OurTupelo

FEBRUARY 7, 1948

Black school teacher Gladys Noel Bates sued for equal pay because she earned only half of what her white counterparts earned in Mississippi.

Encouraged by her father, Andrew J. Noel, who was active in the NAACP and Progressive Voters’ League, she joined the NAACP Youth Council. After teaching at Smith Robertson Junior High School, she asked the Jackson School Board to quit discriminating against Black teachers.

The board denied discrimination, and she responded by filing a lawsuit, aided in part by the NAACP’s Constance Baker Motley. “I may sound immodest,” she recalled later, “but it was time for someone to do something.”

In the wake of her lawsuit, people fired shots into their home, tried to torch the home and left burning crosses. She and her husband also lost their jobs, and R. Jess Brown, an automotive science and technology teacher at Lanier High School, took her place in the lawsuit. In the end, the court dismissed the lawsuit, but the judge noted that racial discrimination was indeed responsible for the inequity of the salaries for black and white teachers. After being barred from teaching elsewhere in the state, Tougaloo College, a private college that served as a stronghold for civil rights activities, welcomed her.

The couple eventually moved to Denver, where both were hired as teachers. Although the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case four years later, the fight proved worthwhile. Mississippi began paying Black teachers more. In 1996, the city of Denver held a day in Bates’ honor. She died in 2010, and a Jackson school is now named after her.

The post On this day in 1948 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Shortly after moving to Madison, Jamie Bardwell learned that the Madison County School District requires parents to opt out in writing from corporal punishment being used on their children, a fact she discovered from other students talking about it in her son’s class. 

“A kid got paddled, came back and told my son, and my son was terrified,” she said. “I explained to him that that would never happen to him, we’ve written this letter, but it’s really scary for kids to have people in their classroom come back with these stories. Even if your kid isn’t the one who is subjected to corporal punishment, they’re still being impacted by it.”

The Madison County School District told Mississippi Today that corporal punishment is an option in the district, and that parents are always consulted before it is administered. 

The U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights tracks corporal punishment data in public schools nationally, which is generally defined as the use of physical force to discipline students. Often called paddling, the term stems from using a wooden paddle to hit a student on the butt.

Federal data shows that over the last decade, Mississippi had more corporal punishment incidents than any other state for every year data was collected.  In the 2017-18 school year, the most recent year for which there is federal data, nearly 30% of all incidents occurred in Mississippi. In the same year, 22 states reported at least one incident of corporal punishment and 10 reported over 1,000 instances. 

The Mississippi Department of Education has more recent data, also for public schools. Instances of corporal punishment fell by over 23,000 from the 2016-17 school year to the 2021-22 school year. School leaders attributed this to a combined influence of the pandemic and a 2019 state law which banned the use of corporal punishment on a student with a special education classification. 

Some districts began the work of rethinking discipline models before the 2019 law passed. 

William Murphy, director of student affairs for the Sunflower County Consolidated School District, said the district’s process of veering away from corporal punishment started in 2016 with restorative justice trainings, a practice that seeks to repair harm caused rather than focus on punishment. When the 2019 law passed, Murphy said multiple administrators told him they rarely utilized it anyway “just because of the lack of effect that it was having.”

He acknowledged that the decline, from 400 incidents in 2016 to 22 in 2022, was impacted by the pandemic and students not being physically in school. However, he said he doesn’t expect to see a return because of the emphasis the pandemic put on social-emotional learning. 

“The pandemic allowed us to see into some children’s homes, to see some things that we might have not been privy to before,” Murphy said. 

“When you’re having to do more home visits or get closer acclimated to students at home, you learn some things that I think will make you less likely to use corporal punishment,” he continued. “When you learn that a child might have been abused or that a home situation is particularly traumatic, I just think there’s a push to do more counseling, more talking.”

In the Scott County School District, Assistant Superintendent Chad Harrison said the district’s decline in corporal punishment was strongly linked to the 2019 law going into effect. Concerned that a teacher would mistakenly administer corporal punishment to a special education student, the district changed its policy so that it can only be used by administrators or administrative assistants. The district went from nearly 1,800 incidents in 2016 to 532 in 2022.  

Harrison also said that the district has focused more energy on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, a framework which seeks to reward students for positive behavior rather than penalize them for negative. 

Valeria Wilson, the behavior specialist for the district, explained the shift includes both creating a culture of rewards for all students and developing individualized plans for students who are struggling with behavior problems. 

