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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.

Governor Reeves should have done a Tik Tok to announce he is banning Tik Tok off of state phones.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Tik Tok appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey welcomes back Dr. Alyssa Killebrew to kick off 2023 and talk about resolutions, being more resilient in the new year and how we can focus on and improve our mental health in 2023.

Dr. Killebrew knows about resiliency. In December 2021, Dr. Killebrew’s longtime husband Keath, a successful farmer, died in a plane crash in South America. This came after the couple had recently lost their unborn child due to COVID-19. You will be inspired by her incredible strength and positive outlook. She talks about her and Keath’s creation of a camp called SEK Intensives to honor their youngest daughter and help both adolescents and their parents deal with life’s challenges.

Dr. Killebrew is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist (No. 54-946), a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor. In 2005, she earned a Master’s degree of Education (M.Ed.) in Community Counseling from Delta State University. In 2008, she obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Clinical Psychology from Jackson State University and completed a residency at Valley Mental Health in Salt Lake City, Utah. She completed her post-doctoral year with the Mississippi Department of Corrections, where she was the Mental Health Director of the Youthful Offender Unit.

She started her Ridgeland, Mississippi-based private practice, Killebrew Psychological Services, LLC, in 2016, focusing her services primarily on mood disorders, PTSD, addiction and personality disorders. She specializes in Biofeedback, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Prolonged Exposure, and Modified Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).

The post Mississippi Stories: Alyssa Killebrew, Part 2 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Whether United States Supreme Court justices take the time to understand how Mississippi’s Constitution is amended could determine if they agree to hear a case asking that a provision prohibiting most people convicted of felonies from voting be found unconstitutional.

The New Orleans-based 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals, like the Supreme Court a conservative-leaning court, appears not to have taken the time to understand the Mississippi Constitution amendment process and thus upheld the racist provision. In fairness to the 5^th Circuit judges, they were basing their decision on arguments from the office of Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who also either does not understand the amendment process or wants to ignore the limitations of the process.

Everyone, including Fitch’s office and the judges, agree that the intent of the felony disenfranchisement language, like other sections of the 1890 Constitution, was to prevent African Americans, then a majority in the state, from voting. The narrative of the day from the framers of the Constitution made that clear.

“The plan is to invest permanently the powers of government in the hands of the people who ought to have them: the white people,” James Zachariah George, a U.S. senator who was one of the architects of the 1890 Constitution and to this day has a statue in the U.S. Capitol representing Mississippi, said at the time. There was a belief that Black Mississippians would be more prone to commit certain lesser tier crimes. That is why crimes like bribery, theft and bigamy were deemed to be disenfranchising and murder and rape were not.

Fitch’s office argued and a majority of the 5^th Circuit agreed that because the constitutional provision was amended twice – in 1950 and 1968 – to remove burglary and add murder and rape as disenfranchising crimes that the racial taint had been removed and thus the provision is not unconstitutional.

“The critical issue here is not the intent behind Mississippi’s 1890 Constitution, but whether the reenactment of Section 241 (the felony disenfranchisement language) in 1968 was free of intentional racial discrimination,” the nine-member majority of the 17-member court wrote in an unsigned opinion.

The majority concluded it was.

“Mississippi (represented by the office of the Attorney General) has conclusively shown that any taint associated with Section 241 has been cured,” the majority wrote.

The Mississippi Center for Justice and others on behalf of two disenfranchised Mississippians, Roy Harness and Kamal Karriem, are asking the nation’s highest court to reconsider the 5^th Circuit ruling. A decision on whether the court will hear the case should be made during the first half of the year.

In asking the court to not hear the case, Fitch is continuing the argument that the racial taint had been removed by what happened in the 1950s and 1960s.

It is important to understand how the Mississippi Constitution is amended. The citizens never got an opportunity to vote on whether they wanted to remove the racist language. The Legislature voted to put on the ballots in the 1950s and 60s language eliminating burglary and adding murder and rape as disenfranchising crimes. No matter how the citizens voted on those amendments, the bulk of the constitutional provision would remain in place. That language imposes a lifetime ban on voting on those convicted of writing a bad check but not for major drug kingpins who do not lose their right to vote even while serving a prison sentence.

