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The Mississippi Legislature, for the first time since 2016, did not restore voting rights to any person convicted of a felony.

Mississippi is the only state in the nation that requires people convicted of certain felonies to petition the Legislature to restore their voting rights. Most years the Legislature passes a handful of bills — normally about five — to restore voting rights to individuals convicted of felonies.

Seven bills restoring voting rights died on the Senate calendar when the 2023 session ended on Saturday around 2 a.m. Senate Judiciary B Chair Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, said he opted to let the bills die instead of bringing them up for a vote because he did not think he could garner the two-thirds majority needed to pass each bill.

“It seemed like there was not enough support,” Fillingane said. “They barely passed out of committee on close votes. And before the full Senate, it takes a two-thirds vote instead of a majority vote to pass. Instead of embarrassing anyone by calling them up and having them defeated, we decided not to call them up.”

Fillingane said he spoke with the senators who he thought would be on the fence, and they all indicated they would be “no” votes.

Mississippi is among a handful of states — fewer than 10 — that do not restore voting rights at some point after people complete their sentence. And Mississippi is the only state requiring people to navigate the cumbersome legislative maze to have their voting rights restored.

The most suffrage bills passed in one session during the 2000s was in 2004 when 34 were approved, according to a Mississippi Today analysis. In 2009, 2012 and 2016, like this past session, no felony suffrage bill was approved. In 2021, there were five approved and in 2021 two were passed.

A lawsuit is pending before the U.S. Supreme that argues Mississippi’s felony suffrage provisions are in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit argues that the provision was placed in the state’s 1890 constitution as one of many devices to prevent Black Mississippians from voting. The thought at the time was that impoverished African Americans might be more prone to commit certain crimes like theft and embezzlement, so those specific crimes were determined by the writers of the state constitution to be disenfranchising crimes. Meanwhile, the framers deemed people did not lose the right to vote for many more serious crimes such as murder and rape.

In 2022, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals conceded that the provision was placed in the state constitution as a deterrent to African Americans voting. But the appeals court ruled in a split decision that because the state constitution was amended later to make murder and rape disenfranchising crimes, that the 1890 provision was no longer unconstitutional.

The Mississippi Center for Justice and others are appealing that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rob McDuff, an attorney with the center, said the fact that the Supreme Court has not yet dismissed the case could be a good sign and suggest the justices “are continuing to look at it.” The case was appealed to the Supreme Court in October 2022.

McDuff said it was disappointing that the Legislature did not restore any voting rights this session, but stressed that there are “thousands of people who have served their sentence and the fact that the Legislature generally restores voting rights to a few each session is another indication that the provision in the 1890 Constitution should be repealed in its entirety.”

Fillingane said the Senate in recent years has normally restored voting rights to only those convicted of crimes that would be considered non-violent, such as embezzlement. He said those convicted this year were convicted of crimes that could be considered more violent, such as robbery. One of the people under consideration had been convicted of using public property illegally. The Senate has routinely refused to take up cases where people were convicted of stealing or embezzling public funds.

But Fillingane said as chair of the Judiciary B Committee he wanted to give those people an opportunity this year but opted not to bring them up before the full Senate because he did not think there were enough votes to pass them.

The original list of crimes deemed to be disenfranchising has been updated by official opinions from the Attorney General’s office through the years to coincide with modern criminal law.

The crimes on the list via the opinions are arson, armed robbery, bigamy, bribery, embezzlement, extortion, felony bad check, felony shoplifting, forgery, larceny, murder, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, rape, receiving stolen property, robbery, theft, timber larceny, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, statutory rape, carjacking and larceny under lease or rental agreement.

The post Legislature restores no voting rights during 2023 session appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Destiny Miles of Clarksdale felt more alone than ever.

She was pregnant. She had just ended a toxic relationship with the baby’s father. And she felt lost about the idea of parenting. 

“At the beginning of my pregnancy, I was very depressed,” said Miles, 22. “Knowing I had to be a single mom, it took a toll on me for a minute.” 

She was scrolling Facebook when she stumbled upon parenting classes under the name “Baby U.” That’s how she met Chelesa Presley, who not only changed her outlook on parenting and motherhood, but her life. 

“I feel like Miss Presley helped me more than family,” said Miles, who is now eight months pregnant.

Presley is the director of Clarksdale Baby University – often called ‘Baby U’ – a free eight-week parenting class for families with children under 3 years old in the Delta, the most rural region of the state. 

Families in Clarksdale are often trying to make do with less. Nearly 42% of its residents live in poverty, and the median household income is about $30,700 per year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Coahoma County and the Delta at large have rates of teen pregnancy that surpass the national average.