At every school, teachers, cafeteria workers, janitors, and front desk employees all have “bucks” that they can give students to reward behaviors like being respectful or paying attention. Students use the bucks to buy snacks or gain entry to celebrations throughout the year. 

When students are put on a behavior plan, Wilson works with the student and a committee to develop daily goals and rewards if the student meets them. As a part of the plan, an adult checks in with the student daily to discuss their behavior and provide instant feedback.

“It’s just simply making them aware of their actions,” Wilson said.

Wilson also said that students are involved in the process of selecting their rewards in order to better motivate them. 

“You have to find out what the interests of that kid are, and you can only do that by building relationships with them, and then you build your plan around that student,” she said. 

Despite the shifts toward other discipline models that some districts are making, advocates are concerned that corporal punishment numbers will tick back up. 

Ellen Reddy, executive director of the Nollie Jenkins Family Center in Holmes County, said she believes the pandemic accounts for some of the decline, but is also concerned districts are not being monitored properly. 

The Nollie Jenkins Family Center released a report in 2021 highlighting significant disparities in corporal punishment reporting data between the Mississippi Department of Education and the federal government. Jean Cook, communications director for the Mississippi Department of Education, said MDE could not explain these differences, but that districts are not required to respond to any data quality questions from the federal government. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education did not respond to questions regarding their validation process. 

When asked how MDE verifies its own data, Cook said districts are required by state law to report accurate information to the state’s data management system and, in doing so, verify their monthly data reports before submitting them to the department. The department does not independently verify this data after it is received unless a complaint is filed. 

When talking about the decline of this practice in Mississippi, Reddy and her associates expressed concern about the demographic profile of the students who are still receiving corporal punishment, as national research has shown corporal punishment is disproportionately used on Black students. 

 “Any student that experiences it is one student too many, so who’s still left in that category, what do they look like, and why are they still experiencing it?” asked Chanya Anderson, a data analysis consultant working with the Nollie Jenkins Family Center. “Because if you’re talking about such a drastic decline, what is it about those students that you still feel the need to use corporal punishment if your model has now shifted to something else?”  

MDE data shows that for the 2021-22 school year, nearly 60% of corporal punishment instances were administered to Black students, while 35% happened to white students. For the same school year, 47% of K-12 students were Black and 43% were white. 

Anderson also said that laws temporarily put a damper on certain practices, which could explain the decline in corporal punishment incidents. 

“When you enact any law, even if laws don’t affect all populations … that’s still going to bring attention to the plight of corporal punishment generally,” Anderson said. “In light of laws, you will often see institutions pull back momentarily, and then as people forget about it and move on, they’ll start to increase their usage of it again once the spotlight has moved off the topic.” 

This legislative session, Rep. Carl Mickens, D-Brooksville, introduced a bill to ban corporal punishment but it died, as have his previous efforts for the last five years. Mickens said he doesn’t think the practice “will cause a child to learn, I think it might cause them not to want to learn.” Though he disagrees with the practice, he said ultimately only legislative leadership has the power to decide if a bill progresses.

Rep. Richard Bennett, R-Long Beach, chair of the House Education Committee, said he has not taken up the bills to ban it because he believes corporal punishment is a local issue. He said he has not looked at research on how it impacts children.  

Studies have shown that corporal punishment can lead students to be more aggressive, have higher rates of depression, and perform worse in school. Morgan Craven, federal policy director for the Intercultural Development Research Association, said it’s telling that so many groups have lined up in opposition, including psychiatrists, pediatricians, lawyers, public health officials, school counselors and educators. 

“Not only is it ineffective, but it can actually make issues worse,” Craven said. “Whatever it is that is leading to a particular behavior, it is not solved by hitting a kid.” 

Francine Jefferson, who was a board member of the former Holmes County School District, advocated to end corporal punishment when she was on the board from 2010-2018. While she did not achieve a complete ban, the board did change policies to restrict the practice, including allowing parents to opt out. 

“I grew up in that environment where teachers are allowed to paddle the kids. I mean, hell, the bus drivers could paddle you, everybody could paddle you,” Jefferson, who also grew up in the district, said. “I grew up with that experience, and it wasn’t a pleasant one … That’s why I pushed so much for it because I never forgot that experience.” 

