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Lieutenant governor candidate Chris McDaniel has reported returning legally questionable large donations from a Virginia dark-money nonprofit, and shutting down his PAC through which the donations flowed to his campaign.

McDaniel’s Hold the Line PAC has reported it returned $460,000 to the American Exceptionalism Institute nonprofit corporation and closed out the PAC. This came days after McDaniel’s campaign account returned $465,000 to Hold the Line.

McDaniel’s Hold the Line PAC campaign finance public filings and subsequent explanations and amended reports have been confounding. Hold the Line initially failed to list the source of hundreds of thousands of dollars and its reports have had amounts and dates that don’t add up. For instance, Hold the Line reported having raised hundreds of thousands of dollars the year before McDaniel legally registered it with the secretary of state’s office, and failed to list the source of that money as required by law.

McDaniel’s PAC was the largest contributor to his lieutenant governor campaign, donating $465,000 of the $710,000 his campaign reported raising last year.

Oddly, in some of its latest filings, Hold the Line reported it returned $460,000 to American Exceptionalism Institute on the same day it received the second of two donations of $237,500 from AEI, in February. But McDaniel’s campaign had reported it received a total of $465,000 from Hold the Line in January, before the PAC would have had that much money — primarily coming from AEI — per its own reports.

When questioned about this, McDaniel’s camp declined comment, but filed an amended report changing the date of the second donation to mid-January. Even with multiple amended reports, it appears McDaniel’s PAC received $475,000 from AEI but returned only $460,000 to the nonprofit corporation.

READ MORE: Hosemann accuses McDaniel of ‘clear violations’ of law with campaign money

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann’s campaign has a complaint pending with the attorney general’s office that includes claims that McDaniel’s PAC and campaign violated Mississippi law, which prohibits a corporation from donating more than $1,000 in a single year to a candidate or PAC and requires listing of sources of donations.

Hosemann campaign adviser Casey Phillips in a statement said: “Chris McDaniel’s campaign is based on a lie, staffed with Democrat operatives, and funded with illegal money. Election integrity includes campaign finance transparency. McDaniel would know that if he bothered to show up to vote when the Senate passed the election security package. Instead, he is blatantly disregarding Mississippi’s election laws.”

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office, asked for comment on Hosemann’s campaign finance complaint, said only, “We are reviewing it.”

A Mississippi Today article in February pointed out McDaniel’s financial reports for his campaign and PAC left voters in the dark about the source of hundreds of thousands of dollars and raised questions about whether donations violated state law.

McDaniel, a four-term state senator, has vocally called for stricter campaign finance laws and more transparency in the sources of campaign money. But when questioned about his campaign and PAC finances, he said he knows scant details about them, has deferred questions to staffers and chalked up any discrepancies to “clerical errors.”

McDaniel initially deferred questions to the Rev. Dan Carr, a pastor and political consultant from Gulfport listed as treasurer of the Hold the Line PAC. Carr, mostly by text messages, gave a series of confusing and conflicting statements that never explained what the clerical errors were, or the source of the large amount of unaccounted for donations to Hold the Line.

McDaniel’s campaign last month said that U.S. Supreme Court rulings on federal campaign finance issues nullify Mississippi’s law banning corporate contributions over $1,000. But a spokeswoman said McDaniel’s campaign and PAC would be returning American Exceptionalism Institute donations “to avoid a protracted legal fight with the establishment.”

Hosemann filed his campaign finance complaint against McDaniel last month with the secretary of state’s office. Records show the secretary of state’s office, citing its lack of investigative and prosecutorial authority, forwarded the complaint to the criminal investigations division of the attorney general’s office.

An intentional violation of the campaign finance disclosure law is a misdemeanor with a
maximum penalty of $3,000, six months imprisonment, or both. But in Mississippi, campaign finance laws are seldom enforced, and alleged violations seldom investigated or prosecuted.

Hosemann, former secretary of state, is seeking a second and final term as lieutenant governor overseeing the state Senate. McDaniel is a four-term state senator who has run twice unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate.

The post Chris McDaniel returns questionable campaign donations, shuts down PAC. Hosemann complaint with AG pending appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The life and work of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer is being commemorated with a historical marker to be unveiled Saturday in Kilmichael, her husband’s hometown.

