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A group of Jackson community leaders on Wednesday panned the federally appointed manager of the city’s water system over a number of issues, including a lack of collaboration and transparency, the firing of an employee and awarding a large contract to an out-of-town business.

The Mississippi Rapid Response Coalition, which has led water distribution efforts and rallies during the peaks of the Jackson water crisis, spoke to the media on Wednesday after meeting with officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice. In November, those two agencies agreed to a federal order with the city of Jackson that put a third-party manager, Ted Henifin, in control of rehabbing the drinking water system.

The EPA and DOJ are in Jackson this week meeting with residents, and asking both in person and through an online survey for input on the future of the water system. (Jacksonians interested in participating can access the survey at this link).

At the Wednesday meeting, the coalition asked the two federal agencies for more inclusion in the future decision-making process around the water system moving forward. As the coalition said to reporters after the meeting, there hasn’t been enough collaboration between Henifin and community members thus far.

“There has been no collaboration as it relates to the overall process,” Danyelle Holmes, a member of the coalition and National Social Justice Organizer with the Poor People’s Campaign, said, adding that residents haven’t been getting boil water notices during outages. “There’s no transparency, or accountability at all. We have not had meetings with (Henifin)… the collaboration has fallen short with the coalition.”

Under the federal order that put Henifin in charge, there’s little oversight over the manager’s role other than that of the U.S. judge who appointed him. As a non-public entity, Henifin’s organization, JXN Water, is not subject to public records laws, and it also can avoid state and local statutes around procuring contracts with public dollars. The order also allows Henifin to make changes, such as to the water billing system, without the approval of elected Jackson officials.

Henifin has repeatedly stated his commitment to being transparent, and said he wants the approval of Jacksonians before he makes changes to the billing system or recommends a new structure for future governance. In an interview with Mississippi Today, he talked about earning the trust of residents, and how he hopes that will start to take shape once they see improvements.

Henifin, who has appeared at several town hall events since his appointment, said his next step in making long-term changes to the water system is holding community engagement sessions, although JXN Water has not put out details for when those will be.

Coalition members said they were disappointed in how the federal takeover has played out so far in terms of working with the community. They were also frustrated with specific decisions Henifin has made so far, such as awarding a large operations and maintenance contract to Texas-based Jacobs Solutions.

Henifin announced last month the six-month contract, which will pay Jacobs $2 million a month to run the city’s water treatment plants and train local operators for long-term staffing.

“We have great pause when we bring in firms like Jacobs and pay them $2 million a month and we don’t pay our local firms anything in sight of that,” said Socrates Garrett, a Jackson businessman whose firm contracts engineering services. “We think that you could’ve had hired a minority firm as the primary contractor and let Jacobs be the (sub-contractor).”

Henifin told Mississippi Today that he expects to extend Jacobs’ contract between five to 10 years, adding that he also expects the extension to come at a cheaper monthly rate.

Holmes also alleged that Henifin “wrongfully” fired the one Black employee of JXN Water, Chief Experience Officer Tariq Abdul-Tawwab, last week. Abdul-Tawwab was brought on to improve the customer service experience for Jackson water customers, who for years have experienced unreliable billing and long wait times to reach anyone at the city’s water department.

While the nonprofit recently removed Abdul-Tawwab from its website, Henifin said in a statement yesterday that “it is not our policy” to comment on personnel decisions. Neither Henifin nor JXN Water responded to requests for comment in response to the coalition’s other criticisms.

Both Holmes and Garrett talked about the importance of JXN Water and its contractors reflecting the 83% Black capital city.

Claims about Abdul-Tawwab’s position with JXN Water comes just after a debt relief program he was helping to publicize made local news over questions of how the program was being funded.

Last week, after the city announced new federal funding that would relieve residents’ water bill debts, WLBT reported that Jackson hadn’t actually received all the federal funds that JXN Water thought it would to fund program. The city then, using another program, had to write off most of the debt it was relieving residents of, rather than paying the debt off, the story reported.

Despite Henifin later clarifying the confusion in a public statement, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba on Monday said he believed Henifin made a mistake in communicating details of the program, adding that it was done in good faith.