The district later banned the practice entirely in 2018 after consolidation, but Jefferson said she is still concerned about it happening in Holmes County and other parts of the state. 

“How many pounds of pressure do you put on a child’s bottom?” she said. “What’s the right amount? Nobody knows. If you can’t tell me that, then I don’t think you need to do it because you can’t take it back.” 

The post Corporal punishment was used in schools 4,300 times last year. Here’s what districts are doing to change that. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, is hoping to bring more accountability over Jackson’s ongoing pollution of the Pearl River through the city’s failing wastewater system, despite a federal agency already enforcing the issue through a consent decree.

House Bill 1094, which passed through its House committee last Tuesday, would fine the capital city up to $1 million for each “improper disposal” of wastewater or sewage into the river.

Currie said a consent decree being enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency and Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality since 2012 is not doing enough to protect the Pearl River from Jackson’s pollution. The fines that could result from HB 1094, she explained, would go to help clean up the river in the areas of the state downstream from Jackson.

“When you dump raw sewage in (the Pearl River) for other counties to worry about, it’s disgusting,” said Currie, who’s district includes towns, such as Monticello, bordering the river downstream of Jackson. “When you go down the Pearl River, you can see toilet paper hanging off little branches.”

Currie said that the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality told her that the agency hasn’t yet fined Jackson for such discharges, but an MDEQ spokesperson clarified that it hasn’t issued a fine since the 2012 federal consent decree.

The agency has collected nearly half a million dollars in fines over the city’s wastewater issues, which includes a $240,000 penalty assessed in 2010 for violations at Jackson’s Savanna Street plant, and a $175,000 fine issued as a result of the 2012 order.

The consent agreement gave Jackson about 18 years to make a list of fixes with its wastewater system, but required most of those fixes to be done within 11 years, or by November this year. Citing a lack of funding and staffing, the city hasn’t completed many of the required fixes, and is now attempting to renegotiate the settlement with the EPA.

Currie didn’t speak to how this bill would impact the EPA’s dealing of the issue, saying only that whatever enforcement is happening is not enough.

“(The EPA) is obviously not on top of it if (the pollution) continues to happen,” she said. “How many years has this gone on? So everybody downstream should just pay the price for Jackson not tending to their business?”

Currie called the Pearl River important for the “way of life” of communities downstream of Jackson, with Mississippians using the river to swim, canoe and catch fish. She said that polluting the river is harmful in a number of ways, affecting oysters on the Coast as well as businesses that use the water such as Georgia Pacific, although the latter of which is itself a top polluter in Mississippi. Over the last five years, Georgia Pacific pulp mill on the Leaf River has been among the facilities with the most toxic releases in the state with 15.7 million pounds.

When asked about HB 1094, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said he questioned the legality of “a number of things being suggested,” and that there is an “order to these things” being led by the EPA. The mayor added that lawmakers this session are looking to punish Jackson in a number of ways.

“We are clearly the object of the state House’s affection,” Lumumba said Monday during a press conference. “I think that they’re just more ways contemplated to be increasingly punitive of the city of Jackson. Let’s call a spade a spade.”

In its latest annual report last spring, Jackson reported 13 prohibited bypasses, or times when the city allowed untreated or partially treated wastewater into the river, usually because of too much water entering the plant at one time. Those bypasses totaled 2.1 billion gallons between March 2021 and February 2022, a 30% decrease from the previous year.

The city also reported over 500 sanitary sewer overflows from its collection system in that time, or more than one every day. Those overflows are when untreated sewage leaks out of the system, and the city said most of its overflows that year happened because of either grease blockages or collapsed pipes.

Since 2019, MDEQ has cautioned residents against activities such as swimming, wading or fishing in the segment of the Pearl River neighboring Jackson. The agency later updated the advisory to include streams, such as Hanging Moss Creek and Eubanks Creek, that flow through the city.

The federal consent decree says the city is subject to fines for additional Clean Water Act violations, including a $10,000 penalty for each prohibited bypass and a $2,000 penalty for each sanitary sewer overflow.

“Historically, EPA has taken the lead on enforcements under all federal consent decrees, and in any event, MDEQ, because we are co-plaintiffs with EPA, cannot take unilateral action to collect the stipulated penalties,” MDEQ spokesperson Jan Schaefer told Mississippi Today. “In the meantime, MDEQ, along with EPA, has been ‘assessing’ stipulated penalties and those stipulated penalties continue to accrue.” 

