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A new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll showed wide support for Mississippi expanding Medicaid to cover the working poor, including 70% support from Republican respondents.

The numbers appear to show a continued shift of voter sentiment in what has long been a partisan battle. Mississippi’s elected Republican governors and other leaders for the last decade have blocked Medicaid expansion via the Affordable Care Act and the billions in federal dollars that would have come with it. This resistance continues even as struggling hospitals and more citizens in the poorest, unhealthiest state cry for help.

READ MORE: Poll: 80% of Mississippians favor Medicaid expansion

READ MORE: Frequently asked questions: What is Medicaid expansion, really?

Several poll respondents agreed to talk with Mississippi Today about their support or opposition to expanding the federal-state health care program to cover people making up to 138% of the poverty level, or the working poor.

Republican voters who support Medicaid expansion

Katherine Bagwell, 79, West Point, small business owner

“Why not expand it, if they’re working and still not making it? Medical bills are ridiculous. It needs to be for working people, unless they are not working because they can’t. Right this minute, I know an 18-year-old who dropped out of school and is not looking for a job, living with his momma. For him, I don’t support anything but him getting off the couch … I consider myself a conservative Republican.

“And I would like to say these need to be American citizens. I’m not in favor of giving everything to illegals coming across … I have a daughter whose husband is having major problems. He’s trying to get on social security disability. She’s working, trying her best … He’s worked all his life, but a major accident at work started all this. She does not have insurance through work … I think it’s wonderful that there is Medicaid. My daughter’s children had Medicaid when they were younger, or I don’t know what they would have done. Right now I’m paying insurance for them, because she can’t afford it.”

Joy Cevera, 60, Oxford, disability-retired cook

“Yes, I support (Medicaid expansion). I used to be one of the working poor. I watched my son suffer because I couldn’t afford medical care for him. And if you’re working and you have to go through that, there’s a problem. He’s now 35, and I’m still watching him suffer because he’s one of the working poor. There’s got to be something done. If other states can do it, why can’t we? I know we are one of the saddest states, and I know it might mess up (the budget) within the state, but something’s got to be done.

“I pretty much support the Republicans. None of them make any sense, but they make the most sense to me.”

Brad Dickey, 58, Southaven, engineer

“My wife is a nurse … People need to have access to health care. I think we do have a responsibility as a society to help folks, and sometimes the folks you’re helping aren’t your favorite folks, but too bad. The right to live is a basic right and I think we have the responsibility to help people who are less fortunate than we are. They should expand it. We are an unhealthy state.

“Yes, I vote Republican probably 90% of the time. I don’t really fit what the party has become lately — I’d say I’m a Reagan Republican maybe leaning toward a Ford Republican. … I tell my friends who say they don’t want to give money to people who don’t work or can’t afford insurance, ‘Yes, but they have children.’ … They have got to have something, otherwise what they do is go to the emergency room. Going to the emergency room, where they are shorthanded, for a cold. It would be much more affordable care if done another way. It stresses the hospitals, and yes, we end up paying for it anyway … I think Tate Reeves honestly has done about the best job anybody could do through this period … I guess I disagree with my party on this.”

Robbie Raymond, 47, Florence, heavy equipment operator

“Yes. I support it, but in a very specific way. I do believe we need to do more to help the working poor, or the retired. I think that Medicare and Medicaid for our elderly and retired is a horribly broken system … But for the people who are able to work that don’t and think they need assistance, what they need is a job. That’s our big downfall in this whole country, that we don’t do enough to help the people that need help, and do too much for the people who don’t need it … I’ve been fortunate and always had a good job, made good money and had insurance. But there’s lots of people I know that struggle.

“I’m from Florence, and I personally know (Gov. Tate Reeves). I do disagree with Tate Reeves (on Medicaid expansion), but I still talk with him a couple of times a year, and I know that he also shares my viewpoint that we should do more to help our retired and our working poor.”