The ceremony will be at 11 a.m. at 311 N. Depot Ave. in the heart of downtown Kilmichael in Montgomery County. Leslie Burl McLemore, who worked alongside Hamer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, is the guest speaker. 

Fannie Lou Hamer often said she was born in Montgomery County, but testified in federal court in 1963 that she was born in Tomnolen in Webster County, which borders Montgomery County.

Montgomery County native Chris Snell and her husband, Wiley, a retired high school administrator from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, raised the funding and worked with Jim Woodrick and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for two years in their effort to preserve the Hamers’ legacy with the marker. 

“This marker is a reminder that we are in this space because Fannie Lou Hamer fought and gave her life so that future generations can continue their thrust for excellence by lifting up their voices as she did,” Chris Snell said in a news release announcing the unveiling.

Additional funding for the event was provided by the Kappas of Rust College and the Zetas as part of their outreach activities. 

Hamer’s last surviving child, Jacqueline Hamer Flakes had been asked to be the guest speaker, but declined due to failing health. She died on March 27. 

“We don’t concentrate enough on how brilliant Fannie Lou Hamer was and her ability to adapt to her new environment — and her new environment was in the civil rights movement,” McLemore said in the news release. 

She went from from being a timekeeper on the Marlow Plantation in Sunflower County to becoming SNCC’s chief fundraiser, noted McLemore, professor emeritus of political science at Jackson State University, was the founding director of the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy at JSU in 1997. 

This will be the second marker in Montgomery County that acknowledges Hamer’s efforts for racial equity. The first was unveiled on June 9, 2022, in Winona at the site of the former jail where Hamer and several other activists were beaten in June 1963. A third marker, as part of the Mississippi Civil Rights Trail, will be unveiled on June 9, 2023, at the site of Staley’s Café/Trailways Depot where Hamer and the others were arrested prior to the jailhouse beating. 

The post Marker honoring Fannie Lou Hamer set for unveiling in husband’s hometown appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Two weeks after being rejected by the Senate to serve as state superintendent, Robert Taylor defended his record of improving schools and said his nomination was manipulated into a political issue by Sen. Chris McDaniel as a part of his campaign for lieutenant governor.

Taylor lost out on the job to lead Mississippi’s public schools when the Senate rejected his nomination last month. Had he been confirmed, he would have been the second Black person to serve as state superintendent. Those who opposed his nomination took issue with his track record turning around schools, his status as an outsider, and the selection process itself. Immediately after the nomination failed, Senate Democrats said it was because of race.

“The person that we’re talking about, Dr. Taylor, is a native son,” Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, said in a press conference after the vote. “He’s a Mississippian, who went to North Carolina and worked in their system, that system rated is higher than Mississippi, and he came home to serve. He’s a great and impressive son of Mississippi, and we rejected him for no reason other than the fact that God made him Black.”

Taylor was most recently a deputy state superintendent for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction before moving back to Mississippi to begin his tenure as state superintendent in January. A native of Laurel, he earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern Mississippi and his masters and doctorate in North Carolina. 

Earlier in the confirmation process, questions were raised about Taylor writing for a Black student publication at USM, The Unheard Word, while he was in college. In an interview he gave in 2020 when the university celebrated the 30th anniversary of The Unheard Word, he said he wrote for the publication because it “… in my opinion, recognized that The University of Southern Mississippi was in the most racist state in the Union … ” In an interview with Mississippi Today, Taylor said he felt this way in college and his worldview has since been broadened by living in other places.   

 Sen. Chris Johnson, R-Hattiesburg, chaired the education nominations subcommittee and said Taylor’s writing for the publication was not something he remembered people talking about a lot. 

“Really I don’t think that was a huge part of what happened, but you’d have to ask other senators who voted no,” Johnson said. 

Taylor said his conversations with senators focused on education issues, but that when his involvement with The Unheard Word came up, he was straightforward with them and said it didn’t seem to be a concern for people.

 “I like to think (race) didn’t play a role, but I do believe that politics had everything to do with it,” Taylor said. 

McDaniel, the Republican senator from Ellisville, made comments on Facebook before and after the confirmation vote calling Taylor a supporter of critical race theory, affirmative action, and the removal of historical monuments, among other things.

