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A key component in Amazon Web Services’ commitment to spend $10 billion to construct two “hyperscale data centers” in Madison County is an agreement with Entergy to provide the large volume of electricity that such an endeavor will require.

Officials said the project — which will include building solar power fields — will not increase rates for other Entergy customers, and could possibly lower them.

Lawmakers on Thursday agreed to put up $44 million in taxpayer dollars for the project, make a loan of $215 million, and provide numerous tax breaks.

Senate Finance Committee Chair Josh Harkins, R-Flowood, said the plan is for Entergy to locate multi-million dollar facilities in neighboring Hinds County and in Washington and Tallahatchie counties in the Delta to generate that power. Power-generating facilities also could be located in other counties.

Bill Cork, executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority, confirmed that part of that power generation will be made through solar panel fields.

“I would argue this company’s desire is to have a different mix of power generated so they are going to bear the costs of the solar plants that are going in and are going to bear most of the costs of the gas generating facility that will be constructed,” Harkins told senators during Thursday’s special session where legislators passed the incentive package used to lure the Amazon data operations to Mississippi.

The “cherry on top,” Harkins said, is that the power-generating facilities will provide economic boosts in the areas where they are located.

The $10 billion project will be the biggest capital investment for a new economic development project in state history and Amazon’s second-largest investment in North America.

“Mississippi is building a business climate that is ripe for further growth, especially in the technology sector,” Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said. “On top of that, we’re doing what it takes to prepare our workforce to take on these high-paying jobs of the future.”

Amazon has committed that the data centers that will store the company’s technology will employ at least 1,000 people in two locations in Madison County – one in southern Madison County near the Hinds County line and the other on I-55 near the Nissan plant.

Haley Fisackerly, Entergy’s chief executive officer, estimated between $2 billion and $3 billion will be spent on the power generating facilities, both solar and natural gas. He said the facilities will benefit not only Amazon but all Entergy customers. Entergy provides electricity to a large area of the state, including much of central Mississippi.

During Thursday’s special session called by Reeves, the Legislature wasted little time approving the incentive package agreed to by Amazon and the governor’s economic development team. One senator and two House members voted against different parts of the proposal.

On Thursday, Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, the House minority leader, unsuccessfully offered an amendment mandating that 25% of the jobs at Amazon’s data centers in Madison County must be held by Mississippians.

“Twenty-five percent is very little,” Johnson said. “I would like to see it more than that, but we get people in here all the time where they bring their people and leave.”

The legislation passed Thursday gives Entergy the authority to build power-generating facilities without obtaining the authority of the Public Service Commission, as would normally be required. But PSC will still regulate the rates levied by Entergy for the project, though the commissioners would be required to expedite the process.

The  legislation approved Thursday commits  the state to provide $44 million through appropriations, plus multiple tax breaks. Those tax incentives include a permanent exemption of sales and use taxes on equipment purchases, other temporary sales and use tax exemptions, a 10-year exemption of corporate income taxes and a rebate of 3.15% of some construction costs. In addition, for 30 years the tax breaks will continue if Amazon makes an annual investment of $500 million and adds an additional 50 jobs a year.

The bulk of the $44 million appropriation — $32 million – will be for workforce training with the rest to get the project off the ground. The state also will provide a loan of $215 primarily for sewer improvements and for other infrastructure work.

Cork said a study by the state economist indicated that the state would recover the funds committed to the project within 10 months “and then there will be revenue for miles.” The state, Cork said, would still be receiving the payroll tax and other tax revenue from the project.

The special session comes on the heels of a special session held last week to provide at least $350 million to construct a plant to build batteries to power electric commercial vehicles. At that time, Democrats voiced concerns that enough was not being done to try to locate economic development projects in impoverished areas of the state. Plus, Democrats tried to mandate that a certain number of jobs at the battery plant be reserved for Mississippians since the plant will be constructed in Marshall County on the Tennessee state line.

