OurTupelo

The Mississippi Senate unanimously passed a bill Wednesday designed to help rural hospitals open needed services, joining the House in advancing proposals to support struggling facilities by loosening the state’s certificate of need law. 

“I think we’re moving closer to a consensus about what to do,” Senate Public Health and Welfare Chairman Hob Bryan, a Democrat from Amory and the author of the bill, said of the overlap between each chamber’s proposal. 

The Senate bill would create a pilot program that tasks the state health officer with issuing licenses for three outpatient dialysis units, three ambulatory surgery centers and geriatric psychiatric facilities connected to rural hospitals within five miles of the rural hospital’s main location. The goal is to let hospitals open services that bring in revenue and help them keep their doors open, Bryan said Wednesday. 

The House passed a broader measure on Feb. 4 that would exempt 55 existing rural hospitals from certificate of need regulations, allowing them to open new health services or make improvements within a five-mile radius of their main building without state approval. 

The House and Senate will trade bills for further debate, and they must agree on a final plan before anything could go to the governor.

Mississippi’s certificate of need law requires providers to receive state approval before opening new services or paying for costly upgrades by proving that people need the services in their area. The regulations are meant to lower costs and enhance the quality and accessibility of health care by preventing duplication of services, but stakeholders are divided on whether the law accomplishes its goals. In Mississippi, where more than half of rural hospitals are at risk of closure, some people argue the law harms rural hospitals by restricting the services they are allowed to offer. 

Greg Gibbes is the CEO of five hospitals, including South Central Regional Medical Center in Laurel and Covington County Hospital in Collins. He said he has advocated for a rural exemption from certificate of need law for years because it will allow hospitals to expand the services most needed in their communities. 

“We want to give a small and rural hospital every fighting chance,” he said. “And there are those that are currently struggling that are probably not going to be calling a lot of offensive plays.”

The Senate bill defines rural hospitals as those in a county without a city over 15,000 people or located in Washington County, while the House applies the term to critical access hospitals, those located in Delta counties or in municipalities with a population under 15,000 people. The House bill also would exempt Humphreys and Issaquena counties entirely from certificate of need law.

Crafting effective exemptions to certificate of need laws requires a focus on “very rural” hospitals and parts of the state such as the Delta that require additional support because of workforce shortages and poverty, said Richard Roberson, president and CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association. 

“We’re trying to make sure we find that sweet spot where we’re allowing hospitals to add services that their communities need in those really rural areas, while also making sure that we’re managing the cost of those services coming online,” said Roberson.

The certificate of need law has long been criticized by health care providers as cumbersome and time-consuming, frequently delaying the opening of new health care services when competing providers appeal the state’s issuance of a certificate. Another bill that passed the Senate Wednesday would require any party requesting a hearing on the state’s decision that loses to pay the fees associated with the hearing. 

Streamlining procedural aspects of the certificate of need process has lowered costs and helped the health department move through applications more quickly in the past, Roberson said. Mississippi enacted a law setting benchmarks for the process’ timeline in 2016. 

He said the Mississippi Hospital Association is weighing the impact of changes to the certificate of need application process, but is open to “anything we can do to lower the cost and make the process better.”

However, Roberson said, the state needs to have some supervision of the addition of new health facilities, especially given the large portion of patients with government-sponsored health plans, like Medicare and Medicaid. 

“It is important to have some oversight of the process to make sure we aren’t spitting up unnecessary or duplicative services that are just going to run up the cost of care for everybody,” Roberson said.  

Mississippi has already enacted one certificate of need reform law this year. Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill Feb. 4 and it became law immediately, doubling the cost threshold that triggers a requirement for hospitals to seek state approval before making improvements. For clinical improvements other than major medical equipment, hospitals will now require approval for changes over $10 million, up from $5 million. 

The new law also limits University of Mississippi Medical Center’s exemption for a certificate of need to the area around UMMC’s main campus and the Jackson Medical Mall. For years, UMMC has been exempt from certificate of need requirements for facilities or equipment used for education.

Gibbes said if the state Legislature moves to exempt rural hospitals from certificate of need law this session, he doesn’t expect to see a significant increase in services overnight because adding them requires time, labor and funding. But, he said, he believes it is important to create an environment where hospitals that take a risk to offer new services aren’t impeded. 