 “(Taylor) has all the makings of someone who has sold out to this woke culture,” McDaniel said on Facebook after the vote. “The step the Senate made today was to in some respects push back against the woke culture, to push back against liberalism in the institutions.” 

Taylor rejected these claims and said he’s never spoken publicly on any of these issues. 

“The only thing a person could say about Robert Taylor is that he is a registered Democrat in the state of North Carolina,” Taylor said. “That is it.” 

Taylor said McDaniel wanted to use his nomination as a part of his campaign for lieutenant governor, to put pressure on senators with primary opponents who had previously told Taylor they would support him and later changed their votes. 

“I represent the conservatives in the state of Mississippi,” McDaniel told Mississippi Today. “I wasn’t attempting to put pressure on anyone in a primary race. I was doing the same thing I’ve done for the past 16 years, and that’s to fight for my conservative values and principles the best way I know how.”  

Taylor reiterated that while he would like to believe he was not rejected because he is Black, the accusations made against him make it look that way. 

“Any senator that voted no, I would like to think it was not because I am Black, but they need to understand what the appearance looks like to people in the field,” he said. “When I am accosted about something I said thirty-five years ago, a view of why I did something thirty-five years ago, and all these things are said about me to make it appear as though I’m a particular type of person, people are going to look at that and believe that it’s race-based. If that’s the case or not, you’d have to ask those individual senators.”

Senators also expressed frustration with the hiring process, saying that the state Board of Education was not transparent, and that Taylor had not worked as an educator in Mississippi. Individuals familiar with the confirmation process said many local superintendents asked the state Board of Education to select a Mississippi educator and were frustrated by the pick. 

A review of the hiring process by the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) found that of the 26 candidates who applied for the position, nine were employed in Mississippi and 17 were employed in another state. A source close to the hiring process said that of the four finalists, three were working in Mississippi. 

Taylor, who prior to this appointment worked in North Carolina schools since 1992, said he did not get the impression that local superintendents wanted someone different when he met them. 

“What I saw was superintendents looking forward to working with someone who had actually done the work that they had done,” he said. “You’re always going to have those that look for something different, and I absolutely respect that, but they were very gracious with me when I met with superintendents.” 

Carey Wright, the previous state superintendent, had worked in district-level leadership positions but never served as a local superintendent before becoming the leader of Mississippi’s public education system. 

Concerns were also raised about whether the district Taylor led for 10 years improved enough under his tenure. Some senators said they were dissatisfied with his record. 

Taylor led the Bladen County School District from 2011 to 2021, but data is only available for some of those years on the North Carolina School Report Cards website. Between 2015 and 2019, the number of C-rated schools in the district rose from four to seven. D-rated schools fell from eight to three between 2015 and 2018, before jumping back up to six in 2019. The graduation rate for that period also rose from 77.3% to 91.6%, surpassing the state average during that period. 

Taylor said the North Carolina accountability model, or the system that gives out letter grades, is significantly different from the system in Mississippi. North Carolina’s system is much more reliant on proficiency, or how many students hit a certain benchmark, he said, while Mississippi’s puts more weight in how much districts grow students from one year to the next. 

“I’m very proud of the track record that I had, we were never a failing district,” Taylor said. “That accountability system is very different than what you see in Mississippi and a person would need to look at that in context.” 

Taylor had publicly discussed his goal of providing direct support to low-performing districts and had visited all but one of them in his first two months on the job to learn about their needs. He said he had hoped to hire coaches for administrators and create regional support teams that would work with those districts in a variety of areas, a method he said had been successful in North Carolina. 

“I’ve seen a state superintendent visit my district once in my 15 years in the classroom, and that was three weeks ago when Dr. Taylor came to Rosedale,” Shana Bolden, a teacher in the West Bolivar School District, said in a Teach Plus Mississippi press release. “I think the search should include public input before a decision is made. There should also be a way for teachers to have a voice in the process, since whoever is hired directly impacts us and our students.”

In terms of next steps, Taylor is currently looking for opportunities that would be a good fit for him, both in Mississippi and elsewhere. 

“I certainly want to work in a place where someone welcomes my ability to work with an educational system and state for improvement,” he said. “There’s never a place I’ve been that didn’t improve. I’ve never worked in a place that was replete with resources that made the work easy. My work has always been uphill in challenging situations and I know that’s where I’m needed.” 

