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Sen. Joey Fillingane, defending a controversial bill that would ban gender-affirming care for trans minors, said on the Senate floor Tuesday he’d recently spoken with a Hattiesburg-based plastic surgeon who told him he’d performed gender-confirmation surgery on 17-year-old trans kids. 

That plastic surgeon, contacted Wednesday by Mississippi Today, says he didn’t tell Fillingane that and wants the senator to recant his statement.

Though lawmakers this session have fast-tracked House Bill 1125 – which would ban gender-affirming care including hormone therapy, puberty blockers and gender-confirmation surgery for minors – they had been unable to identify any in-state surgeons that have operated on trans youth. 

That is, until this past Tuesday, when Fillingane presented the bill to the Senate. He took many by surprise when he said he’d talked to “plastic surgeons in Hattiesburg” who told him they had “on occasion” performed gender-confirmation surgeries on 17-year-olds with parental consent. 

“I don’t think it’s often,” Fillingane, R-Sumrall, said on the Senate floor. “I don’t want to make it sound like it’s rampant or it happens a lot, but with one plastic surgeon friend of mine that I’ve spoken with in Hattiesburg just this weekend, he confirmed that, ‘Yeah, I can’t give you specifics, but yeah, I’ve done this.’” 

Dr. Paul Talbot, who founded the Plastic Surgery Center of Hattiesburg in 1998, told Mississippi Today he is the surgeon Fillingane talked to. He recalled the recent conversation with Fillingane — which took place after the men ran into each other at Revolution Fitness in Hattiesburg — differently. 

“It was a two-minute conversation,” Talbot said. “I was on one elliptical, he was on the other.” 

While they were exercising, Talbot said he told Fillingane he has taken on trans adults as clients but has never performed surgery on trans kids. 

“I’ve never done anybody (trans) under the age of 18,” Talbot told Mississippi Today. “He must’ve misheard that because no, we’ve never done that. Never had someone ask me under 18 to do it.” 

Talbot said he may have told Fillingane he might consider performing surgery on a trans teenager under certain circumstances, but he probably would not do it. (International organizations that set standards for gender-affirming care say surgery is appropriate for trans youth in some cases.) 

“If I’m gonna do it for you, one is you gotta be 18,” he said. “Two, I need a letter from your psychiatrist that says you’re stable enough and you know what you’re doing before I’ll even consider it.”

It wasn’t a big deal to talk to Fillingane about HB 1125, Talbot said, because the two have been friends for more than 10 years, and it seemed like the senator was curious about his experience as a surgeon. 

He doesn’t want Fillingane to feel called out but said that it is a shame this misunderstanding is now “part of the record” of the bill. 

“For the political climate in Mississippi, it’s probably a good thing for him,” Talbot said. “But for trans people, it’s probably a bad thing for them.” 

Speaking to Mississippi Today in his office Thursday, Fillingane wouldn’t say that he spoke with Talbot over the weekend, but he said he only spoke to one plastic surgeon who he knows “from the gym.”

“I’m not gonna confirm or deny the person, but I heard what I heard, obviously,” Fillingane said. “I was speaking on that bill, so to whomever I was speaking with, I don’t know how one could mishear something. You’re talking about a specific bill that deals with this specific issue of surgeries related to folks who are trying to transition from one sex to the other.” 

Fillingane added that he’s had “a bunch” of other conversations about HB 1125, including one with the Mississippi State Medical Association’s government relations staffer, who said the organization has no position on the bill. 

“One conversation, whether it was misheard or not, certainly does not comprise the entirety of my due diligence on this bill,” Fillingane said. 

After Mississippi Today spoke with Fillingane, he sent Talbot a text apologizing “for any unwanted attention you may have received from the HB 1125 coverage.” 

“I wanted you to know that I never told them press your name but it seems they have figured it out because I was ambushed by a reporter from MS Today earlier today because I had said I had spoken with a plastic surgeon friend of mine from Hattiesburg about the bill,” he wrote. “They apparently pieced it together but I would never confirm nor deny who it was that I had spoken with but I apologize anyway.” 

It’s likely that HB 1125, which passed the Senate on Tuesday along party lines, would have been headed to the governor’s desk whether or not Fillingane had claimed to find a surgeon in Mississippi who has performed gender-confirmation surgery on trans minors. 

Regardless of the outcome of his conversation at the gym, Fillingane said he would have supported the bill.  

“Even if you were to accept for the sake of argument that these particular surgeries don’t happen at all or certainly very often in this state, so therefore we don’t need this bill, I think (that) misses the larger point,” he said. “There are other parts of this bill, i.e. the prescription of puberty blocking drugs and the prescribing of cross hormone therapies, that I think we all can admit is in fact happening in Mississippi.”  