And to top it off, it does not take a history scholar to understand that in the 1950s and 60s there were a lot of efforts to discriminate against Black Mississippians being undertaken by the state’s political leaders.

Fitch pointed out that when making its ruling the 5^th Circuit said, “Plaintiffs’ proposal that a state constitutional amendment must be voted on word for word to avoid any vestigial racial taint is radically prescriptive…. No subsequent case law supports plaintiffs’ novel, judicially crafted political theory of public consent.”

It would seem, though, that the vote should be on whether to continue an admittingly racist constitutional provision that has never been voted on by Mississippians.

So however the Supreme Court justices decide to handle the case, hopefully they will do so understanding all the circumstances surrounding the racist felony disenfranchisement provision.

As this case is considered, it is important to note Mississippi is one of less than 10 states with a permanent ban on voting.

The post Supreme Court’s decision on felony suffrage hinges on understanding of state amendment process appeared first on Mississippi Today.

An investigation is underway into a potential compromise of a shared electronic system among the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department, courts and prosecutors that may have prevented individuals from making bail and returning to their families and jobs. 

Sheriff Tyree Jones said two systems connected to the court and the district attorney’s office went down between Jan. 1 and Wednesday evening. Problems were discovered after a power outage when information technology staff noticed the server and system didn’t reboot like they usually do, he said. 

“This is something that was totally unpreventable,” Jones said. “There were no signs that this was going to happen. It caught us all by surprise.” 

On Friday, Jones said he wasn’t able to share much due to the ongoing investigation. He did not confirm whether the investigation was being conducted by the sheriff’s office. When asked whether hacking may have been involved, he said a cause is still being determined. 

Jones said there was never a point when public safety was at risk or people were erroneously released from the jail. He said the system mostly impacted communication between offices and processes that were slowed down. 

The sheriff’s office is back on track and catching up from last week, he said. 

Charity Bruce, deputy director of consumer protection and public benefits at the Mississippi Center for Justice, said she spoke with a community member who said they tried to pay bail for a family member at the Hinds County jail but couldn’t because the system was down. They also weren’t able to add money to the detainee’s account, she said. 

When Bruce called the sheriff’s office and the jail, she asked if there was a way for people to post bond without the electronic system. 

Jones doesn’t dispute that detainees weren’t able to make bail and leave the jail while the system was down, but he knows that booking and the ability to electronically share case information, including whether a judge approved bail, were affected. 

Generally, when a bail bondsman comes to pay bond for a detainee, jail staff is responsible for confirming the person was granted bond and there is paperwork documenting that, he said. 

With the recent system failure, jail staff had to find another way to get that information, such as by calling the courthouse and having someone there locate a detainee’s case file, Jones said. 

Harya Tarekegn, director of advocacy and policy at the Mississippi Center for Justice, said the situation raises due process concerns. 

Bail is an amount of money set by a judge that a person must pay to get out of jail until their next court appearance. The goal of bail is to make sure defendants show up in court.

Whether bail is awarded and how much depends on several factors, including the alleged crime, whether a person is dangerous, community safety and their risk of fleeing.

Generally, the longer someone is in jail, the worse their outcome is, Tarekegn said. Being in jail often means a person misses work and income, and they aren’t able to see family, she said. 

As a result of the Hinds County system going down, she said the Mississippi Center for Justice doesn’t know how many people missed the holidays with family or lost employment because they weren’t able to pay bail and be released. 

“All of the implications of not being home are exacerbated by this,” Tarekegn said about detention. 

Jones said the past week and a half showed that the sheriff’s office and courts can do some things manually. 

Any needed preventative measures would be made by IT, he said. Even though the situation was unexpected, Jones said the sheriff’s office will be prepared if the system were to go offline again. 

“This has been a learning experience,” Jones said.

The post Hinds County electronic system knocked offline, blocking jail, courts and DA communication appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi’s fledgling Medical Cannabis Program will have a new director starting next week, according to a state Health Department letter obtained by Mississippi Today. 

The letter states that the marijuana office’s current attorney, Laura Goodson, will take over as department’s “acting director” starting Tuesday. The cannabis program’s current director, Kris Jones Adcock, has taken on a new department-wide role.

