The joint committee tasked with developing a plan to redraw the four U.S. House seats and the 174 state legislative seats have scheduled nine public hearings across the state to garner public input.
The hearings will be live-streamed on the Mississippi Legislature’s YouTube channel available at the Legislature’s website.
The issue of live-streaming the meetings first came up in June during the first meeting of the joint committee, which consists of members of the state House and Senate. At the meeting, Lt. Gov Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, was insistent that the meetings be live-streamed and that locations be found for the meetings that could accommodate internet access. He said the live-streaming is important to allow people who cannot attend the meetings because of work commitments and other conflicts an opportunity to gather information on the redistricting process.
“We want full access to be made available so that people will be available to see in real time their neighbors offer their opinions on redistricting,” Hosemann said at the time.
Rep. Jim Beckett, R-Bruce, sent out an announcement of the meeting locations Monday and also announced that they would be live streamed.
Legislators are tasked with redrawing their districts (52 Senate and 122 House districts) and the four congressional districts every 10 years based on population changes found by the U.S. Census.
Preliminary census data was released in April indicating that Mississippi was one of three states to actually lose population during the past 10 years. The state is not expected to receive from the Census Bureau the specific data needed to complete redistricting until September.
But the joint committee believes it can begin the task of holding public hearings before the specific data is available. The first hearing will be held Aug. 5 at Meridian Community College.
Senate Pro Tem Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, who is the co-chair of the redistricting committee, has said the plan is for the committee to have a recommendation to make to the full Legislature early in the 2022 session on congressional redistricting. The Legislature will be on a tight time frame to complete congressional redistricting since the deadline to qualify to run for U.S. House seats in 2022 is March 1.
The next elections for the legislative seats will not occur until 2023.
The statewide meetings, all slated to start at 6 p.m., are scheduled:
Aug. 5: Meridian, at Meridian Community College in the McCain Theater.
Aug. 6: Tupelo, Itawamba Community College Belden Center.
Aug. 9: Senatobia, Northwest Community College Haraway Center.
Aug. 11: Itta Bena, Mississippi Valley State University William A. Butts Social Science Building.
Aug. 12: Starkville, Mississippi State University Hunter Henry Center.
Aug. 16: Natchez, Alcorn State University Business School Auditorium.
Aug. 18: Gulfport, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Harrison County campus Fine Arts Auditorium.
Aug. 19: Hattiesburg, University of Southern Mississippi Joe Paul Theater in the Thad Cochran Center.
First thing first: This is not going to be the definitive essay on the name, image and likeness issue facing the big business of college athletics these days. It doesn’t claim to be.
That essay does not yet exist. There are too many unknowns, too much still to be decided.
The only thing we know is this: College athletes are about to get paid — and not under the table. We have long been headed in this direction. And now we are here.
Rick Cleveland
The NCAA fought it — indeed, fought it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. There, the NCAA lost 9-0, which is the courtroom version of just how badly Millsaps football would lose to Alabama. Of course, Millsaps would never fight that battle. The NCAA was stupid enough to do so.
And that 9-0 decision begs these questions: Who thought it would be otherwise? Do you know how wrong you have to be for all nine justices on this court to agree you were wrong? These judges can’t agree on anything and yet they agree on this point: The NCAA is not above the law. The highest court in the land essentially has ruled, unanimously, that the NCAA has long been in violation of antitrust laws.
The NCAA makes millions. The universities make millions. The coaches make millions. The TV networks make millions. Yet players, for decades, have been limited — at least above the table — to tuition, room and board in the name of “amateurism.”
It makes no sense. It never made sense. It’s about to change.
And so, you ask, how will this affect the college sports world as we know it? Will there be big winners and big losers? Will the landscape change, competition-wise?
My guess, based on half a century of following college athletics: No. Not much at all. Alabama will still be Alabama in football. Ohio State will still be Ohio State. Basketball-wise, Kentucky will still be Kentucky. Duke will be Duke and so on.
If anything, the rich will get richer, and the poor, well, for the poor the struggle continues.