“These things take time,” Gibbes said. “It’s not like flipping a switch.”

Mississippi would take more steps to investigate prison deaths, under a proposal that’s advancing through the Legislature. 

House lawmakers approved a bill that calls for more oversight of prison deaths, legislation inspired by an investigation by Missisisppi Today, The Marshall-Project Jackson, the Clarion Ledger, the Hattiesburg American and The Mississippi Link.

On Tuesday, House Bill 1739 passed unanimously with 120 votes. Next, it heads to the Senate Corrections Committee. 

Senate Corrections Chairman Juan Barnett, a Democrat from Heidelberg, said he planned to review the prison death task force legislation before bringing it up for consideration in his committee. 

“I heard about it, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it,” Barnett said. “I think that’s something that we really need to be looking into more. More oversight, more transparency for the public so they can feel more comfortable and know that if something happens, somebody will be on top of it to make sure that we don’t have any bad actors.”

Rep. Becky Currie, a Brookhaven Republican who filed the legislation and chairs the House Corrections Committee, told lawmakers Tuesday that people continue to die in prison and their cause of death remains unknown. She said that includes the deaths of a 20- and 30-year-old who died last week and two people who died that day. 

The bill would direct and empower the Corrections and Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force to look into “unexpected” deaths using information provided by coroner’s reports and the Mississippi Department of Corrections. 

“A lot of times these deaths don’t get investigated correctly, they’re swept under the rug,” Currie said. “We don’t know if they were suicide, we don’t know if they were drugs. We don’t know if they were killed by another inmate. But I’m a big believer (in) if you don’t know where you’ve been, you can’t figure out where you need to be.”

Unexpected deaths would include those not related to a previously diagnosed or serious terminal illness. Under Currie’s bill, the task force must release a public report describing its findings and recommendations to try to prevent future deaths. 

Currie proposed prison death oversight in response to an investigation by the news outlets. Prison understaffing and gang violence likely led to the killings of nearly 50 people since 2015, the news team found. Of those, eight resulted in criminal convictions. At least 20 deaths remain undetermined. 

Family members of those who died in prison said they received little information from prison officials, and instead had more luck learning from a whisper network of incarcerated people, insiders, advocates, and, in some cases, from journalists. 

Weeks after the news investigation, prison Commissioner Burl Cain told a legislative budget committee and Mississippi Today that the department would review unprosecuted homicides and deaths ruled as undetermined. 

But four months later, there have been no new indictments or convictions in open homicide cases.

Currie’s bill adds members to the task force, including the chairs of the House and Senate Corrections committees,  the Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency committees and the public safety commissioner or a designee. 

Currently, much of the group is Department of Corrections staff, leading to a situation where “MDOC is reviewing themselves,” Currie said.

Rep. Tracey Rosebud, a Democrat from Tutwiler, asked if it was possible for the corrections commissioner to be removed from the task force. Currie said that’s unlikely because the commissioner is the one who would bring information to the task force. 

“All this does is bring transparency, oversight and sunshine to the board,” she said. 

The bill would have to clear the Senate Corrections Committee, be passed by the Senate and signed by the governor to become law.

Michael Goldberg contributed to this report.

Visitors in 2025 to the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Home National Monument described powerful tours from National Park Service rangers, but people who visited the house last month say they walked away puzzled by omissions both to the couple’s story and the motives of Medgar Evers’ assassin.

On Jan. 17, Jack Storms was part of a civil rights tour from the state of Washington, which visited the Evers home in Jackson. Before taking the trip, he did research about the home and one detail moved him — there were still bloodstains on the driveway where Medgar Evers was shot to death in 1963.

While on the tour, he noticed that the park ranger made no mention of the stains, he said.

“I asked him about the bloodstains, and he said they are no longer able to discuss that. He also alluded to the fact they were supposed to remove the reference to (Byron De La) Beckwith as a racist,” Storms said, referring to Evers’ assassin.

Other visitors said they heard the same remarks.

READ: Medgar Evers’ killer was a Klansman, but Trump administration says stop calling him a racist

Park Service officials told Mississippi Today that anticipated changes to Evers home brochures included no longer referring to his killer as a “racist.” A National Park Service spokesperson said parks “regularly remove or replace brochures that are outdated, as was the case at Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument.” No brochures were present when a Mississippi Today reporter visited on Jan. 20.