The post Amazon coming to Mississippi with plans to create jobs … and electricity appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Restricting the use of jail to detain people who haven’t been charged with a crime – a practice that is extremely rare in the vast majority of the country but common in Mississippi – is a top priority of the Department of Mental Health this session, director Wendy Bailey told lawmakers at a Senate Public Health Committee meeting on Wednesday. 

Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, said that having a mental illness is not a crime, and he suggested jailing people while they wait for treatment is against the law (though Mississippi commitment statutes permits it when there is “no reasonable alternative”).

“Do the counties not understand that’s what this is and arguably could be opening the state up to litigation even further?” he asked Bailey, adding that the practice is “depriving people of their liberty.”

Bailey said she agreed.

“If you are sick and need a court commitment, that is not a reason to place an individual in jail,” she said.

Yet it happens hundreds of times a year at least. Mississippi Today and ProPublica found last year that people may spend days or weeks locked in a cell with minimal medical care as they wait for evaluations, a hearing, and then treatment through the civil commitment process. 

So far, Rep. Kevin Felsher, R-Biloxi, has introduced a bill that would restrict jail detentions to situations when a person is waiting for transportation to a medical facility and permit such detentions for up to 72 hours only. House Public Health Chairman Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, is planning to introduce a bill that would require individuals to receive a pre-evaluation screening by a mental health professional before they can be detained through the commitment process. 

Bailey has said she supports those efforts, and she formally made that request to lawmakers at the Senate Public Health Committee hearing on Wednesday.

 “We want an individual to see a mental health professional before a writ is issued,” she said. 

Local officials including chancery clerks and a county supervisor also spoke to lawmakers, and others, such as Hattiesburg Mayor Toby Barker, sat in the audience. 

Forrest County Chancery Clerk Lance Reid told the committee he had previously required each person who wanted to initiate commitment to contact the local community mental health center, Pine Belt, so that a mental health professional could determine whether commitment was necessary before the process began. But the agency instructed him to stop because that isn’t allowed under current law. 

“I would love for DMH to take another look at that situation,” he said, adding that the process kept some people out of the commitment process altogether. 

Bailey described data showing that people are spending less time waiting in jail for a state hospital bed, with a current average of just under three days. But that figure only includes the amount of time people spend waiting after they have a hearing, which could happen 10 days or longer after they are first detained in jail. 

The state has no data on how often people are jailed before a commitment hearing, nor how long they wait in jail before a hearing. Bailey told lawmakers the agency is still working on collecting information about people jailed before a hearing, which was a requirement of a law passed last year. 

Lawmakers also raised questions about what Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, called “spiteful situations” in which someone files commitment paperwork against someone else not because of a genuine mental health issue but rather to hurt them by causing their arrest and detention in jail or a medical facility, sometimes during a divorce or custody dispute. 

“It’s not something you can just go take someone off the streets and put them in jail,” said Lamar County Chancery Clerk Jamie Aultman. “It’s a step by step process.”

But the safeguards designed to keep people who don’t need treatment out of the process are not always effective. In 2019, a DeSoto County woman was committed and forced to spend 18 days in a behavioral health facility after her husband filed an affidavit against her – even though the doctors who examined her before her hearing found “no evidence of mania or psychosis. She is no danger to herself or others. She is not in need of mental treatment.” 

Aultman also described his work to establish a crisis stabilization unit to serve Lamar and Forrest counties. The project has secured state and federal funding as well as $1 million from each of the counties and $750,000 from the city of Hattiesburg. Currently, he said, Lamar County residents go to jail if a crisis bed is not available or won’t admit the person. 

The Lamar County Sheriff’s Department shared data with Mississippi Today last year showing that from 2019 through 2022, more than 250 people were jailed during the commitment process, the vast majority with no criminal charges. 

The post ‘Depriving people of their liberty’: Lawmakers question jail without criminal charges appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippians would be prevented from placing an initiative on the ballot to change the state’s strict anti-abortion laws under a proposal passed Wednesday by the House of Representatives.

