“We will continue these discussions with the Senate to produce a budget that reflects our commitment to smaller government with focused spending, while meeting the core functions and responsibilities to the taxpayers of Mississippi,” White said. 

Hosemann on Wednesday night told reporters that Senate leaders will begin working on finalizing a budget as quickly as possible. 

As has been the case with Reeves for past special sessions, he told reporters he would wait until the House and Senate reach at least a handshake agreement before calling them into a special session to pass a budget. 

But Reeves could force the Legislature to address other issues during a special session.

Under the state Constitution, one of few powers a governor has over the Legislature is the sole authority to call it into special session, and to set the “call” or agenda lawmakers can consider in a special session. Lawmakers can refuse to pass items the governor puts on their agenda, but he could hold them in special session indefinitely, and “feed” items to them one at a time until they are passed.

Reeves said he did not have a specific agenda list, but he was considering adding school choice, a parental bill of rights, certificate of need reform and mobile sports betting as potential items for lawmakers to address during the special session. 

“There are a large number of items at this point,” Reeves said. “I will rule nothing out. Y’all know I am reluctant to add things to a special session. I’m reluctant to call special sessions because of the cost associated with them.” 

Each day of a special session can easily cost upwards of $100,000, to pay, feed and house lawmakers and provide staff and security at the Capitol.

The governor said taxpayers and agency leaders should not fear government services shutting down because he’s confident the Legislature can iron out a final budget before the next fiscal year starts July 1. Reeves said that a few agencies are facing deficits for the current budget year and that, while not a crisis at this point, should be addressed “sooner rather than later.”

Rep. Karl Oliver, a Republican from Winona who leads a House Appropriations Committee, told Mississippi Today that most of the House’s proposed budgets levels would fund state agencies near level to this year, with some added funds for public pension contributions and increased insurance costs. 

The House’s total state-funded budget proposal is a little over $7 billion, according to Oliver, which is similar to the budget the Legislature adopted last year. Some Senate leaders have also said they don’t expect any large increases in spending would be approved for the coming budget year.

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This story was originally published by Floodlight

Flooding in coastal areas of the United States is projected to occur 10 times more often over the next 25 years, with about 2.5 million people and 1.4 million homes facing severe property damage from sea level rise, according to a new analysis released Wednesday by Climate Central. 

And that’s only if countries keep their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 as outlined in the Paris Agreement —  the international treaty geared toward climate mitigation and greenhouse reduction. President Donald Trump pulled the United States — the No. 2 greenhouse gas emitter  after China — from the agreement days after entering office, saying it would strengthen the U.S. economy. 

“The current administration is going in kind of the opposite direction of where data says we would need to go if we want to reduce risk,” said Kristina Dahl, vice president of science for Climate Central, a nonprofit group of independent scientists and climate change researchers

Climate Central has developed a Coastal Risk Finder tool for the public and policy makers to map the flooding risks for their parts of the country. It paints a dire picture for people living along coastal Florida, New York and New Jersey, where it predicts the largest number of people and homes at risk from severe flooding. 

The Gulf Coast region will also see higher rates of sea level rise, the analysis found. The area’s low-lying coasts means larger land areas are at risk of flooding, but Louisiana has a less dense population.  

Other takeaways from the analysis include: 

• One-quarter of the estimated 1.4 million homes in at-risk areas are in Florida. 
• About 20% of the people living in areas at risk of coastal flooding are 65 years or older, despite comprising only 16% of total population in those areas. 
• New York City has the most people currently living in areas at risk of a severe flood in 2050 — an estimated 271,000 people. 

Louisiana’s people, land at risk

Louisiana is ranked fourth in the report’s list of states with the most population at risk from severe coastal flooding in the coming 25 years, but it tops the list when it comes to the amount of land loss from coastal flooding by 2050 — approximately 9,200 square miles. 

The state has been well aware of the dangers on its coastline, which has eroded at a rate of about 5,700 acres of wetlands a year between 1974 and 1990. 

Since 2007, Louisiana has spent billions on coastal restoration and projects aimed at reducing the risks of land loss and mitigating flooding. The state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s ambitious plan is funded primarily with settlement money from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. 

But some of those efforts have been stalled by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who has voiced opposition to one of the plan’s crucial yet controversial projects — a $3 billion sediment diversion project on the Mississippi River that has split residents, environmentalists and public officials. 

“I do believe that if we can advance some of these large scale projects that are in this master plan, it gives us a chance at a sustainable coast and a sustainable future,” said Katie G. Daniel, strategy and campaign manager for the Environmental Defense Fund’s Climate Resilient Coasts and Watersheds program. 