In a region that’s already spread out and lacking resources, Baby U has provided a stable community for new parents since 2014. But during the pandemic, a lot of the personal touches of the program were strained because classes were online only.

The program only started back in-person at the beginning of this year, and Miles was in that cohort. The appetite for in-person, hands-on instruction was obvious, according to Presley. This last session of 15 families was the first time ever that everyone who started the program on day one made it to each class and to graduation. 

“What this class provides, a lot of families in the Delta do not get,” Presley said. “It’s nonjudgmental parenting support. A lot of (other) programs come from a model – whether they realize it or not – that the parents are deficient.” 

Presley said parenting classes can often take an approach of “what’s wrong with you” rather than “let’s support you on your parenting journey to have the best outcome for every child.” 

Graduates have told Presley the class made them feel valued, and that they needed to learn, but weren’t a bad parent. They needed that affirmation.

Miles went into the classes feeling like she wasn’t ready to be a mom. She doesn’t feel like that anymore.

She has learned about safe sleep, breastfeeding, childhood brain development, nutrition, and how to appropriately discipline – rather than just punish – a child. 

Baby U is part of Clarksdale-based nonprofit Spring Initiative, which is funded by donations and grants. Spring Initiative aims to help children in the Delta succeed in school and life. Baby U specifically gets the bulk of its support from the Coahoma County Early Learning Collaborative, which receives money from a state pre-K tax credit program. 

Bianca Zaharescu, the CEO of Spring Initiative, said Baby U is different from most of its other programs because it’s not following children from pre-K to graduation, but helping build a foundation before the child reaches the classroom. 

“Participants feel so much it’s a safe space where they can really share and talk personally and openly,”  Zaharescu said. “It’s not like throwing a bunch of information at parents, it’s a communal relationship-based space where you can explore together. It’s about enjoying parenthood.” 

Parents who already have young children were able to bring them to the class. That helped future parents like Miles see parent-child dynamics at work.

They even practiced reading stories aloud. Miles has continued reading to her belly at home, as she waits for her quickly approaching due date.

When she gives birth, Presley will visit Miles in the hospital and put a special “Baby U” hang tag on her door, a beloved tradition. During the class, Presley also does home visits with each family participating. She does follow-ups months later.

The Delta has a shortage of pediatricians, so Presley steps in where she can. She’s trained to do development screenings to make sure Baby U babies are hitting milestones and helps families access specialists if needed.

She’s also an intermediary for mental health needs. She checks with new mothers to make sure they’re not experiencing postpartum depression. If they are, she knows how to get them in touch with the help they need.  

More than 77% of Coahoma County is Black and so are most of Presley’s students. Mississippi is known for being one of the worst states for racial health outcome disparities. So, Presley steps up in hopes of guiding new mothers and their kids away from any pitfalls.

Presley has been with the program since 2014 and took over as its director in 2018. She fills gaps and acts as a lifeline many families struggling with finances and health care access wouldn’t have otherwise.

She removes all the barriers she can to get people inside her lime-green classroom on C. Ritchie Avenue. No car? Someone will pick you up. The program provides a full dinner for the participants and their young children when they meet every Monday night over the eight-week session – a draw in itself. 

“We talk about life and actual practical things in their life,” Presley said. “My whole thing is, if the mom is not well or the dad is not well, they can’t expect the child to be well.”

Presley said she’s always working to enlist fathers to attend the program – and she makes sure the ones who do participate understand the active role they should have in parenting, even during their partner’s pregnancy. 

Miles says friends who once judged her for seeking out parenting classes are asking how they can get involved. 

“I told myself if you get in that class, you learn,” Miles said. “You’re not just coming for the free Pampers.”

Now as a proud graduate, Miles gives her friends the same advice: to join and be ready to engage.

She wants to keep in touch with her classmates, a group of like-minded and supportive parents who have become part of a community network she didn’t have just over two months ago.

At the beginning of April, a new eight-week session began. 

A handful of mothers, mostly under 25, filed into folding chairs. At first, the group was quiet and reserved. 

But Presley is an expert at getting her new classes to open up. Her energy is contagious, even as she asks for each parent to introduce themselves – a game including paper airplanes – or speaks about what to expect in the third trimester.

Soon there was chatter, smiles and the beginnings of a budding support network for another  group of young parents.

Mississippi Today photographer Eric Shelton contributed to this report.

The post At Baby U, Delta parents find a support network that goes beyond parenting lessons appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Paul Lacoste, a fitness trainer and one of the retired athletes ensnared in Mississippi’s ongoing welfare scandal, is firing back at the state agency suing him.