He added his rejection will likely make this position harder for the state Board of Education to fill moving forward and that he does not expect any candidate will be willing to move here before being confirmed by the Legislature. 

“(Senators) have to recognize the position they’ve put the (Mississippi Department of Education) in and the state of Mississippi because the rest of the nation has looked at what happened, and I’ve had people from all over the country reach out and share how horrible they thought this was,” he said. “It puts a stain on the state.” 

The post Rejected State Supt. Robert Taylor says the situation ‘puts a stain on the state’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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Mississippi’s failure to require inspections in jails bodes disaster, says the lawyer who oversaw jail and prison conditions for decades.

In 2017, state lawmakers stopped providing funds to the Mississippi Department of Health to carry out those inspections after a federal court stopped requiring such inspections under Gates v. Collier, the longtime lawsuit brought by state inmates.

Without those inspections, “there’s no check, there’s none,” said Jackson lawyer Ron Welch, who represented those inmates in Mississippi jails and prisons under the court order settling that case. “It’s giving sheriffs a free pass. They can do as they wish.”

He called county supervisors, who fund the sheriffs and jails, “willfully blind” accomplices.

An investigation by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today and The New York Times shows that in addition to this lack of inspections, there is a lack of oversight. No state regulator has the authority to fine a sheriff for endangering people in custody or for failing to train the staff who operate the jail. 

David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project, said this is a national problem as well. Unlike almost every other country, he said, the U.S. has “no independent oversight over what happens in prisons and jails.” 

This lack of oversight contributes to the abuse of those held behind bars “that is entirely foreseeable,” he said. “Their lives are systematically devalued.”

After Mississippi stopped inspecting jails, allegations arose in 2020 that Noxubee County deputies coerced Elizabeth Layne Reed, a woman incarcerated at the jail, into having sex.

Her lawsuit said two deputies, Vance Phillips and Damon Clark, gave her a cellphone and other perks, including a sofa in her cell, so that she would have sexual encounters with them. She described the first encounters as taking place outside the jail, only to be followed by those in the interrogation room, in the evidence, even in her cell.

She said in an interview that she wanted the public to know what happened to her in the hope that others would come forward. “It made me terrified to trust anybody,” she said. “Women in jail and prison need to be protected.”

According to the lawsuit, the sheriff at the time, Terry Grassaree, knew all about his deputies’ “sexual contacts and shenanigans,” but did nothing to stop them. Instead, the lawsuit alleged, the sheriff “sexted” her and demanded that she use the phone the deputies had given her to send him “a continuous stream of explicit videos, photographs and texts” while she was in jail. She also alleged that Grassaree touched her in a “sexual manner.”

The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.

Grassaree is charged with bribery and lying to the FBI when he denied that he requested the nude photos and videos from Reed. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Juan Barnett, who chairs the Senate Corrections Committee, said he supports resumed funding for jail inspections to “help curb abuse. The more oversight, the better.”

Clay County Sheriff Eddie Scott, who serves on the executive board of the Mississippi Sheriffs’ Association, said he believes most sheriffs would support the return of state-funded inspections as long as they are reasonable. “We have to fight for our budgets to keep them up,” he said. “Oversight and reports have always helped me.”

Eight of Mississippi’s 82 sheriffs have jails that have been certified by the state Board on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training; the others haven’t been.

Scott said such certification reduces the cost of insurance and gives employees guidance on the best ways to run a jail.

He hopes to one day receive certification from the American Correctional Association, he said. “Getting state accredited puts me a leg up.”

Although Mississippi recently received a record $4 billion budget surplus, Welch said there’s no political will right now to aid those behind bars, despite the fact that Mississippi prides itself as being part of the Bible Belt. 

“God taught us to love our neighbor,” he said. “The principle is ‘do not inflict needless pain on any person.’ That’s the heart of it.”

The post State’s lack of jail inspections a disaster in the making, lawyer says appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Donald Trump has not offered an endorsement in Mississippi’s Republican primary for lieutenant governor, but one of the candidates did have a recent fundraiser in what is essentially the former president’s home.

