I totally agree with Rick Cleveland. We lost a giant.
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Appeals court halts federal oversight of Hinds County jail
Days before a federal receiver was set to take control of the Hinds County Detention Facility, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay halting that work.
On Dec. 28, a three-member panel of the 5th Circuit Court granted a stay for the order appointing a receiver and the new injunction, which stays a court order put in place by U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves in April to set standards for Hinds County to fix the jail in Raymond.
In November, Reeves appointed former Baltimore jail warden and criminal justice adjunct professor Wendell France Sr. as jail receiver. France started work then and was set to take full operational control of the jail Jan. 1, but did not due to the 5th Circuit Court order.
A three-person monitoring team that has been documenting conditions and progress at the jail was also ordered to stop work, according to a Dec. 29 order by Reeves. The monitoring team issued its last report Dec. 12, highlighting ongoing issues such as the lack of direct supervision of jail housing units and facility maintenance.
The 5th Circuit Court’s decision comes less than a year after attorneys from the county and U.S. Department of Justice were in Reeves’ courtroom to argue for and against federal receivership.
Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Credell Calhoun said Tuesday he is pleased with the stay. The current board has spent millions to try to bring the jail into compliance, he said, and the county is building a new jail in Jackson that addresses issues with the current jail.
“Everything went back to before the (receivership) order,” he said. “I was disappointed they didn’t wait and continue to let us do what we were doing. We’re doing everything we know and can afford.”
The county has maintained opposition to federal control of the jail through court documents and during the three weeks of hearings before Reeves.
The injunction and receiver orders will be paused while the district court addresses motions for reconsideration and a motion for clarification filed by the government over Section K, a section not included in the new injunction order that said juveniles charged as adults in Hinds County must be held at the Henley-Young Juvenile Justice Center rather than the jail for adults.
Questions about where to hold juveniles charged as adults came into question after a separate consent decree overseeing the Henley-Young Juvenile Justice Center was terminated Oct. 13.
Jan. 31 is the deadline for the district court to finish additional proceedings and modifications to the injunction for the jail relating to how juvenile offenders charged as adults are housed.
Calhoun said a full appeal could take time, and within 18 to 24 months, the county expects to finish the first phase of 200 jail beds and amenities. Future phases would bring the jail to 750 beds, he said.
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George Bryan: A mover, shaker and, above all, a kind gentleman
Former Mississippi State athletic director Larry Templeton remembers vividly a crisp, clear fall day back in 1984, when his good friend and former MSU classmate George Bryan took him on an excursion into the backwoods of Clay County near West Point.
Says Templeton, “We were in George’s old Bronco on an old dirt loggers’ road, and George pulled over in the middle of all this wilderness. We got out and George said, ‘The fifth green will be over there and the sixth tee will be just across the way over there.’ I said, ‘George, you got to be kidding me. You are out of your mind. You are smarter than this.’”
Four years later, Old Waverly, one of the grandest golf courses in the Deep South or anywhere, opened, with the fifth green and sixth tee right where Bryan had said they would be. Instantly, Golf Digest rated it as one of the best 100 golf courses in America.
Yes, and 15 years later, Bryan brought the U.S. Women’s Open to West Point and the Golden Triangle. The tournament was attended by 130,000, covered by international media, and telecast around the world. It was a feat that seems even more amazing in retrospect than it did at the time.
“That’s the thing about George, he had vision few people in this world have,” Templeton says. “He could see the possibilities when nobody else saw them and then make those possibilities into realities.”
George Wilkes Bryan Sr., a gentleman, business leader and visionary, died Jan. 6 at his home across the road from Old Waverly. He was 78, and he leaves behind legions of friends and admirers across the country and particularly in the Golden Triangle.
As this writer and others who knew him learned many times over, anything George Bryan had a hand in was going to be first class. Bryan will be remembered as much for his human kindness as for his business successes and his vision. Says Archie Manning, the Ole Miss and NFL football hero, “I can only hope to be as kind to people as George Bryan always was.”
When Manning had first signed with the New Orleans Saints he became friends with Bryan, and Bryan Foods became his first major endorsement as a professional athlete. About that time, Manning was taking up the sport of golf.