Cindy Handley, 63, Hattiesburg, teacher

“I think there are people that fall in the cracks and don’t get the support they need because they make $2 too much … The income limits are pretty low in Mississippi compared to other states, like Colorado. I say that because I have a friend on retirement disability who was able to get assistance in Colorado, but not able to in Mississippi … Yes, I do support (Gov. Tate Reeves). But this is just something I disagree with him on. I’m not really sure why he’s opposed. I’ve not heard him speak on it. I just think there are a lot of people in need.”

Republicans (and an independent) who oppose Medicaid expansion

Joseph Allen, 42, Brandon, small business owner

“I have an LLC. I work for myself. I pay for my own insurance myself, and it’s a lot of money. I think that people that pay into the system more should be held up more. To me it’s like a broken record in America. The more you put in, the more you’re penalized. The yarder you work, the more money they take.

“Not to go off on a diatribe, but when LBJ implemented the welfare system and entitlement, it was not a bad idea to start off with. But then you end up with incentives for people to be failures in life.”

Marcia Johnson, 69, Poplarville, owner of construction company

“Mostly, I oppose it because of all these young girls out here having all these kids, and I’m having to pay for it. Once is a mistake, but continuously and then Medicaid having to pay for it is not a mistake. Medicaid is supposed to just be for those that something happens to them and they haven’t got any income or insurance. But a lot of Medicaid goes on in the state of Mississippi that shouldn’t, with taxpayers paying for it. There are so many jobs out there. There’s help-wanted signs everywhere. No more expansion. Mississippi should not expand Medicaid any more. If I’ve worked all these years and haven’t been on Medicaid, I don’t believe others should be, either.”

Michelle Dukes, 52, Edwards, homemaker and caregiver, former mental health field worker

“I worked in the mental health field for 15 years, and I often saw people that needed (Medicaid) who couldn’t get it, and people who didn’t need it who got it. Yes. I oppose it, because I saw the abuse of it … The system needs to be fixed before they expand it. I know we need a safety net, but it just seems like it is not run properly.

“I would say I’m an independent. I guess I’m right of center, but I don’t like the Republicans and I don’t like the Democrats.”

READ MORE: Mississippi leaving more than $1 billion per year on table by rejecting Medicaid expansion

The post Why these Republican voters support, oppose Medicaid expansion appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A wide majority of Mississippians across partisan and demographic lines supports expanding Medicaid to provide health coverage for the working poor, according to a newly released Mississippi Today/Siena College poll.

The poll showed 80% of respondents — including 70% of Republicans — either strongly agree or somewhat agree the state should “accept federal funds to expand Medicaid.”

The numbers appear to show a continued shift of voter sentiment in what has long been a partisan battle. Mississippi’s elected Republican governors and other leaders for the last decade have blocked Medicaid expansion via the Affordable Care Act and the billions in federal dollars that would have come with it. This resistance continues even as struggling hospitals and more citizens in the poorest, unhealthiest state cry for help.

“Yes, I support it,” said Joy Cevera, 60, a Republican voter from Oxford who said she generally supports Gov. Tate Reeves but disagrees with him on Medicaid expansion. Several poll respondents agreed to talk with Mississippi Today about their responses.

For Cevera, a disability-retired cook, the issue is personal.

“I used to be one of the working poor,” she said. “I watched my son suffer because I couldn’t afford medical care for him … He’s now 35, and I’m still watching him suffer because he’s one of the working poor. There’s got to be something done. If other states can do it, why can’t we?”

The poll showed large majorities across partisan and demographic lines strongly support the state’s hospitals, large and small, being adequately funded and a majority believe state government has a responsibility to help poor, working people pay for basic healthcare. Vast majorities, including 91% of Republican voters, agree every Mississippian should have access to good health care.

“I think we do have a responsibility as a society to help folks, and sometimes the folks you’re helping aren’t your favorite folks, but too bad,” said Brad Dickey, 58, an engineer from Southaven who said he votes Republican at least 90% of the time. “The right to live is a basic right … They should expand it. We are an unhealthy state … I tell my friends who say they don’t want to give money to people who don’t work or can’t afford insurance, ‘Yes, but they have children.’

“They have got to have something, otherwise what they do is go to the emergency room,” Dickey continued. “It would be much more affordable care if done another way. It stresses the hospitals, and yes, we end up paying for it anyway.”

