As COVID-19 cases reach a record high in Mississippi, some colleges are delaying or moving classes online while most will start the spring semester as planned.
Mississippi University for Women has pushed back its semester start-date to Tuesday, Jan. 18 from Jan 6. Jackson State University and Mississippi Valley State University will start classes virtually this Monday, Jan. 10.
JSU will hold online classes for two weeks, and MVSU will stay virtual for one week.
In a letter to the campus community, MVSU President Jerryl Briggs wrote that moving classes online will give MVSU “additional time to further enhance safety measures in all buildings and classrooms.”
“I want to remind you NOT to let your guards down,” Briggs wrote. “COVID-19 concerns and challenges are not over yet and we must continue to do all we can to keep yourselves and our campus as safe as possible.”
For students moving back into the dorms, MUW and JSU are going to require proof of a negative PCR test. MUW says it will offer free rapid COVID tests on Jan. 17, the day that residence halls are now scheduled to open.
Alcorn State University is starting classes as scheduled on Jan. 18 and says it will extend “protocols that require masks indoors and outdoors regardless of vaccination status.”
At Delta State University, the “administration has indicated plans to re-evaluate protocols for all DSU students, staff and faculty sometime next week,” Brittany Davis-Green, the communications director, wrote in an email to Mississippi Today. The only change Delta State has currently made is to allow student athletes to follow the less stringent quarantine guidelines announced in December by the Centers for Disease Control.
Officials from University of Mississippi and University of Southern Mississippi said they’re starting the semester as planned without changes due to the omicron wave. Mississippi State also did not respond to Mississippi Today by press time, but its site says classes are scheduled to start on Jan. 18.
In a statement, University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce told Mississippi Today that classes are starting on Jan. 18 as scheduled.
“At the same time, we are fully aware of recent developments with the pandemic,” he said. “I will share additional guidance with our campus community soon about how we will work diligently to keep our community as safe as possible while maintaining our residential campus experience.”
Following the recent U.S. Supreme Court hearing on a Mississippi law that challenges Roe v. Wade, Mississippi Today examined who is most likely to be impacted if abortion is prohibited or made more difficult to obtain.
Abortions have been declining in the U.S. since the 1990s. Amanda Jean Stevenson, a sociologist at the University of Colorado Boulder studying reproductive health, said this decline is generally attributed to increased use of contraception (and an increase in the variety of contraceptives used), as well as increases in self-managed abortions and stigma around getting an abortion. Stevenson said that abortion restrictions are not associated with the decline in the abortion rate through 2017.
The rate of abortions occurring in Mississippi saw an initial spike after Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that affirmed a pregnant person’s right to choose, but has always been lower than the rate of abortions nationwide. Mississippi saw a decline of abortions in the 90s, similar to national trends, and has held steady at a rate under 5 abortions per 1,000 reproductive-age women since 2005.
Mississippi has one of the lowest abortion rates in the country, with 4.3 abortions occurring in the state per 1,000 reproductive-age women in 2017. The rate of Mississippi residents receiving abortions is nearly double that, at 8.3 per 1,000 reproductive-age women, according to the Guttmacher Institute. This indicates that a number of Mississippi women are likely seeking abortions in other states.
The Mississippi Department of Health does not provide information about the income or family size of abortion recipients or the gestational age at which those abortions occur. Nationally:
75% of abortion recipients live in poverty
59% of abortion recipients already have at least 1 child
65% happen before eight weeks, and 95% of abortions happen at 15 weeks or earlier (the point of the Mississippi abortion ban)
MSDH does report information about Mississippi residents regardless of where their abortion was performed.
Age statistics are very similar and do not differ significantly from national averages. Women in their 20s make up the majority of women receiving abortions.
The number of Black Mississippians receiving abortions is higher than the national average, but the number of Mississippi residents that are Black is also higher than the national average (37.8% of Mississippians are Black, compared to 13.4% nationally).
Overall, educational attainment is relatively similar in Mississippi and nationally. Women who have attended some college make up the largest category of abortion recipients. The number of Mississippi women with college or advanced degrees receiving abortions is lower than the national average, and the number of Mississippi women with high school degrees receiving abortions is slightly higher.
Due to differences in data reporting, comparisons cannot be easily made about the unmarried Mississippi residents receiving abortions. But both nationally and for Mississippians, most women receiving abortions are unmarried.