“My first tournament was this four-ball at Shady Oaks in Jackson,” Manning says. “I didn’t know much about the game. Some guy across the fairway asked me what kind of ball I was playing. I picked it up and read the writing on it. I said, ‘I’m playing a Bryan Bacon.’”
Bryan began his career at his family’s business, West Point-based Bryan Foods, even before he began attending Mississippi State. He graduated from State with a degree in business administration at about the same time Sara Lee Corp. acquired Bryan Foods. Bryan steadily rose through the ranks in the meat industry, eventually serving as CEO of Sara Lee and chairman and director of the American Meat Institute before retiring in 2000. He made millions. He gave much of it back.
Throughout, Bryan never forgot where he was from or where he received his education. He gave back to West Point, Clay County, Mississippi and Mississippi State.
“It is difficult to overstate the impact of the loyalty and generosity of George Bryan and his family to Mississippi State University,” says MSU President Mark E. Keenum. “… George and Marcia (Bryan’s wife) left an indelible imprint on MSU.”
The Bryans surely did. Says Templeton, “George put his money where his heart was.”
The Bryan Athletic Administration Building, a $5 million facility opened in 1995, was made possible largely due to the generosity of the Bryan family. The Bryan Building houses MSU’s athletic administration offices as well as MSU’s athletic ticket office, the Bulldog Club, media relations, business and student services offices.
Bryan was a philanthropist in other ways. He served as general campaign chairman for the United Way of the Mid-South and as president of the Chickasaw Council Boy Scouts of America.
To know Bryan was to know how he exuded charm and kindness in everyday dealings with those he encountered, be they the cooks in the kitchens of Old Waverly, the wait staff, the golf course workers or the caddies in the 1999 U.S. Women’s Open. Quite simply, he treated others the way he would want to be treated himself – always with a personal touch.
Besides the U.S. Open, Bryan also brought the 2019 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship to Old Waverly and the club also has hosted Southeastern Conference golf championships. Bryan also co-founded Mossy Oak Golf Club, another world class golf course, which opened across the street from Old Waverly in 2018.
Bringing the U.S. Open to rural Clay County might well be Bryan’s crowning achievement. World Golf Hall of Famer Judy Bell of Colorado Springs was the president of the USGA when the decision was made to play the U.S. Open in Mississippi.
“George Bryan was a fine, honest man,” Bell says. “When he came to us and made his pitch, he exuded honesty and class. He was so sincere. There were three or four of us who made the ultimate decision and it was unanimous. Everything he said he’d do, he did. It was a special event, a memorable tournament. George made it happen. He was all class.”
So much had to be accomplished to make the ’99 Open a reality. Hundreds of miles of highways had to be expanded to four lanes. New roads had to be built. Motels and hotels had to be expanded and renovated. Parking lots had to be established. All i’s had to be dotted, and all t’s crossed to meet USGA specifications.
The ’99 Open has had lasting ramifications for the Golden Triangle and North Mississippi.
Says Templeton, “I’m not sure that anything has had more to do with the development of North Mississippi than when George brought the Open to Old Waverly.”
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Democrats finalize hospital crisis plan, blast Republicans for inaction
Note: This article 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.
Democratic legislative leaders will propose a plan this week to address a problem they say most of their Republican counterparts won’t even fully acknowledge: the Mississippi hospital crisis.
State health officials have warned lawmakers that 38 rural hospitals across the state are in danger of imminent closure because of budget problems. Some of those hospitals are larger regional care centers, such as Greenwood Leflore Hospital.
Even the large metro hospitals are understaffed and struggling to provide adequate care due to rising costs. Physicians and other health care leaders are sounding the alarm about the entire state’s ability to maintain a reliable system of care.
Given the growing urgency of the crisis, Democratic leaders under the dome say they can’t wait around for their Republican counterparts to propose solutions.
“I feel silly trying to explain to (Republicans) why we need to do something about this quickly when the need is right there smacking them in the face every single day,” said Rep. Robert Johnson, the House Democratic leader. “These people have the best possible access to the best possible information about the state, and they’re ignoring it. They’re running away from the problem. The house is fully on fire right now, but it’s fine because Republicans say it’s not really burning.
“I don’t know what they’re waiting on, but this crisis needs to be addressed right now,” Johnson continued. “I don’t know where their plan is, but we have one.”
