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Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann details his issues with House Speaker Philip Gunn’s proposal to eliminate the state’s personal income tax. Hosemann said he wants to cut taxes, but “I’m not going to risk the future of Mississippi.” Hosemann also says Mississippi is already behind other states in allocating billions in federal pandemic stimulus funds and warns delays could have dire consequences, including the state losing the money if Congress takes back unspent funds – as has been proposed in Washington recently.

Listen to more episodes of The Other Side here.

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Note: This analysis first published in Mississippi Today’s weekly legislative newsletter. Subscribe to our free newsletter for exclusive early access to weekly analyses.

All 77 Republicans in the Mississippi House of Representatives received a message early last Monday, March 14: Speaker Philip Gunn had called a House Republican Caucus meeting for 3 p.m. later that day.

Inside the Capitol committee room, which was closed to the public and reporters, Gunn told the Republicans that he, his chief of staff Trey Dellinger and Rep. Trey Lamar had majorly reworked a tax reform proposal that, if passed, could change the way Mississippi government funds public services for generations to come.

Gunn’s tax proposal is at the center of an epic leadership clash at the Capitol. The speaker and other House leaders have publicly said they will not allocate most of the $1.8 billion in federal stimulus funds until Senate Republicans back Gunn’s plan to eliminate the state’s income tax. Senate leaders, meanwhile, oppose Gunn’s tax plan, fearing it does too much too quickly and could jeopardize the state’s ability to fund the state government in the long run.

Very few House Republicans knew the details of Gunn’s updated tax proposal until that closed-door Monday caucus meeting. Several meeting attendees, who spoke with Mississippi Today on the condition of anonymity, said there was little discussion of the tax proposal or questions about the changes in the meeting.

Just a few minutes after the caucus meeting ended, the majority-Republican House Ways and Means Committee passed the bill in a regular public meeting. Every House Republican on the committee voted “yea” after asking no questions about the bill, despite not learning of the details until just a few minutes earlier. 

A few minutes after the bill passed committee, the entire House passed it on the floor. No Republican asked a question, and every Republican voted “yea” on the bill.

The next day, Gunn held a press conference at the Capitol to tout “unanimous House Republican support” for his tax proposal, using it as the basis to chastise Senate Republicans for not falling in line. Dozens of House Republicans stood behind Gunn for the cameras to see.

The caucus meetings are just one tool Gunn regularly employs to strong-arm House Republicans into passing the bills he authors or supports and to restrict public debate among his fellow partymates.

Here’s how it works, according to several House Republicans who spoke with Mississippi Today:

The weekly closed-door Republican caucus meetings are usually the first place rank-and-file House Republicans are informed of details about major policies that Gunn and a handful of other House leaders determine privately. In the caucus meetings, Gunn asks the group of Republicans for support. Caucus members who feel they can’t support the bill in question are asked to speak privately about their positions with the relevant committee chairmen — Gunn appointees who are the speaker’s closest allies. 

If members still feel they can’t support the bill after speaking with the chairman, the member will often be sent to speak with Gunn in a private meeting. Gunn can be forceful in those meetings, several House Republicans said, often demanding support and leaving little room for conversation or pushback.

Rank-and-file members often feel forced to vote for a policy they may not personally support or feel their district would support over fear Gunn or other House leaders will retaliate against them.

Mississippi speakers of the House have long used similar tactics to garner support on any given bill, and the bottom line for Republican representatives is simple: Not getting in line with the speaker’s wishes could lose them power and influence for their constituents back home, and in the worst cases, it could earn them a Republican primary challenger in the next election.

The effects of the strict process are clear: This session, Gunn is the primary author on 14 major pieces of legislation that are still pending or have already passed. No House Republican has voted against a single one of those bills at any point during the legislative process.

Gunn has convened these closed-door House Republican Caucus meetings since he became speaker in 2012. The meetings are typically called via private group text message and are never announced publicly. They are never open to the public. Several House Republicans told Mississippi Today that the caucus, in recent years under Gunn’s leadership, has been asked to vote on individual bills in these caucus meetings — though vote-taking in the meetings reportedly hasn’t happened this session.