House Concurrent Resolution 11, which is still several legislative steps from becoming law, would give citizens the ability to gather signatures to propose new state laws or change existing laws, but it bans them from placing an issue on a statewide ballot about abortion.

The proposal barely passed the House. The measure required two-thirds of the chamber to support it, and 119 members participated in the vote, meaning 80 yea votes were required for it to pass.

“That unborn child, that’s who we’re trying to protect,” said House Constitution Chairman Price Wallace, a Republican from Mendenhall.

Rep. Cheikh Taylor, a Democrat from Starkville and the Mississippi Democratic Party chairman, said limiting the scope of what types of initiatives can be proposed was undemocratic and muting the voice of voters.

“Don’t let anyone tell you this is just about abortion,” Taylor said. “This is about a Republican Party who thinks they know what’s best for you better than you know what’s best for you. This is about control.”

Taylor and House Minority Leader Robert Johnson III, a Democrat from Natchez, attempted to amend the legislation to remove the abortion prohibition, but their efforts were defeated by Republicans who have a supermajority in the chamber.

The House’s proposal now heads to the Senate for consideration, where its fate remains uncertain. Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, the leader of the Senate, said on Jan. 9 at a Stennis Institute and Capitol Press Corps event that he believes there should be few restrictions on what topics citizens can propose.

The Senate killed a similar House bill last year.

“To me, it seems like if we’re going to do a ballot initiative that had enough people sign onto it and they really thought the Legislature was not doing their job, then you ought to have a pretty clean ballot initiative,” Hosemann said. “If we’re doing one and you can’t do a ballot on any of these things, then why are you doing it at all?”

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated a person’s constitutional right to an abortion, Mississippi’s so-called “trigger law” went into effect that banned abortion in most instances.

But after the nation’s highest court ruled in 2022 that state governments have the authority to set abortion laws, voters in several conservative-run states elected to protect abortion access.

“In recent elections that have happened since Roe v. Wade was overturned, they decided to elect their conservative leaders that they have, but they also want to preserve or increase a woman’s right to choose,” Rep. Lawrence Blackmon, a Democrat from Jackson, said during the debate.

Republican legislative leaders have maintained Mississippi is an ardent anti-abortion state. But in 2011, Mississippi voters overwhelmingly rejected a so-called personhood amendment that would have defined life as beginning at conception.

Speaker Jason White, a Republican from West, told reporters after the measure passed that he had “no reaction” to the fact that Mississippians previously voted down a personhood initiative because he believes the personhood initiative was “totally different” from House’s effort to ban abortion proposals under the new initiative process. 

“We’re reinstating the initiative process,” White said. “That was in a Roe v. Wade world when that initiative was brought forward. This is a totally different world we’re in post-Roe. I would just say that everything has totally changed after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision two years ago.” 

Mississippians have not had an initiative process since 2021, when the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled it invalid because of a technicality over the state’s congressional districts. 

Besides fixing the concerns that led to the Supreme Court tossing the process out, the House’s recent proposal changes the old initiative process by allowing voters to bypass the Legislature and only change general law instead of changing the state constitution.

The proposal requires organizers to gather signatures from 8% of the number of registered voters during the last governor’s race, which the Secretary of State’s office estimates to be around 166,000.

Several House members opposed other portions of the proposal, such as giving the Legislature the authority to offer alternative amendments to appear alongside a citizen-sponsored initiative.

“Deep down in your heart, do you really think we’re doing the people justice because once that initiative is done, all that hard work is done and we bring this back to you guys, and you guys can say, ‘No all our hard work was done in vain?’”  Rep. Hester Jackson-McCray, a Democrat from Horn Lake, asked. 

Rep. Fred Shanks, a Republican from Brandon who led the debate in support of the proposal, told the members that his primary concern was to pass an initiative proposal that the House could use to negotiate with the Senate.

“We are just trying to get a vehicle to the Senate,” Shanks said.

The Senate has not voted on an initiative restoration measure that originated in its chamber, and it has until April 2 to pass the House proposal out of a Senate committee.