In his recent counterclaim, Lacoste alleges that someone from the state invited him to a meeting in mid-2018 to discuss awarding him a contract, and that former Gov. Phil Bryant directed the welfare agency to hire Lacoste’s organization to conduct free fitness boot camps throughout the state.

At this time, the athlete had already been putting on classes for professionals and government officials in the Jackson metro area, which included then-Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and many other lawmakers.

Lacoste’s organization, Victory Sports Foundation, eventually received $1.3 million in funds from the federal welfare program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, through a private nonprofit called Mississippi Community Education Center, auditors found in 2020. 

“In return for those funds, Victory Sports and Lacoste conducted fitness boot camps, none of which were designed to achieve, or did achieve, any lawful TANF purpose,” MDHS’s complaint reads. “… Lacoste and Victory Sports Foundation owe MDHS a debt of $1,309,183.”

The payments led to criminal charges against nonprofit founder Nancy New and her son Zach New, who admitted that they defrauded the government by funneling welfare money to Lacoste’s program.

But Lacoste maintains that he never knew the money he received was meant to help poor families, and now he’s alleging the former governor and federal officials were in on it. 

Lacoste joins a growing number of defendants in the civil case — including Nancy New, the former welfare director’s nephew Austin Smith and former NFL quarterback Brett Favre — who are implicating Bryant. The former governor has not faced civil or criminal charges.

Mississippi Today first reported on Reeves’ connections to the fitness contract, including meetings he had with both Lacoste and former welfare director John Davis, who is awaiting sentencing in the criminal welfare fraud case. The revelations prompted Smith’s attorney to demand Reeves be added as a defendant to the lawsuit. 

But Lacoste’s recent motion doesn’t mention Reeves by name, only Bryant. 

Because Reeves controls the welfare department, an agency under the governor’s office, he’s also in charge of the civil suit, which targets Lacoste along with dozens of others. Lacoste also endorsed Reeves for governor in 2019.

Lacoste’s counterclaim said he’s been “ridiculed throughout the State as someone who knowingly took money from indigent people in Mississippi.”

“He did no such thing,” the filing reads. “This damage has and continues to be suffered as the proximate result of the negligence by the State through MDHS (Mississippi Department of Human Services) when MDHS negligently paid for the fitness camps with TANF funds.”

Lacoste asked the judge, Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Faye Peterson, to enter a judgment against MDHS and award him damages for emotional distress among other things.

The athlete said he attended a meeting with Bryant and Davis in mid-2018. He said representatives from the federal government, whose policies govern how states can spend their welfare funds, were in attendance.

Lacoste said Bryant and Davis told him that they wanted to hire his organization as part of the state’s initiative to reduce obesity and improve wellness for Mississippians. Though they were engaging the welfare department, Lacoste’s filing does not say that they discussed reserving the program for poor families.

“At the conclusion of the meeting, the state and federal attendees in the meeting asked Lacoste if he would be interested in providing the services on a statewide basis,” Lacoste’s counterclaim reads. “Ultimately, Governor Bryant instructed John Davis to work with Lacoste, and VSF (Victory Sports Foundation) ultimately was selected to provide the services.”

The civil charges MDHS filed against Lacoste also discuss this meeting, but in a much different tone, and omitted the fact that Bryant and federal representatives were there.

“Lacoste facilitated a meeting with Davis, during which Lacoste proposed to MDHS Executive Director John Davis that Davis steer substantial grant funds to Victory Sports (and thus to Lacoste) in exchange for Lacoste’s continuing provision of ‘fitness camps’ to elected officials, their political staffs, and fee-paying participants,” reads MDHS’s amended civil complaint.

Lacoste, Davis and Reeves then met to discuss the fitness program in early 2019 – after Lacoste’s organization entered into the contract with New’s nonprofit but before it received the bulk of the money. The agency was in financial turmoil at that time and had recently notified grantees that their funding would be cut. MDHS subgrants are conditional on money being available, so a contract itself is not always a guarantee of payment.

Lacoste told Davis that Reeves wanted to meet alone, adding, “Tate wants us all to himself.”

Two days later, Davis instructed his deputy to make covert payments to New’s nonprofit to pay for the Lacoste contract, calling it “the Lt. Gov’s fitness issue,” referring to Gov. Reeves, lieutenant governor at the time of the scandal. 

State Auditor Shad White, the former Bryant campaign manager whom Bryant originally appointed to his position, questioned the payments to the Victory Sports program because “no eligibility determination was made to verify participants were TANF eligible or needy.”