Many people at the Capitol — including several Senate Republican leaders — question whether the House Republican Caucus meetings violate Mississippi’s Open Meetings Act, the state law that dictates how governmental bodies meet.

When Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann became lieutenant governor and presiding officer of the Senate in 2020, second-term Republican state Sen. Mike Seymour inquired whether caucus meetings were legal under the Open Meetings Act. After Senate staff did some research, Hosemann decided that he would not convene Senate Republican Caucus meetings because the staff advised him the meetings could very likely violate the Open Meetings Act.

The Open Meetings Act bars any public body from discussing policy changes privately, unless in a designated executive session. The state law defines “public body” as: “Any executive or administrative board, commission, authority, council, department, agency, bureau or any other policymaking entity, or committee thereof, of the State of Mississippi, or any political subdivision or municipal corporation of the state … which is supported wholly or in part by public funds or expends public funds, and any standing, interim or special committee of the Mississippi Legislature.”

The House Republican Caucus, boasting 77 members, makes up 63% of the entire Mississippi House of Representatives. A quorum of the House, according to legislative rules, is 50%. The caucus has the numbers to pass any bill they want without a single Democratic or independent vote, making these private caucus discussions critical to the policymaking process.

“In a 2017 decision involving a city council, the Mississippi Supreme Court reiterated that a meeting occurs under the Open Meetings Act when a quorum of a public body deliberates a matter under their authority,” said Tom Hood, executive director of the Mississippi Ethics Commission. Hood would not speculate on whether the House Republican Caucus meetings violated state law.

The Open Meetings Act does not specifically mention legislative caucuses, and caucus meetings have never been challenged in the courts or before the Mississippi Ethics Commission.

Gunn’s staff, when questioned by Mississippi Today, reiterated several times this session that the House Republican Caucus is not obligated to adhere to the Open Meetings Act because it is not a “public body.”

“The House Republican Caucus is not a public body under the Open Meetings Act,” said Emily Simmons, Gunn’s communications director. Dellinger, Gunn’s chief of staff, shared the same justification with Mississippi Today.

House leaders have used that interpretation to bar the public from the caucus meetings. During the March 14 caucus meeting regarding the tax bill, two journalists were barred entry.

The process by which Gunn and House leaders govern — including the caucus meetings — has created tension inside the Capitol that hasn’t been seen in years. Some political observers say the bickering House and Senate leaders is worse than it’s been since the tort reform debate of 2004.

A top Senate Republican leader, granted anonymity to speak candidly, put it this way:

“Take a look at votes in the House and the Senate. In the Senate, we have Republicans who are voting how they want to or how they think their districts would vote — even if it goes against what Senate leadership wants. That’s the way lawmaking should be. We may lose some votes, but that’s the way it goes. Everyone can go back to their districts and genuinely explain why they voted the way they did. But take a look at the House votes. They’re always in line with what leadership wants. You think every single House Republican really agrees with the speaker on every bill he wants passed? Funny how that works.”

READ MORE: Philip Gunn and Delbert Hosemann remain at an impasse on tax cuts

Several House Republicans who spoke with Mississippi Today said they appreciate the caucus meetings because it gave them time to hammer out concerns or questions about bills before getting into a messy committee or floor debate that could delay final votes or kill the bills altogether.

But debate of legislation — especially legislation as transformational as Gunn’s tax plan — is intended to be public. The Open Meetings Act protects Mississippians and helps them make sounder decisions about whether their elected officials are representing their best interests.

Legal or not, the House Republican Caucus meetings jeopardize the democratic process. When major legislative debates occur only in the back rooms of the Capitol, the public cannot fully understand if their representative has their backs. Constituents are stripped of power, left without any genuine explanation for their lawmakers’ votes or concerns. Voters, in turn, are forced to make less informed decisions at the polls every four years. This dealing only stands to protect the politicians in power and harm the people they represent.

Perhaps House leaders should read the reasoning that their legislative predecessors wrote when the Mississippi Open Meetings Act was first enacted:

“It being essential to the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of representative government and to the maintenance of a democratic society that public business be performed in an open and public manner, and that citizens be advised of and be aware of the performance of public officials and the deliberations and decisions that go into the making of public policy, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the State of Mississippi that the formation and determination of public policy is public business and shall be conducted at open meetings except as otherwise provided herein.”