The post House passes ballot initiative proposal that would prevent voters from using it to change abortion ban appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Special Session appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Legislature will go into special session called by Gov. Tate Reeves for the second time in eight days to consider the approval of a major economic development project.

Reeves is asking legislators in a Thursday special session to approve an incentive package to lure a major company to build two “hyperscale data centers” in Madison County just north of the city of Jackson. Reeves said the sites will be seven miles and 20 miles from downtown Jackson.

The unnamed company, “one of the 20 largest in the world,” Reeves said, has committed to investing $10 billion in building the data centers and to employing 1,000 workers earning at least 125% of the average state wage. Reeves said the project would represent the single largest capital investment in state history — four times larger than the previous largest capital investment.

The governor said he could not announce the company until after the incentive package is passed. But online behemoth Amazon has been opening similar data centers in other regions of the country, and SuperTalk reported Tuesday that the company was Amazon Web Services. Reeves indicated the company chose Mississippi for this particular project that was planned for a location in the southeastern United States.

Reeves is asking state lawmakers to commit $44 million through appropriations, plus multiple tax breaks. Those tax incentives include a permanent exemption of sales and use taxes on equipment purchases, other temporary sales and use tax exemptions, and a 10-year exemption of corporate income taxes. The bulk of the $44 million appropriation — $32 million — will be for workforce training, with the rest directed for funds to get the project off the ground. The state also will provide a loan of $215 million primarily for sewer improvements and for other infrastructure work.

“The size of this new capital investment is unlike anything we’ve seen before in Mississippi,” Reeves said. “… The fact is that records were made to be broken, and that’s exactly what our state continues to do. This is a massive win for central Mississippi, the Jackson metro area, and all of Mississippi. It’s a great time to be a Mississippian.”

READ MORE: Should lawmakers more carefully vet economic development deals before approving them?

At a Wednesday news conference in his state office, Reeves was flanked by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, House Speaker Jason White and other legislators as he announced that the special session will begin Thursday at 9:30 a.m. Last week, a one-day special session was held to provide state incentives of at least $350 million plus tax breaks to lure a project to manufacture batteries to power electric commercial vehicles to Marshall County near the Tennessee border.

While last week’s project passed overwhelmingly, some Democrats, who all voted for it, lamented the fact that no major economic development projects are being located in impoverished areas of the state, such as the Delta region and in southwest Mississippi.

Some lawmakers also said that more time was needed to study and to vet the projects and that special sessions were not needed to take up the projects since the Legislature already is in session.

Reeves has contended that efforts are being made to lure projects to all parts of the state. He also argued that most all major economic development projects have been taken up in special session where the focus can be placed on the project.

Reeves said there is a commitment to have the construction completed by 2027, but there would be at least 6,000 construction workers, not including employees for ancillary projects, during the construction phase.

One of the Madison County sites will be in Canton, near the existing Nissan plant, and the other will be just across County Line Road in southern Madison County just a short distance from Hinds County.

Facilities to provide the electricity, provided by Entergy, for the sites could be built not only in Hinds, but in other locations throughout the state, Reeves said.

Reeves touted that the green energy project approved last week would generate the largest payroll for a new project in state history and the one announced Wednesday is the largest single capital investment in state history. While both are significant, it is not uncommon for such records to be broken because of inflation, construction costs and other factors, though the investment in Madison County is particularly significant.

READ MORE: Lawmakers pass $350 million deal to lure major green energy plant to north Mississippi

The post Reeves calls another special session, this time to lure $10 billion project to Madison County appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Just-turned-20-year-old amateur Nick Dunlap shot 29 under par this past weekend to win the PGA Tour’s American Express Classic in the desert this past weekend and Jacksonian Wilson Furr had an up close and painful look at history being made. Randy Watkins joins us to discuss the achievement and also Furr’s medical issues in his first event as a PGA Tour pro.