READ: Visitor brochures are returned to Medgar Evers home

But the monument’s superintendent, Keena Graham, told the Mississippi Free Press that the brochures haven’t been removed. She said some edits are planned for the brochures and that work is being coordinated with the Evers family.

Reena Evers-Everette, executive director of the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute and daughter of the couple, told Mississippi Today last week that the family was informed the matter is under review, “but the final product has not been put out yet.”

In texts Tuesday with Mississippi Today, Graham denied that rangers couldn’t refer to Beckwith as a racist. As for the reported bloodstains on the driveway, she responded, “Organic matter cannot last that long in outdoor elements. We had the stains tested three and a half years ago.” The culprit was likely an old rusty water heater, she said.

Myrlie Evers has said that after her husband’s assassination, she couldn’t get the bloodstains off the driveway. A half dozen people who visited the park in 2024 and 2025 said rangers pointed out those bloodstains.

Last March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which accused the previous administration of rewriting history. Under the order, the interior secretary must revise or remove from national parks and monuments any content that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living.”

The Washington Post has reported that the administration has ordered the editing or removal of signs or informational material in at least 18 parks, including the removal of an 1863 photo that Christian abolitionists used to show the horrors of slavery.

Outside magazine reported that the Park Service recently flagged signs at Big Bend National Park in Texas referencing fossils and prehistoric times. In Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, the Park Service removed a sign about Native American history. A sign that described the displacement of Native Americans has been taken away from the Grand Canyon.

The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is now suing the Trump administration after the National Park Service removed a long-standing exhibit on slavery in Independence National Historical Park.

In a Tuesday hearing of the U.S. House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman of California said the current administration is airbrushing out the darker parts of our nation’s history to create its own version.

“Actual history is getting whitewashed from national parks and museums,” Huffman said. “We can honor the 250th anniversary of America by telling the truth.”

He showed two signs regarding slavery that the National Park Service had removed and said one problem the administration had with these signs was referring to those abducted from Africa as “stolen.”

Alan Spears, senior director for cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association, responded, “Stolen is an entirely accurate depiction of what happened to African people. Nobody came as a volunteer on those slave ships.”

‘Changes were coming’

When Keith Plessy visited the Evers home in 2024, he was overcome with emotion. “It was a beautiful experience,” he said. 

His family knows about sacrifice. His great-grandfather was a first cousin to Homer Plessy, arrested in 1892 in the famous case, Plessy v. Ferguson, challenging racial segregation in New Orleans streetcars.

He had deep conversations with park rangers at the Evers home who showed him the bloodstains on the driveway and how the house was designed to keep its occupants safe, he said. “When I saw how they renovated the house, the care they took in recreating how the Evers family lived, I was kind of glued to the house.”

He was so glued, in fact, that the tour bus left without him.

Malcolm Reed, an Advanced Placement history teacher from Louisiana, described a powerful visit to the Evers home that he and his wife had last June.

During the tour, he said rangers spoke about the couple’s lives and how they made their home a fortress. They put their children’s beds on the floor so if someone shot into the house, the bullets would miss them. Rangers spoke, too, about how when the Evers family built the home, they didn’t include a front door to help keep the family safe.

A month later, Erin Smith said she and fellow Mississippi history teachers heard the same stories about making the home safe. As they toured outside, she said rangers pointed out the bloodstains still on the driveway.

Catherine McGowin, a history teacher at Southeast Lauderdale High School, has made several visits to the home, most recently last September. She praised rangers, saying they make clear “this is sacred, hallowed ground and ensure that all visitors understand the weight and significance of where they are standing.”

What stood out to her, she said, “is how thoughtfully they tell the full story of both Medgar and Myrlie, not only the tragedy that occurred there, but the rich lives they lived before they met and the life they built together. It is easy for visitors to become consumed by the sorrow of the event that took place at that home, but the rangers do an amazing job of making sure people leave remembering Medgar for his work, his purpose, and the legacy he continues to carry even after his death.

“They also go above and beyond in honoring Mrs. Myrlie Evers, not only the tireless work she did after his assassination, but the work she still continues today. They speak with great care about their children as well and the many ways the family remains actively engaged in carrying forward their father’s mission.”

Last September, Elizabeth Dickson Gavney and her husband, Dean, who live in Jackson, visited the park for the first time. She praised the rangers, who kept the park open for them to visit. As they shared thoughts about Medgar Evers’ death, she and the rangers wept.