Other powerful elected officials, like Gov. Tate Reeves, have claimed with no proof that gender-confirmation surgery is harming Mississippi children. 

“While some in our country push surgical mutilation onto 11 year olds, even here in Mississippi, even liberal darlings like Finland and Denmark and Sweden don’t allow these surgeries to be performed on kids who are under the age of 18,” Reeves said in his State of the State address. 

Similar claims misrepresent just how difficult it is for trans kids in Mississippi to access gender-affirming care, advocates and in-state providers say. 

There is just one clinic in the state — Spectrum: The Other Clinic in Hattiesburg — that currently prescribes puberty blockers and hormones to teenagers 16 years or older. Younger trans kids and their families must go out of state to access these medications, which often aren’t covered by insurance and can be costly, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars a year. 

Rob Hill, the state director of the Human Rights Campaign Mississippi, said he is angry that Fillingane, Reeves and other lawmakers have spread misinformation this session about gender-affirming care because it endangers already vulnerable trans kids. Gender-affirming care is evidence-based and multiple studies have shown it significantly reduces suicidality among trans kids who receive it. 

Fillingane is “somebody that touts his faith very often, and I would say that this is not a faithful act,” Hill said. “What the lieutenant governor did, what the speaker did and what the governor’s ultimately going to do — and those who voted for this legislation — is not faithful … it was harmful.” 

The misinformation and lack of research by lawmakers is typical for bills that take on “culture war” issues in Mississippi. In 2021, lawmakers could not identify any complaints about trans athletes in Mississippi despite banning their participation on sports teams that align with their gender identity. Last year, many lawmakers were repeatedly asked to correctly define “critical race theory” and could not. 

But this session, Fillingane sought to do what no other Republican lawmaker had done so far in the debate around HB 1125: Talk to actual providers of gender-affirming care in Mississippi. On Monday, he invited Stacie and Lee Pace, the owners of Spectrum: The Other Clinic, to meet with him in his office about the care they provide. 

At the gym, Talbot recalled a more casual conversation. 

“This was no big formal thing where you’re taking notes or anything like that,” he said, noting that Fillingane’s questions were about what he does and how many trans people he’s operated “as far as, is it a big number.” 

Talbot estimated he has performed chest surgery on five trans adults roughly the ages of 24 or 25 who had psychiatric letters, which is what he says he told Fillingane. 

In general, Talbot said he doesn’t operate on people under 18 because that’s what he believes is moral. He said most surgeons in Mississippi do the same. 

“I wouldn’t bend that rule just because we’re doing a gender transition,” he said. 

There’s only a few instances in which Talbot would, like a congential condition that results in substantially uneven breasts. Talbot also gave this example: “She’s gonna be 18 in a month or two, and so you’re going to college, where, you know, before you go to college, every body knows your body image before you get there. Mom’s on board, and it seems like a reasonable thing. Yes, yeah, I’ve done that. But again, that’s rare.” 

The gender binary is not as clear-cut as some Mississippians might think, Talbot said. He thinks of cosmetic procedures for cis people as on the same spectrum as those for trans people. 

“Typically once you have them draped out in the operating room ready to do surgery, I couldn’t tell if it’s a boy or girl lying on the table,” he said. 

There’s no difference, he said, when it comes to the actual procedure: A mastectomy for a cis woman is performed exactly the same way as “top surgery” on a trans man. Still, in Mississippi and across the country, trans people face more barriers in obtaining the same procedures that cis people can get with little questions asked. 

“I don’t put a big weight on transitioning,” Talbot said. “I mean, we screen them, I think, better. … We probably find out a lot more information. When it comes down to doing the surgery, it’s just another operation I’ve done 15,000 times, and this one’s no different from the last 15,000.” 

All Mississippians should be able to get plastic surgery if they can pay for it, Talbot said. That’s why he doesn’t take insurance. 

“There’s lots of girls, thank goodness, walking around with small breasts that want big breasts,” he said. “You don’t get them just because you’ve got small breasts. It’s the same thing to me.” 

As the two were exercising, Talbot said he told Fillingane that he doesn’t think House Bill 1125 is a good idea. 

“I don’t like them reducing what people can do or limiting what people can do – for anybody, for any group,” Talbot said. “It doesn’t seem right.” 

The next time he sees Fillingane at the gym, Talbot said he’ll ask him to take back his comments. 