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: It happens every 32 years or so, an amateur wins a PGA Tour Tournament, and Nick Dunlap just did it. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Last week’s legislative approval of at least $350 million for a green energy plant in north Mississippi was such an orchestrated affair that Gov. Tate Reeves had his celebratory press conference podium set up before the final legislative votes were cast.

Reeves, who runs the state’s economic development agency, walked into the Capitol last week and asked lawmakers to quickly write him a $350 million check to bring a green energy plant to north Mississippi. He told lawmakers that the plant, which would be built and operated by four unnamed companies, would employ 2,000 people by 2031.

Lawmakers engaged in virtually no debate about the merits of the project, asked few questions about the project’s details, were not given adequate time to read the 213-page bill, and still nearly unanimously voted to spend the money on the plant. One proposal to mandate that 70% of the plant’s jobs be given to Mississippians was quickly rejected by the House.

READ MORE: Lawmakers pass $350 million deal to lure major green energy plant to north Mississippi

Reeves flexed his statutory special session power and forced lawmakers to consider his proposal, and in a few easy hours, he’d gotten exactly what he asked for. Effectively, the legislative branch tasked with appropriating and providing oversight of state funds merely rubber-stamped an expensive executive branch proposal with little deliberation.

That didn’t sit well with every lawmaker.

“If the governor can vet it and look at it, if the agency can vet it and look at it, it’s our responsibility to do the same,” House Minority Leader Robert Johnson III told Mississippi Today about the rushed nature of the session.

During the House committee meeting in which the package was introduced, Johnson, a Democrat from Natchez, asked Rep. Trey Lamar, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, if the House was required to pass the deal in a single day or if they could have more time to scrutinize it.

“I wouldn’t say it’s required, gentleman, but I do tell you and I think you know this, the plan is to pass this plan today,” Lamar responded.

Before the committee, including Johnson, unanimously voted to approve the 213-page bill, only two paper copies of the bill were made available for the 33-member committee to review. The digital version was only made available online roughly an hour earlier.

When the bills moved to the entire House chamber for consideration, House pages worked to distribute a printed summary of the legislation while members were debating the proposal. It did not appear possible for any member of the Legislature to have read the full 213-page bill before being asked to vote on it. Still, only two senators and one representative voted against the project.

The rushed proceedings marked a 180-degree turn from the initial vow House Speaker Jason White made on the first day of the 2024 session. That day, he promised to give House members more time to review spending bills before they’re required to cast an up-or-down vote.

White admitted in an interview with Mississippi Today that last week’s special session was quick, but he believed House members had sufficient time to review the specifics before casting a vote. He also said that he trusted the governor and Reeves’ agency leaders to vet the economic deal.

“Is it fair to say it’s fast and rushed? Yes, that is fair,” White told Mississippi Today. “I would just say that is the nature of special sessions and the way these deals are run because of the sensitivity surrounding the companies that are in play in this deal versus their competitors.”

READ MORE: In 2023, Reeves limited state business with China. Last week, he requested state funds for a Chinese company.

In fairness to White, hurried special sessions over economic development are nothing new at the Capitol, but poring over the fine details could be a crucial counterweight to a governor who has pledged to push similar business deals through the Legislature.

The special session clearly illustrated the single-party GOP domination of state government. And it proved that the governor can now snap his fingers, say the words “economic development,” and expect legislative leaders to fall in line behind him.

Capitol leaders in the past have fiercely guarded their legislative powers and fought with governors in the public sphere and in the courts to protect their money-spending authority. Now, it appears the legislative branch is willing, at a bare minimum, to acquiesce its oversight authority during a special session.

“I worry that we’re setting a dangerous precedent,” Johnson said. “That’s what I worry about. The governor is in the executive branch, and we’re in the legislative branch. By doing it this way, while we’re in session, we’re essentially ceding our legislative authority to the governor.”

On Wednesday, Reeves announced he would call lawmakers into a Thursday special session for yet another economic development project. This time, he’s asking lawmakers for about $44 million in state funds, significant tax breaks, and a $215 million loan for two data collection centers in Madison County that he says will create a total of 1,000 jobs.

White, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and several key legislative leaders stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Reeves at the governor’s office for the announcement.

READ MORE: Reeves calls another special session, this time to lure $10 billion project to Madison County

The post Should lawmakers more carefully vet economic development deals before approving them? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Low-income Mississippi students will get an extra two months to file a federal form in order to get the state’s need-based college financial aid program.

In Mississippi, students from families generally making less than $35,900 a year qualify for the Higher Education Legislative Plan for Needy Students, or HELP, grant if they meet certain academic criteria.

To apply, students must complete two applications — the Mississippi Aid Application and the federal Free Application for Federal Student Aid. This year, the deadline to submit MAAPP will remain March 31, but low-income students will now get until June 30 to file the FAFSA with the state’s financial aid office and confirm their family income.

The FAFSA extension comes as students and families have encountered hours-long wait times and glitchy forms after the federal government unveiled a “streamlined” process at the end of last year. 

“I do believe in the end it is going to be better, but right now it doesn’t feel that way,” Jennifer Rogers, the director of Mississippi’s financial aid office, told members of the Post-Secondary Education Financial Assistance Board who approved the new deadline on Tuesday. 

Rogers told board members she didn’t know if the extension would result in an overall increase in the cost of the HELP program. That has been a regular concern as HELP is the state’s most expensive financial aid program because it pays full tuition for all four years of college. 

Still, it’s important to ensure low-income students, who may have less support in applying for college, don’t miss out on the HELP grant, Rogers said. They likely would not be able to afford a higher education in Mississippi without it. 

“Giving students that extra time to get the FAFSA in this year when the FAFSA has changed so drastically is important to those lower-income students who don’t necessarily have the resources and the guidance and the help that other better-resourced, non-first-generation students have,” she said. “But I can’t tell you if it’s going to cost more.” 

Students who are applying for Mississippi non-need-based college financial aid grants — the Mississippi Tuition Assistance Grant and the Mississippi Eminent Scholars Grant — do not need to submit the FAFSA to OSFA. The deadline for those grants is Sept. 15.

Rogers added that financial aid applications in Mississippi are on par with last year as school counselors and advocates for college access have been advising students to go ahead and fill out Mississippi’s aid application, a form that is working, while they wait for the FAFSA.

So far, about 25,500 students have applied for college financial aid in Mississippi this award cycle, compared to roughly 26,000 last year, Rogers told Mississippi Today.

READ MORE: ‘No one is losing out’ in proposed college financial aid changes, board says

The post After bumpy FAFSA rollout, Mississippi extends deadline for low-income students seeking financial aid appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A provision of the 1890 Mississippi Constitution designed to prevent Black people voting was not meant to be punitive, the office of Attorney General Lynn Fitch argued Tuesday before a full panel of the U.S. 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The full panel of the New Orleans-based appeals court is hearing the second case in less than three years claiming a provision of the Mississippi Constitution that permanently prohibits some people convicted of felonies from voting is in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

In August a three-judge panel of the 5^th Circuit in a 2-1 decision found that the lifetime voting ban violates the Eighth Amendment of the  U.S. Constitution because it is cruel and unusual.

But the full panel of the court, known for its conservative rulings, vacated the decision of the three-judge panel and ordered Tuesday’s hearing. It is not known when the full panel – about 20 judges — will rule on the issue. But it is likely that the full panel’s ruling will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Judge James Graves, who was the third Black member of the Mississippi Supreme Court in modern times before being appointed to the 5^th Circuit, asked how the 1890 provision that inserted the lifetime ban in an effort to disenfranchise African Americans could not be considered punitive.

Scott Stewart of the state Attorney General’s office, responded that the lifetime ban was simply one of the regulations, such as a residency requirement, placed on voting. But the state had previously conceded that the original intent of the lifetime ban was to prohibit Black Mississippians from voting.