The Cleveland boys catch up from the Holiday break with thoughts on Ole Miss and Mississippi State’s losses in their bowl games, bid farewell to several notable players who have opted for the draft and look ahead at the future of both programs. Rick and Tyler also give predictions for the national championship.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has tested positive for COVID-19 just one day into the 2022 legislative session, prompting concerns about an outbreak at the Capitol.
Hosemann, the Senate’s presiding officer, has no symptoms. He has been vaccinated and also received the booster shot, according to his office. Though Hosemann had no symptoms, he decided to get tested after learning he had come in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
Hosemann’s office is in the process of contacting people who he might have been exposed during the opening day of the 2022 legislative session on Tuesday, Jan. 4.
Those who were exposed include senators and many members of the media. Hosemann was seen without a mask on Tuesday speaking in close proximity with several prominent members of the Senate.
After the first day of the session concluded, Hosemann answered questions for about 20 minutes from members of the media in the crowded, small Capitol press room.
Senate Appropriations Chair Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg, also has tested positive. He also had the coronavirus previously.
Most people in the Capitol eschewed wearing masks on Tuesday, the opening day of a scheduled 90-day session. Lawmakers and staffers at the Capitol are under are no mask mandate.
House Clerk Andrew Ketchings said there is one House employee who has the virus, but that she has not been at the Capitol in recent days, since before testing positive. There are no other reports of House members or staffers testing positive.
The 74-year-old Republican previously contracted the coronavirus during the summer of 2020 while the Legislature was in session. House Speaker Philip Gunn also tested positive during that time period as did about 50 legislators and staffers.
That outbreak was one of at least two Capitol COVID-19 outbreaks since the pandemic began in early 2020.
Hosemann has spoken openly about the severity of his symptoms from his first coronavirus illness and has been outspoken in urging people to get vaccinated.
Hosemann’s office said he will quarantine for five days per guidelines from the state health officer and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The omicron wave in Mississippi is in full-swing, with the Mississippi Department of Health reporting 4,840 new cases and 37 deaths on Tuesday. The state’s daily average for new infections has increased by more than sixfold over the past two weeks, from 577 to 4,100.
Mississippi has not seen such a sharp spike in new COVID-19 cases throughout the pandemic. The omicron variant is significantly more infectious than all previous variants of the virus, but evidence suggests that it causes less severe symptoms and illness.
Though hospitalization and death rates are lagging indicators, the increases in those outcomes have been far less pronounced thus far in the omicron wave. Over the past two weeks the number of COVID-19 patients in ICU’s has increased nearly 107%. The number of patients on ventilators has increased 54%.
“The number of patients with COVID-19 in ICU care has not risen in this recent surge at the same rate as the increase in the overall patient count and, for the most part, the severity of COVID-19-related cases – including in the ICU – is less severe than in previous surges,” Marc Rolph, executive director of communications and marketing at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, said in an email statement.
Though Mississippi hospitals have not yet been overwhelmed like they were during the delta wave last year, patients seeking care at hospitals or at home will see their options limited due to the national shortage of monoclonal antibody treatments and antiviral pills.
Only one of the three monoclonal antibody treatments approved for use in the United States, sotrovimab, has been shown to be effective against omicron in lab tests. Mississippi received just 283 doses of this treatment this week.
Mississippi also received 270 doses of the Ely Lilly monoclonals and 336 doses of REGEN-COV monoclonals. Though neither of these treatments are effective against omicron, MSDH still recommends they be utilized while the delta variant is still present in the state.
Mississippi is also set to receive a limited supply of two antiviral medications that can be used to treat COVID-19 in an outpatient setting: Molnupiravir and Paxlovid. In clinical trials, the former has demonstrated a 30% reduction in severe illness while the latter showed an 89% reduction.
MSDH anticipates the state will receive additional allocations of these drugs in mid-January, but fewer than 3,000 doses have been allocated to Mississippi thus far.
State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said on Tuesday that the limited supply of monoclonals and antivirals will be primarily distributed to MSDH’s 48 COVID Center of Excellence partners, and their use will be targeted to those at the highest risk for severe outcomes, such as people 65 and older and people with compromised immune symptoms.
“We’ve always said that monoclonals are Plan B and the vaccine is Plan A, and you don’t want to rely on your backup plan when Plan A is still an option,” Dobbs said during a press conference last week.
The unvaccinated still make up the vast majority of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the state. Between Dec. 7 and Jan. 3, unvaccinated Mississippians made up 98% of cases, 88% of hospitalizations and 72% of deaths.