“Ms. Adcock was promoted – due to her excellent qualifications and ability to effectively develop and produce successful program areas within the Agency,” Department of Health spokesperson Liz Sharlot said in a statement. “Ms. Adcock will continue to maintain authority and oversight within the MMCP Program.”

Mississippi Today obtained another letter dated Nov. 29 that announced Adcock assumed a new position on Dec. 1 as the Department of Health’s assistant senior deputy. That position requires her to work alongside Senior Director Jim Craig in the department’s central offices. 

That November letter, written by State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney, states Adcock would continue her existing roles – as head of the cannabis program and another department office focused on domestic violence – “during the transition.”

That means for the last five weeks, Adcock has been wearing three hats. Adcock was still working for the domestic violence office when she first took on the medical cannabis program last year.

“Mrs. Goodson brings a wealth of knowledge, legal and management experience to the program,” Adcock writes in her letter announcing the change. “I will continue to work with Mrs. Goodson to ensure continuity in the program.”

The letter also says the office will work quickly to fill the legal position Goodson held. 

Goodson will still report to Adcock in her new position, according to the Health Department.

The leadership change comes as Mississippi’s first batches of legal cannabis are nearing entry to the market.

This week, the state gave the first lab – Steep Hill in Flowood – the greenlight to begin testing marijuana flower so it can be approved for sale. 

Read more: Mississippi medical marijuana regulation ‘stuck in constipation mode’

The Health Department’s medical cannabis office has been under some scrutiny since October, when the surge of applications for licenses hit a bottleneck. The office charged with licensing cultivators, workers and labs had only three staffers and no investigators. 

Mississippi Today also obtained copies of photos in October showing one cultivator was not following state growing regulations.

The Health Department said at that time it was trying to fill 25 positions for its medical marijuana program and had three more workers scheduled to start by Nov. 1.

The post Mississippi Health Department taps new medical marijuana program leadership appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Leah Beasley knows the inner workings of the athletic departments at the University of Oklahoma and Mississippi State. She has worked closely with Zac Selmon, the newly named athletic director at State, for the last eight months at Oklahoma.

Beasley says Mississippi State has hit a grand slam in the hiring of Selmon, who, at age 37, becomes Mississippi State’s first Black athletic director and the first at any of Mississippi’s three largest universities.

“I am so proud for Mississippi State and for Zac,” Beasley said from Norman, Okla., Friday, shortly after Selmon’s introductory press conference. “State people are going to love him. He is a relationship-based guy, as genuine as they come. He is really good at having a plan and sticking to it but an be nimble and flexible when the occasion calls for it. He’s ready for this.”

Beasley worked in the Mississippi State athletic department for nearly a decade before taking a job as associate executive athletic director at Oklahoma last April. She worked closely with Selmon in areas of communication, NIL (name, image and likeness), facilities and crisis management.

“You should see our Sooner athletics executive team messaging site today.” Beasley said. “The thing is filled with Mississippi State gifs and memes. Everybody is so happy for Zac.”

Mississippi State president Mark E. Keenum seemed more than happy. “…I think my focus during the interview process was how seamlessly Zac’s values of family, faith and character align with those of Mississippi State University,” Keenum said in introducing Selmon.

“This is an incredibly exciting opportunity and a professional journey that I’m ready to begin,” Selmon said. “I want to thank Dr. Keenum for his confidence in me. I’m grateful to my family for preparing me from an early age to work hard and trust in God. I have a deep and abiding respect for Mississippi State’s traditions and the role this university plays in taking care of what matters in this state and nation. My family and I are eager to join the Bulldog family.”

If the name Selmon sounds familiar to Mississippi Sports fans, it should.
Zac Selmon is a son of Dewey Selmon and nephew Lucius and Lee Roy Selmon (the famous football Selmon brothers of Eufaula, Oklahoma.) Keenum said Zac Selmon “grew up with powerful examples of winning at the highest levels and doing so with a deep commitment to sportsmanship and scholarship. Winning and winning the right way is in Zac Selmon’s DNA.”

Although his father and uncles are Oklahoma football deity, Zac Selmon played his college football at Wake Forest. At Wake, Selmon not only became a four-year starter for the Demon Deacons, but a dean’s list scholar graduating in 2007 with a degree in religion and international studies. He also holds a 2010 OU master’s degree in education with an emphasis in intercollegiate athletics administration.