Editor’s note: Poll methodology and crosstabs can be found at the bottom of this story. Click here to read more about our partnership with Siena College Research Institute.

Mississippi is one of 11 states to refuse expansion. The decision means the state is refusing about $1 billion a year in federal funding meant to help poor states provide healthcare, and leaving up to 300,000 Mississippians without coverage.

Meanwhile, health officials say 38 rural hospitals are in danger of closure, in large part due to eating the cost of providing care to indigent patients. Some of those hospitals are larger regional care centers, such as Greenwood Leflore Hospital, and even larger metro area hospitals are struggling financially because of uncompensated care costs.

But 14% of voters, including 23% of Republicans, according to the poll, remain opposed to Medicaid expansion. Some of those, such as small business owner Joseph Allen, 42, of Brandon, see it as an issue of fairness and too much of their tax dollars going to social or entitlement programs.

“I pay for my own insurance myself, and it’s a lot of money,” Allen said. “… To me it’s like the same old broken record in America. The more you put in, the more you’re penalized. The harder you work, the more they take.”

Independent voter Michelle Dukes, 52, a homemaker and caregiver in Edwards, said previously working 15 years in the mental health services field showed Medicaid is a flawed program and “the system needs to be fixed before they expand it.”

For some voters, support of Medicaid expansion comes with caveats and limits.

“I support it, but in a very specific way,” said Robby Raymond, 47, a heavy equipment operator who supports Gov. Reeves and is friends with him from their hometown in Florence.

“I do believe we need to do more to help the working poor, or the retired,” Raymond said. “… But for the people who are able to work that don’t and think they need assistance — what they need is a job. That’s our big downfall in this whole country, that we don’t do enough to help the people that need help, and do too much for the people who don’t need it … I’ve been fortunate and always had a good job, made good money and had insurance. But there’s lots of people I know that struggle.

“I do disagree with Tate Reeves (on Medicaid expansion), but I still talk with him a couple of times a year, and I know that he also shares my viewpoint that we should do more to help our retired and our working poor,” Raymond said.

Tim Moore, president of the Mississippi Hospital Association and advocate for Medicaid expansion, said he was not surprised to see widespread support for expansion, but the numbers were a little higher than he would have expected.

“I have for a long time thought it’s at least 65%-70%, simply because of the high numbers we got on our last poll just with Republican voters,” Moore said. “An overwhelming majority of Mississippians support it. I don’t know how our leadership ignores that.”

Moore said MHA participated in polling in 2019, gearing up for a ballot initiative drive for voters to force Medicaid expansion over legislative reluctance. But the state Supreme Court, in a ruling on medical marijuana, invalidated the state’s ballot initiative system and lawmakers have yet to restore that right to voters.

Moore noted that South Dakota, like Mississippi, was long a hold out on Medicaid expansion because of partisan politics. South Dakota voted 56% to 44% last year to expand Medicaid.

“South Dakota is also a very red state,” Moore said. “Their governor made a public statement that she didn’t support it, but if that’s what South Dakotans wanted, she would put it in place.

“I am very encouraged by the numbers this new poll is reflecting,” Moore said. “Mississippi is seeing the need for change.”

State Rep. Tracy Arnold, a conservative Republican from Booneville, said he’s not surprised at the support the poll showed for Medicaid expansion. He recently did some informal polling of his constituents on Facebook, and said he estimates support was 90% to 95%, “As long as you’re talking about the working poor.”

“I’m not surprised, because that’s the only portion of our society that is left out of everything — working people and small business owners,” Arnold said. Arnold said he’s interested in “some sort of hybrid,” expansion, perhaps similar to that enacted by Arkansas.

“Maybe have some buy in, like normal insurance with copay for visits and medicines, or even a voucher to let them buy insurance on the private market,” Arnold said. He said he might also support helping seniors who struggle to pay for supplemental insurance for Medicare.

Arnold said that although the leadership has thwarted voting or debate on Medicaid expansion in recent years, he suspects it will be at least debated when other issues are brought up, such as the Senate’s push to expand postpartum coverage for mothers.