Health experts across the state and nation are in nearly universal agreement that the best method for protection against omicron is getting fully vaccinated, and then a booster dose if you’re eligible. With only 49% of residents fully vaccinated, Mississippi is still lagging behind most of the country in vaccinations.
Over 446,000 Mississippians have received third or booster doses, and another segment of the population will likely be eligible to receive them soon.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administrationapproved the use of COVID-19 booster shots of the Pfizer vaccine in 12-to-15-year-olds on Monday.
“Based on the FDA’s assessment of currently available data, a booster dose of the currently authorized vaccines may help provide better protection against both the delta and omicron variants,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. “In particular, the omicron variant appears to be slightly more resistant to the antibody levels produced in response to the primary series doses from the current vaccines.”
The FDA also reduced the period of time fully vaccinated people have to wait before getting a booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine from six months to five months. If a person wants a Moderna booster, they still have to wait the full six months.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must still approve these new policies for them to go into effect. A decision could come soon after a CDC advisory panel meets later this week.
House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann seem to agree on the issues that need to be addressed during the 2022 legislative session, but the devil might be in the details of how those items are resolved.
The two presiding officers offered few specifics Tuesday — the opening day of the 2022 legislative session — but said they anticipate taking up taxes, providing teachers a significant pay raise and reenacting medical marijuana after the voter initiative legalizing medical marijuana was struck down this past May by the state Supreme Court.
In terms of quick action, both indicated that the plan to redraw the state’s four congressional districts to adhere to population shifts gleaned from the 2020 U.S. Census might be one of the first items taken up. The quick action is needed because the deadline to qualify to seek one of the four House districts is March 1.
Here’s what Gunn and Hosemann said about key issues after they adjourned for the day on Jan. 4.
Medical marijuana
“Candidly, that is not a top issue for us (the House),” Gunn said of medical marijuana.
“That is something the Senate is taking the lead on and we don’t have a bill. We’ll have to see what the Senate passes — we’ll just have to wait and see,” Gunn said.
Asked about Reeves’ opposition to allowing patients to receive up to 3.5 grams of cannabis a day, Gunn said: “We certainly have been trying to move it into a more conservative direction. The House has taken the position that we want it to be as close to a true medical program as we can get it.”
Hosemann said Tuesday additional committee hearings will be held on the issue and it is likely that the fall agreement reached by House and Senate leaders will face some changes.
On Tuesday, the Mississippi Cannabis Patients Alliance held a rally on the steps of the Capitol, urging lawmakers to reinstate a medical marijuana program — after voters approved it, but the state Supreme Court shot it down.
Taxes
Hosemann did not offer any details, but discounted the possibility of passing a bill similar to the one proposed last year by Gunn. That bill would have phased out the personal income tax, reduced by half the 7% tax on groceries and increased the sales tax on most other retail items by 2.5 cents for each $1 purchase.
“I anticipate the Senate will have a tax relief bill,” Hosemann said. “We were not persuaded by a tax swap. We want tax relief.”
Gunn said some “tweaks” will be offered to his proposal, but that it remains his top priority.
“We believe we have a solid plan,” Gunn said. “We believe there is no downside to putting money back into the pockets of Mississippians.”
Gov. Tate Reeves also has criticized Gunn’s plan as a “tax swap” and said he oppose increasing sales and other taxes.
Gunn said: “There have been some misrepresentations made about that bill. It is not a tax increase. It is a net tax deduction, reduction … We are not married to our proposal, but unfortunately, no one else has come forward with an idea. We don’t want a mere token to check the box to say we passed some sort of tax reform. We want something that puts real dollars back into the pockets of Mississippians.”
Teacher pay
Gunn said the House will have a teacher pay raise proposal, but would not specify the amount or details.
“You’ll see it when we bring it out, but I think it’s going to be a very good plan,” Gunn said.
Hosemann said he anticipates the Senate will support a teacher pay increase proposal larger than the roughly $1,000 salary hike approved by the Legislature in the 2021 session.
He also said that plan could be unveiled this week if Senate Education Chair Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, releases his teacher pay bill as expected.
Ballot initiative
Both Hosemann and Gunn advocated for reenacting the initiative process where voters can gather a mandated number of signatures to place issues on the ballot. That process was struck down when the state Supreme Court ruled invalid the medical marijuana initiative.
