We’re at that time of the sports year when all sports seem to converge. In Mississippi, there are big doings in all three major sports.
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On Tuesday morning, Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, got a phone call from a Mississippi community mental health center staffer who wanted to share a story.
A few days earlier, a man had filed an affidavit to initiate commitment proceedings against his wife. Having recently lost three family members and close friends, she wouldn’t get out of bed. Her husband didn’t know what to do, so he decided to try to have her committed. Following orders, a sheriff’s deputy took her into custody.
“She probably right now, unless she got out this morning, is sitting in a jail, and she probably just has a bad case of depression,” Boyd said on the Senate floor Tuesday evening as she introduced legislation that would restrict the use of jail to detain people who are not charged with any crime while they await involuntary commitment proceedings.
The bill, SB 2744, passed with little opposition. The limits on jail that it proposes are similar to language in a House bill that also passed on Tuesday.
The measures would allow a person to be jailed only if they are violent, all alternatives have been exhausted, and a judge has ordered the jail detention. The person could be jailed no longer than 24 hours.
The bills also seek to require a mental health screening before a person is taken into custody for commitment proceedings. The aim is to avoid situations in which a person is picked up and jailed for days before evaluators determine they’re not mentally ill. The measure also seeks to divert people from commitment where possible by connecting them with outpatient treatment options.
“We’re going to make sure that the rights of those that are being committed are upheld,” Boyd said.
Boyd also said the legislation would reduce the “legal burden” on counties. She referenced statements by the leadership of Disability Rights Mississippi, the nonprofit protection and advocacy organization for people with disabilities, that they plan to sue the state and some counties over the practice of jailing people charged with no crime.
But Polly Tribble, executive director of Disability Rights Mississippi, said earlier this month that the existing legislation doesn’t go far enough because it doesn’t take jail off the table entirely.
Boyd’s legislation also creates additional state oversight of the community mental health centers. The centers are regional organizations that are responsible for providing mental health services close to home and making them accessible regardless of a person’s ability to pay.
It would create a performance audit system in which the Department of Mental Health would assign each center a rating. Struggling centers could be placed on probation, after which their leadership could be replaced if they don’t improve.
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Republican Gov. Tate Reeves summoned a group of state senators to the Governor’s Mansion in early March and privately told them he will veto any Medicaid expansion bill lawmakers pass, two senators told Mississippi Today.
Reeves invited the group of about 15 senators to the Governor’s Mansion to socialize with him — a common occurrence when the Legislature is in session — at a critical time for the GOP-controlled Senate.
Numerous Capitol observers also say Reeves’ legislative team has put on a full-court press lobbying the Senate against Medicaid expansion.
The Senate faces deadlines for action, and at this point Medicaid expansion is in its hands after the House overwhelmingly passed an expansion proposal on Feb. 28. This marked the first earnest movement on expansion in the state since Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.
READ MORE: Where’s the plan? Senate still has only a ‘dummy bill’ for Medicaid expansion
Staffers for Reeves, who has long emphatically and publicly opposed expansion, did not respond to a request for comment about the event or his remarks. One Senate source told Mississippi Today that Reeves would be hosting another gathering of lawmakers at the Mansion on Tuesday night.
Reeves has taken to social media over the last few weeks to reiterate his opposition to expansion. He wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on March 8 that President Joe Biden during his State of the Union speech supported the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion.
“Our country is going broke and he wants to add millions more to the welfare rolls,” Reeves said. “We have to stand strong in Mississippi! NO Obamacare Medicaid expansion!”
Numerous studies show expanding Medicaid would provide health care coverage to at least 200,000 Mississippians and bring the state up to $1.6 billion in additional federal funds per year.
The GOP-majority House last month overwhelmingly passed a bill to expand Medicaid eligibility to 138% of the federal poverty level, or about $20,000 annually for an individual. It would cover primarily the working poor, as well as those exempt from working due to disability or extenuating circumstances, and only a small number of unemployed and non-exempt adults.