“When I see Joey, I’ll have to say to him, ‘Hey, you need to recant that or whatever because no I’ve never done that,’” Talbot said. “Again, he was on the (elliptical), I was on the (elliptical). It could easily have been misunderstood, I would think.” 

The post Mississippi lawmaker cited trans teen surgeries that never actually happened appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Unless you binge watch Tucker Carlson, you know that things haven’t turned out like Vladimir Putin’s ego had planned. And sadly, the Ukrainians and the Russian people have paid a hefty price for it.

The post Marshall Ramsey: One Year Later appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Controversial House legislation that would create a special judicial district within the city of Jackson with judges appointed instead of elected was significantly changed Thursday by the Senate Judiciary A Committee.

The House legislation was opposed by many because it created permanent judicial posts appointed by the white chief justice of the state Supreme Court, instead of elected by the Black majority population of Jackson.

Under changes made by the Senate panel, there no longer would be a separate judicial district with appointed judges. The Senate plan unveiled by Senate Judiciary A Chair Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, would place in law five special judges appointed by Chief Justice Michael Randolph to help ease the backlog of cases currently facing the four elected circuit judge serving Hinds County and the city of Jackson. Those special judges could hear cases until December 2026. The bill would also add another elected judge for the Hinds County judicial district. That judge would be elected in 2026 and assume office in January 2027.

The Senate plan also would eliminate another controversial portion of the House proposal that expanded an existing Capital Complex Improvement District to cover what many members of the Jackson legislative delegation described as the whiter and more affluent areas of the city. The Senate plan would give state law enforcement, which currently has jurisdiction in the existing Capital Compex Improvement District, police powers throughout the city. Some members of the city’s delegation said language dealing with the expanded jurisdiction needed to be “tweaked” at the least to give the city more say in establishing the guidelines for that expanded jurisdiction.

But members of the Jackson delegation liked the fact the new plan provided three additional assistant district attorneys and three additional public defenders for Hinds County. The House plan placed the new prosecutors in the office of the state attorney general instead of the office of the district attorney of Hinds County

Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, said the plan passed by the Senate Judiciary A Committee was “less onerous” than the House plan. He said there are still areas to improve the Senate proposal that he hoped could be addressed as the proposal moves through the process.

Other members of the Jackson delegation described the changes made by the Senate panel as steps in the right direction, though, they said it was too early to commit to voting for the measure. Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, and others said it will be important to have members of the Jackson delegation in the final negotiations on the bill should it go to a conference committee. That’s where key House and Senate members meet to work out differences between the two chambers’ versions of a bill.

House Bill 1020 was authored by House Wayns and Means Chair Trey Lamar. He said it was “a good faith effort to deal with the crime problem facing the state’s largest and capital city.

But the proposal quickly became a powder keg. It was described in emotional debate earlier this month of the House floor as a version of old Jim Crow laws that stripped Black people of their voting rights.

Just hours before the Senate Judiciary A Committee met, Jackson legislators held a news conference at the state Capitol to urge Senate leadership to consider their recommendations.

State Rep. Ronnie Crudup Jr., D-Jackson, said legislative leaders for years have ignored the recommendation made by Hinds County legislators to deal with Jackson’s problems.

“What we have gotten is a refusal to let the solutions we’ve proposed out of committee. We’ve gotten blame when our city, starved for resources, continues to struggle (and) accusations of inept Black leaders. And finally, the threat of a takeover,” Crudup said, flanked by other legislators from Jackson and some Democratic colleagues from other parts of the state.

“This piecemeal takeover of the city — disenfranchising our voters, creating a hand-picked judicial system, prioritizing the safety of one group of Jacksonians over another — … isn’t coming from a place of care,” Crudup said.  “Make no mistake: this is not altruistic. This is about control. Plain and simple. This is about carving out a portion of the city and making a distinction between Jacksonians: those who warrant additional investment, and those who will be left to deal with the issues facing their city with limited resources and virtually no support from their state government.”

The Jackson legislators said their recommendations have included:

• An additional elected judge for the Hinds County district.
• State funding to help the Jackson Police Department instead of spending $18 million for law enforcement to patrol solely in the Capital Complex Improvement District.
• Additional funding for the state Crime Lab. They said the inability of the Crime Lab to timely analyze evidence and provide testimony for trials has contributed to a backlog of cases.
• Additional funds for parks and recreation activities in the city, as Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, said has been done for other communities across the state.
• Additional funds for guidance counselors and other support in city schools.

Lamar has defended the legislation, saying it was proposed to help not harm the city.