In the WLBT story, Henifin said he thought some of the confusion around funding amounts came from “his staff.” Abdul-Tawwab spoke at multiple public events to brief residents about the debt relief program. Other than those two, JXN Water has only had one other employee, Chief Operating Officer Jordan Hillman, according to its website.

In his statement Wednesday, Henifin added:

“We’ll continue our work improving the customer service experience and hope to maintain a relationship with the community organizations that helped introduce us to the Jackson community. We’re hopeful that all the community partners stay at the table and continue to hold us accountable to the people of Jackson.”

At its meeting with federal officials Wednesday, the coalition also presented a petition, which it says has over 6,000 signatures, asking the EPA to protect Jackson from a privatized water system, as well to provide water filters to ensure clean water for residents.

Questions over the future management of the water system emerged this legislative session when lawmakers tried, and failed, to create a state-controlled regional authority to oversee the system. Henifin, who opposed the bill, favors putting the system’s control under a nonprofit led by a board of constituents.

The post Jackson community leaders call out Henifin for lack of collaboration, personnel issues appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Note: This story was first published in The New York Times on March 22, 2023. It was reported by Sarah Fowler, who is focusing on the Jackson water crisis as part of The New York Times’ Local Investigations Fellowship.

On an abandoned golf course, overgrown with shrubs and saw grass, you can hear the rushing water from 100 yards away.

Near Hole 4, past the little bridge and crumbling cart paths, what looks to be a waterfall comes into view, pouring down through the brush and into the creek below. Except the torrent of water gushing up through the mud isn’t from a spring-fed stream or a bubbling brook.

It is spewing from a broken city water line.

As residents had to boil their tap water and businesses closed because their faucets were dry, the break at the old Colonial Country Club squandered an estimated five million gallons of drinking water a day in a city that had none to spare.

It is enough water to serve the daily needs of 50,000 people, or a third of the city residents who rely on the beleaguered water utility.

No one knows for sure when the leak reached its current size. But newly appointed water officials say the city discovered the broken mainline pipe in 2016 and left it to gush, even as the water gouged out a swimming pool-size crater in the earth and city residents were forced to endure one drinking water crisis after another.

Jackson’s water system has been flirting with collapse for decades thanks to a combination of mismanagement, crumbling infrastructure and a series of ill-fated decisions that cost the utility money that it did not have. In 2022, the Justice Department reached an agreement with the city requiring it to bring in an outside manager to run the water department.

Residents of the city have been forced to endure chronic boil water notices that traverse the city like rolling blackouts. Many have learned to hoard bottled water against the next round of boil notices. Intermittent bouts of low water pressure can make faucets unusable for thousands of people at a time.

“The size of the leak is probably not uncommon,” said Jordan Hillman, chief operating officer of JXN Water, the management company formed last year to lead Jackson’s effort to stabilize its water service. “The time it took to respond to it is very uncommon. Most places would see this as an immediate threat because that’s a ticking time bomb. As it eats the ground out away from it, you’re eventually going to have a catastrophic failure.”

It is unclear why the city and water department did not repair the leak sooner. Melissa Faith Payne, a city spokesperson, did not immediately respond to questions on Wednesday regarding the broken line. Tony Yarber, the former mayor of Jackson, and Kishia Powell, the former public works director — both in leadership positions in 2016 — could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

The size of the Colonial Country Club leak and the fact that it went unaddressed for so long hints at the monumental task that city and state leaders face as they work to find a lasting solution. Under the direction of a newly appointed water czar, Ted Henifin, a two-person team has scoured the city searching for leaks or closed water valves, which also can affect water pressure. Often, they have turned the valves back on themselves. Leaks generally require more time and resources to address. One of the leaks is spewing water 30 feet in the air like a geyser and losing the city as much as one million gallons a day, Ms. Hillman said.

The broken pipe under the golf course is one of two main lines that move water from the OB Curtis Water Plant to smaller transmission lines that eventually connect to thousands of customers across the city. The 48-inch pipe is critical to south Jackson, a part of the city that has suffered the most from outages and boil water notices.