That plan, shared with Mississippi Today before legislation is filed in coming days, has two key components:
- A bill that would appropriate $150 million as a “lifeline” to rural hospitals. The state would send cash directly to the hospitals to help temporarily balance their budgets and fund health care services. Public hospitals that can demonstrate financial hardship would apply for grants from the new fund, which would be administered by the Department of Finance and Administration. This proposal would flow from several funding sources: $135 million from American Rescue Plan Act funds lawmakers haven’t yet spent; $13 million from the state’s Health Care Expendable Fund; and $2 million from the BP settlement fund.
- Several bills that would expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, as 39 other states have done. Numerous economists say Medicaid expansion would provide $1 billion in new revenue to the state and help hospitals better cover the rising costs of providing care to poor, working Mississippians. Many Democrats have filed bills to expand Medicaid for more than 10 years, but GOP leaders at the Capitol have deeply dug their heels in opposition to it, claiming without proof that the state cannot afford it and writing it off as a liberal policy of former President Barack Obama.
READ MORE: Mississippi leaving more than $1 billion per year on table by rejecting Medicaid expansion
Rep. John Hines, who authored the rural hospital lifeline bill, said the first bill is intended to help hospitals temporarily until Medicaid expansion, the more long-term solution, is passed. Johnson, who has fought for Medicaid expansion for several years, panned the legislative Republicans who have blocked it.
“The Black man who was president is far enough removed now for Republicans to wake up and realize that every single Mississippian — white, Black, Democrat, Republican — is losing money and might lose out on critical care because of this crisis,” Johnson said. “We’re leaving $1 billion on the table every year while our hospitals close and people die. It’s as simple as that.”
The Republican leaders at the Capitol, House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, are at odds about how to meet the moment. And in the early days of the session, no Republican appears eager to move quickly to pass a hospital crisis fix.
Gunn, who along with Gov. Tate Reeves is directly responsible for the state’s resistance to Medicaid expansion, proposed in December a one-time, $50-$70 million appropriation for hospitals this year. That was panned by critics and even inspired a statewide newspaper column that bluntly asked: “Will closed hospitals be Gunn’s legacy, too?”
Hosemann, to his credit, has been the one Republican leader who has directly acknowledged the hospital crisis. In December, he said he sought solutions to the crisis “not just for next year, but for the next generation.” He floated several ideas, including expanding a Medicaid program for new mothers — an effort he successfully led in the Senate last year but was killed by Gunn and the House — and increasing Medicaid reimbursements to struggling hospitals.
Hosemann has long been one of few Republican leaders open to discussion of Medicaid expansion, but he said last month it’s not likely lawmakers will tackle that issue this year. He also said it’s not a cure-all.
“I don’t think that’s the answer,” Hosemann said in December. “Even if we had that expansion, (Greenwood Leflore) would not make it, it would still be short.”
After just the first week of the legislative session, key lawmakers and legislative observers are already repeating the refrain: “Don’t expect anything major to gain steam this year because it’s an election year.” Indeed, all 174 legislative seats and all eight statewide offices are up for grabs this November.
But that logic isn’t sitting well with Johnson and other Democratic leaders, particularly as the Mississippi hospital crisis worsens by the day.
“This is quite literally a matter of life and death, and we seem to be the only people in this building united behind providing relief for hospitals and health care for all Mississippians,” said Sen. Derrick Simmons, the Democratic leader of the Senate. “We’re going to push Republicans hard on this. We aren’t elected for three years and a vacation to Jackson during election years.”
Simmons continued: “We’ve got a plan. Here it is. ‘No’ is no longer an acceptable answer from the Republicans standing in the way of addressing this issue. If you don’t like it, and you have a better idea, then let’s hear what the plan is.”
READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s full coverage of the 2023 legislative session
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Jackson lifts boil water notice over the weekend
Jackson officials announced Saturday that the city had lifted the boil water notice for all customers.
The advisory lasted 13 days after freezing temperatures caused the city’s water lines to break and led to a decrease in water pressure in the distribution system. Jackson issued the citywide notice on Christmas morning.
A spokesperson from Jackson State University confirmed that water pressure at the school’s campus was back to normal and classes began Monday as scheduled. JSU had asked students last week to delay moving into dormitories while pressure was low at the school’s facilities.
Jackson Public Schools announced it would resume in-person learning on Monday. The school district had students take classes virtually from home last week after over 30 schools saw little to no water pressure.