Before Oklahoma, Zac Selmon also worked as an associate athletic director at North Carolina. Said Keenum, “I am convinced that in Zac Selmon we found an outstanding leader with a servant’s heart – a leader who has extensive experience at two Power Five universities and who understands and shares our relentless commitment to achieving and maintaining excellence.”

Zac Selmon has learned from two of the most respected athletic directors in the business, Joe Castiglione at Oklahoma and Bubba Cunningham at North Carolina.

Nevertheless, as with any hire, there will be skeptics. With Zac Selmon, many might question his having never worked in the SEC or as the CEO of an athletics department. At Oklahoma, he was a member of the school’s executive leadership team as deputy director for external engagement and advancement.

Count Castigilione among Zac Selmon’s most avid boosters. “We are so thrilled for and proud of Zac Selmon,” Castiglione said. “What a spectacular hire by Dr. Keenum and Mississippi State University. It’s been a true privilege to have Zac on our staff from his beginnings as a graduate assistant to his current role as deputy AD. We know he will be a visionary leader for MSU and the SEC. He’s genuine and authentic and helps make everyone around him better.”

In his remarks, Keenum thanked Bracky Brett, who has served as interim athletic director since John Cohen departed for Auburn last November. In the interim, Brett and MSU has dealt with the death of celebrated football coach Mike Leach and the hiring of his replacement Zach Arnett. 

Said Keenum, “The continued success MSU has enjoyed during the search would not have been possible without the steady hand, hard work and wisdom of Bracky Brett. Our university, our fan base, owes you a tremendous debt of gratitude.”

The post Zac Selmon named new athletic director at Mississippi State appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Read in English: Democrat Brandon Presley is running for governor

Brandon Presley, un demócrata que ha pasado los últimos 15 años regulando las empresas de servicios públicos en la Comisión de Servicios Públicos del estado, anunciará hoy que se postula para gobernador en 2023.

Presley se encuentra entre los demócratas más notables que se postularon para el cargo más alto del estado este siglo, y se espera que su candidatura inspire una de las campañas más costosas y amargas en la historia del estado.

El nativo de Nettleton, de 45 años, lanzará su campaña y se presentará a muchos habitantes de Mississippi esta semana con un video de tres minutos que incluye una crítica feroz del actual gobernador Tate Reeves, el republicano en su primer mandato que anunció la semana pasada que buscará reelección.

“Me postulo para gobernador porque sé que Mississippi puede hacerlo mejor”, dice Presley en el video. “Tenemos un estado lleno de gente buena pero políticos horribles, y eso incluye a nuestro gobernador. Tate Reeves es un hombre con cero condenas y máxima corrupción. Se cuida a sí mismo y a sus amigos ricos en lugar de a las personas que lo pusieron en el cargo. Y ha quedado atrapado en medio del mayor escándalo de corrupción pública en la historia del estado”.

Presley, cuya estrategia inicial de campaña se centrará en el creciente escándalo de asistencia social del estado y otra corrupción en Jackson, ha construido una marca modesta a lo largo de los años como un político centrado en prioridades apolíticas como expandir el acceso a Internet de alta velocidad en todo el estado y regular las tarifas que electricidad y las compañías de agua cobran a los habitantes de Mississippi.

Los asesores cercanos a Presley esperan que sus antecedentes, comportamiento e ideas atraigan a muchos habitantes de Mississippi. Pariente del legendario artista Elvis, Presley habla con un profundo acento sureño. Fue criado en un pequeño pueblo por una madre soltera que trabajaba en una fábrica mientras luchaba por pagar las facturas, y durante mucho tiempo se ha detenido en esas primeras lecciones de vida en su vida pública.

Pero para librar una campaña ganadora en 2023, Presley tiene mucho trabajo por delante. Es un demócrata que se postula en Mississippi, uno de los electorados republicanos más confiables de la nación que se ha vuelto cada vez más resistente a los valores defendidos por muchos liberales modernos. El último demócrata en ganar la gobernación fue Ronnie Musgrove en 1999, y desde entonces el Partido Republicano ha reforzado su control sobre el complejo político del estado.