Luke Guarisco, who owns the land where the golf course once operated, said he reported the leak several years ago when he noticed a broken pipe pushing water into the creek along the back of his property line. Guarisco said he lived out of state and wasn’t aware of the giant hole that has since been created by the leak.

One of the water plants that serves Jackson was built in 1914, the other in the late 1980s. Water lines under the city can be more than 100 years old, and no one knows when or where a piece of pipe or equipment will fail. A combination of Jackson’s aging infrastructure and recent freezes may have exacerbated the current leaks.

The system faced near-total shutdown in March 2021 when residents went weeks without water. In August 2022, another crisis unfolded at OB Curtis, and Mississippi declared a state of emergency for the capital city as water was, once again, deemed unsafe to drink.

Mr. Ted Henifin, a retired manager for a wastewater company out of Virginia that serves 1.8 million people, who has spent 40 years in public service, was working with a national nonprofit on a “small, part-time basis” to address water equity in Jackson. In July, he was working from home in Virginia, one day a week. By November, he was living part time in Mississippi, appointed by the Justice Department to manage the federal takeover of the water system. He officially moved to the state in January.

In the months since, he has talked with state and local leaders about how to create a sustainable water system. But he is seeking solutions in a state where Black city leaders and white state leaders often spar over what is and is not in the best interest of Jackson.

Outside the country club on Tuesday afternoon, construction crews were preparing to begin repairs, which are expected to take a couple of weeks. Residents should see reduced water pressure for only a few hours and water should remain safe to drink, Ms. Hillman said.

Curious neighbors could see stacks of new pipe and hear the sound of trees being cut.

Oscar Mckenzie saw crews working on the leak and assumed they were there to fix another water issue. A water main broke several years ago, he said, and flooded the streets.

Like so many Jackson residents, Mr. Mckenzie doesn’t drink the water that comes out of the tap. He worries what it might do to his four children. When they shower, the water makes their backs itch, he said.

Several houses down, Emmetta Jones passes by the new barricades on her regular walk escorting her son to his school bus stop. Her water pressure is steady, she said, but brown water occasionally comes out of her tap.

Like her neighbor, she doesn’t drink the water. She hasn’t in years.

Sarah Fowler is reporting on the water crisis in Jackson, Miss., in the state where she was born and raised, as part of The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship.

The post A water system so broken that one pipe leaks 5 million gallons a day appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Senate on Thursday let a measure that would restore voters’ right to sidestep the Legislature and put measures on a statewide ballot die without taking a vote.

“After yesterday, I spoke to my colleagues and the colleagues I spoke to did not show enough support to do this this year,” said Senate Accountability Efficiency and Transparency Chairman John Polk, R-Hattiesburg. “… We have a representative form of government that has worked for a long time, and I know of no senator who will not accept constituents’ calls, emails or visits if they have an issue we need to deal with. I believe in our representative form of government, and voters every four years have the opportunity to change who represents them.”

Polk said there were too many differences between versions of the measure the Senate and House had passed to be ironed out in the final days of this year’s legislative session. Thursday was a deadline day for senators to take up the measure, and inaction killed the legislation.

Polk said that despite recent polling that shows strong voter support for reinstating the initiative process, he doesn’t believe the right to ballot initiative is top of mind for most Mississippians. He said he noticed this last week when he talked with constituents at a veterinarian’s office back home. They gave him a litany of issues they saw as important, Polk said.

“You know what was not on that list?” Polk said. “Ballot initiative.”

A similar measure died in the Legislature without a final vote last year, after the state Supreme Court in 2021 shot down the ballot initiative right Mississippi voters had for three decades.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who oversees the Senate, initially declined comment after the Senate adjourned Thursday, indicating he was busy and “not right now.” Polk, speaking to media, said that Hosemann had been “very vocal in wanting a ballot initiative” but lets his chairman make their own decisions.

Hosemann later sent out a written statement: “I have consistently said I am in favor of an initiative process in Mississippi. I trust the voters of the state, both in who they elect to office and on policy matters. A number of Republicans in the Senate have a different opinion on the initiative issue. This is the legislative process and we will continue that process.”