The city lifted the boil water notice a couple days after announcing a historic federal investment in the drinking water system.
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Comienza la esperada sesión legislativa de 2023
Read this story in English: The eagerly anticipated 2023 legislative session begins
Los legisladores de Mississippi, que viajaron a Jackson desde todos los condados y rincones del estado, convocaron la sesión legislativa de 2023 el 3 de enero al mediodía.
No importa cómo lo haga, lo que los legisladores logren en los próximos 90 días podría afectar al estado en los años venideros. No es exagerado decir que la transformación generacional es posible para nuestro estado en esta sesión. Los periodistas de Mississippi Today estarán en los pasillos del Capitolio todos los días, haciendo preguntas duras pero justas a nuestros funcionarios electos y haciéndoles saber lo que sucede
A pesar de todos los problemas que enfrenta el estado, los legisladores tienen un superávit de ingresos de alrededor de $ 4 mil millones, más dinero libre de gravámenes del que el estado ha tenido disponible para gastar. Los legisladores tienen amplia flexibilidad sobre cómo gastarlo, y muchos líderes no están de acuerdo con vehemencia en los detalles. Esto ciertamente genera un debate dramático y unas cuantas semanas salvajes en el Capitolio.
PODCAST: What to watch for in 2023 legislative session
Ya sabemos que esta es la última sesión legislativa del presidente de la Cámara de Representantes, Philip Gunn, después de cumplir tres mandatos completos, y ya hay señales de que su poder de larga data puede estar disminuyendo. Del lado del Senado, el Vicegobernador Delbert Hosemann enfrenta algunos obstáculos políticos dentro de su propio partido que se desarrollarán desde ahora hasta el 1 de febrero, la fecha límite para calificar para las elecciones de 2023.
Aquí hay algunos otros temas clave, entre muchos otros, que estamos observando de cerca en esta sesión:
- Mississippi está en una crisis de atención médica. Docenas de hospitales rurales en todo el estado están a punto de cerrar o reducir significativamente los servicios de salud, y cientos de miles de residentes no pueden pagar la atención médica básica. Una solución potencial que está cobrando impulso en las últimas semanas es expandir Medicaid bajo la Ley del Cuidado de Salud a Bajo Precio, como lo han hecho otros 39 estados. Durante más de 10 años, los líderes legislativos han rechazado el programa que enviaría decenas de millones de dólares federales más a las arcas estatales y brindaría atención médica a los trabajadores pobres de Mississippi.
- Varias ciudades y condados luchan por mantener el flujo de agua para los residentes. Jackson, la capital del estado, en particular, ha estado en el centro de la cobertura de los medios nacionales ya que los residentes de la ciudad más grande del estado continúan sin tener servicios de agua confiables en sus hogares o negocios.
- Mientras tanto, varios líderes legislativos clave quieren eliminar por completo el impuesto estatal sobre la renta, que representa más de un tercio de los ingresos que recauda el estado. Los que se oponen a la medida, incluidos varios republicanos, dicen que el estado no puede darse el lujo de perder tanto anualmente con tantos servicios gubernamentales que ya no cuentan con fondos suficientes. Algunos de los que se oponen a la reducción de impuestos quieren, en cambio, enviar cheques de devolución de impuestos directamente a los habitantes de Mississippi.
- Una amplia coalición de votantes de Mississippi quiere, pero aún no tiene, un proceso de iniciativa electoral después de que la Corte Suprema del estado lo anulara en 2021. El proceso, que tienen los residentes en la mayoría de los estados, permite a los votantes eludir a los legisladores al aprobar leyes o políticas específicas.
Para dedicar especial atención a esta sesión legislativa potencialmente histórica, estamos lanzando nuestra sección especial anual llamada Guía Legislativa de Mississippi. Allí encontrará los conceptos básicos, como cómo un proyecto de ley se convierte en ley, los plazos legislativos clave y cómo encontrar y contactar a sus legisladores. La pieza central de la guía, por supuesto, será la cobertura integral de nuestra sala de redacción de la sesión legislativa de 2023.
Esperamos que este sea un recurso útil mientras navega en las próximas semanas, pero queremos saber cómo podría mejorarse. Si tiene preguntas o sugerencias para nosotros, no dude en comunicarse.