Incumbent Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who is being accused of being a closet Democrat by opponent Chris McDaniel, held a fundraiser earlier this month at the Mar-a-Lago resort, which is one of Trump’s more well-known properties and is also the property he now calls home.

In addition, Mar-a-Lago is the property raided by the FBI reportedly because of the former president’s alleged unwillingness to return classified documents.

In a statement to Mississippi Today, Casey Phillips, senior adviser to the Hosemann campaign, said, “Lt. Gov. Hosemann supports President Trump because his policies created higher wages, a growing economy, new jobs, low inflation, and a more secure border.  We were happy to be invited to host a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago back in December and it turned out to be a great event.”

An invitation circulated on social media for the April 5 Mar-a-Lago Club fundraiser at Palm Beach, Florida, lists all members of Mississippi’s Republican congressional delegation on a host committee, though, sources say none actually attended the event. The invitation highlighted a photo of Hosemann and of the new state flag that in 2020 replaced the flag that contained the Confederate battle emblem in its design.

Hosemann supported the flag change. McDaniel opposed the change, saying it should be decided by popular vote.

Hosemann was photographed at the event being endorsed by George Colella of the Born to Ride for 45, which is a pro Trump motorcycle group. A Confederate battle flag is displayed on Colella’s biker vest.

On social media, Colella posted, “Born to Ride for 45 proudly endorses Lt. Gov. Hosemann. He has an amazing track record and (is) an asset to state of Mississippi.”

McDaniel, a conservative state senator from Jones County, unsuccessfully sought Trump’s endorsement in 2018 when he challenged U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who the then-president did endorse.

A pre-president Trump did voice support for McDaniel in his 2014 U.S. Senate race against Thad Cochran.

“Chris McDaniel looks like he will win in Mississippi – great news and victory for Tea Party,” Trump proclaimed on social media.

McDaniel, of course, did lead Cochran in the Republican primary in 2014, but did not garner the majority needed to avoid a runoff. In the runoff, Cochran defeated McDaniel.

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APRIL 17, 1863

As darkness fell on San Francisco, a young Black woman named Charlotte Brown walked a block from her home on Filbert Street and took a seat on the “whites-only” horse-drawn streetcar. She and her family had moved to California from Maryland, a part of the city’s burgeoning Black middle class. Her father, James E. Brown, was an anti-slavery crusader and was a partner in the Black newspaper, Mirror of the Times. 

When the conductor came to collect tickets, she handed him the ticket she had purchased, only for him to refuse to take it. “He replied that colored persons were not allowed to ride,” she later testified. “I told him I had been in the habit of riding ever since the cars had been running. I answered that I had a great ways to go and I was later than I ought to be.” 

The conductor asked her several times to leave. Each time she refused. When a white woman objected to her presence, the conductor grabbed her by the arm and forced her off the streetcar. She boarded twice more with the same result and sued. Two years later, a jury awarded her the huge sum of $500 in her day (streetcar tickets were just 5 cents), and a judge ruled that barring passengers on the basis of race was illegal. He wrote in his ruling that he had no desire to “perpetuate a relic of barbarism.” 

Brown’s victories paved the way for the official end of racial discrimination on streetcars in San Francisco and beyond.

The post On this day in 1863 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today political reporters Bobby Harrison and Geoff Pender talk with veteran Rep. Tommy Reynolds, D-Water Valley, about the rules changes that occurred in the 1980s making the Mississippi House more democratic. As a young member of the House, Reynolds played a key role in writing those rules.

The post Podcast: Longtime Rep. Tommy Reynolds reflects on his legacy appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Sales and Marketing Director Candi Richardson travels to Cleveland, Miss. during the Music Tourism Convention to catch up with Poplarville-natives Chapel Hart. The trio is comprised of sisters Danica and Devynn Hart along with their cousin Trea Swindle. They discuss their Golden Buzzer performance and experience on America’s Got Talent, their music influences, their upcoming album and more.

Chapel Hart captured the attention of the nation and gained an international following after they received the second Golden Buzzer in show history during their audition performance for America’s Got Talent in 2022. CMT selected Chapel Hart as one of several artists for their 2021 “Next Women of Country” campaign, which promotes new and upcoming female country music artists. The group has released two studio albums and seven singles.

The post Mississippi Stories: Chapel Hart appeared first on Mississippi Today.