But many political observers and supporters of restoring the initiative had questioned Hosemann’s support for it, given he assigned the measure to Polk’s committee again this year after Polk had publicly voiced misgivings about reinstating ballot initiative.

READ MORE: Is ballot initiative a ‘take your picture off the wall’ issue for lawmakers?

Many Mississippians were angry when the state’s high court stripped voters of this right in 2021. This was in a ruling on a medical marijuana initiative voters had overwhelmingly passed, taking matters in hand after lawmakers had dallied for years on the issue. Legislative leaders were quick at the time with vows they would restore this right to voters, fix the legal glitches that prompted the Supreme Court to rule it invalid. Many lawmakers said they support the right.

Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, said she was stunned to hear the Senate let the measure die Thursday without inviting more debate with the House on a compromise version. She disagrees with Polk about it not being a big issue with voters.

“My constituents think it’s necessary,” Summers said. “… People have issues they believe we are not addressing or listening to them on, like early voting, Medicaid expansion. Those are issues Mississippians are concerned about and when we don’t bring them to the forefront because of politics, they need to have this right to address them. Now we have to wait another year to do this.”

READ MORE: Bill restoring ballot initiative remains alive, though some say it ‘stifles’ Mississippi voters

The House and Senate versions of the measure, which would have required ratification by voters in November, differed. But both would have greatly restricted voters’ right to ballot initiative compared to the process that had been in place since 1992. Many supporters of restoring the right have been angered about legislative leaders’ proposals to date. In the House, most Democrats despite supporting restoration of the right voted “present” on the House version they found it so restrictive.

The Senate position on the initiative would require the signatures of at least 240,000 registered voters to place an issue on a statewide ballot. The House version would require about 106,000, nearer the previous threshold required for the last 30 years.

Under both proposals, the Legislature by a simple majority vote could change or repeal an initiative approved by the electorate. Unlike the previous process voters had for decades, voters could only pass or change state laws, not the state constitution.

Polk said he “could not get close to” agreeing on the lower number of signatures in the House proposal, and doubted the House would agree to his higher threshold. He said the House also had made a change he found untenable that he just noticed in recent days: It removed a prohibition on using a ballot initiative to change Mississippi’s position as a “right to work” state, which generally keeps labor unions weak in such states.

“That was disturbing to me,” Polk said.

A recent Mississippi Today/Siena College poll shows Mississippi voters across the spectrum want their right to put issues directly on a statewide ballot restored.

The poll showed 72% favor reinstating ballot initiative, with 12% opposed and 16% either don’t know or have no opinion. Restoring the right garnered a large majority among Democrats, Republicans, independents and across all demographic, geographic and income lines. 

The death of the bill on Thursday drew bipartisan criticism, including from Hosemann’s challenger in the Republican lieutenant governor primary, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ellisville.

“Delbert Hosemann chose yet again to silence the voices of Mississippians and protect his own power by obstructing our ballot initiative process,” McDaniel said in a statement. “Delbert’s actions are both disgraceful and unconstitutional.”

But it’s also likely to be a partisan issue this election year. Rep. Robert Johnson III and Sen. Derrick Simmons, House and Senate minority leaders, issued a statement blasting the GOP for death of the bill.

“It showed, yet again, just how out of step Republicans are with each other and with the vast majority of Mississippians — including their own voters,” the statement said. “… Luckily for all of us, it’s an election year, and we’re happy to take our record on the campaign trail. We’re not so sure our colleagues can say the same.”

The post Senate kills Mississippi ballot initiative without a vote appeared first on Mississippi Today.

As speculation swirled over the last month about former Jackson State University president Thomas Hudson’s resignation, the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees repeatedly promised the public it would discuss “the future leadership” of the university at its regular board meeting. 

But on Thursday, the board provided no new public information about leadership at Mississippi’s largest historically Black university, where Hudson is the third president in a row to resign. IHL’s press releases said “the Board of Trustees will discuss the future leadership of Jackson State at its regular Board meeting later this month.” 