READ MORE: ‘Moral imperative’: House overwhelmingly passes Mississippi Medicaid expansion
The House bill contains a work requirement for recipients of Medicaid expansion, but it ensures that the expansion would go into effect even if the federal government does not approve the work requirement.
The House bill, which passed with a veto-proof majority, is pending in the Senate, where Republican leaders have been working behind closed doors on some version of Medicaid expansion. But even as deadlines approach, Senate leaders have not released specifics of their own proposal.
The federal government pays 90% of the cost for those covered by Medicaid expansion — 95% for the first two years. In addition to providing health coverage to poor Mississippians who need it, studies have shown Medicaid expansion would be a boon for the state economy. For the first four years, there is projected to be no cost to the state because of $600 million in additional federal funds offered as an incentive to expand Medicaid.
Medical and business leaders in Mississippi have endorsed the plan because they believe expanding the program can lead to better health outcomes and reduce the amount of uncompensated care that hospitals are often forced to write off.
Republican House Speaker Jason White, at a Feb. 28 press conference after the House passed its expansion plan, heralded the House vote but said Reeves is “due his say” on Medicaid expansion because he is the “duly elected governor” of Mississippi and was recently reelected to a second term.
“You’re looking at a supporter of Gov. Reeves,” White said at the press conference. “I just simply think you can be a supporter, a champion of Gov. Reeves leading our state as the governor and you can still be for finding a workable health care solution for this population of Mississippians who are in the coverage gap.”
The Republican-majority Senate has not yet passed a Medicaid expansion bill and faces a Thursday deadline to take action on its own “dummy bill,” or a bill that simply lists Medicaid code sections — not a substantive, specific expansion plan.
Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, declined to comment on the governor’s remarks on Tuesday, and he told Mississippi Today on Monday evening that he had virtually no update on where the 52-member Senate stood on passing an expansion bill.
Ahead of the Thursday deadline, Blackwell could attempt to pass the dummy bill on the floor, amend the dummy bill with a substantive Medicaid expansion plan, or let the Senate bill die altogether. Even if the Senate dummy bill dies on Thursday, the House expansion plan will still be alive for Senate consideration or amendments.
Meanwhile, Blackwell would not disclose what his plans were this week on expansion.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Blackwell said when asked what the Senate would do on Thursday.
If the governor vetoes a Medicaid expansion bill, two-thirds of lawmakers would need to vote in favor of overriding the veto before the bill can become law. If a two-thirds majority cannot be garnered in both the House and Senate, the bill will die at the governor’s hand.
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Facing a Thursday deadline for passage, the state Senate leadership has refused to detail its Medicaid expansion plan, leaving members in the dark and health experts worried the plan could ultimately include elements that are unfeasible, costly and counterproductive.
Two-and-a-half months into the legislative session, and after 10 years of debate, Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell told Mississippi Today on Monday afternoon that there was no update on a Senate proposal to expand Medicaid eligibility to the working poor and said, “we’re still working on it.”
Two weeks after the House overwhelmingly passed a bill to expand Medicaid, the Senate has not brought the House measure up, even in committee, and Senate leaders refuse to comment on it.
The Senate expansion bill, which only has the necessary code sections to expand Medicaid with no details, passed committee the first week of March. But trying to have the full Senate pass such a “dummy bill” could prove counterproductive, with senators on the fence unlikely to support a bill they know nothing about.
Blackwell declined to elaborate whether he would advance the dummy bill for a floor vote, if he would let it die or if he planned to propose a substantive expansion plan before the Thursday deadline.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” he said on Monday.
READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves privately tells senators he will veto any Medicaid expansion bill
The only detail Blackwell and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann have confirmed about the plan is that it would contain a work requirement for new coverage recipients — a prerequisite which could kill the effort to expand the health program if the feds don’t approve it.
Members of the Senate have voiced concerns about supporting a skeletal bill without knowing what it might eventually contain.
Sens. Scott DeLano, R-Biloxi, and Daniel Sparks, R-Belmont, say they have never favored expansion, but not having a real bill in front of them doesn’t help the cause. If they were presented a real bill, they say, they would consider the policy.