“The genesis of HB 1020 was the need for public safety. Spikes in both violent and property crime have made it so that families don’t feel safe in their own communities. Many who live outside of Jackson literally fear traveling to their capital city. For two years in a row, Jackson has been saddled with the highest per capita murder rate in the nation,” he wrote in a commentary he provided to members of the media.

He said there are other instances where there are appointed judges hearing cases in the state. But no one has pointed out an instance where there are permanent appointed judges of essentially equivalent jurisdiction hearing cases.

The post Senate panel strips many ‘onerous’ provisions from Jackson crime bill appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and we didn’t become the son of Kansas this year.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Another Balloon appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today investigative reporter Anna Wolfe is one of six finalists for the 2023 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, one of the nation’s most prestigious journalism honors, for her explosive series “The Backchannel.”

Wolfe’s series unearthed new evidence about former Gov. Phil Bryant’s role in the state’s massive welfare scandal, inspiring multiple court defendants to come forward with allegations against Bryant or publicly insist Bryant be held accountable.

READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s full “The Backchannel” series

Wolfe and Mississippi Today are among six finalists for the award, which will be announced on March 15. The six newsroom finalists are: The New York Times, The Associated Press, National Public Radio, Reuters, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Mississippi Today.

“This year’s finalists represent investigative journalism at its finest – classic stories that begin with a reporter tugging at a loose thread or following a lead, and uncovering truths too vital to ignore,” said Nancy Gibbs, director of the Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School, where the award is housed. “We prize great public interest journalism for both its excellence and its impact, and these finalists represent the very best of both.”

Wolfe and former Mississippi Today reporter Michelle Liu won the 2021 Goldsmith Prize for their investigation, in conjunction with The Marshall Project, of the state’s restitution centers.

Below is the Shorenstein Center’s full description of Mississippi Today’s series:

Reporter Anna Wolfe read a startling statistic published in a 2017 report: Mississippi, the most impoverished state in the nation, was approving just 1.5% of families applying for cash welfare assistance. That statistic sent Wolfe looking for where the state was sending the federal funds, if not to families who needed them. Over the next five years, Wolfe submitted more than 80 public records requests and faced repeated stonewalling from government officials and agencies. Through the challenging reporting process, she discovered that the state was funneling tens of millions-worth of welfare grants through two nonprofits under the guise of former Gov. Phil Bryant’s nebulous anti-poverty program called Families First for Mississippi, which refused to provide direct aid, instead leading needy families down dead ends. After the arrests of state welfare agency and nonprofit officials for embezzlement, Wolfe’s reporting didn’t stop: through private text messages that officials concealed from the public, Wolfe uncovered corruption and influence peddling extending all the way to Bryant and former NFL legend Brett Favre. Bryant admitted to many of the report’s findings in a rare on-the-record interview. Multiple defendants have since come forward with allegations against Bryant or have relied on the reporting in court filings that insist Bryant be held accountable. Congressman Bennie Thompson and the NAACP president urged the U.S. Attorney General and Department of Justice to investigate Bryant’s otherwise ignored role in the scandal, and Thompson has vowed to hold congressional hearings. State lawmakers, citing the investigation, held multiple hearings about how the state could better spend its welfare grants. Several legislators filed bills in early 2023 to reform the welfare agency’s management and oversight over federal funds. Meanwhile, federal criminal investigations into the scandal continue. 

Shorenstein Center press release from Feb. 23

The post Mississippi Today’s Anna Wolfe among six finalists for 2023 Goldsmith Prize appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Republican lawmakers want to create a separate, unelected judicial district in Jackson to clear Hinds County’s case backlog and address crime in Jackson, but the state’s overwhelmed and understaffed Crime Lab may make that impossible. 

During more than four hours of debate on House Bill 1020, several Jackson lawmakers said the court has a backlog because of the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory, which is where local police departments, sheriffs and other law enforcement send evidence to be analyzed and used in trials. 

“We can get two new judges appointed by the Supreme Court, but you know what? They’re going to have the same problem getting stuff from the Crime Lab,” said Rep. Earle Banks, D-Jackson.

Banks said judges across the state — not just in Hinds County — have problems receiving evidence from the Crime Lab in a timely manner.

The bill, which has attracted broad national scrutiny to the state, would create a Capitol Complex Improvement District courts system with two appointed judges as well as appointed prosecutors, public defenders and a clerk. The officials who would make the appointments – the Supreme Court Chief Justice and the state attorney general – are white, while a majority of Jackson and Hinds residents are Black.