Both said they would prefer the process be used to amend general law and not the state Constitution. They both pointed out that when items are placed in the Constitution, they are more difficult to change or remove.
“I think that is too inflexible for us,” Hosemann said of initiatives to amend the Constitution.
“You have to have the ability to tweak things as circumstances change,” Gunn said.
It is not clear, Hosemann said, that citizens would have to vote to reenact the initiative process if it is going to be used just to amend general law and not the Constitution. He said research is being conducted on whether that could be done by a simple act of the Legislature.
Medicaid expansion
“I just don’t think that Medicaid expansion is realistic,” Gunn said. “Personally, I’m not for it. I’ve been very clear that I’m against it. I don’t see that as a way forward in Mississippi. We need to be looking for ways to get people off Medicaid, not put them on Medicaid. But the bottom line is it’s all an academic discussion until you’ve got the votes, and I don’t think the votes exist.”
Hosemann continues to refuse to utter the phase medical expansion, which is allowed under federal law to provide health care coverage to primarily the working poor. But he continues to say he supports the working poor having access to health care. He even referenced an instance where a woman working as a store clerk died of cancer because she could not afford health care, leaving two children and a husband who is a mechanic.
Hosemann said similar tragedies occur throughout the state because of the lack of health care access.
Asked if there will be an effort this session to enhance health care access to poor Mississippians, Hosemann said, “We are working on it for as soon as we can do it.”
Note: This analysis first published in Mississippi Today’s weekly legislative newsletter. Subscribe to our free newsletter below for exclusive early access to weekly analyses.
A politician with more power than anyone in the state can have what he thinks is a good policy idea. But without decent relationships with other power brokers in Jackson, the idea will never survive the legislative gauntlet.
It takes savvy and skill to move policy through the Capitol, but the most important factor is relationships. The best ones in Jackson are built over time, during hard-fought battles and over late-night steak dinners. The worst ones jeopardize major legislative proposals and kill chances to make Mississippi a better place.
Any given legislative session, the relationship between a speaker and lieutenant governor is the most important in Mississippi politics. Some of the most transformative legislation this state has seen was passed because these two leaders were on the same page.
On the other hand, some of the most epic political fights in the state’s history have occurred between these two leaders. Party affiliation and the will of voters often mean nothing in this relationship; instead, large egos and defiant personalities often bubble to the surface.
We’ve now had two years to see how Speaker of the House Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann work together. But as major policy proposals loom over the potentially historic 2022 legislative session, where does their relationship stand today?
Here’s what several politicos and lawmakers said about it.
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This week, Philip Gunn enters his 11th year as speaker — the third-longest tenured Speaker of the House in Mississippi’s history. Delbert Hosemann is still a new lieutenant governor, though his first two years have certainly been formative.
To this point, Gunn’s experience has clearly given him the upper hand at the Capitol. He is decisive and he’s built strong coalitions. Gunn and his top lieutenants in the House have built relationships with Democratic and Black Caucus leaders and even Senate leaders over many years. Some of those Senate relationships may even trump the ones that they have with Hosemann, their own presiding officer. Gunn has a caucus of House uber-conservatives who dislike him, but their bloc is small and ineffectual.
Hosemann, meanwhile, has appeared passive and indecisive at times during his first two years. He and his staff are still learning how the building works, and legislators of all parties on both sides of the building have picked up on that. He also has a handful of Republican senators who have remained close with Gov. Tate Reeves, who preceded Hosemann as lieutenant governor. Several times, that reality has created tension and uncertainty within the Senate Republican caucus about key Hosemann proposals.
There has been some tension between Gunn and Hosemann mostly behind closed doors, but nothing that proved detrimental to major policy proposals. The two meet and talk regularly, having become especially close during 2021. Sources from both sides say their relationship entering the 2022 session is as good as it’s ever been.
But several politicos are on the lookout for some erosion of their relationship this session.
Gunn’s top agenda item this session is eliminating the personal income tax, which accounts for about one-third of the state’s general fund revenue. Hosemann has never been a big fan of this proposal for several reasons, though he has been having regular talks with the speaker about how it could work.
Gunn wants to raise some other taxes to offset the revenue holes this tax cut would leave, but sources say Hosemann remains skeptical about whether this tax cut during the rare time Mississippi is flush with cash is the best long-term move for the state. If Gunn doesn’t get cooperation from Hosemann on the tax cut, how will that affect many of Hosemann’s priorities? Some in the Capitol fear broad policy gridlock between the House and Senate if the two can’t agree on some variation of Gunn’s income tax cut proposal.