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The Mississippi Legislature may end the 2022 session taking credit for a historic tax cut while leaving local officials on the hook to either raise property taxes on their constituents or decide where to make cuts to their school districts.

As gasoline prices rise and overall inflation rates increase, the Legislature is preparing to underfund the program that provides for the basics of operating local school districts by what may be a record amount. The only options for local school districts to deal with the state funding shortfall could be to make cuts or raise local property taxes.

Despite that funding shortfall, the 2022 legislative session still will be recorded as an historic one for public education with the largest teacher pay raise since at least 2000 being enacted. The $246 million teacher pay package has passed the Senate and is expected to be taken up by the House in the coming days. The pay raise will make a substantial difference for Mississippi teachers.

But despite the historic nature of the 2022 session, it still could be considered one of lost opportunities for public education.

While the final budget is yet to be voted on, lawmakers appear on track to fall further behind in funding the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. MAEP, of course, provides the state’s share of funding to provide for the operation of local schools, such as money for teacher salaries, for buses, for utilities, for maintenance and for the other items needed to run a school.

Going into this session, an additional $362.5 million was needed to fully fund MAEP, according to Mississippi Department of Education officials.

Senate Education Chair Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, estimated recently during floor debate in the Senate chamber that when the final budget is agreed to later this session, MAEP will be about 10% short of full funding.

In earlier action this session, both the House and Senate in their initial budget proposals increased MAEP funding by about $62 million over what was appropriated during the 2021 session — or about $300 million short of full funding.

READ MORE: Hosemann fears federal funds might be lost, squandered in battle over taxes

Since 2007, the last time the MAEP was fully funded, it has been underfunded $3.1 billion. That number no doubt will grow as a result of actions of the 2022 Legislature. MAEP funding levels are derived by calculating the cost of operating districts that are deemed as adequate based on the state’s performance measures.

In the past lawmakers have used the excuse that there was not enough state revenue to fully fund MAEP — all the while passing about 50 tax cuts. The last of those tax cuts, which will be fully enacted later this decade, was estimated to cost $415 million annually when passed in 2016.

The Legislature wants to cut taxes again this session. The latest tax cut plan being touted this session by Speaker Philip Gunn to phase out the personal income tax and reduce the sales tax on groceries from 7% to 4% will cost about $2 billion when fully enacted or will cost about one-third of the state’s general fund revenue. The first year of that proposed tax cut would reduce the general fund by about $700 million or about twice the cost of fully funding MAEP.

“We have enough money to fully fund the (MAEP) program this year,” said Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory. “We are choosing not to. We are choosing to do something else with the money.”

There is enough money because the state is experiencing unprecedented revenue growth and most likely will have a surplus of more than $2 billion when the books close on the 2022 fiscal year on June 30.

Bryan said the cost of operating school districts is increasing because of inflation. He pointed out the rising cost of gasoline and of other items has placed an additional burden on the local school districts, leaving the real possibility that local officials could in the future have to raise property taxes to make up for the shortfall in state funding.

DeBar correctly pointed out that schools will have more money than ever thanks to the teacher pay raise and federal funds provided to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. But those funds cannot be used to buy a gallon of gasoline, a kilowatt of electricity or a textbook.

“We have funded our schools,” DeBar said. “They are getting a lot of money. We will continue to strive to get closer to full funding, but not at the expense of the other liabilities of the state.”

The real question, though, is whether a record-breaking tax cut is a liability or a choice.

READ MORE: Philip Gunn and Delbert Hosemann remain at an impasse on tax cuts

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Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann expressed concerns Thursday that Mississippi could lose $1.8 billion in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds or at least the ability to allocate the funds efficiently if the Legislature does not act this session to spend the money.

“We continue, unfortunately, to be concerned about the fact we are not passing out the American Rescue Plan funds,” Hosemann told media on Thursday in his Capitol office.

Hosemann spoke Thursday of the need to speed the process of spending the federal funds as House leaders, including Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, continue indicating that the expenditure of what are known as ARPA funds might be delayed until an agreement can be reached between the House and Senate on cutting taxes.