But change was in the air as evidenced by the new sign that told visitors that if they saw a sign that reflected something “negative about either past or living Americans,” to complain through a QR code or website, Dean said.

“They knew the changes were coming,” he said. “They said, ‘In the meantime, we’re going to tell the story the best we can.’”

‘There was nothing about Medgar Evers being murdered’

Jack Storms’ wife, Michele, who serves as executive director for the ACLU in Washington state, described the Jan. 17 tour given at the Evers home as strange.

Park rangers announced it was “Wellness Day,” she said, but she heard nothing about Medgar Evers fighting for his country in World War II, nothing about his fight for justice and equality for all Americans, nothing about his courage or principles he stood for, nothing about his death on the driveway where they stood, she said.

“It was pretty surreal to listen to that, because there was nothing about Medgar Evers being murdered,” she said. “I thought it was the weirdest thing.”

She said she heard nothing about Evers’ assassin, who belonged to the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, or why Evers was killed.

Instead, she said, the talk focused on “all the amazing things that Myrlie Evers did after he was gone,” focusing on her connection with her community and discussing how she maintained her mental wellness through friendships with Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz.

The ranger did mention that Myrlie Evers won the Spingarn Medal, which is given by the NAACP for outstanding achievement by a Black American, but there was no mention of what she won the award for, she said. “I didn’t hear anything about her personal battle to continue her husband’s legacy. It was all very superficial.”

Storms said she was shocked.

“This man lost his life in service of something huge,” she said. “It’s a sacred site of someone in a family who gave literally all you can give for Black people and everybody because the gains through the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act benefitted everybody.”

She called this story “a huge piece of American history that shouldn’t be lost.”

She sighed. “I hope they will tell it again.”

Mississippi is poised to receive at least $528 million in direct funding under the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, according to figures released by U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker’s office after congressional passage of the bill.

The $528 million includes funding explicitly authorized for Mississippi military installations, universities, research and education programs across the state, said Wicker, the Republican from Mississippi who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Congress’s annual defense bill is vast, authorizing programs for the Pentagon, as well as the State Department, the intelligence communities, the Coast Guard, and more,” Wicker said in a statement. “But amid those diverse provisions, one fact is clear: Mississippi is a vital link in the chain of American national defense.” 

That direct funding includes $53 million for five military construction projects, including upgrades at Columbus Air Force Base, Camp Shelby, Meridian’s Readiness Center and Key Field Air National Guard Base. 

The act also authorized additional money for cybersecurity and artificial intelligence research, autonomous vehicle testing, JROTC programs and advanced manufacturing programs tied to Mississippi universities and defense facilities.

Other provisions of the act involve Mississippi but do not include specific dollar amounts, such as language protecting services at Keesler Medical Center, authorizing a 3.8% military pay raise and establishing new programs for un-crewed maritime systems operating from Gulfport.

President Donald Trump earlier this month signed a broad spending bill, which includes an appropriation for the Department of Defense, into law. This appropriation solidifies the spending authority outlined in the NDAA. 

Jackson’s water and sewer systems would be under the control of an authority separate from the city government under a bill the state House passed Wednesday. The change would take place once U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate releases the city from its current receivership.

House Bill 1677 would create the “Metro Jackson Water Authority” that would be led by a nine-member board. Those members would be comprised of:

• The mayor of Jackson
• Two at-large appointees, who live or work in the service area, selected by Jackson’s mayor and subject to confirmation by the Jackson City Council.
• One recommended member each from the mayors of Ridgeland and Byram. Those two would need to be appointed by the mayor of Jackson and confirmed by the Jackson City Council.
• Two at-large appointees from the governor who live or work in the service area.
• One at-large appointee, who lives or works in the service area, from the lieutenant governor.
• The president, or a designee, of the Greater Jackson Chamber of Commerce.

While state lawmakers have introduced versions of a Jackson water authority bill in previous sessions, this is the first one with momentum to include city input on a majority of board members.

Rep. Shanda Yates, an independent from Jackson, authored the proposal, which now heads to the state Senate for review. Yates said she’d spent months working with the Jackson delegation and Mayor John Horhn to craft a bill local leaders could agree on. Horhn has endorsed the idea of a water authority since shortly after taking office.