READ MORE: ‘Only in Mississippi’: White representatives vote to create white-appointed court system for Blackest city in America

The lack of manpower and resources at the state Crime Lab has a direct effect on the judges’ ability to move cases forward, a Hinds County judge told Mississippi Today this week. Often there is a delay, the judge said, because an autopsy hasn’t been completed or ballistics or lab results are pending or a lab expert isn’t available to testify.

During a Jan. 11 Senate Appropriations Committee meeting, Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell acknowledged the state’s forensic backlog has reached a critical level and is growing as staff leave.

With him were two state Crime Lab technicians who said they were quitting due to low pay. The entry salary for a scientist at the lab is $33,600 and requires a bachelor’s degree, which is a lower salary than other government agencies and the private sector offer. Additionally, raises for more senior staff were not enough, the former employees said.

The Crime Lab, which also handles autopsies through the state medical examiner’s office, also has a backlog, but that has been greatly reduced since 2020 due to hiring and contracting work supported by federal relief funds, Tindell said during the meeting. He said the goal is to have the autopsy backlog eliminated by the end of 2023.

As of Wednesday, the Crime Lab has 60 employees to process evidence, a DPS spokesperson said. Staffing has remained around that number for the past two years.

The Crime Lab received nearly 25,000 requests from state, local and federal agencies in 2017, according to the most recent publicly available report from DPS. There were about 60 scientists who received about 3,000 subpoenas for court testimony across Mississippi, according to the report.

All forensic scientists can be called to trial, and drug and firearms analysts are called in more often than the DNA analysts, the DPS spokesperson said.

Last year, the Legislature approved federal relief funds for Chief Justice Michael Randolph to appoint four special judges to the Hinds court system.

During debate about HB 1020, lawmakers also asked if increasing the number of elected judges in Hinds County could help work through the case backlog. As caseloads have increased over the years, lawmakers said four circuit court judges is not enough.

“I’ve heard about the (court) backlog and the problem, but not heard one single word (of) ‘Let’s increase the number of judges in Jackson, Mississippi. Let’s increase the amount of resources to operate,’” said Rep. Edward Blackmon Jr., D-Canton, during debate.

Bill author Rep. Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, said the Legislature can look at potentially adding more elected judges during judicial redistricting. During judicial redistricting in 2015, judges were not added for Hinds County.

Jackson lawmakers said nobody asked them about the bill or what the city and county’s needs are for its criminal justice system, which they say could include more funding for the Jackson Police Department, support for Hinds County prosecutors and additional elected judges.

Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, asked Lamar why the $1.6 million funding for the bill could not have been used to give resources to the city to address public safety concerns or to help the Hinds County court system reduce its case backlog.

“Lady, this is the bill that is before the body,” he replied.

House Bill 1020 was referred to the Senate’s Judiciary A Committee, which has a Feb. 28 deadline to be passed before it can be considered by the full Senate.

READ MORE: Hinds County forces unite against bill to create unelected judicial district, expanded police force

The post Would a separate Jackson court end case backlog? Unlikely with state’s critically understaffed Crime Lab. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

FEBRUARY 23, 1929

Baseball catcher Elston Howard was born in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1955, he became the first Black player to sign with the New York Yankees, signing a $70,000 contract — the highest paid baseball player at the time. By 1959, the Yankees were often playing Howard at first base so that he could remain in the lineup. 

Despite lacking a regular position, he was selected to the All-Star team in 1957, the first of nine consecutive years through 1965 in which he made the squad. In 1963, he became the American League’s Most Valuable Player, the first Black player to do so, after setting a record in putouts and total chances in a season. He is credited with inventing the doughnut for batting practice, which makes the bat feel heavier so that it will feel lighter when swinging at the plate. 

He won four World Series as a player and two more as a coach for the Yankees, becoming the first Black coach in the American League. After coaching, he became an administrative assistant with the Yankees and died in 1980. “The Yankees’ organization lost more class on the weekend,” New York Times columnist Red Smith wrote, “than George Steinbrenner could buy in 10 years.” The Yankees wore a black armband in memory of him in the 1981 season. Three years later, the Yankees returned his number, 32, and dedicated a plaque that honored him as “a man of great gentleness and dignity” — “one of the truly great Yankees.”

The post On this day in 1929 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to name Mississippi Baptist Medical Center as the home of the state’s next burn center.

The move came less than a week after the House Appropriations Committee approved awarding the University of Mississippi Medical Center, which has publicly announced it is establishing a burn center, $4 million for the same purpose.

Rep. Karl Oliver, R-Winona, vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, presented a strike-all amendment to the UMMC bill on the House floor. The amendment names Baptist Medical Center as the state’s burn center and awards federal COVID-19 funds “not otherwise appropriated” to the Mississippi Department of Health, which would flow through to Baptist.