Gunn has been adamant that legislation be passed this year to eliminate the state’s personal income tax, which accounts for about one-third of state general fund revenue. The Senate has proposed a more modest tax cut that still would be one of the largest ever passed by the state.

House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar said there is a likelihood of other legislation, such as ARPA spending, being frozen, “If the Senate doesn’t get right on this, and work with us.”

“If they don’t negotiate with us in good faith on the income tax, then that’s where it’s heading (other work being shut down),” Lamar said.

Gunn, the third-term speaker, said, “We want elimination, without further legislative action being required and we want it done as quickly as possible.” He also reiterated this week that he doesn’t want to wait until next year.

“This is the opportunity of a lifetime,” Gunn said. “… This is the opportunity to do something right now that we will never have again in our lifetimes.”

Gunn said the House GOP majority is “in solidarity” on his income tax elimination.

READ MORE: Philip Gunn and Delbert Hosemann remain at an impasse on tax cuts

Whether that solidarity will last if federal funds that could help House members’ local communities is put at risk remains to be seen.

Mississippi is one of just four states, districts or territories not to have allocated substantial amounts of ARPA funding to date, along with Idaho, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington, D.C., according to data collected by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The federal American Rescue Plan funds were made available to the state in part to deal with issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Proposals are alive in the Mississippi Legislature to use the funds to help local governments deal with water and sewerage infrastructure, to continue to expand broadband and to deal with issues in state agencies, such as to help settle major lawsuits facing the state’s foster care and mental health systems.

While legislation is still alive, Hosemann is concerned about whether there will be good faith efforts in the final days to reach agreement between House and Senate leaders on how to spend the money.

Hosemann has taken umbrage at threats of other initiatives being halted over the tax standoff and said repeatedly, “They took the same oath of office I did,” referring to the oath Mississippi lawmakers take when being sworn into office. It includes the passage: “I will not vote for any measure or person because of a promise of any other member of this legislature to vote for any measure or person, or as a means of influencing him or them so to do.”

Under existing federal law, the states must commit the ARPA funds by the end of 2024 and actually spend them by the end of 2026. If the funds get caught up in the tax fight and are not committed this year, Hosemann expressed concern that it might be difficult for local governments to find contractors to actually do the water and sewer improvements.

“If we wait another year (to spend the funds), that means we are behind every other state…,” said Hosemann, who presides over the Senate. “If we get another year from now, we may not be able to get a contractor to do the work in the time period that is necessary.

“The fear and concern is that this is getting hung up in the last two weeks of the session. This is not good public policy.”

Hosemann said as inflation continues to rise, the funds will not have the same bang for the buck if they are spent next year instead of this year. Also, he said it can take a lot of time for a city or county to get permits, engineering and other prep work for a large infrastructure project.

Another concern, Hosemann said, is that Congress might change the law and not give states as long to spend the funds, or even take it back.

Last week, when contemplating a new emergency COVID-19 funding bill the Biden administration requested for Health and Human Services, U.S. House leaders were considering rescinding, or “clawing back” about $7 billion in unspent American Rescue Plan Act funds from states. The money would have come from the main ARPA program for state and local aid. But after outcry from states and lawmakers, the House leadership pulled that provision from the plan.

While multiple local governments have indicated that they will apply for the state’s ARPA money, Hosemann cited Jackson as a city where the funds could make a significant difference.

“You do not have to go any further than Jackson to see what the issues are,” the lieutenant governor said.

Jackson has issues with an aged water and sewer system and federal officials have indicated water safety issues with the system.

He said Jackson had indicated it needs about $85 million from the state’s ARPA funds to deal with its water and sewer issues, though he expressed concerns about whether that would be enough. In the past city officials have said $1 billion is needed to fix the system.

READ MORE: New federal investments alone won’t fix Mississippi’s aging sewer systems

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Thomas Hudson, Jackson State University’s president, called for greater funding for historically Black colleges and universities during a congressional hearing examining violence against Black institutions, including recent bomb threats. 

In his opening remarks to the House Homeland Security Committee Thursday, Hudson said a historical underfunding of resources put Jackson State in “a reactionary position” on Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month, when all but one HBCU in Mississippi received bomb threats. 