Neither agency could say how much Jackson has accrued in penalties since the 2012 order before this story published.

Jackson, Meridian, Hattiesburg and Greenville are all under a federal consent decree because of wastewater violations. While those cities are starting to see support through historic new federal infrastructure funds, leaders of those cities told Mississippi Today last year that more money is needed to make all the necessary repairs.

The post Lawmaker seeks fines for Jackson over river pollution, despite ongoing federal enforcement appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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Note: This editorial anchored Mississippi Today’s weekly legislative newsletter. Subscribe to our free newsletter for exclusive access to legislative analyses and up-to-date information about what’s happening under the Capitol dome.

You almost certainly heard about the bombshell story former University of Mississippi Chancellor Dan Jones told at a press conference last week.

Jones said that Gov. Tate Reeves, Mississippi’s most staunch public opponent of Medicaid expansion, acknowledged to Jones in a private meeting several years ago the benefits of expansion. The governor, Jones recalled, then said he couldn’t champion it publicly because of “my personal political interest.”

Reeves, as he often does when challenged, got nasty. He said Jones was lying and referred to Jones only as “this dude.” You know, the longtime Baptist medical missionary and deacon. The six-year chief of the state’s flagship university. The years-long leader of the state’s largest hospital and dean of the state’s only medical school. The one-time national president of the American Heart Association. Just “this dude.”

As Jones spoke last week, a crowd of curious lobbyists — including a couple of Reeves’ former staffers — gathered in the rotunda to hear what he had to say. Jones, in less than five minutes, did what so many people under the dome have never dared: he called Tate Reeves out. While doing so, he laid out a succinct case for Medicaid expansion that the governor himself couldn’t ignore.

And Reeves’ hot-headed response to the whole thing may be all we need to know about how tough an issue it will be for him during the critical 2023 election year.

First, some scene setting: State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney warned lawmakers in late 2022 that 38 hospitals across the state are in danger of closing in the short term, and every hospital in the state faces unprecedented financial concerns.

A hospital funding solution that 39 other states — including many Republican-led states — have embraced is Medicaid expansion. Economists estimate Mississippi would receive more than $1 billion per year in new revenue from expansion, and hospitals and hundreds of thousands of Mississippians would benefit directly.

READ MORE: Mississippi leaving more than $1 billion per year on table by rejecting Medicaid expansion

Democratic legislative leaders organized the Thursday press conference to lambast Republicans for doing little to address the state’s hospital crisis. As a guest speaker, Jones was cast perfectly. He retired last year from a faculty position at University of Mississippi Medical Center after a decades-long career in medicine. He’s spent much of his career researching the impact of chronic health problems like hypertension, cardiovascular issues, and obesity on Mississippians. Years after leading the state’s largest hospital, he currently sits on the board of directors for the hospital in his hometown Hazlehurst. Needless to say, he knows a thing or two about the state’s health care system.

Some have questioned the timing of Jones’ press conference appearance. The first words out of his mouth that day should answer that question: “Believe me, the crisis is real. I’ve been involved in health care in Mississippi for more than 40 years. In those 40 years, I’ve never seen our health care system under such stress as it is now. It’s time for action to be taken.”

What got lost in the initial reporting that rightfully focused on the rare poking of the bear in the Governor’s Mansion was perhaps one of the most succinct cases for Medicaid expansion ever made in Jackson.

“First and most important is the moral imperative. Shame on us, shame on us for allowing the citizens of Mississippi to have health care problems and not have access to health care solutions. Shame on us. In the richest country in the world, in a state with millions and billions in its coffers, for us not to act on this and make health care available to all of our citizens in our state is immoral. It is immoral. It is time to act.

The second imperative is the economic imperative. In the 38 states that have expanded Medicaid, it’s been proven over and over again: states don’t lose money when they expand Medicaid, states gain money when they expand Medicaid. In an analysis of what would happen in Mississippi if Medicaid is expanded, done by a number of groups including our own state economist, there would clearly be an economic benefit for the state of Mississippi, for all Mississippians. Right now … there are families in Mississippi with health problems that are going into bankruptcy because of medical bills. Again, shame on us.