Oliver said the funds would go to the Health Department to ensure they go only towards costs specifically associated with the burn center.

Several lawmakers were confused about UMMC’s current status with burn care, asking whether UMMC has “closed its burn center.” Mississippi Today previously reported that while UMMC officials publicly said they were treating pediatric burns, an internal email from a member of the newly established Burn Committee revealed otherwise.

“They (UMMC) don’t have a burn center. They’ve been treating burn patients,” said Oliver. “We’ve been sending severe burn patients out of state.”

Rep. Bob Evans, D-Monticello, asked about the time frame for the establishment of the center.

Oliver said he did not know, but assumed Baptist would want “to move forward with it as quickly as they can.”

Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, said she was confused about the sudden change in plans and felt like she still had unanswered questions.

“I was a little concerned that the chairman didn’t have the information about how much it was going to cost because I imagine it’s probably going to be three, maybe four times, what UMMC is asking for,” said Summers. “My last concern is knowing that Baptist is a private hospital, how does that affect a patient’s access to care should they need to go to a burn center?”

A fellow Democrat had a different view, however.

Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville, asked about Dr. Derek Culnan, the former medical director at the now-closed Merit Health Central burn center who is currently treating burn patients at Baptist.

Hines told Mississippi Today his mother worked at the former Greenville burn center for 20 years. That center closed in 2005, at which time UMMC’s leadership was not interested in operating a burn center without continuous state funding.

Hines, who voted for the bill naming Baptist as the state’s burn center, said he was also involved with the establishment of the JMS Burn and Reconstruction Center in Jackson.

Merit Health Central, citing the pandemic and recruitment challenges, announced it would be closing that center last year, leaving a void in burn care.

“I just thought he (Culnan) was best qualified and is already doing the work,” Hines said of his vote for the new version of the bill. ” … But when you got a person that’s doing what’s best for the people, let them continue to do what’s best.”

Any hospital operating a burn center must get designation from the state Health Department to receive additional state funding.

UMMC has submitted its application for such designation. Heath Department spokesperson Liz Sharlot said the application is under review.

As of Tuesday, Baptist had not submitted its application, according to the hospital’s spokesperson.

Officials with Baptist and UMMC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday afternoon.

The bill now goes to the Senate where it will likely be assigned to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The post House reverses course, names Baptist as state’s burn center appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today’s Editor-in-Chief Adam Ganucheau answered your questions on Reddit about the legislative session, the welfare scandal and more.

Read his answers below and catch up on our legislative coverage by reading The Legislative Guide.

Q: Hey Adam, what is the argument for not expanding Medicaid?

A: A very good question, particularly as the state’s hospital crisis rages on and hundreds of thousands of poor, working Mississippians cannot afford health care.

The main argument from the handful of Republican leaders who have rejected Medicaid expansion is that we can’t afford it. This argument is getting tougher to justify as more and more studies show that it would effectively pay for itself in the form of new jobs and capital created. Plus, there are extra, post-COVID incentives from the federal government for the 11 holdout states to expand.

My colleague Geoff Pender has a great article that runs through all the main arguments for not expanding Medicaid we’ve heard over the years.

Q: In your mind, do Mississippi politicians feel they are immune to media scrutiny? What can be done to get the public more interested in what their politicians are doing?

A: As journalists, we can only report the truth of what our elected officials do and say and how they serve the public. I do think there are times that media coverage gets a ton of pickup, both across the state and nationally. Too often, as we all know, nothing changes in Mississippi until there’s a big, bright national spotlight on us. I hate that has to be the case, but it’s been that way for many decades.

I can promise you the politicians feel the weight of that national scrutiny. Rep. Trey Lamar knows a lot about that right now after he proposed HB 1020, dubbed “the Jackson takeover bill,” that has been written about nationally the past couple weeks. He has millions of people around the nation calling him a racist, and it’s evident from his Twitter page that he is hearing and seeing that. Whether or not it changes his thinking or perspective, more to your point, is less certain.

I don’t know, exactly, how to get the public more interested in what the politicians are doing. I do know that we at Mississippi Today will keep being as blunt and truthful about what we see as we can. I also think so many elected officials in Mississippi rarely hear directly from constituents about anything, really. It would seem to me that could change some behavior, but it’s hard to say.

For a more local example of how the media coverage doesn’t sway their behavior:

Read my column from Monday about a tactic House Republicans were ramping up to stifle debate with Democratic colleagues.

Then read our story from Tuesday about House Republicans not only doing what I’d just written but taking it an extreme step further (and peep the incredible photo).