“This is going to be a brief meeting,” said Tom Duff, the board president. “Are there any additional items that we need to be discussing as an IHL board that we’ve not been talking about for the last few days?” 

Hearing none, trustees voted to go into executive session to discuss two Delta State personnel matters and one Jackson State personnel matter around 9:20 a.m. Trustees adjourned at 11:43 a.m. No information about any actions was provided. 

READ MORE: While some in JSU community want more answers after Hudson’s resignation, others say it’s just another chapter closed

The only public reference to the university came when Duff thanked Jackson State’s temporary acting president Elayne Hayes-Anthony for her presence at the meeting. 

After trustees went into executive session, Hayes-Anthony addressed the press outside the IHL meeting room. She said she was interested in becoming Jackson State’s permanent president and that she would apply for the position if the board conducted a national search. 

But she added that she has no preference for the kind of process she’d like to see the board use to fill the position. In 2020, many faculty members had called for the board to conduct a national search – instead, the board elevated Hudson from interim to permanent president. 

Hayes-Anthony also addressed concerns about the board’s lack of transparency. Unlike Hudson’s predecessors, the public doesn’t know why he resigned. The announcement earlier this month came on the heels of the board voting to renew his four-year contract in January. 

“I’m sure they will get to the community and let them know what their deliberations are,” she said. 

Several administrators, alumni and faculty members from Jackson State attended the meeting. 

Ivory Phillips, a dean emeritus at Jackson State and a former faculty senate president, said he wasn’t surprised the board said nothing about the university’s leadership. Still, Phillips thought the board should have at least addressed the process it will use to select the next president. 

“The board is more notorious than any other agency in terms of not revealing anything,” he said. 

Phillips noted that the board did not link to its agenda online and that the paper copy distributed at the meeting did not contain minutes describing any action that occurred during its executive sessions about Jackson State over the last month. The board emails a copy of its agenda the day before the meeting and typically uploads that copy to its website. 

Caron Blanton, the board spokesperson, said she did not know when the board would release the minutes from those executive sessions. 

At the March 2 meeting which took place before the board announced Hudson was placed on administrative leave, Blanton told reporters and members of the public that any action taken by the board must be reflected in meeting minutes “within 30 days of the meeting.”

“If they did take action, it will be in the minutes,” she said. 

The post Despite assurances, IHL board does not publicly discuss JSU leadership at its regular meeting appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In this special edition of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with this year’s Hal’s St. Paddy’s Parade Grand Marshal, Cassandra Wilson. Cassandra is a legendary American jazz singer, songwriter, and producer from Jackson, Mississippi.

She is one of the most successful female Jazz singers and has been described by critic Gary Giddins as “a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack [who has] expanded the playing field” by incorporating blues, country, and folk music into her work. She has won numerous awards, including two Grammys, was named “America’s Best Singer” by Time magazine in 2001, received the 2009 Mississippi Governor’s Award for Artistic Excellence in Music, and has her own Mississippi Blues Trail marker.

The post Mississippi Stories: Cassandra Wilson appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Locked Door appeared first on Mississippi Today.

MARCH 23, 1964

Johnnie Mae Chappell was walking to a store in Jacksonville, Florida, to buy some ice cream for her children when she realized she had dropped her wallet. 

As she retraced her steps along a road, four white men spotted her, and one of them killed her. They had been looking for anyone Black to kill following a day of racial unrest. All four men were indicted, but only J.W. Rich, the alleged triggerman, was tried. He was convicted of manslaughter and served only three years behind bars. 

Chappell’s story is featured at the National Civil Rights Memorial Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, and Keith Beauchamp told her story in his television program, “Wanted Justice: Johnnie Mae Chappell.”

The post On this day in 1964 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Getting Ink appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Gov. Tate Reeves last week axed two health care bills that passed the Legislature with bipartisan support and that health experts say could improve health care. 

Senate Bill 2622 would have sped up the prior authorization process, which insurance companies use to tell providers whether a drug or procedure is covered for certain patients. Reeves said while the bill itself was a “good idea,” he referred vaguely to mistakes in its language, including that administrative hearings were in “an incorrect place in the bill” and what he said would be increased costs for Medicaid as his reasons for vetoing. 