But a forensic audit released in October of 2021, which MDHS has used as the basis of its civil complaint, questioned the payments to Victory Sports Foundation because they were indicative of undue influence by Davis.

“John Davis’s influence was needed for Victory Sports to be awarded a grant from MCEC,” auditors wrote.

None of the audits mentioned Bryant’s or Reeves’ involvement in securing the contract or payments for Lacoste.

MDHS’s amended complaint alleges that Davis “created a culture of secrecy and fear within the agency to cover his illegal and fraudulent misuse of the public funds entrusted to his authority.”

“He fraudulently abused his position at MDHS to ingratiate himself with these former athletes by employing them or arranging to provide them with federal TANF grant funds,” it said.

Davis, who is cooperating with the prosecution in its ongoing investigation, has not made any public comments regarding the involvement of Bryant or Reeves.

The post Fitness trainer says former Gov. Bryant directed welfare-funded project, sues for emotional distress appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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A bill to substantially overhaul Mississippi’s college financial aid programs died in conference on the final day of the legislative session, joining a long list of failed efforts to update the decades-old grants. 

Instead, lawmakers funded Mississippi’s state financial aid programs as-is, with a roughly $50 million appropriation. 

Had it passed, House Bill 771 would have ushered in wide-ranging changes to two key state programs that help Mississippians pay for college: The Mississippi Resident Tuition Assistance Grant (MTAG) and the Higher Education Legislative Plan for Needy Students grant (HELP). MTAG is the state’s most accessible, and least generous, financial aid award, and HELP is the only college aid program for low-income students. 

The bill, proposed by Rep. Donnie Scoggin, R-Ellisville, was introduced following a closed-door process, led by a Mississippi-based nonprofit called the Woodward Hines Education Foundation, that was meant to create consensus. 

But the final version of the bill proved too unpopular for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. It would have reduced awards for low-income students under the HELP grant – which currently pays for all four years of college, regardless of what institution a student attends – to the cost of tuition at the least expensive in-state university or community college. 

The changes to MTAG would have expanded eligibility to part-time and adult students, but at the cost of excluding students from families that make more than the state median family income ($74,888 in 2022 for a four-person family). 

Though studies have shown that MTAG is not currently an effective program, any changes are contentious because tens of thousands of Mississippians receive it, said Toren Ballard, a K-12 policy analyst at Mississippi First who had been tracking HB 771. He supported the changes to MTAG. 

“By changing a program like MTAG, you have this built-in constituency of people who get a little bit of money from it,” he said. “That is a tricky political tight-rope to walk.” 

To fully fund the programs, lawmakers would have had to increase the budget for the Office of Student Financial Aid (OSFA) by an estimated $21 million. But the Senate Appropriations Committee was averse to increasing the office’s budget without more consensus, raising the possibility that awards under the new programs would be prorated. 

“The overall cost did impact the proposal ultimately,” said Jennifer Rogers, the director of OSFA. “I personally believe that the state needs to be investing more in state financial aid but I also understand our legislators and policymakers have to juggle a lot of competing priorities for funds.” 

Ballard said the proposal was also impacted by the lawmakers who had championed the proposal being seemingly unprepared to defend it at key moments. He cited a line of questioning that Scoggin faced on the House floor in the final week of the session. 

After Scoggin presented the conference report, Rep. Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, said HB 771’s changes to MTAG would mean she’d have to tell her constituents that lawmakers voted to take away money for college they might currently receive. Then she questioned Scoggin about the bill’s policy goal. 

“The objective is to reach more students,” Scoggin answered. 

“But is it at the expense of our full time or lower income students?” McGee asked. 

Scoggin shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. 

Another line of questioning from Rep. Jansen Owen, R-Poplarville, followed. He said HB 711 would mean HELP recipients would no longer be able to afford the state’s more expensive in-state universities. 

Scoggin replied that would happen because of a lack of appropriations.  

“Have you spoken to our universities in the state?” Owen asked. “Would you be surprised to know there are actually universities in the state that are opposed to the legislation?” 

“I would be very surprised,” said Scoggin. “I’ve spoken to all of them that come to the Capitol, and everyone from the IHL and the community college board is in favor of this legislation.”   

Owen then made a motion to recommit the bill to conference, effectively killing the bill since the House did not opt to take up the legislation again before the session adjourned.  

Rogers said she is disappointed lawmakers did not pass HB 771 but that she is trying to look at the bill’s death as an opportunity to create a more tenable proposal next year. Her office has been involved with efforts to update Mississippi’s financial aid programs for years. HB 771 made it closer to becoming law than any other proposal since 2018. 