“I think people are a little more open minded about it than they were,” Arnold said. “We have a substantial amount of revenue now. We have to help save our struggling hospitals, and this would not only be giving hospitals more funding, it would hep the struggling taxpaying citizen.

“There’s only a few states left that haven done this, and it appears to be providing some benefit and services where they have,” Arnold said. “… My position is, I will listen to the people I represent.”

The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll of 821 registered voters was conducted Jan. 8-12 and has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.6 percentage points. Siena has an A rating in FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of pollsters.

Click here for complete methodology and crosstabs relevant to this story.

The post Poll: 80% of Mississippians favor Medicaid expansion appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Starkville Alderman Hamp Beatty repeatedly called out his fellow board members on Tuesday night for not working with him on reviving the city’s curbside recycling service.

“I keep coming back to this point, and this includes the mayor: It’s very obvious that we’re looking for a way not to do this,” Beatty said during Tuesday’s Board of Aldermen meeting, before asking the public: “Please put some pressure on us, because there is no appetite up here to do curbside recycling.”

Backing a recent push from a group of Mississippi State University students, Beatty presented a proposal where Starkville residents could opt-in to curbside recycling through a $6-per-month fee for twice-a-month pickup. The alderman, emphasizing the long-term need to reduce landfill waste, apologized to the students in attendance Tuesday night on behalf of the board.

“I’m almost 68 years old, I won’t be around a lot longer, and these storms and flooding that climate scientists are telling us is carbon emissions and us polluting our atmosphere, you’re going to have to inherit that stuff from us, and I’m sorry,” he said. “We’ve just fiddled around with it, and you’re going to have to pick up the pieces.”

The remaining six aldermen were hesitant in discussing the proposal, calling for more financial projections. Alderman and Vice-Mayor Roy A’ Perkins said bluntly, “we don’t have the funds.”

“I cannot vote for this,” Perkins said. “This is something that has a very big cost to it, and I don’t see this as having a very high priority for our city.”

Like many cities across the country in recent years, Starkville cut its curbside recycling service in 2020 after the demand for buying recycled materials plummeted. The market for buying recycled waste floundered in the U.S. after China in 2018 banned importing recycled materials that weren’t thoroughly cleaned.

Yet some cities have brought back curbside recycling. Oxford, for instance, now has 40% participation among its residents after briefly cutting the service during the earlier stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, according to the MSU group Students for a Sustainable Campus, Starkville is the only city with a Southeastern Conference school to not offer the service.

Alderwoman and budget chair Sandra Sistrunk said she believes the monthly fee for an opt-in program should be closer to $15 to $20 a month, instead of $6, to cover all the of the associated costs, such as hauling, labor and equipment. Sistrunk said that a contracted recycling vendor would be more practical for the city.

Beatty calculated that a Waste Pro facility in Columbus could take on the city’s recyclables for about $1,200 a month, and just 250 customers would more than cover those costs. He admitted after that if the number of customers grew to 800 or 1,000 that the city would need to re-work the program to pay for more equipment.

The city offers twice-a-week garbage pickup. One alternative, Beatty suggested, would be to replace one of those days with recycling pickup, which he said would cover the costs of the service by freeing up money from the garbage side.

While Starkville does offer a drop-off location for residents to recycle, the service is only open from 7 A.M. to 4 P.M. during weekdays, and from 9 A.M. to 1 P.M. on the first Saturday every month. Some residents told the board Tuesday that the drop-off system is inconvenient because of the hours and that the bins often fill up.

Emma Van Epps, president of Students for a Sustainable Campus, said her group surveyed over 300 Starkville residents, and over 90% of the respondents said they would be willing to pay $6 a month for curbside recycling.

“If you enjoy fishing and hunting, and spending time outdoors with children or grandchildren, then why would we not take the steps right now to preserve the beautiful natural resources that we have outside of Starkville that we advertise to potential visitors and potential residents? ” Van Epps asked the board Tuesday.

Van Epps’ group, which has worked to promote sustainability on MSU’s campus for about a decade, raised the issue in October during its climate march, where it brought a list of requests to Starkville’s city hall that included bringing back curbside recycling. The group then connected with Beatty to raise the issue with the Board of Aldermen, which would have to vote on whether or not to bring back the service.