Senate Bill 2224 would have given State Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney the authority to study and address inequalities in insurance reimbursement rates, which Reeves said was a “bad idea.” The commissioner would be able to fine insurance companies up to $10,000 per violation if they’re unable to justify unequal reimbursement rates for different hospitals for the same procedures. 

“It allows us to put some sunshine and open transparency on Blue Cross Blue Shield,” Chaney said. “We’re trying to figure out where all the money goes. They say, ‘We don’t have to tell you that.’”

This became a major issue last year when the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the state’s largest hospital and only children’s hospital and organ transplant center, went out of network with Blue Cross, the state’s largest private insurer. The dispute between the two stemmed from the insurance company’s reimbursement rates.

Blue Cross did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

In his veto messages, Reeves said he believes the bills would increase the cost of health care. 

When asked whether the governor had data to back up his claims, Reeves’ press secretary Shelby Wilcher said his understanding that the bills would increase health care costs is rooted in “basic economics.”

“If the cost to provide the service increases, such increases (sic) will be passed along to the consumer,” she said. “The bills contained numerous costly additional burdens, heavy fines, and mechanisms for forced rate increases that would all have an inflationary effect on health insurance.”

It is unclear how the bill that would speed up the prior authorization process would increase costs.

Tim Moore, executive director of the Mississippi Hospital Association, is still confused about Reeves’ claim. 

“Where is the data that supports the claim of higher health care costs? I do not see that,” he said. “Interesting that it is two health care related bills that are the first to be vetoed.”

Chaney last year advocated on behalf of consumers when UMMC went out of network with Blue Cross. He said it’s always been his job to monitor the equity of reimbursement rates to providers and its effect on consumers, and this bill would’ve given the commissioner’s office more teeth in its ability to regulate companies.

“I should say that the governor’s veto is a very bad idea because it hurts consumers and health care providers,” he said. 

This bill would have allowed Chaney to enact rules and regulations and gather data about how insurance companies reimburse different providers for different services, which is currently not easily accessible or equitable, and study how consumers are treated based on their plans.

Chaney said Blue Cross reimburses providers in Tennessee at higher rates, despite consumers in Mississippi paying comparable premiums. 

“BCBS administers those premiums and those policies in Mississippi at lower reimbursement rates,” he said. “Blue Cross won’t give us that information. It’s that simple.”

A study by consulting group Milliman estimates that Mississippi is reimbursed on average at the lowest rate in the country by commercial insurers compared to Medicare. 

In addition, consumer experts say Blue Cross in Mississippi has the financial means to pass savings on to consumers but has not. A Mississippi Today investigation last year found that the company has accumulated far more than what regulators require, and perhaps the largest such surplus by percentage of any Blue Cross company in the country at about $750 million. 

As for mistakes in SB 2622, Reeves’ inability to name more than one specific error concerns Angela Ladner, executive director of the Mississippi Psychiatric Association and Mississippi Oncology Society. 

“When you say there’s a mistake, you need to be really specific about what you’re talking about,” she said. “As far as content, I’m not sure that there were a lot of mistakes. I think the Department of Insurance worked significantly hard to make sure that the bill was in a format that everybody agreed upon, and that’s why they passed it.”

And despite being passed overwhelmingly by the House and Senate, it is unclear if the Legislature will attempt to override the vetoes, which would take two-thirds majorities in both chambers. 

Sen. Hob Bryan, a Democrat who represents Amory and chairs the public health committee, said he was not aware of any override attempts and that he could not understand why the governor vetoed the bills. 

Leah Smith, a spokesperson for Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who leads the Senate, said Monday that his office continues to review the veto messages. 

A spokesperson for House Speaker Philip Gunn did not answer questions for this story. 

Wilcher said via email that the governor’s office is hopeful that the Legislature can come up with an improved version of the prior authorization bill. 

“This is unfortunately the victim of a strong lobby by health plans and insurance companies that are saving money on the backs of the patients that they’re supposed to be serving,” Ladner said.

