What incumbent Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann wants to do for Mississippi
Incumbent Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said that if he is reelected, he wants to continue to cut Mississippians’ taxes, and he argues it is feasible because of conservative policies and spending he pushed in his first term.
“One of our goals, of course, will be to continue to lower the tax rate,” Hosemann said. “… We implemented the largest tax cut in Mississippi history, which will reduce the income tax rate to 4% by 2026 … And we are having discussions in the Senate on both the income and the grocery tax. And as you know, I am open to either or both. And by doing things like paying off $550 million worth of state debt … that saves us about $35 million a year in interest that can go back to lowering people’s taxes and education and infrastructure.”
Hosemann is running for reelection to a second and final term as lieutenant governor, overseeing the state Senate. Mississippi Today recently asked Hosemann and his opponent, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, to share their ideas for the future.
READ MORE: What Chris McDaniel wants to do for Mississippi
Hosemann said Mississippi and state government are seeing an unprecedented economic boon that will allow focus on numerous priorities such as tax cuts, improving infrastructure, workforce development, education and health care.
“We’ve never been in a position where we’ve lowered the tax rate, paid off our debt and haven’t borrowed any money in what will be three years next year,” Hosemann said. “That just hasn’t been done in Mississippi before. In addition to that, we’ve also made reductions … We’ve reduced the number of (state employee positions) by like 5,700 … The first year we were here, we cut the budget by 2% … We’ve got $700 million in our rainy day fund.
“… When I told people we were going to run the state like a business, I think they had probably heard that before, but they’d never really seen it done before. But that has happened,” Hosemann said.
Hosemann said he pushed for raising teacher pay, and “we invested millions in adding thousands of quality pre-K seats for 4 and 5-year-old children, provided math and reading coaches for districts, and provided resources for school buildings.”
Hosemann said he has pushed “conservative values” in legislative policy, including “strengthening Second Amendment rights, passed measures to prohibit abortion, eliminated inappropriate materials from our libraries, and required sports to be played by biological gender.” In a second term, Hosemann said he would “continue ensuring our conservative values are protected in Mississippi.”
Here is a list of some legislative priorities he proposes if reelected:
Taxes
“In the next term, as revenue rises, we will continue cutting taxes on working people, focusing particularly on the income and grocery taxes.”
Efficiency
Hosemann said he plans to “continue eliminating state debt and consolidating agencies/responsibilities of agencies where necessary to provide better services or stop waste in state government.”
Crime
Hosemann said the Legislature in his first term increased penalties and mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes and if reelected “we will add prosecutors in judicial districts across the state, address challenges facing our correctional system, including a crowing prison population and recidivism, and supplement local law enforcement needs.”
Infrastructure
“In the next term, we will continue to fund major capacity projects without neglecting maintenance needs, bring access to high speed internet services in our rural communities, prepare sites for economic development … and engage in other match programs incentivizing local governments to also invest in local infrastructure.”
Economic and workforce development
“We will continue to support Accelerate Mississippi’s efforts, including the career coach program,” and will increase workforce participation through partnerships with community colleges and developing incentives aimed at small businesses.
Education
Hosemann said he plans to “continue to make teaching in Mississipp competitive with neighboring states,” increase resources for special-needs children, increasing expertise in screening, teaching and therapy. He said he wants to “incentivize moving to a modified (school) calendar, particularly in underachieving districts.”
Health care/mental health
Hosemann said he will continue with programs and investment in growing the state’s health care workforce. He said he has been meeting with experts on a “regionalization concept” and other best practices in other states to improve health care. He said the Health Department is working on a comprehensive look at the state of healthcare, and a Senate select committee will be having hearings this fall “to determine the standard of medical care we have for every county,” and “The way to furnish health care to everyone is first determine what the standard of care is for every one of your counties.” He said, “that is going to result in us then funding to the standard of care — I don’t know if whether that would be from state assets or federal assets or both.”
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What lieutenant governor candidate Chris McDaniel wants to do for Mississippi
Four-term Republican state Sen. Chris McDaniel said that if elected lieutenant governor, “tax relief” would be his top priority.
“That would include income tax elimination and grocery tax elimination,” McDaniel said, “which leads to more job creation and economic growth … The grocery tax is particularly regressive and punishes people for purchasing necessities and impacts lower-income people the most. I think it’s wrong to tax necessities.”