Gracias, como siempre, por leer. Agradecemos su apoyo como siempre.
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Podcast: Broadband director urges people to report internet issues to secure federal money
Sally Doty, director of Mississippi’s broadband expansion office, stresses the importance of people logging on to www.broadbandms.com, or calling or texting “Internet” to 601-439-2535 to report inadequate or nonexistent internet service. The data collected from this will be used to determine how much federal money Mississippi receives to expand broadband internet service.
READ MORE: Poor or no internet service at your home? State wants your help with data, mapping
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U.S. House speaker chaos proves it could happen again in Mississippi
In terms of political theatre, there is nothing like a speaker’s race.
That drama has played out in the nation’s capital this week with seemingly endless roll call votes of the current 434 members of the U.S. House as they attempt to elect a speaker.
While general elections play out on a macro level through media advertising and stump speeches, speaker’s races are bare-knuckled, closed-quarter campaigns that pit colleague against colleague. It is a race where one vote can determine tremendous power and where brazen deal making is often carried out in the cold light of day.
This could very well be Mississippi’s reality in 2024. Philip Gunn, the three-term speaker of the Mississippi House, already has announced he will not seek reelection. There is a strong possibility that one of Gunn’s closest allies, House Pro Tem Jason White, R-West, will be elected speaker with little or no opposition.
Presumably, the Mississippi speaker election in 2024 will follow the same procedure used when Gunn was first elected in 2012. After the 2011 November election, when Republicans gained a narrow majority in the Mississippi House for the first time since Reconstruction in the 1800s, the new majority met behind closed doors to select a speaker from five candidates. There was an agreement among the Republican House members elected in November 2011 that the winner of that closed-door meeting would receive the unanimous support of the new Republican majority when the 2012 session began in early January.
Then-Rep. Herb Frierson of Poplarville placed second in that closed-door vote. It is possible that Frierson could have developed a coalition of some of his Republican supporters and House Democrats, with whom he had a much more collegial relationship than did Gunn, and won the speakership when the official vote was taken at the start of the 2012 session.
But Frierson, like all Republicans, honored the agreement to support the winner of the closed-door vote, leading to the election of Gunn, a two-term Clinton Republican. Gunn, perhaps recognizing Frierson’s commitment, gave him a plum committee assignment as Appropriations Committee chair.
The 2012 speaker’s election was the first selected in such a closed-door process. Before then, candidates for speaker would individually go to each member campaigning for votes. If a member agreed, his or her name would be added to a list of supporters compiled by the candidate for speaker.
Once that list contained a majority of the House membership, it would not be uncommon for the candidate to announce his supporters, trying to convince the other candidates to drop out.
That is how Billy McCoy, a Democrat from Rienzi, was unanimously elected speaker in 2004. Both Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, and Bobby Moody, D-Louisville, dropped out and threw their support behind McCoy when it became apparent he had the votes.
The waters were not as smooth for McCoy in his second campaign for speaker. The 2008 election was the first partisan election for speaker in the state’s history.
In the preceding 2007 general election, Democrats maintained their majority. But Republicans, seeing McCoy as the primary obstacle to much of Republican Gov. Haley Barbour’s legislative agenda, rallied behind conservative Columbus Democrat Jeff Smith as an alternative to McCoy.
Smith, who at one time was a close McCoy friend, ran for speaker in part because he was upset that he was not appointed by McCoy to chair the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Smith garnered the support of a handful of rural Democrats, who were fearful of supporting McCoy in such a high-profile election in a state where the march toward the Republican Party was quickly occurring.
The race was one of the most contested and most contentious in the state’s history. Some House members changed their allegiance in the race multiple times. On the opening day of the 2008 session, both sides literally believed they had the votes to win. The tension in the air was palpable.
On the third vote, McCoy eked out a 62-60 victory in what may have been the most dramatic day in the Capitol in recent history.
Conventional wisdom was that with the advent of partisan politics in Mississippi and the commitment of party members to coalesce behind one candidate that such a dramatic floor vote in the election for speaker would not occur anymore. The party that won the most House seats would elect the speaker candidate who won the closed-door caucus meeting and that would be the end of that.
But the 2023 U.S. House has proven that sometimes party members even disagree on candidates for speaker. And when that happens, dramatic public roll calls still occur to elect a speaker.
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