More than half of Louisiana voters polled believe coastal land loss will have an effect on them within the next 10 years, according to a 2023 survey published by the Restore the Mississippi River Delta coalition, which the EDF belongs to along with the National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation and Pontchartrain Conservancy. The survey found voters “overwhelmingly” favored coastal restoration efforts. 

Daniel thinks Louisiana could have a “long-term solution” to the problem with its coastal restoration master plan and natural resources like the Mississippi River, which — through sediment and water diversion projects — could help shore up the state’s coastline and mitigate flood risk. 

“We are at a turning point,” she said. “If we can work through the political machinations I just think there’s a lot of opportunity there on the local and the state level.”

Climate efforts lagging

A majority of the cities at the top of Climate Central’s analysis are in the Northeast. Houma in southeast Louisiana is the only one where 100% of its population (33,000 people) are at risk of facing a 100-year-flood by 2050.

Climate Central used population and homes data from the U.S. Census Bureau, coupled with elevation data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ National Levee Database to make calculations based on current global emissions reduction pledges. 

Dahl said federal and local governments need to focus on resilience efforts like ensuring there are multiple evacuation routes, upgrading seawalls and facilitating buyouts and relocation programs for those most at risk. 

“But then also reducing emissions as quickly and as steeply as we can as a planet is going to be in the long term, one of the biggest things that we can do to keep people safe,” she added.

Former President Joe Biden had pledged to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60% from 2005 levels by 2035. The ultimate goal was achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 through a bevy of initiatives focused on climate change and environmental justice in his multi-billion-dollar Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). 

But the Trump administration is rolling back much of the IRA spending — along with many federal regulations around greenhouse gas emissions implemented under Biden. 

“Countries aren’t on track to meet their current commitments,” Dahl said. “So it could be worse.”

Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.

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The GOP-controlled Mississippi Senate refused to confirm a top staffer for Republican Gov. Tate Reeves to a position on a state board — a move that occurred on the tail end of a legislative session marked by Republican infighting.

The Senate on Wednesday roundly rejected the nomination of Cory Custer, Reeves’ deputy chief of staff, to serve a four-year term on the board of directors of Mississippi Public Broadcasting, the statewide public radio and television network. Reeves reacted to the Senate’s vote on Thursday, calling it “chicken shit.”

Only eight senators out of the 51-member body voted to confirm Custer, and three of those “yea” votes came from Democrats. MPB’s board members oversee the organization’s operations, manage its finances and guide programming for its multiple newscasts each weekday.

Reeves appointed Custer over the summer of 2024 to fill an open seat on the board as an interim member. Since then, he has participated in board meetings and is listed as a board member on MPB’s website.

According to Custer’s profile on the website, he oversees the governor’s communication team. Custer’s role overseeing Reeves’ public profile seemed to be a point of concern for some senators who voted against his confirmation.

As the full Senate prepared to vote on Custer’s nomination Thursday, Republican Sen. Brice Wiggins asked what responsibilities Custer had as the governor’s deputy of chief.

Republican Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar, who shepherded Custer’s nomination through his committee last month, responded that Custer had access to Reeves’ account on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“If you’re referring to his social media account, he indicated that he did have access to the Twitter account,” DeBar said.

In February, Reeves angered several members of the Senate Republican caucus after the governor used his X account to take shots at Republican Sen. Jeremy England. The Republican senator who chairs the Elections Committee had advanced bipartisan legislation to allow “no-excuse” in-person early voting, a policy Reeves opposes.

Reeves, or someone operating his X account, said England earned the “MVP award for the Mississippi Democratic Party!” He also posted a newspaper photo of England on the Senate floor laughing with Democratic Sen. Derrick Simmons and wrote: ” A picture is worth a thousand words!! Senator Jeremy England, you may think it is funny that you are working with the Senate Democrat Minority Leader to pass the Democrats’ priorities…. BUT I DO NOT!”

It is unclear whether Reeves, Custer or someone else authored those X posts.

Custer did not respond Thursday to messages seeking comment.

At a press conference Thursday, Reeves said the Senate’s decision represented an unfair attack on Custer, and that Republican senators might suffer political consequences for killing one of his appointments.

“There’s no doubt there are some Republican senators who like to vote with Democrats on really important topics, and they don’t like the fact that I call them out on it,” Reeves said. “They ought to attack me and not one of my staff members. He had nothing to do with that. Quite frankly, I think it’s chicken shit what they did.”