The framers at the time admitted they placed the lifetime ban in the Mississippi Constitution as a tool to keep Black people from voting. The framers said they believed Black Mississippians were more likely to commit some crimes. Those crimes placed in the state Constitution where conviction costs a person the right to vote are bribery, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, forgery, embezzlement, bigamy and burglary. The list has since been modified to adhere to changes in how crimes are identified in state law.

But under the original language of the Mississippi Constitution, a person could be convicted of cattle rustling and lose the right to vote, but those convicted of murder or rape would still be able to vote — even while incarcerated. Those convicted of murder and rape are now also prohibited from voting.

“Permanent disenfranchisement is not punitive and does not fall under the Eighth Amendment at all,” Stewart told the judges.

The lawsuit  was filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and others on behalf of Mississippians who have lost their voting rights. 

Jonathan Youngblood argued before the Court on Tuesday that Mississippi is among a handful of states that permanently banned people from voting. At one point in the 1960s more than 40 states imposed a lifetime ban, but now only a few do as policymakers recognize the punitive nature of preventing people from voting.

Youngblood conceded that a voting ban could be imposed for certain crimes, such as for murder or rape,

He pointed to the random nature of the Mississippi provision that imposed a lifetime voting ban on someone convicted of timber theft, but not for someone convicted of some assault charges on police officers.

Youngblood said voting “was the center of what we are … I think what other states do is relevant. It (voting) is the fabric of our American society.”
Some of the judges told Youngblood that lawmakers, not the courts, should be deciding what crimes merit a lifetime ban on voting.

In 2020 the full 5^th Circuit heard oral argument and later ruled against an effort to say the voting ban was unconstitutional because of its racist beginnings. The 5^th Circuit ruled that while the ban was imposed for racist reasons that it was no longer is racist because it had been revisited by legislators and amended since it originally was imposed in 1890.

The post AG Fitch to federal court: Mississippi law to prevent Black people voting was not punitive appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Newly elected House Speaker Jason White says he will continue convening private Republican caucus meetings at the Capitol in 2024, effectively giving the supermajority House GOP a chance to formulate and debate policy outside public view.

Republicans hold 79 out of 122 seats in the House, which gives them a supermajority and wide latitude over which laws are passed. The state’s Open Meetings Act states that if a majority of the members of a public body, called a quorum, are gathered in one place, then the meeting is supposed to be open to the public.

But White, a Republican from West, told Mississippi Today that he believes the GOP caucus doesn’t qualify as a public body under the state law.

“I do think y’all’s distinction about it being less than a quorum or more than a quorum — I think that’s a weak out and argument,” White told Mississippi Today. 

Those who argue that the meetings should be open say political debate in public bodies should be done in public to promote a healthy democracy. White, though, believes political caucuses should be able to meet in private.

The speaker said if caucus meetings were forced to be open to the public, then it could have a “chilling effect” on honest policy discussions. When asked if other public bodies, such as a city council, experience a chilling effect because of the law, White said it “probably does.”  

“They don’t debate things to the extent and to the broad reaches that we do here,” White said of other public bodies. “They strictly deal with regulations that pertain to their city. I think that’s a little different.”

Democratic members also conduct private caucus meetings, but their members do not make up a majority of the House or the Senate. Republicans in the state Senate do not conduct private caucus meetings.

The first closed-door House Republican caucus meeting occurred on Jan. 17. White announced the meeting from the House floor.

The Mississippi Free Press, in March 2022, attempted to attend a House GOP caucus when former Speaker Philip Gunn was the leader of the chamber. Gunn and other leaders told the news outlet they could not attend the meeting.

The MFP filed a complaint with the state Ethics Commission over the private meetings. Tom Hood, the commission’s director, recommended that the commission determine the House is a “public body” as defined in law and require the caucus meetings to be open.

But the ethics commissioners, appointed by politicians, voted to disagree with Hood’s recommendation and ruled the private meetings were legal. 

The news outlet appealed the ruling to the state court system, which remains pending in Hinds County Chancery Court.

The post Speaker Jason White continues to convene House majority for closed-door meetings appeared first on Mississippi Today.