Previous versions of the proposal, authored by former Olive Branch Sen. David Parker, passed the Senate in 2024 and 2023 before dying in the House. But those versions notably gave a majority of the board control to state officials, drawing protest from Jackson lawmakers. Parker also proposed authorizing the authority to buy Jackson’s water and sewer assets, whereas in Yates version the authority would just lease the property from the city.

Mississippi Today reached out to the city of Jackson for comment but has not gotten a response.

The Jackson City Council called a meeting Wednesday afternoon to discuss the bill, but after an hour-long executive session took no action. Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley said the city will have a town hall meeting Monday at 10 a.m. to hear from residents, and he expects the council to pass a resolution soon after.

In 2022, Judge Wingate appointed Ted Henifin as interim third-party manager of the city’s water system after it faced a near total collapse a few months prior. Henifin went on to form JXN Water to run operations and later took on the city’s sewer system as well per Wingate’s request.

Henifin has also endorsed the idea of a water authority taking control after he steps away, which he’s predicted will happen in 2027. Such governance would allow the system to borrow money again, which JXN Water can’t do in its current form, Henifin has said.

Under Yates’ proposal, the board would appoint a president to run water and sewer operations. To help in the transition, the bill stipulates that the president shall serve as a deputy to Henifin until the authority gains control.

“All of this will be done in concert with the federal court to make this transition as smooth as possible,” the lawmaker said on the House floor.

During discussion, Rep. Fabian Nelson, a Democrat from Byram, unsuccessfully asked for Ridgeland and Byram to be able to make direct appointments to the board rather than recommendations that would have to go through the Jackson mayor and City Council.

Nelson said Byram is trying to sever itself from Jackson’s water system but lacks the funds to do so.

“All I’m asking is that you give my constituents their voice,” he told fellow House members before the proposed amendment failed.

The House passed the bill 96 to 12.

A previous version of the bill had the board at 13 members, with only four positions receiving input from Jackson officials and one other appointee from the Hinds County Board of Supervisors. Sen. Walter Michel, a Republican from Ridgeland, offered a similar makeup in his bill, which initially passed out of committee before being recommitted and dying.

GREENVILLE — Two former law enforcement officers pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges tied to a federal crackdown on drug trafficking in the Mississippi Delta.

Former Humphreys County deputy Dequarian Smith, 29, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges for conspiring to protect a transport of illegal drugs through portions of the Mississippi Delta between August and September of 2022. At the time, Smith was also an officer with the Isola Police Department.

On Sept. 14, 2022, Smith accepted a $500 bribe from a regional drug dealer and FBI informant in Sunflower County in exchange for protection of an illegal transport of drugs.

Smith said he resigned from the Humphreys County Sheriff’s Office and the Isola Police Department in January 2023.

Former Greenville police officer Martavis Moore, 32, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting as well as attempting to aid and abet a March 2023 transport of illegal drugs through Greenville. He accepted a $5,000 bribe from an FBI agent who posed as a member of a Mexican drug cartel to protect a transport of illegal drugs.

Under federal guidelines, Smith can be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, and Moore could be sentenced to 10 years to life in prison. Smith also faces up to a $1 million fine, while Moore could be charged up to $10,000. 

On Oct. 30, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed six indictments, which ensnared more than 14 former and current Mississippi Delta law enforcement officers, including two sheriffs, on drug trafficking charges. At least eight Mississippi Delta law enforcement agencies had officers indicted.

As part of their plea agreements, Moore and Smith were charged with one count each. Moore was initially charged with one count of carrying or using a firearm during a trafficking crime. 

U.S. Chief Judge Debra M. Brown of the Northern District of Mississippi accepted both guilty pleas and scheduled sentencing for Moore on May 20 and Smith on May 27.

Judge Brown released Moore and Smith on the conditions of their $10,000 unsecured bonds after their Oct. 30 arrests.

Moore declined to comment. Smith could not immediately be reached for comment.

Citing fears of dark money and special interests usurping the state’s constitutional republic, the Senate on Wednesday tabled a bill aimed at restoring Mississippi voters’ right to put issues directly on a ballot and sidestep the Legislature.

The move, for the fifth year since the state Supreme Court invalidated the former process for ballot initiative in the state Constitution, effectively snuffed out this year’s push for reinstating the ballot initiative. The measure faces a Thursday night deadline for passage and is not likely to be brought back up after the Senate tabled it with a voice vote. The House does not have a similar ballot initiative measure pending.