“I do not know what will happen in the future,” she said. “But I know I am not ready to give up.”

The post Bill to revamp financial aid dies in 2023 session appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today and the Millsaps Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Campus Center are hosting a panel discussion on “Inequities in the Healthcare System” on Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 6 pm. The event is free and open to the public and includes a reception.

Sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council, this event will take place in the James and Madeleine McMullan Lecture Hall, room 122 of the Richard and Selby McRae Christian Center at Millsaps College and will be livestreamed here.

Millsaps alumna and Community Health Editor for Mississippi Today Kate Royals will lead the discussion. Panelists include Dr. Nelson Atehortua De La Peña, Director, Office of Health Data and Research, Mississippi State Department of Health; Lamees El-sadek (class of 2011), Doctoral Candidate, Harvard School of Public Health; LeJeune Johnson, founder and CEO of Therapy Plus, LLC; and Dr. Alan Penman, Professor, Department of Preventative Medicine, University of Mississippi Medical Center.

This panel comes out of a grant application that the Millsaps Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Campus Center made to the Mississippi Humanities Council.

For this event, the panelists will investigate the idea of “racial healing” through the lens of health care and the inequities that make it harder for many Jacksonians (and Mississippians) to find the resources they need to heal and live healthy lives.

The post Mississippi Today and Millsaps College to host panel on ‘Inequities in the Healthcare System’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

ROLLING FORK – The University of Mississippi Medical Center worked with the Mississippi State Department of Health and Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to deploy a mobile field hospital to Rolling Fork after tornadoes devastated the state’s Delta and northern regions on March 24.

The fully operational mobile field hospital will serve as a temporary home for the Delta Health Center hospital and medical clinic system for both Sharkey and Issaquena counties.

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Mississippi Today investigative reporter Anna Wolfe took a little time out from her journalism duties to sit down with Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large to talk about her career, her passion, and how she broke the story about the biggest case of fraud in Mississippi government history.

Anna Wolfe, a native of Tacoma, Wa., is an investigative reporter writing about poverty and economic justice. Anna has received national recognition for her work, including the 2023 and 2021 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, the 2021 Collier Prize for State Government Accountability, the 2021 John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award, the 2020 Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award and the February 2020 Sidney Award for reporting on Mississippi’s debtors prisons. She received the National Press Foundation’s 2020 Poverty and Inequality Award. She also received first place in the regional Green Eyeshade Awards in 2021 for Public Service in Online Journalism and 2020 for Business Reporting, and the local Bill Minor Prize for Investigative Journalism in 2019 and 2018 for reporting on unfair medical billing practices and hunger in the Mississippi Delta.

The post Mississippi Stories: Anna Wolfe appeared first on Mississippi Today.

APRIL 2, 1855

John Mercer Langston became the first Black public official in the U.S., serving as a town clerk in Brownhelm, Ohio. A year earlier, he had been the first Black lawyer admitted to the Ohio bar. 

Born free in 1829 in Virginia, he was the youngest son of a white planter from England and a freedwoman of African and Native American descent. After his father’s death, he and his brothers moved to Ohio, where they attended prep school, becoming the first black students admitted. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s degree in theology in 1852 from Oberlin College. 

Because of his race, law schools in New York and Ohio denied him entrance, but he remained determined, becoming an apprentice under future U.S. Rep. Philemon Bliss and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1854. He became active in the abolitionist movement, delivering speeches and helping runaways escape slavery. 

“The enslavement and degradation of one portion of the population fastens galling, festering chains upon the limbs of the other. For a time these chains may be invisible; yet they are iron-linked and strong; and the slave power, becoming strong-handed and defiant, will make them felt,” he said. “White Americans cannot stand as idle spectators to the struggle, but must unite with us in battling against this fell enemy if they themselves would save their own freedom.” 

During the Civil War, he enlisted hundreds of Black Americans to fight for the Union Army, and when the war ended, he argued that those who fought in the war had earned the right to vote. 

“A nation may lose its liberties and be a century in finding it out,” he said. “Where is the American liberty?” After the war ended, Langston became education inspector for the Freedman’s Bureau and later helped draft the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Two years later, he served as a U.S. minister to Haiti. He founded the law school at Howard University and later served as the first president of what is now known as Virginia State University. In 1890, he became the first Black Virginian to serve in Congress — one of the last African Americans to serve in that capacity before the Jim Crow era arose at the end of the 19^th century, Southern states disenfranchising black citizens. He practiced law until his death in 1897 in Washington, D.C., and his great-nephew became one of the nation’s best-known poets, Langston Hughes.

The post On this day in 1855 appeared first on Mississippi Today.