“I’ve always been pragmatic. If you show me there’s a sustainable way to do something, I will listen,” DeLano said. “I am a compassionate person as well. I want to help people as much as we can. But show me where the sustainable funding will come from … I haven’t seen a bill. If you want me to support something — I haven’t seen a bill, we haven’t seen a bill yet.”
Sparks echoed the sentiment.
“I have not seen the language of the Senate Medicaid expansion plan,” Sparks said. “As I do with all legislation, though, I will review it, study it and ask questions about it.”
The only detail Blackwell has made public is that the bill would need to contain a work requirement, meaning enrollees would need to prove employment or exemption in order to be covered. That requires approval from federal Centers for Medicaid Services, which under the Biden administration has rescinded work requirements previously approved for other states during the Trump administration and has not approved new ones. Georgia remains in litigation with the federal government over the work requirement issue, and has suffered low enrollment and missed out on millions in federal funds by not expanding fully.
Even if a work requirement were approved, it would be costly to implement and could cause a host of administrative difficulties, resulting in loss of coverage even for employed individuals. To the extent that work requirements lead to lower-than-expected enrollment, certain economic benefits of expansion such as additional tax revenue would be muted, according to a March 2024 study conducted by The Hilltop Institute at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Hilltop previously conducted a more comprehensive report on Medicaid expansion in Mississippi, which it presented to the House Medicaid committee in mid-February. During the panel, the researchers outlined how it would boost the economy, generate thousands of jobs and help struggling hospitals.
The work requirement study estimates that if Medicaid were expanded in Mississippi, the majority of enrollees would be either employed or exempt from employment due to disability or extenuating circumstances.
Under the Arkansas Works program, the state saw 45% of new enrollees were employed. Of those unemployed, over 75% were exempt, and only a small number were unemployed and not eligible for exemption.
Arkansas briefly had a Medicaid work requirement from 2018-2019. Research shows it did not lead to more people entering the workforce.
Furthermore, explained Morgan Henderson, Hilltop’s principal data scientist, the cost and administrative chore of implementing work requirements far exceeds the cost of insuring a small number of unemployed, non-exempt individuals along with the rest of the employed or exempt population.
“It would be very challenging to have a robust Medicaid expansion program with a work requirement,” Henderson said.
That’s because implementing work requirements would involve enrollees submitting proof of employment monthly. It would require more staff, and would “introduce substantial confusion among enrollees,” according to the study, which could mean that “if working individuals do not realize that they must report their work status, working enrollees may also lose coverage.”
And others might not even apply.
“There’s a lot of research to show that even seemingly very small paperwork barriers can prevent folks from signing up for health insurance,” Henderson said, “even very affordable health insurance, and so it will reduce uptake – work requirements – we know this for a fact.”
Georgia, the only state currently trying to implement work requirements, has a very low uptake. Georgia’s Department of Community Health had estimated the state would see 64,000 new enrollees from expansion, but as of Dec. 15, 2023, only 2,344 individuals were actively enrolled.
“Some people don’t have internet access,” Henderson explained, “some people just don’t complete the requirements for whatever reason, and so there are folks who are legitimately employed, who should be income-eligible, who would certainly be frozen out just because of the administrative confusion.”
Eligible enrollees who were deemed ineligible due to procedural errors would have to reapply, causing an even greater strain on a system that is already understaffed and backlogged. That’s due in part due to “unwinding,” the process in which state Medicaid divisions across the country have been reviewing their rolls for the first time in three years after the end of COVID-19 restrictions that prevented them from kicking people off.
“In this era of PHE unwinding, it would be extremely cumbersome, I think, to actually implement this work requirement in Mississippi,” Henderson said.
Per a 2019 GAO report, the administrative costs of implementing work requirements range from $6.1 million in New Hampshire to $271.6 million in Kentucky.