McDaniel is running against incumbent Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann in the Aug. 6 Republican primary. Mississippi Today recently asked McDaniel and Hosemann to share their ideas for Mississippi’s future.
READ MORE: What Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann wants to do for Mississippi
Another top priority if elected, McDaniel said, would be reinstating voters’ right to ballot initiative — bypassing the Legislature and putting issues or policies to a direct popular vote. A state Supreme Court decision in 2021 nullified Mississippi’s ballot initiative process. Attempts to reinstate it failed the last two years in the Legislature, with many including McDaniel blaming Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and his Senate leadership for its failure.
“The ballot initiative is frankly right up there with tax relief, tied for number one of my priorities,” McDaniel said. “The ballot initiative in my mind is a constitutional right that allows people to circumvent politicians who aren’t listening to their wishes.”
McDaniel said if elected, he plans to push for more parental rights in education, cutting red tape that hinders businesses, protecting property rights, promoting religious freedom, vaccination freedom and pro-life policies. He said he will support policies that are tough on violent crime and generally work to bring more conservative policies to the state Legislature and combat “woke ideology,” particularly in the classroom.
“What we are seeing now nationwide is the insertion of liberal philosophy into the classroom, particularly with sexual orientation and transgender … orientation in the classroom,” McDaniel said. “I believe that teachers should be focused on education, not new gender fads and political philosophies we’re seeing across the country. I have watched Florida push back against this woke ideology, and I respect that very much.”
McDaniel said he believes in smaller government and will work to reduce spending and eliminate “fraud, waste and abuse.”
McDaniel said he believes he can get his major policy initiatives through the Republican-controlled Legislature, a process that has been likened to “herding cats.”
“We have a supermajority, and I expect Republicans to behave like Republicans,” McDaniel said. “… We shouldn’t have to bet Republicans to behave like Republicans. I don’t think I would have to herd too many cats. You would expect them to to adhere to our platform and behave the way they campaigned, and I would expect the people that elected them to hold them to that.”
Here is a list of McDaniel’s legislative priorities if elected lieutenant governor:
Education reform
McDaniel said he will promote “parents’ rights and voices in their children’s education. He vows to end “the one-size-fits-all approach to learning, support student tailored education through school choice and protect children in the classroom by ending woke indoctrination.”
Fiscal conservatism
McDaniel said he would work to “put the hard-earned paychecks of Mississippians back in their pockets by eliminating the income tax” and grocery tax. He said he will “fight for the American dream by cutting red tape that is crushing small businesses,” and cut wasteful spending.
Constitutional rights
McDaniel said he will work to “preserve religious freedom and allow for constitutionally protected prayer.” He said he would protect freedom of speech by reinstating the ballot initiative process for voters and protect private property rights of Mississippians. McDaniel said he wants prayer back in school, and “I would like to see us pass legislation whereby we reimplement prayer, and if challenged, take it up to the Supreme Court like we did with Roe v. Wade.”
Pro-life, tough-on-crime policies
McDaniel vows to “protect Mississippi’s most precious through preserving pro-life policies,” and “end soft-on-crime policies that jeopardize the safety of our communities.”
The post What lieutenant governor candidate Chris McDaniel wants to do for Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Mississippi Today wins national award for digital innovation
Mississippi Today was selected as the first-place winner of the Local Media Association’s Digital Innovation Awards for its strategy to grow reader revenue around the Pulitzer Prize-winning series, The Backchannel.
READ MORE: Anna Wolfe and Mississippi Today win Pulitzer Prize for “The Backchannel” investigation
Mississippi Today staff members Lauchlin Fields, Bethany Atkinson and Alyssa Bass led the distribution and engagement strategy along with the reader revenue initiative, which garnered more than 75 donations from readers citing the investigative series on Mississippi’s sprawling welfare scandal as their reason for giving in the two months following the launch of the series.
“Our goal was to reach as many readers as we could and to convert loyal readers into paying members,” said Fields, Mississippi Today’s audience development director. “While (The Backchannel) series published in April (2022), our plan allowed us to follow the long tail of the stories that came out of (Anna Wolfe’s) investigation.”
The winning strategy centered on a dedicated two-month plan that involved Wolfe engaging with readers through reader surveys, video, texting, special member appeals and a dedicated newsletter, which allowed readers to have a more intimate role in the continuing coverage of the welfare investigation.