“I feel responsible because I have a 5-year-old grandson,” Beatty told Mississippi Today, “and when I look at him I think, gosh, I don’t want him one day, when he’s 20 years old, to think, ‘Pop why didn’t you do something when you had the opportunity?’”

The post ‘Put some pressure on us’: Starkville alderman, MSU students push for curbside recycling appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Dallas Cowboys and Dak Prescott made short work of Tampa Bay and Tom Brady Monday night and made Brady look like an old man in the process. Will Brady hang up his spikes? The Cleveland boys discuss Brady’s future, the NFL playoffs (and Prescott’s excellence), college football coaching changes, with some high school and college basketball added in.

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: Time for The GOAT to hang ‘em up. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: I’m Just A Bill appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Republican voters are still standing firmly with former President Donald Trump, according to a new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll.

When poll respondents were asked which candidate they would vote for if a presidential primary were held today, Trump garnered support from 57% of Mississippi Republicans, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had support from 34%. Just 8% of the Republicans surveyed were undecided.

However, among Mississippi independents, who often vote in Republican primaries, DeSantis carried a plurality of support with 44% over Trump’s 34%. An additional 18% of independents surveyed were undecided, and 5% chose “someone else.”

Editor’s note: Poll methodology and crosstabs can be found at the bottom of this story. Click here to read more about our partnership with Siena College Research Institute.

Even as Trump’s support erodes in several red states, his numbers among Mississippi Republicans remain strong.

Trump enjoys a 78% favorability rating among Mississippi Republicans, according to the poll, with 17% of Republicans finding him unfavorable. Just 4% responded they didn’t know enough to say, and 1% refused to answer the question.

DeSantis has a 61% favorability rating among Mississippi Republicans, with 10% of Republicans finding him unfavorable. A sizable 28% of Mississippi Republicans responded they didn’t know enough to say, and 1% refused.

When factoring in independents and Democrats, though, Trump’s total approval rating dips drastically to 42%, with 53% of voters finding the former president unfavorable. DeSantis’ approval rating also dips when factoring in independents and Democrats: 37% of the state finds DeSantis favorable, 27% find him unfavorable, and 33% say they don’t know enough about him to decide.

Democratic President Joe Biden, expectedly, does not enjoy high marks among Mississippi voters. 

Biden has a 39% approval rating in the state, while 57% of respondents find him unfavorable, according to the poll. A drastic partisan split is factored into the average: 81% of Democrats find Biden favorable, while 16% find him unfavorable; 9% of Republicans find Biden favorable, while 89% of Republicans find him unfavorable; and just 29% of independents find Biden favorable, while 65% find him unfavorable.

Separately, when poll respondents were asked which candidate they think was the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election, 52% of the state said Biden was the legitimate winner over Trump. Two-thirds (66%) of Mississippi Republicans think Trump won the 2020 election, while just 20% of Republican respondents think Biden did.

A 52% majority of Mississippi’s white respondents — including survey participants of all parties, not just Republicans — said they thought Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election.

Respondents to the poll were also asked: “Thinking about the state of our democracy, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of our country?” Exactly 50% of all respondents said they were pessimistic about the future, including 65% of Republicans, 60% of independents, and 29% of Democrats.

Just 44% of all respondents said they were optimistic about the future, including 30% of Republicans, 32% of independents, and 65% of Democrats.

The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll of 821 registered voters was conducted Jan. 8-12 and has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.6 percentage points. Siena has an A rating in FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of pollsters.

Click here for complete methodology and crosstabs relevant to this story.

The post Poll: Trump still enjoys strong support from Mississippi Republicans appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today has partnered with Siena College Research Institute, ranked among the nation’s most reputable and accurate polling firms, for a series of surveys between now and the November 2023 statewide election.

FiveThirtyEight gives Siena College an “A” rating with a slight bias toward Republican candidates. Siena was broadly praised following the 2022 midterms for its accuracy in polling several states’ U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and governor’s races.