The vote against Custer occurred just before the House and Senate concluded its regular session without passing a $7 billion state budget to fund state agencies. Reeves will likely have to call the Legislature back for a special session to deal with the budget.

The Legislature’s bill to overhaul Mississippi’s tax system, which included typos that could eliminate the state income tax much quicker than the Senate intended, contributed to tensions over the budget. Reeves signed the typo-riddled bill into law last week.

Gubernatorial appointees are regularly allowed to serve on boards and commissions prior to Senate confirmation. Now that the Senate has rejected Custer’s confirmation, Reeves could appoint someone else to fill the open board of directors seat. That person would need to be confirmed by the Senate during the next legislative session.

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Mississippi will remain one of only three states without no-excuse early voting or no-excuse absentee voting. 

Senate leaders, on the last day of their regular 2025 session, decided not to send a bill to Gov. Tate Reeves that would have expanded pre-Election Day voting options. The governor has been vocally opposed to early voting in Mississippi, and would likely have vetoed the measure.

The House and Senate this week overwhelmingly voted for legislation that established a watered-down version of early voting. The proposal would have required voters to go to a circuit clerk’s office and verify their identity with a photo ID. 

The proposal also listed broad excuses that would have allowed many voters an opportunity to cast early ballots. 

The measure passed the House unanimously and the Senate approved it 42-7. However, Sen. Jeff Tate, a Republican from Meridian who strongly opposes early voting, held the bill on a procedural motion. 

Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England chose not to dispose of Tate’s motion on Thursday morning, the last day the Senate was in session. This killed the bill and prevented it from going to the governor. 

England, a Republican from Vancleave, told reporters he decided to kill the legislation because he believed some of its language needed tweaking. 

The other reality is that Republican Gov. Tate Reeves strongly opposes early voting proposals and even attacked England on social media for advancing the proposal out of the Senate chamber. 

England said he received word “through some sources” that Reeves would veto the measure.

“I’m not done working on it, though,” England said. 

Although Mississippi does not have no-excuse early voting or no-excuse absentee voting, it does have absentee voting. 

To vote by absentee, a voter must meet one of around a dozen legal excuses, such as temporarily living outside of their county or being over 65. Mississippi law doesn’t allow people to vote by absentee purely out of convenience or choice. 

Several conservative states, such as Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida, have an in-person early voting system. The Republican National Committee in 2023 urged Republican voters to cast an early ballot in states that have early voting procedures. 

Yet some Republican leaders in Mississippi have ardently opposed early voting legislation over concerns that it undermines election security. 

The post Early voting proposal killed on last day of Mississippi legislative session appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi hospitals are now required to perform rape kits on sexual assault victims who come to their ERs, pending a signature from the governor. 

That’s thanks to a bill lawmakers passed unanimously Thursday. 

“This is truly a feel-good bill, and I’m so grateful and relieved that it passed,” Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus, who spearheaded the legislation, said Wednesday afternoon. “As a legislator it’s my job to help protect the most vulnerable among us. If not us, then who will?”

The policy will mandate all hospitals stock rape kits, have a provider available to perform a rape kit, and that they do not turn rape victims away. The legislation was inspired by several cases where survivors did not receive routine treatment at hospitals, according to sexual assault advocacy organizations. Most recently, the mother of a child in central Mississippi told Mississippi Today they were turned away from an ER that “didn’t do that” after her child was allegedly raped.

The bill passed the Legislature unanimously – but only after key lawmakers moved swiftly in the final days of the session to overcome unforeseen hurdles.

Senate Public Health Chair Hob Bryan, D-Amory, tried to kill the bill Tuesday by raising a rule violation, or “point of order.” Bryan, who let similar legislation die by not bringing it up for a vote in his committee earlier in the session, told Mississippi Today he brought up the point of order to stall the bill because he didn’t think lawmakers had sufficiently studied the scope of the problem or the impact of the bill’s language. 

Bryan articulated concern about the unintended consequences the legislation could have on hospitals – although the Mississippi Hospital Association, representing dozens of hospitals in the state, has since come out in support of the bill. The Healthcare Collaborative, which represents most of the hospitals that splintered off from MHA in recent years, has not returned several requests for comment about the rape kit legislation. 

Three lawmakers moved quickly to file a new version of the bill Tuesday evening to fix the violation that was pointed out in the Senate. They were Sen. Angela Hill, R-Picayune; Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall; and McLean. Hill and Fillingane were the authors of the Senate bill on sexual assault reform to which McLean added her rape kit language. 

