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.
Myrlie Evers and her daughter, Reena Evers-Everette, cheer the guilty verdict. Credit: Rogelio Solis/Associated Press
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.”
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.
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.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks in Montgomery during the 1955 bus boycott. Credit: National Archives
Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Although she is best known for refusing to give up her bus seat, she was active in the civil rights struggle long before. She and her husband, Raymond, became involved in the Scottsboro Boys case.
In 1943, she became secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP, working on voter registration and investigating a series of sexual assaults of Black women that went unpunished in Alabama.
She, too, was the victim of an attempted rape by a white neighbor. “I was ready to die, but give my consent?” she said. “Never. Never. Never.”
After refusing to give up her bus seat, she became a worldwide icon and driving force for the civil rights movement.
“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear,” she said. “Knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
After her 2005 death, she became the first woman to lie in state at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. On the 50th anniversary of her courageous act, transit authorities in New York City and some other cities left the seats behind the bus drivers empty to honor her.
In 2013, Congress added her statue at the U.S. Capitol, making her the first Black woman represented in Statuary Hall. Before her death, she noted that “racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.”
Autherine Lucy in 1956 after she was admitted to the University of Alabama. Credit: University of Alabama Office of Strategic Communications
Overcoming racism and threats, Autherine Lucy became the first Black student to attend graduate school at the University of Alabama. She had previously been accepted to the university, only to be rejected when university officials discovered she wasn’t white.
The NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall represented her on the appeal, and she worked in the meantime as an English teacher in Carthage, Mississippi. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in her favor, and she entered the university as a graduate student in library science.
Despite riots and violence, she continued to attend. Three days later, the university suspended her “for her own safety,” prompting the president there to resign in protest.
Feeling dejected, she opened her mail soon after to read a letter from Marshall: “Whatever happens in the future, remember for all concerned, that your contribution has been made toward equal justice for all Americans and that you have done everything in your power to bring this about.”
Her case played a key role in desegregating schools in the South, including the University of Alabama, which admitted its first Black students in 1963. A quarter century later, the university overturned her expulsion, and she entered the graduation program in education a year later.
She graduated with a master’s in 1992. The university named an endowed scholarship in her honor and unveiled a portrait of her in the student union, with an inscription that reads, “Her initiative and courage won the right for students of all races to attend the University.”
In 2010, the university unveiled the Autherine Lucy Clock Tower, which honored those who desegregated the university. When a special marker at the College of Education honored her, she returned to speak.
In 2019, she attended the university’s graduation ceremony, where she received an honorary doctorate. “My response to fear is: do it anyway,” she said. “Let nothing stop you. You have to push forward.”
Sen. Chris McDaniel’s first financial reports for his lieutenant governor campaign and a political action committee he runs leave voters in the dark about where hundreds of thousands of dollars came from and raise questions about whether some donations violated campaign finance law.
McDaniel’s PAC reported it raised nearly $474,000 before it was officially created, failed to list the source of that money, and accepted $237,500 from what’s been described as a “dark money” nonprofit corporation that dumps millions of anonymously sourced funds into campaigns nationwide.
McDaniel’s opponent, incumbent Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, on Thursday called for McDaniel, who in the past has called for campaign finance reform and transparency, to “practice transparency as he preaches and release his PAC donor list today.”
“My opponent’s PAC failed to disclose from whom he received more than $473,000,” Hosemann said. “He did disclose that he raised $237,500 from a Washington nonprofit corporation.”
McDaniel this week, the day after announcing his Republican primary run against Hosemann, reported having raised $710,000 last year and having $713,000 cash on hand for his 2023 campaign.
McDaniel’s largest donor to his campaign was the PAC he created in June 2022 called Hold the Line. It contributed $465,000 to McDaniel’s campaign.
McDaniel and Dan Carr, a pastor and political consultant from Gulfport, filed paperwork with the secretary of state’s office in June of 2022 creating the Hold the Line PAC. PACs are required to file organization papers with the secretary of state within 48 hours after they raise or spend more than $200.
Candidates and PACs were required by Tuesday to file their annual finance reports showing donations and expenditures from calendar year 2022.
But despite having been created only in June of 2022, McDaniel’s PAC in the report it filed this week showed a prior year’s balance of $473,962.38. There was no accounting of where this money came from nor an explanation of how the PAC raised money before it was created.
Hold the Line reported that it then raised $244,310 for 2022, and that its largest contribution was $237,500 in August from a nonprofit called American Exceptionalism Institute. The PAC report showed no contributions to account for the nearly $474,000 balance for the prior period.
American Exceptionalism Institute, based in Alexandria, Va., is a nonprofit corporation that says its mission is educating people about national security, the protection of life and tax and spending issues. It’s been described as a “dark money” nonprofit that dumps millions in anonymously sourced funds into campaigns nationwide, often through other nonprofits or PACs.
Mississippi limits corporate donations — including those from nonprofit corporations such as AEI — to candidates or PACs that donate to candidates to $1,000 per calendar year. Individuals, limited liability corporations and PACs can give unlimited contributions to Mississippi candidates.
Speaking generally about campaign laws and not McDaniel’s reports, Secretary of State Michael Watson said on Thursday his office has frequently fielded questions like, “Can you give corporate money to a PAC, and that PAC turn around and give the money to a candidate?”
Citing a 1990s state attorney general’s opinion, Watson said, “I think that would be a violation in my mind,” if a corporation gave more than $1,000 to a PAC, then the PAC gave more than $1,000 to a candidate. He said using a PAC simply to dodge corporation donation limits would possibly be a criminal violation. He said most such enforcement would be up to the attorney general’s office or local district attorneys.
McDaniel on Thursday told Mississippi Today he knows scant details about the finances of his PAC or his campaign.
“I can’t even write a check out of my account,” McDaniel said. “That’s just for safety reasons and so no one can ever question anything.”
McDaniel deferred any questions about Hold the Line PAC finances to Carr. Reached by phone on Thursday, Carr gave confusing answers.
“We registered (the PAC) in June, then some money came in in August, then we filed a report January 1. Correct, January 31. I’ll have to get back with you on that (the prior balance of $474,000). We had a clerical error,” Carr told Mississippi Today.
Carr said the report “clearly states” where the prior balance came from. But when challenged that the report does not list where the $474,000 came from, and asked for details of the clerical error, Carr referred further questions about the PAC to a man named Thomas Datwyler. Carr said Datwyler “filled out the report for me,” despite Carr’s electronic signature being on the PAC report filed to the secretary of state.
McDaniel also deferred questions about his campaign account to Datwyler, despite McDaniel’s signature being on the report and another person listed as the contact.
No one answered calls or responded to a message left at the number Carr gave for Datwyler.
A Thomas Datwyler, a national Republican operative and campaign finance consultant, has recently been in the news. After U.S. Sen. George Santos’ campaign treasurer resigned amid the candidate’s campaign finance problems, Santos said Datwyler would be taking over as treasurer. Datwyler’s attorney countered that he told Santos he would not be taking the post.
Also this week, Carr sent out an email fundraising solicitation for McDaniel titled “I AM ALL IN.” It is a letter from McDaniel asking voters to click links to donate $25, $50 or $100 to help him in his race for lieutenant governor. The solicitation, sent from dan@danqcarr.com, says it is “paid for by Committee to Elect Chris McDaniel.”
But no such committee has been registered with the Mississippi secretary of state’s office.
Besides his PAC, McDaniel is one of the largest donors to his own campaign, having contributed $53,000.
Hosemann this week reported having raised $1.33 million for the period, and having $3.5 million in his campaign account.