Mississippi is just one of three states featuring governor’s races in 2023. Additionally, the other seven statewide offices and all 174 legislative seats are up for grabs in November. 

Mississippi Today’s partnership with Siena College will provide Mississippians a regular and thorough understanding of where their peers stand on candidates, key issues and quality of life — the first such series of public surveys during a statewide election year here since at least 1999.

“The Siena College Research Institute (SCRI) is thrilled to work with Mississippi Today to measure how Mississippians feel about current critical state issues, Mississippi’s leaders and the quality of life in Mississippi,” said Dr. Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute. “SCRI has conducted national polling and surveys in many individual states in order listen to the views of Americans and to provide unbiased data to every citizen. We welcome this opportunity to work with Mississippi Today to give voice to Mississippians and to advance mutual understanding.”

The first poll of the series was in the field the first week of January, and Mississippi Today will publish key findings beginning this week. Here’s what readers can expect from us over the next few days:

• Tuesday, Jan. 17: Where Mississippians stand on the 2024 presidential race, including how Republicans feel about former President Donald Trump and emerging potential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. We also explore how Mississippians feel about the job President Joe Biden is doing, the future of democracy in the U.S., and who they think legitimately won the 2020 presidential election.

• Wednesday, Jan. 18: Where Mississippians stand on the state’s health care crisis, including its dozens of hospitals on the verge of closing. We explore Mississippians’ views on potential solutions to the crisis, including additional legislative funding and Medicaid expansion.

• Thursday, Jan. 19: Where Mississippians stand on the 2023 governor’s race and how they feel about the work of current Gov. Tate Reeves.

• Friday, Jan. 20: Where Mississippians stand on the work of their legislative leaders and the Mississippi Legislature as a whole, as well as some key issues lawmakers are debating between no and the end of the 2023 legislative session.

• Week of Jan. 23: Where Republicans, Democrats and independents agree on certain issues, plus the major divide in opinion about quality of life between Mississippians of different backgrounds.

“We think it’s critical that Mississippians understand where their neighbors stand on major problems facing our state, ideas about how to improve those problems, and the various elected officials and candidates who propose those ideas,” said Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief. “We sought to partner with SCRI because of their commitment to fairness and accuracy. All we seek, as ever, is the truth of what’s happening in our state. We will be completely transparent about methodology and focused on what the results mean for the 2023 legislative session, the 2023 statewide elections and beyond.”

Levy offered some advice for those who may be contacted this year by pollsters.

“If we call you from Siena, please take a few minutes to participate in the survey,” Levy said. “You may enjoy it and at the same time, you may make Mississippi a little better for you and your neighbors.”

The post Mississippi Today partners with Siena College Research Institute for series of polls appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Note: This analysis was first published in Mississippi Today’s weekly legislative newsletter. Subscribe to our free newsletter for exclusive early access to legislative analyses and up-to-date information about what’s happening under the Capitol dome.

Think back to grade school and Mississippi civics lessons about our representative form of government. The steps of passing laws at the state level are simple, uniform and designed to give voters — not the representatives they elect — all the power:

1. Voters of all backgrounds and viewpoints in every area of the state elect lawmakers to represent their interests in Jackson.

2. Those lawmakers join their colleagues at the Capitol once a year to partake in a very detailed lawmaking and budgeting process designed to give everyone an equal shot at passing or debating bills.

3. That lawmaking process is completely open to the public, ensuring complete transparency and that those representatives are, indeed, representing the voting public’s interests — that nothing untoward is happening behind closed doors.

4. Bills are passed into law based on a majority vote (or three-fifths vote for spending bills), ensuring that at least a majority of people across Mississippi have a true representative say in the lawmaking process.

What a great way to do the public’s business, right? Unfortunately, in Mississippi, this civics lesson is nothing more than a farce — a bright-eyed fantasy about how things perhaps should work. Many understand how broken the legislative process has become in Washington, but it’s arguably worse in Jackson.

The reality is that it’s never worked the way we’ve been taught. And a progressively more broken system of lawmaking has been implemented over the past 12 years by Republican legislative leaders who, with sweeping rules changes and unchecked power grabs, have created the grandest illusion in state politics: that our old civics lesson is reality.