Aún así, Presley cree que tiene un caso convincente que presentar a todos los votantes de Mississippi, incluidos los republicanos. Un político moderado que se describe a sí mismo como pro-vida y pro-Segunda Enmienda, ha trabajado de cerca y con éxito con funcionarios republicanos. Como alcalde de Nettleton de 2001 a 2007, abogó por los recortes de impuestos y creó puestos de trabajo y, de manera infame, se pasó a votar por el republicano George W. Bush en las elecciones presidenciales de 2004. Varios republicanos de alto perfil han contribuido a su campaña en las últimas semanas, incluido un puñado de miembros del comité de finanzas de la campaña para gobernador de 2019 de Reeves.

LEER MÁS: Los republicanos notables entre los donantes de campaña de Brandon Presley

A fines del año pasado, un partidario de Presley incluso imprimió calcomanías que decían: “Republicanos por Presley: ¡Vamos, Brandon!”. Docenas de simpatizantes solicitaron las calcomanías cuando Presley publicó una foto de la calcomanía en Facebook.

Pero mientras Presley busca el apoyo de los votantes independientes o de derecha, su tarea principal será apuntalar el apoyo de los demócratas leales de Mississippi, que tradicionalmente representan entre el 40% y el 45% del electorado del estado. Alrededor del 75% de la base de votantes demócratas del estado son negros, y Presley tendrá que hablarles y apelarles, un objetivo fallido para muchos demócratas blancos recientes en todo el estado.

Sin embargo, ayudando a su causa, Presley ha trabajado durante años para desarrollar relaciones con varios de los principales líderes demócratas negros del estado. Presley se ha vuelto particularmente cercano al representante estadounidense Bennie Thompson, el demócrata más poderoso del estado que cuenta con una red política de décadas y una gran influencia con los habitantes negros de Mississippi. Presley dice que su campaña contratará a varios agentes políticos dentro del círculo de Thompson.

Aunque otros candidatos tienen hasta el 1 de febrero para anunciar sus candidaturas, los políticos pronostican que Presley y Reeves se enfrentarán en las elecciones generales de noviembre. Aunque Reeves, el gobernador republicano de primer mandato, ha sido consistentemente considerado como uno de los gobernadores más impopulares de la nación, disfrutará de la plataforma de titularidad y la chequera de campaña históricamente abultada que la acompaña.

Tendrá acceso a un personal de campaña masivo con décadas de experiencia electoral en todo el estado y una sólida infraestructura del Partido Republicano de Mississippi ya construida y lista para funcionar. Y la base de apoyo más sólida de Reeves se encuentra a lo largo de la costa del golfo de Mississippi, un centro de población y geográficamente más alejado del territorio natal de Presley.

Presley, por otro lado, tendrá que gastar una cantidad considerable de dinero para aumentar la identificación de su nombre entre los habitantes de Mississippi todos los días, y particularmente en la costa, donde pocas personas están familiarizadas con su marca política. Si bien es probable que obtenga el apoyo de los demócratas nacionales y tenga millones de dólares para gastar, no se espera que iguale la destreza de recaudación de fondos de Reeves.

Pero en llamadas con asesores y amigos en los últimos días, Presley se ha centrado en la importancia de las elecciones de 2023 para el futuro del estado, no en la dura política del momento.

“Podemos construir un Mississippi donde luchemos contra la corrupción, no abrazarla”, dice Presley en el video del anuncio. “Donde recortamos impuestos, bajamos el costo de la atención médica y creamos buenos empleos. Un Mississippi donde finalmente nos enfocamos en el futuro, no en el pasado. Un Mississippi en el que lideremos con fuerza, coraje y verdadera columna vertebral.

“Y si me haces tu gobernador, te prometo esto: nunca olvidaré quién soy, de dónde vengo o quién me envió”.
LEER MÁS: ¿Puede Presley ser el ganador estatal que los demócratas parecen no encontrar?

Andrés Fuentes

Andrés Fuentes es periodista de FOX8-TV en Nueva Orleans y traductor de Mississippi Today. Antes de que el nativo de Nueva Orleans regresara, era periodista para WLOX-TV en Biloxi, Mississippi.

The post <strong>El demócrata Brandon Presley se postula para gobernador</strong> appeared first on Mississippi Today.