In addition to that, if CMS does not consider the Mississippi plan to be Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act — as is the case with Georgia — the state would only receive its traditional share of federal funds for its program, instead of the increased incentive of 90% for states that expand. Georgia is only receiving 65.9% federal share under its “Georgia Pathways to Coverage,” missing out on the millions more of federal funds it would receive under true expansion.
The Mississippi House expansion bill, which passed 98-20 without discussion and now sits untouched in the Senate, calls for a work requirement but says the state’s Medicaid program will be expanded regardless of whether the federal government approves the requirement.
The Senate would have to pass its expansion bill Thursday — whether it’s a skeletal bill or full-fledged bill — to keep it alive.
If the bill dies or is not passed, the Senate could still take up the House bill.
The post Where’s the plan? Senate still has only ‘dummy bill’ for Medicaid expansion appeared first on Mississippi Today.
The House approved legislation strictly limiting when Mississippians can be jailed solely on the basis of mental illness, when they have not been charged with any crime– something that currently happens hundreds of times a year.
Similar language in the Senate is awaiting a floor vote.
Currently, state law allows people to be jailed during involuntary commitment proceedings if there is “no reasonable alternative.” Hundreds of times a year, Mississippians are jailed with no criminal charges, solely because they may need treatment for mental illness. No other state jails so many people charged with no crime for such lengths of time.
Since 2006, at least 17 people have died after being jailed during the commitment process, including a man who died after being jailed without charges in Alcorn County for 12 days in January. No state agency tracks this information, so Mississippi Today and ProPublica assembled a tally by reviewing lawsuits, Mississippi Bureau of Investigation reports, and news clips.
The House legislation, HB 1640, authored by Public Health Chairman Rep. Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, would require a judge to determine that a person is “violent” and issue a specific order to hold them in jail. The detention would be capped at 24 hours, and the local community mental health center would be required to provide treatment while the person was jailed. A person would get a hearing within three to five days of their evaluations, compared to seven to 10 days in current law.
HB 1640 would also require a screening by a mental health professional before a person could be taken into custody, a provision intended to prevent situations where people are taken to jail to await evaluations that determine they don’t actually need treatment.
On the House floor on Tuesday, some lawmakers raised questions about who will pay for the treatment that will be required if counties can’t detain people in jail. The bill contains no additional funding.
“It’s cheaper to transport someone than to keep them in jail,” Creekmore said, arguing that deputies can drive people to available crisis unit beds around the state instead of holding them in jail.
The Department of Mental Health operates a bed registry that allows county officials to see where there are open beds around the state, but the facilities can also reject patients if they determine they are violent or have medical needs the crisis unit can’t care for. State data shows the number of those rejections has been falling.
As initially introduced, the legislation restricting jail detentions applied to all jails in the state. The committee substitute added language allowing people to be detained in jails that have been certified as a holding facility by the Department of Mental Health. To get the certification, jails and other facilities must meet health and safety standards, including suicide prevention protocols, and provide mental health treatment and medications.
Adam Moore, spokesman for the Department of Mental Health, said Tuesday afternoon that there are currently only two certified holding facilities in the state. One is the Chickasaw County Detention Center and the other is Magnolia Regional Health Center in Alcorn County.
Joy Hogge, executive director of the nonprofit organization Families As Allies, was at the Capitol Tuesday for Mental Health and Wellness Day with a handout urging lawmakers to make some changes to HB 1640 and the related Senate bill, SB 2744.
Hogge said she is concerned that requiring a screening before a person can be taken into custody for commitment proceedings could put a burden on families by forcing them to try to get a relative to agree to go to a provider’s office for an evaluation in the midst of a crisis.
“What we see is families that are just desperate to get help for their loved one, and find it very difficult to do that,” she said.
The screening requirement includes an exception: If a person being considered for commitment proceedings is “actively violent or refuses to participate in the pre-affidavit screening,” the community mental health center can recommend that the process go forward and sheriff’s deputies can take a person into custody.
Hogge said there are some patients, such as those with complex medical needs or physically aggressive behavior, who won’t be able to get the treatment they need at the crisis stabilization units; the state hospitals may be the only facilities that can treat them.