Q: What is the potential for discovery in Brett Favre’s lawsuit against Shad White and NFL media personalities to do damage to Phil Bryant and others trying very hard to ignore it all?

A: Honestly no idea. Many people a whole lot smarter than me believe that Favre’s defamation suit against Shad White will never reach the discovery phase, but who knows. We do know that Favre has been methodically ramping up the narrative that “Phil Bryant is guilty, not me,” to paraphrase. I’d say in any case that is open and even tangentially related to the welfare scandal, more could potentially come out on Bryant and others who have been scrutinized either in the courts or the public sphere. But it’s hard to say what Favre’s thinking is on this defamation stuff. No matter what: Anything related to the defamation suit “re-ups” attention on Bryant and others in the scandal. Just look for Bryant’s name in any of the hundreds of national stories from the past couple weeks about Favre’s suit. It’s everywhere.

Some recent Favre finger-pointing, written by my colleague Anna Wolfe.

Q: When can we expect the politicians involved in the TANF scandal to be held accountable?

A: I don’t know that anyone can safely say that any additional indictments will be handed down. I can pretty safely say that anything new that comes down will have to come from the feds, not the state. As far as we know, the only state investigation happening is related to the DHS civil suit attempting to recoup much of the known misspent money. Nothing criminal there.

As for what’s happening on the federal side, we have been told by several people (and reported as much) that a federal investigation continues. A huge story that I don’t think has gotten nearly enough traction is that Biden nominated a U.S. attorney for the southern district of Mississippi who is perhaps the single best qualified person to run a political corruption investigation like this. Todd Gee, a Mississippi native, did exactly that for the U.S. Department of Justice for several years! But Biden’s nominations for Mississippi have stalled because of this controversial process in the U.S. Senate called the “blue slip process.” So basically because of Washington politics, this super qualified U.S. attorney can’t yet lead the investigation of the welfare scandal. That should be maddening, I believe, to every U.S. taxpayer whose money was literally stolen in this scandal.

All this is to say: I don’t know when politicians involved in the TANF scandal will be held accountable. It’s possible the answer is “never.”

9/2/22: Biden appoints Todd Gee to lead welfare investigation

1/20/23: Attorneys drop hints that feds are eyeing former Gov. Phil Bryant in welfare investigation

1/11/23: Biden’s appointments stall in Mississippi

2/1/23: Democrats urge Biden to ignore ‘blue slip’ custom to get federal vacancies filled in Republican states like Mississippi

Q: I want to know what specifically we as voters can do to restore our balloting rights. This issue trumps them all because without it we are serfs

A: Restoring the ballot initiative is something we at Mississippi Today have been keeping an incredibly close eye on this session. Y’all know this, but the quick background: A ballot initiative process allows voters to collect signatures and place issues on a statewide ballot, effectively circumventing lawmakers. It’s an extremely democratic power that voters in most states have at their disposal in case they think elected officials aren’t serving their interests.

When the Mississippi Supreme Court struck down our ballot initiative process in a May 2021 ruling, we became the first state to have that done in that matter — and became one of several with no ballot initiative process at all. Legislative leaders, including House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, quickly said they would work to reinstate some version of a ballot initiative. But last year, their first session with the chance to, they didn’t.

Right now, there is just one bill alive in the 2023 legislative session that would reinstate the ballot initiative, but it is extremelyyyy different than our old process. As written, this bill would make it so much harder to actually get something on the ballot, PLUS it would allow lawmakers to have the final say on whether or not to adopt the will of the voters. As my colleague Bobby Harrison wrote, the bill would “take voters out of voter initiative process.”

It seems the Senate leadership — Sen. John Polk and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann — are the ones pushing for this controversial version of the ballot initiative. I know a lot of folks are contacting them about this issue. But it’s in the House’s hands for now, and the House leadership clearly wants to improve the Senate version. The two main folks in the House dealing with this bill will be Rep. Fred Shanks and Speaker of the House Philip Gunn.

Some further reading from Bobby Harrison: Senate Bill takes voters out of initiative proposal and Senators keep watered-down ballot initiative bill alive, vow to improve it

Q: Hey, Adam. Why did a certain attorney in Jim Hood’s office sign off on the Brett Favre deal?

A: I’m proud of how transparent we’ve been about this from the beginning. Linking my editor’s note below, but since it came up here, I’ll say a little more. A political operative who constantly trashes my colleagues and other journalists in the state — a guy who is closely tied to several Republican officials and staffers who have been implicated in the welfare scandal — dragged my mother into the narrative without bothering to try to report the full context of what really happened.