The last imperative is an important one. It’s the political imperative. The leaders of our state and elected officials are taking positions because they think it’s the politically correct thing to do for them. The Siena poll that was just published recently here in Mississippi demonstrates clearly that a majority of Mississippians are ready for all Mississippians to have access to health care. That Mississippians are ready for Medicaid expansion — not only Democrats and independents, but a majority of Republican voters are ready for Medicaid to be expanded. It’s time for elected officials to move forward and do something.”

Dr. Dan Jones on Feb. 2, 2023

The political argument may be the most timely, certainly in this statewide and legislative election year. As Jones highlighted, Reeves appears to be in the vast minority on Medicaid expansion.

The Siena College poll he referenced showed that 80% of Mississippians — including 70% of Republican respondents — support Medicaid expansion. Those everyday Mississippians join a cadre of health care professionals, local elected officials, economists, and others who are calling for Medicaid expansion.

READ MORE: Poll: 80% of Mississippians favor Medicaid expansion

Just two days before the press conference last week, Republican legislative leaders killed 15 bills, all filed by Democrats, that would have expanded Medicaid. Three days before the press conference, Reeves dug in deeper than ever in his opposition to expansion, telling lawmakers, “You have my word that if you stand up to the left’s push for endless government-run healthcare, I will stand with you.”

Reeves disrespectfully dismissed Jones on social media the same way he’s tried to dismiss expansion: by working to distract from the real issue at hand, by name-calling, by discrediting the source or the communicators of the source. It’s deflection straight out of the Donald Trump playbook.

But with so many hospitals on the verge of closing, with so many Mississippians struggling to afford basic health care, and with the overwhelming majority of Mississippians supportive of expansion, deflection may not be enough for Reeves anymore. His opposition to expansion has become a real political liability, and as the attention of the entire state focuses more on the hospital crisis, it could likely become the defining issue of this year’s governor’s race.

Just take a look at how Reeves’ most notable challenger responded to the Jones story last week.

“When Tate Reeves has a choice between doing right by Mississippi or getting ahead in his career, he always chooses himself,” said Brandon Presley, the leading Democratic candidate for governor. “Because he has no backbone, 38 hospitals may close and more Mississippians may die because of lack of access to health care. People deserve affordable health care — plain and simple.”

Reeves and his staff might be smart to start developing a strategy a little more nuanced than firing off a mean tweet.

READ MORE: ‘What’s your plan, watch Rome burn?’: Politicians continue to reject solution to growing hospital crisis

The post Dan Jones exposed a major political problem for Tate Reeves  appeared first on Mississippi Today.

FEBRUARY 6, 1961

The civil rights jail-in movement began when eight Black students and a civil rights organizer became known as the “Friendship Nine” in Rock Hill, South Carolina, were arrested for requesting service at a segregated lunch counter.

They served jail time rather than pay fines, challenging the legitimacy of the laws.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote to the nine and others who joined them in jail, including Charles Sherrod and Diane Nash: “You have inspired all of us by such demonstrative courage and faith. It is good to know that there still remains a creative minority who would rather lose in a cause that will ultimately win than to win in a cause that will ultimately lose.”

The “Jail, No Bail” strategy became the model for the Freedom Riders months later. In 2015, Circuit Court Judge John C. Hayes III threw out the convictions of the Friendship Nine — eight college students and a civil rights organizer who had been convicted of trespassing and protesting at the McCrory store in Rock Hill.

Hayes, the nephew of the original judge who sentenced the Friendship Nine to jail, told them, “We cannot rewrite history, but we can right history.”

The nine were represented by Ernest A. Finney Jr., who defended their case 54 years earlier and went on to become the first Black chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court since Reconstruction.

The post On this day in 1961 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

State Rep. Sam Creekmore speaks to Mississippi Today about legislation to address Mississippi’s long-running mental health issues, including those with mental illness being held in jails instead of receiving treatment. Creekmore has crafted a collaborative approach, with more law enforcement training, more court and county government support and changes to governance and funding of the state’s mental health system.

The post Podcast: Creekmore pushes legislation to help Mississippi mental health crisis appeared first on Mississippi Today.

FEBRUARY 5, 1994

A jury convicted Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.

The conviction happened after the jury saw evidence that included Beckwith’s fingerprint on the murder weapon and hearing six witnesses share how he had bragged about killing Evers.

The judge sentenced Beckwith to life in prison.

Evers’ widow, Myrlie Evers, had prayed for this day, and now that it had come, she could hardly believe it.