But the state hospitals admit patients only with a court-order through the commitment process, and only during designated hours. With more flexible admissions policies, the state hospitals could admit those patients faster and they could spend less time in jail.
“Why aren’t we looking more at that part?” Hogge said.
Moore, the DMH spokesman, said the agency is considering adding admission hours at the state hospitals in the next few months.
“Our state hospitals are working closely with the CSUs in situations where someone has a commitment order and may be physically aggressive and needs to be admitted quickly to the state hospital,” he said.
The Families As Allies handout also calls on lawmakers to “eliminate all references to holding people in jail,” instead of permitting it in certain circumstances.
Leaders of another nonprofit organization, Disability Rights Mississippi, have also said the legislation doesn’t go far enough in restricting jail detentions for people who have committed no crime. They are planning a lawsuit against the state and some counties arguing the practice is unconstitutional.
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Rosanna Banks has been jotting down ideas and dreaming about the “what can be” in life since she was a 14-year-old filled with the promise of what tomorrow could bring.
She credits her mother and grandmother with planting those seeds, fertilizing her imaginary adventures enriched by many hours in the library and many more hours with her head in a book, as she says, “imagining all the possibilities, because a book can take you away to wherever you’ve never been and wherever you want to go. And I’d write it all down.”
Thirty years later, the 44-year-old mother of four, wife and, now, children’s book author of “Bunny Lessons” sits on the steps of her rural Madison County home, surrounded by notebooks filled with ideas — those possibilities brought on by the vivid imagination swirling in her head, scribbling in notebooks, checking scraps of paper to connect one idea with a thought or plot, a spoken word, before it’s lost in the wind.
Inspiration, she stated, is all around her, fueled by her family, dogs Apollo, Creed and, of course, Rocky — because the family loves the movie, “Rocky.” A myriad of cats dart about. One in particular, Kwob, is especially curious and attentive.
A neighbor’s rooster struts over, flaps to the hood of a vehicle and crows for no apparent reason; a young man on a black horse clops by, which sets off the dogs for a moment before they realize he’s no threat and settle back into a sleepy haze. Her husband Samuel, a mechanic, grooves to a 70s hit blaring from a radio as he works on a car, the music a fitting soundtrack to the flow and rhythm of her afternoon.
Banks writes it all down.
“Bunny Lessons,” published by Kingdom Trailblazers and available on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble, is a tale inspired by her children, the four bunnies in her book. “Teaching them life’s lessons; obey momma and daddy, eat your vegetables, do your homework and your chores. Simple things, yes. But teaching responsibility is always a parent’s goal to raising good, productive people,” said Banks. She pauses a moment in thought, Kwob saunters over, sits and stares in that haughty way cats have about them.
Banks grabs a notebook and writes something down.
“Back in the day, I was going through a major depression,” she says. “Trying to get away from an abusive relationship, I moved in with my mom and I’d take my kids to the park. I’d watch them play and there I was again, thinking and imagining. I’d have my notepad with me, and I’d write down bits and pieces. I’d write on anything I could get my hands on, really, putting these ideas and thoughts together.”
Her husband wanders over, teasing that he has an idea he wants to share and sits down next to her. They chat and laugh for a while before he heads back to his task at hand.
Banks begins to write in her notebook. She looks up, staring out across her property dotted with numerous vehicles that her husband uses for parts and reminisces…
“Sitting in that park back then, I watched my children. I watched the animals. I could hear my mom’s, my grandma’s and God’s voices in my head and the lessons they taught me. And really, this is how writing ‘Bunny Lessons’ came to be.
“My grandma had a garden, too,” she said. “As a little girl I worked in that garden and didn’t even want to be there. But I remember the things it taught me about taking care, responsibility and seeing how work pays off. There’re good lessons in working a garden. So, it’s lessons passed down from my grandma to my mom to me to my kids. And now, I’ve passed some of those lessons to others.