“Mississippi Today offers an exemplary case study of leveraging their core asset — watchdog reporting in service of the community — to generate new reader revenue. What’s most impressive is how the entire organization rallied behind this initiative, despite the traditional church-and-state “we can’t talk with each other” operating mentality. The thorough, full-funnel, cross-departmental audience plan was “innovative” and the calls to action were “aggressive” and effective.”
This is the first year the statewide online news publication competed in the LMA Digital Innovation Awards, a contest which recognizes the best in local digital media in 15 categories, such as Best Local Website, Best Virtual Event, Best Branded Content Strategy and more. It is a highly competitive contest designed to recognize both large and small media companies for their outstanding and innovative work.
Local Media Association is a 501(c)(6) trade association focused on the business side of local media with programs and labs that focus on revenue growth and new business models.
Reader revenue, which refers to financial contributions from readers, empowers nonprofit news organizations like Mississippi Today to maintain editorial independence, establish a direct relationship with audiences and produce high-quality journalism that serves the public interest.
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Podcast: Our power’s out and so are our baseball teams, but the podcast must go on.
For the first time in recent memory, the Crooked Letter state doesn’t have a team in the College World Series. Rick, displaced to New Orleans by the recent power outages, and Tyler, in studio, discuss the Mississippi-less College World Series, Mississippi State’s recent hire of a pitching coach in hopes of getting back to Omaha, the U.S. Open, and Scorebook Live Mississippi’s all-sports awards.
Stream all episodes here.
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Mississippi Today staffers win state’s top investigative prize, other awards
Mississippi Today’s Sara DiNatale and Alex Rozier won the 2022 Bill Minor Prize for Investigative Reporting, and several of the newsroom’s reporters won a dozen other 2022 Mississippi Press Association awards.
The prizes, awarded annually by the state’s print news associations, recognize the best journalism of Mississippi’s newspapers and digital newsrooms. The 2022 prizes were announced at a Saturday luncheon.
DiNatale and Rozier won the state’s top investigative prize for their impactful 2022 investigation that revealed how Delta farm owners paid their primarily Black local workforce less money than temporary workers from other countries — most often, white men from South Africa.
“Good to know there are great reporters in Mississippi; bad to know there are so many issues that need investigating,” the MPA awards judges wrote of the investigation. “Good research, great interviews.”
The Mississippi Today investigation was later a focus of a congressional hearing held in Washington about unfair labor practices and racial discrimination in farming communities across the nation.
Several other Mississippi Today reporters took home 2022 MPA awards. Below is a complete list of the winners and the awards they won:
First place
In-depth investigative coverage: Sara DiNatale and Alex Rozier
Feature story: Julia James and Kayleigh Skinner
Business news story: Sara DiNatale and Geoff Pender
General interest column: Adam Ganucheau
Second place
In-depth investigative coverage: Anna Wolfe
Commentary column: Bobby Harrison
Third place
Business news story: Sara DiNatale
Sports news story: Rick Cleveland
Pictorial series: Vickie King
Commentary column: Adam Ganucheau
Best lede: Alex Rozier
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On this day in 1949
JUNE 18, 1949
Ada Sipuel Fisher became the first Black woman to attend an all-white law school in the South when she entered the University of Oklahoma Law School.
Her parents had survived the 1921 Tulsa massacre, and her family moved to Chickasha, where she was born and grew up. She became valedictorian of her local high school and decided to become a lawyer after hearing Thurgood Marshall speak.
With the backing of both her family and the NAACP, she applied to the University of Oklahoma Law School, which rejected her strictly on the basis of race. When Marshall began to represent her in her battle for admission, the Oklahoma Legislature decided to step in and create a brand-new law school in five days that was nothing more than a room inside the state Capitol, and the Oklahoma courts agreed these two law schools were “equal.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the law school could not bar students based on race, Oklahoma officials decided to admit her. Although she recalled white classmates welcoming her, she was forced to sit in the back of the room behind a sign that read “colored” and had to eat in a separate part of the cafeteria.
Her journey to law school began in 1946 when she applied to the law school. A half-dozen Black students joined her in the fight. Two years later, the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, ending segregation for Black students in graduate programs.