“All I want to say is, ‘Yay, Medgar, yay!’” She wiped away tears. “My God, I don’t have to say accused assassin anymore. I can say convicted assassin, who laughed and said, ‘He’s dead, isn’t he? That’s one n—– who isn’t going to come back.’ But what he failed to realize was that Medgar was still alive in spirit and through each and every one of us who wanted to see justice done.”

The post On this day in 1994 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In 1992, legislators reluctantly yielded to growing public pressure and created an initiative process that allowed voters to bypass the Legislature and place issues directly on the ballot.

At the time, legislators were not crazy about it. They barely hid the fact they intentionally made the process cumbersome and time consuming in hopes it would seldom, if ever, be successfully used by the electorate.

In other words, legislators were not crazy about being circumvented.

But even those legislators from 1992 would have been embarrassed and too afraid to try to approve a ballot initiative proposal as cumbersome and unworkable as the one that passed out of Senate committee last week.

Under the new proposal, initiative sponsors would have to gather at least 10 signatures of registered voters from each of the more than 300 municipalities across the state. The proposal mandates at least 10 signatures from Jackson, which has a population of about 150,000, and from Satartia, with a population of 41.

Considering some of those 41 Satartia residents might be underage and some might not be registered voters, it is unclear whether 10 signatures could be legally gleaned from the Yazoo County town. Initiative supporters would also have to gather 100 signatures from each of the 82 counties — the same for Hinds County with about 222,000 residents as for Issaquena County with less than 1,300 people.

But it gets better. The proposal more than doubles from what was passed in 1992 the required number of signatures needed to place an issue on the ballot.

And going on to do what the 1992 legislators would have only considered in their wildest and most secretive dreams, the 2023 proposal, while poorly written, appears to:

• Allow legislators to actually amend or change the initiative that would go on the ballot by a two-thirds vote. In other words, it would let legislators who were supposed to be circumvented by the citizens to in reality circumvent the citizens.
• Require a two-thirds vote of the electorate opposed to a majority vote to approve an initiative.
• Require an initiative, if any makes it through this maze, to be approved by a two-thirds vote of both chambers of the Legislature before it can become law.

This proposal is more about circumventing the electorate instead of the citizens circumventing legislators.

It should be pointed out that lawmakers were not being circumvented often by voters under the old initiative process. Since 1992, a mere three initiatives have been approved by voters.

In 2021, the Mississippi Supreme Court struck down the initiative approved in the 1990s. The justices said the process was unconstitutional because it mandated signatures to place issues on the ballot be gathered equally from five congressional districts as they existed in 1990. In 2000, the state lost a congressional district.

Both Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, and House Speaker Philip Gunn committed in 2021 to passing legislation to fix the Supreme Court’s concerns and to restore the initiative process. In 2022, though, legislative efforts to restore the process fell apart when at the end of the session during closed door meetings. In those meetings, Senate leadership demanded the number of signatures needed to place an issue on the ballot be more than doubled from around 100,000 registered voters to about 240,000. House leaders would not agree.

Before the 2023 session started, House Constitution Chair Rep. Fred Shanks, R-Brandon, expressed optimism that an agreement could be reached to restore the process.

On Mississippi Today’s “The Other Side” podcast, Shanks said he was optimistic because “I have run into the lieutenant governor several times and he actually brought it up … He said, ‘Let’s work on it.’”

Hosemann assigned the initiative proposals to the Senate Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency Committee chaired by Sen. John Polk, R-Hattiesburg. In both the 2022 and 2023 sessions, Polk continuously played his cards close to his vest in terms of whether he would pass out of his committee an initiative proposal. The initiative proposal, such that it is, was one of the last bills passed out of Polk’s committee hours before deadline.

But initiative supporters should give Polk and Hosemann credit for at least keeping alive this session an initiative proposal that can be amended to give voters more power. The main author of the initiative proposal passed out of Polk’s committee, Sen. Tyler McCaughn, R-Newton, told initiative supporters such as Sens. David Blount, D-Jackson, and Angela Turner Ford, D-West Point, he would work with them to improve the legislation through the amendment process.

Whether those amendments result in an initiative process that gives the citizens an opportunity to circumvent the legislative process — instead of one that allows legislators to circumvent the citizens — remains to be seen.

Make no mistake: the ghosts of the 1992 Legislature are watching with jealous eyes.

The post Senate bill takes voters out of voter initiative proposal appeared first on Mississippi Today.