“You see, it’s just like planting a garden. Those lessons, the thoughts, the… ideas, are the seeds. You nurture those planted seeds with life lessons and watch it grow. Next thing you know, family and friends encourage you, and the garden grows into a story you want to share. And it won’t be the last book either. I’ve got ideas,” Banks smiles, tickled at the possibilities.
The post Rosanna Banks, children’s book author sharing life’s lessons appeared first on Mississippi Today.
The state Senate voted to pass Senate Bill 2628 Tuesday afternoon, moving forward an effort to remove the city of Jackson’s long-term control of its water and sewer systems.
Sen. David Parker, R-Olive Branch, the bill’s author, presented a tweaked version of the legislation that passed out of the Senate Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Committee last month. If enacted, the legislation would force Jackson into selling its water and sewer infrastructure to a new utility authority, which would operate as a corporate nonprofit. The new authority would be governed by a nine-person board, which would select a president to run day-to-day operations.
The new authority would assume control of the Jackson utilities once the current federally appointed manager of the water and sewer systems, Ted Henifin, leaves his post. U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate, who is overseeing manager’s role, assigned Henifin to stay until at least 2027. The court order empowering Henifin, though, requires him to stay until Wingate determines that Jackson’s water system is in a stable enough condition.
In the updated proposal Parker offered Tuesday, the bill gives Jackson officials three board appointees. The original version gave left all appointees for the governor and lieutenant governor to choose. The updated bill, though, still leaves elected city officials with a minority of appointees, and gives Jackson one less appointee than in the version of this bill Parker presented last legislative session.
Specifically, the appointees would work as follows:
Parker said he made the adjustment after hearing feedback from Jackson delegates as well as Henifin.
The bill also now requires the board to hold monthly meetings. Those meetings would be subject to the Open Meetings Act, and all records of the authority would be considered public records.
During Tuesday’s floor discussion, Sen. Hillman Terome Frazier and Sen. Sollie Norwood, both of whom represent Jackson, questioned Parker for not meeting with them individually before presenting the bill. Parker responded that neither came to his office to meet, and that he left notes about the legislation on their desks.
After the bill passed out of its committee last month, Jackson lawmakers criticized Parker, as well as Henifin who, shortly after, endorsed the proposal. The Jackson City Council also passed a resolution in opposition to the effort.
SB 2628 passed the Senate on Tuesday by a vote of 35-14, and the bill will now head to the House. To stay alive, the proposal will have to pass out of a House committee by the April 2 deadline.
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The Mississippi Manufacturers Association voiced support for the House Medicaid expansion plan, which would make Mississippi the 41st state to expand Medicaid to cover the working poor, in a social media post.
The group cited new economic development projects this year as a reason to expand Medicaid coverage in the state with the lowest workforce participation rate.
“In late Feb., Jason White and the House passed Healthy MS Works, expanding healthcare access to 200,000 working Mississippians,” the Friday social media post read. “MMA supports improved access to quality healthcare, especially in rural areas, and efforts to promote a healthier workforce.”
A healthier workforce is a main reason many Republicans have cited for considering Medicaid expansion this year, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann.
The Senate Hosemann oversees says it is working on its own Medicaid expansion plan, but to date has only a “dummy bill,” with code sections required to change Medicaid coverage, but no details. Hosemann and other Senate leaders have said they will insist on a work requirement for expanded Medicaid coverage, which would require approval, or a “waiver,” from the federal government.
Experts from The Hilltop Institute at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, which conducted an extensive study on expansion in Mississippi, said including a work requirement would be costly, difficult to implement, and would likely lead to coverage losses even for employed Mississippians. That’s in the unlikely case a work requirement was granted by the Biden administration. The administration has not granted states waivers for work requirements and has rescinded those previously granted during the Trump administration.
The House bill in MMA’s social media post would expand Medicaid coverage in Mississippi whether or not the federal government approves a work requirement.
Authored by Speaker Jason White, R-West, and Medicaid Chairwoman Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, the House bill would expand Medicaid eligibility to 138% of the federal poverty level or about $20,000 annually for an individual. It would cover primarily the working poor, as well as those exempt from working due to disability or extenuating circumstances, and only a small number of unemployed and non-exempt adults.