In the upper chamber, Hosemann has made his top priority the spending of Mississippi’s historic surplus in revenues, bolstered by federal stimulus cash. He’s toured the state in recent months — visiting more than 50 of the state’s 82 counties — talking to local leaders about how lawmakers should spend their $1.8 billion pot of American Rescue Plan Act funds.
Hosemann wants to take the best ideas of local government leaders and match the funding with American Rescue Act Plan funds that the state received. Additionally, he’s privately told state agency heads and other government leaders that he can get their wish-lists funded. He’s done all of this, seemingly, without Gunn’s blessing.
Gunn seems to be fine slow rolling the federal spending. He has said publicly that lawmakers have several years to spend the funds, so there’s no need to rush. That hasn’t seemed to sit well with Hosemann, who believes the financial need across the state is great and the time to spend the funds is now.
There are many other examples of the two leaders being seemingly out of sync on policy ideas, but none are bigger than these two — the top priorities for both. And given how much both leaders have worked on and publicly touted them, there might not be much room for compromise on either plan.
The consensus among political observers is that if we look back on the 2022 session and see that Gunn and Hosemann’s relationship began to unravel, these are the two issues that we’ll have to examine most closely.
There’s an old saying around the Mississippi Capitol: When the state has no money, lawmakers fuss and fight. When the state has lots of extra money, lawmakers really fuss and fight.
If that holds true, the 2022 legislative session that starts Tuesday should be a donnybrook. The state has an extra $4.2 billion to spend, between federal largesse from COVID-19 stimulus and increased state tax revenue — largely also a result of previous federal stimulus spending over the last two years. For perspective, the state general budget is usually around $6 billion a year.
And the current legislative leadership that took office in 2020, despite being all Republican, has had trouble agreeing on major issues. Gov. Tate Reeves has often been at odds with the legislative leadership even when those leaders have reached agreements. They’ve even squared off in court.
Reeves has already floated a veto threat for an issue where lawmakers appeared to reach agreement after working on it all summer — medical marijuana. Despite promising for months he would call lawmakers into special session last year if they reached an agreement on a program, Reeves reneged, saying the program was too liberal with the amount of marijuana it would provide patients, and was a beachhead for recreational use.
The legislative session is set to last about three months. It’s not unrealistic to think lawmakers might have to go into extra innings — either extending the regular session or coming back into special session(s) given the workload before them.
Some political leaders have questioned why the governor — who holds sole authority to do so — didn’t call the Legislature into special session in 2021 to get an early start on some work, particularly on medical marijuana and on spending the $1.8 billion in American Rescue Plan Act stimulus money lawmakers will direct. Mississippi appears to be behind most other states in planning for or spending ARPA money.
“What are we waiting on?” House Minority Leader Robert Johnson III, D-Natchez, said last fall. “… This will take time to do it right. We at least need a special session for planning … I thought one of the advantages of having this unilateral leadership, one party controlling both houses and the executive branch, was that they’d all be on the same page and they’d all be talking. They don’t talk.”
Of the state’s leadership, only Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has expressed urgency on the federal spending. He has urged that the spending be carefully planned and administered, to ensure it provides lasting, generational improvements in the poorest state in the union. Hosemann created a special subcommittee that held multiple hearings on the funding in the off season. Neither the House nor the governor’s office participated in the hearings or have held similar public planning sessions.
“We have to get this right,” Hosemann has repeatedly said, and called it a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”
The state income tax promises to be another source of debate for lawmakers this year. House Speaker Philip Gunn wants to phase out the state income tax, and replace it with increases in sales and other use taxes. Reeves wants to eliminate the income tax, but by betting on the come, without any commensurate increases in taxes elsewhere. Each has criticized the others’ proposal.
Hosemann has taken a more studied, reserved approach, and Senate leaders have urged caution in making such a sea change in the state budget during uncertain economic times.
For the 2022 session, a far more likely outcome is a substantial income tax cut, not elimination.
For other issues, such as a teacher pay raise, there appears to be general agreement, but the devil — and debate — may lie in the details and amounts.
Observers of sessions past have decried a “do-nothing Legislature” when the body failed to tackle major issues. That won’t likely be said of the 2022 Mississippi legislative session.