Had the measure passed, voters would have had to ratify it to amend the state Constitution in a statewide election. As it was presented, the measure also contained a safety clause that would have required more debate and another vote before it could have passed the Legislature.

Sen. Joel Carter, a Republican from Gulfport, made the motion to table the measure.

“You’ve got these big groups that have got the ability to raise a bunch of money and put things on the ballot,” Carter said. “… It’s not really about an initiative amongst the people … There’s big money behind ballot initiative, and that’s what we got elected for, to make tough decisions and make hard votes …

“This is not a good bill,” Carter said. “It’s a terrible bill.”

Other lawmakers, mostly Republicans, argued against the measure Wednesday before it was tabled.

Some warned that it could allow voters — with the help of special interest money — to reinstate abortion rights in Mississippi, despite the resolution containing a clause prohibiting abortion ballot initiatives.

Sen. Angela Burks Hill, a Republican from Picayune, said other states are looking to roll back ballot initiative rights and warned “leftist billionaires” could use it to restore abortion rights and overturn other conservative policy in Mississippi.

“The dark money coming in is pushed by the most leftist billionaires abroad and in the United States,” Hill said. “George Soros is one of the largest funders of ballot initiatives across the country.”

Some Democratic lawmakers, although supportive of ballot initiative generally, had issues with particulars of the proposal, and were planning to offer amendments before it was tabled.

Mississippi voters’ right to ballot initiative has been in the state Constitution since 1914, but the state Supreme Court threw it out in 1922. The initiative went dormant until the Legislature and voters restored the right by passing a measure in 1992, allowing voters to amend the state constitution. But the Supreme Court again nullified it on technical grounds in 2021 in a ruling on a lawsuit over voters passing a medical marijuana initiative.

During the 30 years that the state had an initiative, only seven proposals made it to a statewide ballot: two initiatives for term limits, eminent domain reform, voter ID, a personhood amendment, medical marijuana, and a measure requiring lawmakers to fully fund public education.

Of those seven, voters only approved eminent domain, voter ID and medical marijuana. The rest were rejected.

The Mississippi House passed a bill Wednesday that would allow prayer during school, adding Mississippi to a list of states challenging the Supreme Court edict that church and state remain separate. 

House Bill 1310 would mandate in state law that public schools provide students and employees with time to pray or read religious text during the school day. 

State law already says that students “may” pray at any time, but the activity isn’t explicitly protected. Rep. Jansen Owen, a Republican from Poplarville, said the House bill is intended to provide an organized structure for accommodation, which is not currently in place, and stressed that prayer would not replace any learning time. 

While public schools have been prohibited from sponsoring prayer since a 1962 Supreme Court ruling, lawmakers in a handful of states, including Tennessee and Texas, have passed or are considering legislation similar to House Bill 1310. It aims to return prayer to schools — with apparent support from the Trump administration. Recent guidance from the U.S. Department of Education allows teachers to pray with students. 

The bill garnered 45 minutes of debate on Wednesday from House Democrats, who said that people in public schools have the right to freedom from prayer.

“If my child wants to sit at her desk and say a silent prayer, who is prohibiting that?” asked Rep. Daryl Porter, a Democrat from Summit. 

“They may not want to say a silent prayer,” Owen replied “They may want to get together with their fellow believers in Christ and pray together.”

The bill would also provide an “opt-in” mechanism. For students to be able to participate in prayer, parents must request it. And participating students would do so separate from non-participating students. 

Rep. Robert Johnson III, the Natchez-based leader of the House Democratic Caucus, said he was concerned about lawsuits over the bill. 

“All of the people who have asked questions about this bill …  just like me, we all love the Lord,” he said. “We believe in prayer, we believe in working together, we believe in respecting everybody’s right to prayer and everybody’s right to fellowship and congregate. But what we are very cognizant of is that we live in a state that our resources are very limited. 

“If we constantly find ways to violate the Constitution and invite litigation, we’re gonna be spending more money on lawyers than we spend on anybody else.”

The bill passed the House 80-35 and now heads to the Senate.

The Mississippi State Department of Health is overhauling its home visitation and care management program for high-risk pregnant women and infants in an effort to move the needle on the state’s high infant mortality rate.

The Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies program, which previously served mothers and babies in all 82 counties, will restart under a pilot model to serve 10 counties with few resources and utilize community health workers for home visitation rather than nurses, State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney told Mississippi Today. 

The Mississippi State Department of Health has not publicly announced the redesigned program or named the 10 counties that will be targeted, though it stopped accepting new patients and referrals in January, according to the agency’s website. 

The 10 counties will be selected based on maternal and infant health data, service gaps and capacity to support intensive case management, and the agency will announce the selected counties once implementation planning is complete, health department spokesperson Greg Flynn said. 

Edney said the changes were implemented because while the program was serving moms and babies “wonderfully,” it was failing to reduce infant and maternal mortality, which — already at one of the highest rates in the nation — reached a 10-year high in 2024. 

“I couldn’t justify continuing to spend and it not improving the outcomes,” Edney said. “So, the whole model redesign is more about improving outcomes and attacking the highest impacted counties that right now, no one is serving.” 

Edney also pointed to the program’s high cost and noted that it has been affected by changes in Medicaid payments for high-risk prenatal services.

Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies serves high-risk mothers and infants by providing home visits, health education and referrals to wraparound services and benefits, including mental health, transportation, health insurance, breastfeeding, employment and food assistance during and after pregnancy. Mothers qualify if they meet certain criteria, including chronic illness, substance use, unsafe living conditions or teen pregnancy. Infants may qualify if they were born prematurely, underweight or with medical complications. 

The new model will use a team-based approach, with registered nurses administering clinical oversight and health education, licensed social workers establishing connections to resources and community health workers providing regular support to participants. There will be twice as many community health workers compared to other disciplines to increase enrollment and community support, Flynn said. 

In August, the Mississippi State Department of Health declared a public health emergency in response to the state’s rising infant mortality rate. In 2024, the state’s infant mortality rate was near twice the national average, and 323 infants died before their first birthday.

Black families are disproportionately affected by the crisis. According to the health department’s review of 2023 and 2024 data, Black infants are three times more likely to die than white infants. In 2024, when Mississippi’s infant mortality rate reached a 10-year high, white infants experienced their lowest mortality rate in a decade. 

Strengthening the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies program was one of the agency’s key measures in its multi-pronged response to the crisis, according to its emergency declaration announcement. 

Home visiting is one of the most effective strategies for improving maternal and infant health, and community health worker models have been shown to have strong outcomes, said Honour McDaniel Hill, the director of Infant and Maternal Health Initiatives for March of Dimes. 

“They meet families where they are,” Hill said. “They’re going where families need care and they’re doing it through this trusted, community-based support.” 

Home visitation programs led by community health workers, in partnership with nurses and social workers, were linked to a lower risk of adverse birth outcomes and helped to reduce racial disparities, according to a 2023 study published in JAMA Pediatrics. 

Last year, Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies served 810 infants and mothers from nearly every county in the state, according to health department data. Since 2021, the program has worked with more than 4,500 participants.

Edney said the program’s new model aims to serve the same number of participants but focus on a smaller geographic area. 

Participants in areas that are no longer covered by the program will be referred to alternative home visitation services, such as Healthy Start and Medicaid services, Flynn said. 

He said the health department is also strengthening partnerships, referral pathways and education for community organizations and providers to ensure that pregnant and parenting families can access care anywhere in the state.

“Everybody’s still going to be served, we’re just going to focus on the areas that were unserved, and do them better,” Edney said. 

Nakeitra Burse is the founder and executive director of Six Dimensions, a Ridgeland-based nonprofit focused on improving Black maternal health outcomes, and a member of the state’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee. She said she appreciates the health department’s effort to focus scarce resources on communities with the greatest need, but is concerned about the burden the change could place on community-based organizations. 

“I want us that work at the community level to be able to figure out how to adjust for what may be to come if there’s an overflow” of patients in need of services, Burse said.  

Delta Health Center, a federally-qualified community health center with locations throughout the Mississippi Delta, operates a separate but similar home visitation program led by community health workers. 

Robin Boyles, the organization’s chief program planning and development officer, said the program has significantly reduced patients’ adverse birth outcomes. Between 2023 and 2024, the rate of low birth weight babies fell from 15% to 6%, while preterm deliveries dropped from 13% to 3% from 2023 to 2024. She said the organization welcomes program referrals.