It passed the full House 98-20 in less than 15 minutes with no debate. The Senate has not taken any action on the House bill, and faces a Thursday deadline to take action on its own dummy bill.
The post Mississippi manufacturers voice support for Medicaid expansion plan appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Mississippians voted Tuesday in several contested party primaries for president, U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, and election results are below.
Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, was expected to easily carry the Republican primary on Tuesday, while current President Joe Biden was unopposed on the Mississippi ballot for the Democratic nomination.
Senior U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker faced two little-known Republican primary challengers — Ghannon Burton and Dan Eubanks. All four of the state’s incumbent U.S. House members were on the ballot Tuesday, with just two of them having primary challengers.
READ MORE: Mississippi presidential, Senate and House primaries on Tuesday
See below for live primary election results, which the Associated Press will begin reporting after polls close at 7 p.m. CST.
People with questions about where they vote can contact their local circuit clerk or go to the Mississippi at the My Election Day portal at the Mississippi secretary of state’s website.
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Two Mississippi State football legends were huge in the news over this past weekend. Within a 24-hour window, two blockbuster NFL stories shook the league.
One, Kansas City Chiefs great Chris Jones, a Houston, Miss., native and former Bulldog, signed the most lucrative contract ever for a defensive lineman when the Chiefs agreed to pay him $158 million over the next five seasons. That’s roughly $31.8 million per season — about one hundred grand a year more than Los Angeles Rams superstar Aaron Donald makes.
Two, Yazoo City’s Fletcher Cox, another former Bulldog, announced his retirement from the Philadelphia Eagles, thus ending one of the most productive careers of any defensive lineman in pro football history.
Cox retires at age 33, still playing at an elite level, still double-teamed by any offense that cares anything at all about the health of its quarterbacks and running backs.
Jones signs one of the richest deals in NFL history at age 29. It says much about Jones’ worth that the Chiefs would pay that many millions for that many years when he will play his next next game at the ripe, old football page of 30.
Cox and Jones share many more attributes, besides the fact they have made enough money to buy their hometowns. To wit:
Here’s a sample. In Yazoo City, the football facility is now called Fletcher Cox Stadium because of how he has given back to his high school alma mater. Last summer, Yazoo athletic director Tony Woolfolk remembered the first time he ever saw Cox. It was in the summer before Cox’s ninth grade year at Yazoo City High, where Woolfolk was then the head football coach.
Said Woolfolk, “There were a bunch of kids out on the field playing ball and one of them was at least a head taller and a whole lot faster than the rest of them. I pointed and said, ‘Who is that kid?’ Somebody said, ‘That’s Bug-eye Cox.’”
Bug-eye?
“Yeah, that’s what everybody called him back then. His granny named him that because his eyes kind of bulged,” Tony says. “It stuck. Over time, I shortened it to Bug. I still call him Bug, but I knew the first time I saw him, we had us one — a potential superstar. Even then, he was bigger than everybody else and he could really, really run. You know Bug ran the 4 x 100 relay in track for us.”
Imagine: A defensive tackle fast enough to run sprints. That pretty much says it all.
Funny thing: At first, Cox’s mama didn’t want him to play football because she was scared he would get hurt. Said Woolfolk, “I told her not to worry about that. The only worry was how many people he was gonna hurt.”
Jones, too, has given back to Houston High School, where he presented the Houston Hilltoppers athletic program a $200,000 check in 2022.
“If I hadn’t have come from here, I wouldn’t have my attitude,” Jones once told a reporter when asked about the contribution. “If I were given a silver spoon, I’d probably be different. Your background kind of makes who you are. After you see the houses I grew up in, and the hardships I faced, it makes me almost more excited where I am today.
“It makes me want to give back more.”
One thing certain: With this new contract, the three-time Super Bowl champion has plenty more to give.
The post Why are D-linemen getting so rich? Chris Jones, Fletcher Cox show us appeared first on Mississippi Today.