In 1952, Fisher graduated and began practicing law. In 1992, Oklahoma Gov. David Walters appointed her to the University of Oklahoma’s Board of Regents. She vowed to bring enlightenment to the position, noting that she had “suffered severely from bigotry and racial discrimination as a student.”
After her 1995 death, the law named a garden to honor her, and a bronze plaque talked of “how the stone that the builders once rejected becomes the cornerstone.” The law school has since received more than $1 million to endow the Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Chair in Civil Rights, Race and Justice in Law to teach, research and empower future lawyers.
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Surge in state revenue takes experts by surprise — or does it?
With one month remaining in the fiscal year, the state has collected $653 million in revenue more than Mississippi’s financial experts estimated would be collected.
The official guesstimate — er, estimate — is important because it represents the amount of revenue available primarily from general tax collections for the Legislature to appropriate to fund education, health care and other vital services. In other words, late in the 2022 session, legislators made an official estimate that was used to fund state government for the next fiscal year, starting July 1 of last year. With one month remaining in the fiscal year, the state is collecting 10.7% more than that official estimate.
It is important to understand that the revenue over the estimate is normally put into accounts to spend on capital expenses instead of programs to improve governmental services, such as services to curb the 900% increase in newborns with syphilis that occurred over a six-year period in Mississippi.
The official estimate is agreed upon by the legislative leaders and the governor in November before the start of the session. Later on, legislative leaders who serve on the Legislative Budget Committee have the authority to change the estimate — sans input from the governor — during the session before a final budget is adopted by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor.
State law spells out the process for the Legislature and governor to come together to adopt a revenue estimate. What state law does not address is that the revenue estimate for years has been based on recommendations of five financial experts. The recommendation of the five-member revenue estimating committee is generally, though not always, accepted by the political leaders.
That committee consists of:
- Corey Miller, the state economist.
- Liz Welch, the executive director of the Department of Finance and Administration.
- David McRae, the state treasurer.
- Chris Graham, the state revenue commissioner.
- Tony Greer, the executive director of the Legislative Budget Committee.
They meet behind closed doors to study economic trends and try to predict the future in order to make a recommendation. And as former Gov. Haley Barbour used to say, they will never be right.
Because of the uncertainty of their work, there are safeguards built in to try to avoid mid-year budget cuts. For instance, under state law only 98% of projected revenue is supposed to be appropriated. That 2%, about $150 million, provides a cushion if revenue does not meet projections.
While the revenue estimating group never gets it right, the panel has been more wrong than normal in recent years and has received some criticism. Revenue exceeded estimates by an unfathomable $1.5 billion or 24.6% for fiscal year 2022, and by $1.05 billion or 18.5% for fiscal year 2021. And with one month left in the 2023 fiscal year, revenue collections are again exceeding expectations by a substantial margin.
In fairness to the group, no one expected revenue collections to skyrocket like they did after the COVID-19 pandemic, when billions in federal funds were pumped into the state, spurring economic growth. Most states have experienced similar revenue surges. After a brief but dramatic COVID-inspired drop in collections in early 2020, revenue collections soared and have not come down, though in recent months it appears they might be returning to earth.
Before the pandemic, revenue exceeded projections by 1.6% in 2018 and by 5.5% in 2019. In fiscal year 2020 revenue was 0.72% below the projections. The pandemic hit late in the 2020 fiscal year and revenue dipped briefly before the unprecedented growth began.
In addition to the uncertainty of projecting state revenue collections more than a year in advance, it also is reasonable to assume the committee members are yielding at least slightly to the governing principles of the governor and the legislative leaders in making their recommendations.
The scripted format of the meetings where the recommendations are made is often obvious, and no one involved in following that script is going to win an Academy Award. A lower revenue estimate means the Legislature does not have as much money to spend.
And Reeves and legislative leaders such as Speaker Philip Gunn have worn cuts in state government like a badge of honor. They have not hidden their obsession with cutting or curbing state government spending.
Two of the members of the estimating committee, the DFA executive director and the revenue commissioner, are appointed by the governor. The head of the Legislative Budget Committee staff, of course, is tabbed by the legislative leadership. The treasurer is elected statewide, while the state economist falls under the authority of the Institutions of Higher Learning Board.
In other words, in making their official guesstimate, the experts face not only the uncertainties of projecting the economy months in advance but pressures — even if unspoken — of the political leaders they serve.
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