In 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, Blue Cross spent a total of $82,000 on lobbying.

The post Reeves vetoes health insurance bills that experts, watchdogs say would help consumers appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A measure to restore voters’ right to place issues directly on a ballot faces a Thursday deadline for the Senate to agree with a House version, send it to conference for more haggling, or let it die without a vote.

A similar measure died without a final vote last year, over the same main impasse the House and Senate have now — how many signatures someone should have to gather to bypass the Legislature and put an issue directly to a statewide vote.

Both Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who oversees the Senate, and the committee chairman he has in charge of the bill were noncommittal on Wednesday about the measure’s fate. Neither has seemed very enthusiastic about restoring a right the state Supreme Court took from voters with a ruling two years ago that invalidated Mississippi’s ballot initiative process and a medical marijuana program voters had approved with it.

“We’re making good progress,” Hosemann told media when asked about it. When pressed for more information, he quipped, “G-o-o-d-p-r-o … ” spelling out his statement and refused to say more.

When asked if he would bring the bill before the full Senate by Thursday’s deadline, Accountability Efficiency and Transparency Chairman John Polk, R-Hattiesburg, said he hasn’t decided. Despite handling the presentation of the Senate version to his colleagues for a vote weeks ago, Polk voted against it and has described the ballot initiative process as “dangerous.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Polk said Wednesday. “… I’ve got a lot of thinking to do and reading, and talking with people. I am not doing this in a vacuum. I am talking with my colleagues about it.”

READ MORE: Bill restoring ballot initiative remains alive, though some say it ‘stifles’ Mississippi voters

The Senate position on the initiative would require the signatures of at least 240,000 registered voters to place an issue on a statewide ballot. The House version would require about 106,000, nearer the previous threshold required for the last 30 years. Polk indicated Wednesday he does not want to see the Senate’s signature requirement reduced, although he said he agrees with some House restrictions, such as not allowing voters to vote on abortion rights.

Both the House and Senate versions to-date would greatly restrict Mississippi voters’ rights to ballot initiative.

READ MORE: Poll: As lawmakers fiddle, 72% of Mississippi voters want ballot initiative restored

Under both proposals, the Legislature by a simple majority vote could change or repeal an initiative approved by the electorate. Unlike the previous process voters had for decades, voters could only pass or change state laws, not the state constitution.

These further restrictions have brought debate among lawmakers. In the House, most Democrats voted “present” on that chamber’s version. They said the support restoring the right, but the versions being pressed by GOP leaders are too restrictive.

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, has criticized efforts to make the initiative process harder to use.

“I filed bills last year and this year to restore people’s rights, which I believe should be based as closely as possible on the procedure citizens enjoyed for 30 years,” Blount said Wednesday.

Those wanting the process to be harder — or opposed to ballot initiative — such as Polk warn that it can be co-opted by well-funded special interest groups. They could bypass the state’s representative democracy form of government and pass special interest measures disguised as grassroots.

But those opposed to a more restrictive process say restrictions such as a high signature threshold would ensure only well-funded, organized special interests would be able to use it successfully.

READ MORE: Is ballot initiative a ‘take your picture off the wall’ issue for lawmakers?

Many Mississippians were angry when the state’s high court stripped voters of this right in 2021. This was in a ruling on a medical marijuana initiative voters had overwhelmingly passed, taking matters in hand after lawmakers had dallied for years on the issue. Legislative leaders were quick at the time with vows they would restore this right to voters, fix the legal glitches that prompted the Supreme Court to rule it invalid.

A recent Mississippi Today/Siena College poll shows Mississippi voters across the spectrum want their right to put issues directly on a statewide ballot restored.

The poll showed 72% favor reinstating ballot initiative, with 12% opposed and 16% either don’t know or have no opinion. Restoring the right garnered a large majority among Democrats, Republicans, independents and across all demographic, geographic and income lines. The poll also showed that of those who support restoration of the right, 65% said they wanted the lower threshold of signatures, compared to 26% who support the higher proposal of 240,000 signatures.

The post Fate of ballot initiative hangs in balance with Thursday deadline appeared first on Mississippi Today.