“We cannot sit idly by and wait for something to happen to these hallowed spaces,” Hudson said. “We cannot afford to be reactionary.”

He asked the committee: “What will it take for us to ensure the long-term protection of not only our students, faculty, staff and stakeholders, but the historical assets that are HBCUs?” 

At Thursday’s hearing, Hudson was joined by Rev. Eric Manning from Emanuel A.M.E Church in Charleston and Janet Nelson, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Manning testified to the lingering trauma his church experiences almost seven years after nine parishioners were killed by a white supremacist during Bible study. Nelson underscored the role HBCUs play as safe havens for Black students and faculty and echoed Hudson’s call for greater funding and support from the federal government. 

Due to historical underfunding, Nelson pointed out that HBCUs are more tuition-dependent than their predominantly white counterparts. The bomb threats can harm the financial security of HBCUs, Nelson said, by casting “a chilling effect on the desire of students to attend these institutions.” 

Nelson also urged the House Homeland Security Committee to conduct a “parallel investigation” to the one the Federal Bureau of Investigations is pursuing. The committee is chaired by Bennie Thompson, Mississippi’s only Black member of Congress and an alumnus of two HBCUs. 

Since the start of this year, at least 57 HBCUs across the country received bomb threats, all of which were unfounded. On Feb. 2, the FBI announced it was investigating the bomb threats as racially motivated hate crimes and had identified “six juveniles as persons of interest.” 

More than a month later, students, faculty, and alumni have started to call on the FBI to release more information. In a separate House committee hearing on Thursday, Ryan Young, the FBI’s executive assistant director of intelligence, said the office has “the majority slotted down to one person and a small group” but has not made any arrests. 

During the hearing, committee members asked Hudson to detail the cost of Jackson State’s security needs. 

To simply make the needed physical improvements at Jackson State, Hudson said, would cost around $10 million. That estimate doesn’t include ongoing, monthly costs to improve data storage, which Hudson said is crucial for monitoring security around campus, or training for campus police. 

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Education opened applications for “short-term, immediate funding” for the HBCUs that received bomb threats. HBCUs can use the grants, which will range from $50,000 to $150,000, to “target mental health resources or enhance security to restore the learning environment on their campuses,” according to a press release. 

At most HBCUs, Hudson said the grant will help in “the training efforts you need to get you started.”

Hudson added that another way the federal government can support HBCUs is by making more grants need-based rather than competitive — that will make funding more accessible to institutions that lack “human capital” to fill out applications. 

Jackson State, Hudson said, is eager to partner with Congress and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Academic Engagement to address security on its campus.

“There’s only a finite pool of resources that are available to us,” Hudson said. “We obviously are going to prioritize our core mission which is the education, the teaching and learning of our students. … When you have a bomb threat, the ability to offer extra security, the ability to upgrade our data systems, those cost additional resources that are just often not available.” 

“We have to remain vigilant, we’re going to do what’s necessary to make sure we always protect our students, but those funding sources have to come from somewhere and often they will be at the expense of our educational endeavors,” he added. 

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The Mississippi State Board of Education announced Thursday that it is continuing to work through the public comments on proposed revisions to the state’s social studies standards. 

In December, the board began the process to revise Mississippi’s K-12 social studies standards and received passionate feedback on social media. 

The proposed changes removed many specific names, events, and details in state history in lieu of more broad descriptions, and people worried the state Department of Education was removing civil rights history from the standards. 

The board subsequently held a public comment hearing on Jan. 28 where officials announced that some of the proposed changes had been rolled back. The department would no longer be removing the lists from the standards based on the feedback it had already received. 

The department periodically updates the standards following feedback from teachers, with the last revision occurring in 2018. MDE officials said teachers felt some standards needed more clarity while others had excessive examples, leading to the 2021 revisions. 

At the board meeting Thursday, a report was provided summarizing the public comment hearing, which the hearing officer described as emotional and representing diverse viewpoints.

MDE said it has begun sorting the feedback into major categories, and will bring in a group of social studies teachers to help them incorporate feedback that strengthens the standards. If the changes are considered substantive, they will again be open for public comment.

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