Here’s how lawmaking really works inside your state Capitol:

1. Voters in every area of the state do elect lawmakers, but the districts are carefully drawn by Republican leaders every 10 years to ensure that only Republican voters’ beliefs are represented at the Capitol — that a GOP supermajority (three-fifths of both the House and Senate) have votes to pass any bill they want and can maintain complete power in Jackson. This doesn’t just suppress the ideals of Democrats across the state, but it also hurts Republicans who represent more moderate or more conservative districts than the GOP establishment leadership.

2. The specific lawmaking process still on the books has been completely tossed aside for a newer, unwritten process. Are you a Democratic lawmaker? You’re completely powerless inside the Capitol and your views mean nothing. Are you a Republican representing a more moderate district with voters who disagree with a lot of things the most conservative party leaders believe? You’re even more powerless at the Capitol. Major pieces of legislation typically aren’t unveiled until the eleventh hour, and Republican leaders use hard deadlines to give rank-and-file members of both parties virtually no time to read or understand what they’re voting on. If they don’t vote with leadership, the leadership will punish them by further shutting them out of the process.

3. The brunt of the lawmaking process is nearly exclusively conducted behind closed doors, meaning voters are usually unaware of what business their elected representatives are truly conducting. If anyone in the general public wants to know what ideas or proposed legislation their city council members, their mayor or even their state governor is writing or sharing with colleagues, they can request and receive those records. But not state lawmakers, who have long exempted themselves from their own public records laws. What’s worse, a recent Ethics Commission opinion says that lawmakers are not bound to the Open Meetings Act, a state law that mandates elected officials conduct public business in public. House Republicans have, for years, unabashedly met behind closed doors to debate and even vote on major legislation that they’re then expected to pass in public a few minutes later. Senate leaders, too, have gotten used to operating in secrecy in recent years, particularly during the conference committee process late in the session when the most important bills are debated by just six lawmakers behind closed doors.

4. Bills are, indeed, passed into law based on a majority vote (or three-fifths vote for spending bills), but Republicans in both chambers are often expected to vote “yea” even if they don’t know what is in the bills. Typically the biggest, most impactful bills are rushed — stuffed down the throats of rank-and-file lawmakers of both parties who were purposefully kept out of the writing and debating process. In effect, even the majority of Mississippians represented by that Republican majority could not get adequate answers about bills from their representatives if they tried. And if they’re really being honest, many Republican lawmakers would admit after voting bills into law that they didn’t agree with the bill’s premise or wish they would have had more time to better understand the effects.

Don’t just take it from me. Take it from a two-term Republican lawmaker who recently announced his retirement and has decided to get honest with his constituents about what the Mississippi Legislature has become.

In a harrowing Jan. 10 email to his constituents, GOP state Rep. Dana Criswell wholly concedes that the secretive process from House Republican leadership has stripped power from the public. The purpose of Criswell’s email, in fact, is to ask the public to help him and his Republican colleagues read bills because they aren’t given enough time. Seriously. Here’s how his email begins: 

A common complaint among legislators is a lack of time to actually read bills. The tactic used by leadership in nearly every legislative body is to overwhelm legislators so they don’t know what is in the bills. This leaves legislators simply following leadership and voting however they are told. One term used in the Mississippi House is “vote bottom right.” If you look at the voting board in the House, you will see “Speaker” at the bottom right. Many legislators simply look at what the Speaker is doing and vote with him.

When faced with over 2,500 bills during the 3 month legislative session, committee chairmen who refuse to provide agendas for bills being considered and a Speaker who regularly suspends the rules and brings up bills for a vote in hours instead of days, legislators are left voting for bills they have never read. Unfortunately, a large majority of legislators just don’t care because they are too busy going to dinner and living the high life off of a lobbyist to spend time reading bills and making informed decisions. But there are a few of us who believe it is our job to be informed and make the best decision possible before casting our vote.

When I first arrived at the Mississippi legislature, I was determined to read bills and know what I was voting for or against. I spent hours every night reading bills that were assigned to my committees only to find out the chairman wasn’t considering any of the bills I had read. 