The new model is expected to reduce the cost of the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies program, which previously cost the health department $4 million a year — a cost the agency could not continue to sustain, Edney said. 

“Healthy Moms is impossible to do statewide,” he said. “We just don’t have the resources.”

Edney said the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies program was previously funded with a combination of Medicaid revenue and discretionary funds from the health department. Now, he said, Mississippi Medicaid is transferring the primary financial responsibility for high-risk prenatal care to managed care organizations, the private companies that provide services to more than half of Medicaid beneficiaries, a change the agency has been considering for the past year. 

Division of Medicaid spokesperson Matt Westerfield did not respond to several requests for comment from Mississippi Today about changes to Medicaid reimbursements for high-risk prenatal care. Flynn declined to provide additional details about when or why the policy change was made and directed Mississippi Today’s questions to the Division of Medicaid.

Flynn said that while cost savings are important, the primary goal of the program’s redesign is to improve efficacy, accountability and measurable improvements in pregnancy and birth outcomes. 

“I’ll be really disappointed if we don’t move the needle in those 10 counties,” Edney said. 

Both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature have advanced bills aiming to crack down on immigration, despite some lawmakers raising concerns that the federal government is responsible for enforcement and that the proposals could inadvertently harm U.S. citizens. 

The Senate on Tuesday passed a measure that would create a state crime of being in Mississippi illegally and authorize local law enforcement to charge people with being in the state without proper documentation. 

Sen. Angela Hill, a Republican from Picayune, is the author of the bill. She said the measure would not impose additional duties on local law enforcement. But it would “align” state immigration law with federal law. 

“If someone comes into Mississippi through the Gulf of America and not through a legal point of entry, this would create a state crime, a felony, for someone coming into Mississippi and bypassing a legal port of entry,” Hill said. 

Every Democrat, except Juan Barnett of Heidelberg, opposed the measure. All of the chamber’s 34 Republicans supported it. 

Sen. Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, argued the legislation needed more work. Hopson, an attorney, ultimately voted in favor of the bill, but raised concerns that the legislation may be unconstitutional because immigration enforcement is a federal, not state, responsibility.

“I think our government ought to be doing things with immigration,” Hopson said. “But current law is that this is a federal issue and not a state issue.” 

Hill said she believes the measure is constitutional. 

But she argued that if Mississippi had not disregarded concerns about complying with U.S. Supreme Court precedent and passed a 2018 law that restricted access to abortions, then the U.S. Supreme Court would have never overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. 

“What I would say is if this body had not fought to override Roe v. Wade, we’d have a clinic over there that’s pink,” Hill said, referencing the Jackson Women’s Health Organization clinic that operated in Jackson until 2022. 

The immigration measure would require the state Department of Public Safety and law enforcement agencies operating county jails to enter into an agreement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. 

The measure currently includes a clause that would require the Legislature to debate it further before it can become law. 

The House on the same day passed a bill that could make it more onerous for people without a driver’s license to register to vote, a proposal its author said would allow local elections officials to verify a person’s citizenship.

The Safeguard Honest Integrity in Elections for Lasting Democracy, or SHIELD, Act would require county registrars to conduct extra checks on people who try to register to vote without a driver’s license number. 

Under the bill, if someone tried to register and could not produce a license number, the clerk would need to verify whether the person appears in a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services database called SAVE. Government agencies use the federal database to verify an applicant’s immigration status or citizenship.

The bill would also require election officials to notify applicants flagged as non-citizens and require them to prove citizenship.

House Elections Chairman Noah Sanford, a Republican from Collins, said the bill he authored is necessary to ensure only U.S. citizens vote.

“The bill is designed to ensure that the people who vote are citizens like you and I,” Sanford said in response to questions from House Democrats.

Democrats said the bill would make registering to vote more costly and time-consuming for people who don’t have a driver’s license. They also said the bill would result in “voter suppression” and could even function as a “poll tax” because people might end up having to obtain extra documents, such as their birth certificate, to prove their citizenship.

The legislation in Mississippi arrives as the Trump administration pushes to “nationalize” elections with a federal bill that could potentially prevent millions of people from casting ballots.

The measures are several steps from becoming law, and each bill must pass the other legislative chamber in the Capitol before it could go to the governor for consideration.