State Rep. Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, says it’s her mission to advocate for women as one of  few females in the Mississippi Legislature. Health Editor Kate Royals met with McGee to talk about her experiences as a lawmaker and her push to expand postpartum Medicaid coverage for new moms in Mississippi.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length. 

Kate Royals: Tell me a bit about yourself – as a woman, a mom, a relatively new lawmaker. 

Missy McGee: I was born and raised in Hattiesburg. I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Southern Miss. I spent a few years in Washington, D.C. after college and came back to Hattiesburg. I worked in my family business, I was an adjunct instructor at Southern Miss, so I’ve been in that university environment. 

I’m married and I have two grown boys that are 24 and 21, and I sort of found myself here (as a legislator). You know, it’s a strange path and I think probably all of us would say the same, but I never expected to run for public office. I was always a behind the scenes person on issues that were important to me or candidates who I felt like were the ones I thought we needed to support. So, I enjoyed being a behind the scenes person. 

But it’s really been a great privilege and honor to get to represent my hometown, a city that’s been so good to me and my family. I was educated and raised in Hattiesburg. My children have been as well, so it’s meaningful work to get to come to the Capitol and advocate for my district which is my home, my lifelong home. But hopefully to also move the needle for the state of Mississippi. It’s been a great privilege and opportunity for me these past … this is my sixth session. 

Royals: You introduced a bill in the House to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage for mothers in Mississippi from 2 months to 1 year. Why? 

McGee: You know, I just felt like there has never been a more timely opportunity than this session, in this post-Dobbs era especially – but it’s been important for longer than that to introduce a Medicaid postpartum bill that would extend coverage to 12 months. 

As a woman and as a mother, I couldn’t let this issue pass without advocating it and really trying to push it forward.

Royals: How do you think it would benefit the women in your area and also women across the state of Mississippi? (Editor’s note: This interview was conducted before McGee’s bill, House Bill 426, died without being considered in committee.)

McGee: I think it is the most impactful thing that we can do for women, moms and babies. So we know that … 36,000 babies were born in Mississippi  in 2019, and we know that 65% of the babies born in Mississippi are born to moms on Medicaid. That’s not hard math to figure out; that’s 23,000 women a year. That’s 23,000 women that this can impact, which is 23,000 babies, which is 23,000 families. 

I really think that it is a pro-family position, certainly a pro-life position, to take care of these moms who are carrying and delivering and bringing these babies into the world – because healthy moms equal healthy babies. They go hand in hand, so I really believe it’s currently the most impactful thing we can do for women and children. 

Royals: You’ve got a hospital and a big health care community in your area – and they are in support of this? 

McGee: Absolutely, they are. And it’s not just the pediatricians and neonatologists who take care of these preemies in the NICU (who support extending postpartum coverage). But the ER docs are for it because … if a woman does not have health insurance and she’s sick for whatever reason after having a child, she shows up in the emergency room. So ER doctors are supportive as well because they’re seeing them, too. 

I think it’s safe to say the entire health care community knows this is important for the well being of moms and, again, babies.  

Royals: It looks like Alabama and North Dakota were just approved by CMS for 12 months postpartum Medicaid coverage, joining half the states with approvals so far. Mississippi is at present 1 of only 2 states without extended postpartum coverage or Medicaid expansion. As someone very much in the middle of the lawmaking process, do you have any insight into why this may be? 

McGee: All I would say is that I hope that we won’t be going forward. I hope we will join those states in extending coverage to these moms to 12 months. That’s all I can say on that. 

Royals: According to the Center for American Women and Politics, you are one of 26 women in the entire state Legislature —26 out of 174. Can you tell me what that’s like? 

McGee: Yes, I believe I am one of 15 women in the House. So out of 122 members of the House of Representatives – and that number has changed a little bit. Well, you know, I feel like I have a greater responsibility to the women of Mississippi. We make up 50%, 51% of the state yet there are only 15 of 122 women in the House, so I do feel a greater responsibility to look out for the issues of women. 

That’s not my only concern, certainly, but I do feel an added responsibility to the women of Mississippi. Everybody comes to this job coming from their own frame of reference. As a woman, as a mom, I have experiences that my male colleagues don’t have, just like they have experiences I don’t. So on issues like this I feel like, not to be repetitive, I feel a higher responsibility to champion important causes for the well being of women in our state.

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