To quote from my editor’s note: “That political actors are willing to leverage the bureaucratic role my own mother played in state government to try to discredit Mississippi Today’s reporting is notable. But it should not distract readers from the real story: Powerful Mississippians appear to have used the state government system to steer millions away from our neediest residents into their own pockets and the pockets of their wealthy friends. We will follow and report the story wherever it leads us, just as we always have.”

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The post Reddit AMA recap: 2023 Legislative session with Adam Ganucheau appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Two measures aimed at helping rape survivors get justice have unanimously passed the state House and are before the Senate, where they were killed without a vote last year.

But Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who oversees the Senate, on Wednesday voiced support for the measures, which could help their chances greatly.

“The lieutenant governor supports the bills and is encouraging the chairmen to bring them out of committee,” said spokeswoman Leah Rupp Smith.

House Bill 485, authored by Rep. Angela Cockerham, I-Magnolia, would standardize the handling, timely testing and tracking of sexual assault evidence or “rape kits” in Mississippi. Unlike 36 other states, Mississippi has no statewide rules and advocates say there is a large — albeit unknown due to lack of tracking — backlog of unprocessed rape kits. It would also give survivors the right to know the status of their kits.

House Bill 995, authored by Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus, would remove archaic, misogynistic language from the 1800s from Mississippi’s rape and sexual battery laws and remove a spousal defense for those who commit marital rape. The bill would clarify the definition and elements of rape and sexual assault, replacing passages such as “assault with the intent to forcibly ravish a female of previously chaste character.”

Sandy Middleton, director of the Center for Violence Prevention, said, “Mississippi has a backlog of rape cases, but it’s not at the crime lab. The kits are sitting in hospital emergency room refrigerators or the trunk of police cruisers.”

Middleton and other advocates said statistics are scant, but one review showed that from 2019 through 2021, only 20 rapes were prosecuted in Mississippi. While there are problems finding statistics on reported rapes, one national report said Mississippi had 1,148 reported cases in 2020.

A 2019 Associated Press report said that at the time there was a backlog of 600 rape kits that had not been DNA tested.

Middleton said a Jackson area hospital recently reported that it had 50 rape kits in a refrigerator awaiting law enforcement to pick them up, and some had been there for a year and a half. Of those, 15 were from cases where children were raped.

Besides lack of testing of evidence, Mississippi’s antiquated rape laws hinder prosecution.

McLean said she believes many prosecutors use the state’s sexual battery laws instead of the rape statute with harsher penalties because the latter’s language is so antiquated.

READ MORE: Lawmaker continues bid to remove archaic, misogynistic language from state rape, sexual battery laws

McLean’s bill would delete language in the law that says a person would not be guilty of rape or sexual battery if the alleged victim was the defendant’s legal spouse at the time of the offense and the couple is not separated and living apart. It would also change law that said a legal spouse may be found guilty of sexual battery if the spouse engaged in forcible penetration without the consent of the alleged victim. McLean said because current law uses language such as “forcible” and “consent,” this could be used as a defense if a spouse was incapacitated, such as passed out drunk or on drugs.

Although since the early 1990s every state recognizes marital rape as a crime, some including Mississippi still have laws on the books that either provide protection for the perpetrator or lesser penalties. 

Both bills recently passed the House unanimously. But they both passed the House overwhelmingly last year as well, only to die in Senate committee.

Advocates supporting the bills, flanked by several House and Senate lawmakers, held a press conference on the measures on Wednesday. They said Senate Judiciary A Chairman Brice Wiggins, who’s been assigned the rape kit bill, has worked with them and appeared supportive. Wiggins did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

House Bill 995 to remove archaic and misogynistic language and a spousal rape defense from the law has been assigned again to Senate Judiciary B Chairman Joey Fillingane’s committee. Last year, after he let the bill die without a vote in his committee, Fillingane said he agreed with the bill’s intent, but said there were numerous bills in both chambers aimed at changing rape and assault laws. He said he wanted to have hearings out of session and make sweeping changes instead of having multiple different bills.

Fillingane on Wednesday was noncommittal on whether he would take the bill up for a vote in committee this year, only that, “We are certainly looking at it and studying it.” He said he has not had hearings or drafted sweeping changes to rape and assault laws, but is doing such work with other older state code. He said the rape code McLean’s bill aims to update “is very outdated and the whole section is in need of a revision.”

Advocates on Wednesday said rape survivors want justice and deserve to know the status of testing in their case.

The post Bills to bring Mississippi rape laws into 21st Century move to Senate appeared first on Mississippi Today.