Bryan said if there were other technical violations in the bill, he would have raised them Wednesday. 

There were not, and the bill passed its final legislative hurdle in the Senate on Thursday. It now heads to the governor. 

The policy will go into effect July 1.

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Made possible through grants from Visit Mississippi, Volunteer Mississippi, and the Mississippi Humanities Council.

Written by Laurie Guimont Guillaume

Ryan Parker, Executive Director of the Mississippi Film Society, is passionate about two things, cinema and serving the Mississippi community. Spending his childhood in Brookhaven, Mississippi, Parker traces his interest in film to the Westbrook Cinema 4 and the ‘80s and ‘90s blockbusters that played there.

An English major at Mississippi College, a film and literature course there deepened his appreciation for the genre. After two graduate school degrees, Parker moved to Los Angeles from the academy to the industry, embarking on a career in film publicity and marketing and consulting that spanned a decade in Los Angeles and continues to this day.

In 2022, Parker and his wife Amy moved back to Mississippi. Along with his work film film publicity and producing, he founded the Mississippi Film Society in 2023.

Leveraging his connections to distributors and independent filmmakers, Parker began offering free preview screenings of upcoming theatrical releases or screenings of smaller films that would not ordinarily have a theatrical release in Mississippi. Another goal of the Film Society was to bring another film festival back to Jackson.

This goal comes to fruition on Thursday, April 10, as the Mississippi Film Society launches its first film festival, Stranger Than Fiction (strangerthanfiction.eventive.org), which will run through Sunday April 13 at the Capri Theatre and Fondren Yard in Jackson, MS. The Stranger Than Fiction Film Festival will showcase eight feature-length films, two Mississippi-produced short films, an Introduction to the Film Industry Workshop, and two after parties.

The festival kicks off on Thursday at 7 pm with the opening night screening of Secret Mall Apartment, an unbelievable true story of a group of artists in Rhode Island, who build a secret apartment inside a new mall and lived there for four years. On Friday night at 7 pm, the festival will host another documentary feature, Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted, which profiles musician Jerry “SwampDog” Wiliams and highlights his influential yet under-the radar-career. This screening will be preceded by a Mississippi produced short film, Country Punk Black about Jackson musician Twurt Chamberlain. The night will conclude with an afterparty at Fondren Yard, where Jackson artist DJ Young Venom will live score the silent black-and-white horror classic, The Monster (1925).

Saturday, April 12, is a full day of events at the Capri Theatre and Fondren Yard, starting off with a preview screening of the upcoming A24 family-friendly film, The Legend of Ochi, which will also include a breakfast cereal buffet and coffee courtesy of Northshore Coffee Company. This will be followed by an Introduction to the Film Industry Workshop, co-hosted by the Mississippi Film Office and the University of Mississippi Department of Theatre and film. This will be followed by two more documentary features: at 3:30 p.m., 23 Mile presents a portrait of Michigan residents during pivotal events in 2020 and will be followed by an in-person panel conversation with director Mitch McCabe; and at 6:00 p.m., Kim’s Video pays tribute to an iconic video store and its legendary film archive. The night will conclude with movie trivia in Fondren Yard beginning at 8:00 p.m.

Sunday, April 13 features another full day of programming starting at 1:30 p.m. with a screening of Mississippi filmmaker Anthony Thaxton’s Eudora, which will be preceded by another Mississippi produced short film, Jason Bouldin: Corporeal Nature, directed by University of Mississippi student Tanner Goodeill. At 4:00 p.m., Cajita (written by Belhaven film production professor Rick Negron) is an intimate tale that follows an immigrant laborer who fled his country by shipping himself to the United States in a crate. This screening will be followed by an in-person Q&A with Negron. The festival will close with a 6:30 p.m. screening of the comedy Lady Parts, which will be followed by an in-person panel conversation and Q&A with producer/writer Bonnie Gross and local physician, Dr. Kimberly Zachow of The Woman’s Clinic.

Thanks to generous partnerships with Visit Mississippi, Volunteer Mississippi, the Mississippi Humanities Council, and the Mississippi Film Office, the Film Society can offer attendees a variety of ways to engage the festival including a $25 weekend pass (priority seating at all screenings and free drink coupon), $12 individual screening tickets, and free screenings. Visit The Stranger Than Fiction Film Festival site (strangerthanfiction.eventive.org) for more information on the films and to purchase passes or tickets and to register for any free events.

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