Experience helped me prepare. I learned to eliminate some bills authored by Democrats that were never going to pass and I learned to speed read bills by finding the underlined portions which indicate new language to a code section of law. But none of this solved the problem and completely helped me make informed decisions.

So, I made an agreement with a couple of other legislators to divide the bills among ourselves. We would meet once or twice a week to discuss and inform each other about the bills we had read. While this method helped, we were still behind and found it impossible to read everything we needed to read. I’m pretty sure one of us made a statement similar to, “Reading these bills is a full-time job.”

– GOP Rep. Dana Criswell in a Jan. 10, 2023, email to his constituents.

Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, in his first term as president of the Senate, deserves credit with all this. He sees the broken system clearer than anyone. He inherited a Senate in 2020 that had been ruled for the previous eight years by now-Gov. Tate Reeves, who worked alongside current Speaker of the House Philip Gunn to create this more extreme way of doing things.

Since Hosemann took office, though, he’s implemented several changes to increase transparency like live-streaming committee meetings, halting closed door Senate Republican Caucus meetings that had become commonplace under Reeves’ leadership, and asking Senate committee chairs to publicly post their agendas at least 24 hours in advance. Hosemann has publicly floated reforms to the rushed budgeting process, the absolute epitome of the backwards process laid out above, when no more than six Republican lawmakers decide how to appropriate $7 billion in one single weekend every year.

Despite Hosemann’s best efforts, Senate leaders are still operating in the secretive system that Reeves helped build and are still having to contend with Gunn and his House leaders’ open flaunting of the old civics lesson.

Democrats, of course, have no voice whatsoever in the lawmaking process. For decades now, they’ve decried this system and have filed numerous bills to improve legislative workflow and transparency. But proof positive of their complete lack of influence: In the past 12 legislative sessions, none of those bills have even been considered or debated in Republican-led committees, let alone passed into law.

The losers of this broken system, of course, are everyday Mississippians. Because only a handful of Republican lawmakers have all the power, there’s no space for compromise or productive debate of legislation that affects every single resident for generations to come. Because these leaders operate and thrive in secrecy, Mississippians cannot know the true intentions of the ones in power, and there’s no way of knowing which lobbyists or out-of-state interest groups may have direct influence over what gets passed into law.

And, in turn, Mississippians cannot make truly informed decisions at the polls every four years.

So the brokenness continues. And it continues. And it continues. And it continues.

The post The purposefully broken lawmaking process in Jackson  appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In the 1980s as a national effort was made to establish a holiday for civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., the Mississippi Legislature struck an unusual compromise as many other states did at the time.

The compromise was to honor King, recognized universally as the leader of the fight to end racial discrimination in Mississippi and in other primarily Southern states, and Confederate General Robert E. Lee on the same day. That holiday will be recognized on Monday.

State Rep. Kabir Karriem, D-Columbus, said he believes it is time that King had the holiday to himself. He has introduced legislation, like he has since coming to the state House in 2016, to remove Lee from the holiday.

“Mississippi needs to move into the future,” said Karriem. “We have changed the state flag (to eliminate the Confederate battle emblem from the design). This is the next logical step.”

Karriem said only Mississippi and Alabama still honor Lee and King on the same day.

In addition, the legislation would eliminate the state holiday of Confederate Memorial Day, which is held on the last Monday in April.

“The bill has never gotten out of committee even though I file it ever year,” said Karriem. “But a lot of the bills filed by Democrats do not get out of committee.”

Karriem said the legislation has multiple co-sponsors, but no white member of the House has signed on as a co-sponsor.

The post Kabir Karriem wants to stop Lee from sharing holiday with MLK appeared first on Mississippi Today.

House Education Chairman Richard Bennett discusses education issues before the 2023 Legislature. He wants to expand preschool in Mississippi, and differs with Lt. Gov. Hosemann on incentivizing ‘modified calendars,’ or year-‘round classes for districts.

The post Podcast: House Ed Chair Bennett on teacher pay, preschool, year ’round classes and other education issues appeared first on Mississippi Today.