As mentioned before, there is so much to be determined. And there are so many potential rough patches that must be smoothed. Number one, you know this going to enter into the recruitment process for athletes. If there’s one thing we know about college athletics dating back to the 1930s and ‘40s, every coach and every school looks for the competitive edge in recruiting. Endorsement deals, arranged during the recruiting process, presumably would be an NCAA violation. How to police that?
Numbers wise, one of the biggest issues is this: For athletes, all this above-the-table earning will be taxable income. The government will get its share. These are 18- and 19-year-olds and 20-somethings, most of whom will have had little experience balancing a checkbook, much less dealing with taxable income. And most of those who have worked at paying jobs have had their taxes deducted from their paychecks. The universities are going to have to educate their athletes — either that, or many college athletes are going to leave with delinquent tax bills and no way to pay.
Some of these athletes are going to be paid with items other than cash — for instance, clothes, shoes, gym memberships, country club memberships, transportation, etc. All that is taxable income. The government will get its share. Someone must do the accounting.
The other huge issue I see is potential jealousies that could arise. Let’s say the star quarterback gets a huge endorsement contract, while the left tackle, who protects his blind side, gets little or nothing. How will that work out?
It’s not like coaching hasn’t gotten more complicated recently with the transfer portal. The NIL issues will complicate a coach’s job that much more.
But big-time college coaches are paid beyond handsomely to deal with these problems. Now, the players will get paid, too. If there is a bottom line, a definitive statement about NIL at this time, it is this: It’s about time.
In this week’s episode of The Other Side, Brandon Jones, policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Action Funds, talks with Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison and Geoff Pender about results of the poll his organization commissioned on reinstating the ballot initiative process that was struck down by Mississippi Supreme Court.
Listen here and read a transcript of the episode below.
Bobby Harrison: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to The Other Side. I’m Bobby Harrison, a political reporter at Mississippi Today. I’m here with my colleague, Geoff Pender. Geoff, how are you doing?
Geoff Pender: [00:00:16] Hey, Bobby.
Bobby Harrison: [00:00:17] And we’re fortunate to have today as our guest Brandon Jones. Brandon is the policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund. And he’s here to talk about a number of things, but the primary issue he’s going to talk about is the poll that his organization has recently done on the initiative process, which was struck down by the Supreme Court. Brandon. Well, first of all, welcome.
Brandon Jones: [00:00:39] Yeah, good morning. Good to be with you, Bobby and Geoff. Good to see both of you and happy to be part of this podcast that I listen to regularly.
Bobby Harrison: [00:00:48] Thanks for being here. Let’s just get started. I mean, why did y’all do this poll?
Brandon Jones: [00:00:54] Yeah. Well, as you both know, we, at this stage of the game, don’t have what I would call ballot initiative culture yet in Mississippi. We’re not a state like California that’s accustomed to voting on these things every year, or even, even Florida and other places that have passed some. But it’s kind of starting to be something that people are looking at more and more. And so this ballot initiative process has become a viable way for citizens to bring an issue up.
It’s just getting short shrift at the Capitol, or maybe getting ignored. You know, I’ve talked to both of you in the past about restoration of rights. You know, Mississippi is pretty restrictive on who it allows to vote after they serve time. Well, last year, as an example, there were more bills filed on restoration of rights than any other general bill in the Legislature.
There were 21 filed. Not one of them got a hearing. Not one of them got brought up in committee. Nobody talked about them on the floor of the chambers. That’s a perfect example of an issue that clearly there’s an audience for, clearly there’s interest in, but it’s not getting any play. So I think it’s clear that the time has come when more and more Mississippians are interested in exploring the initiative process, and it’s still needed.
It’s still needed. For our part, we were very much involved in Medicaid expansion. That’s an issue that for us, the time is overdue. It’s a no brainer I think financially and in a host of ways for Mississippians. And so we were deep into that campaign. And as you both know, had launched a campaign, had put together a good coalition across ideological spectrums.
There were some conservative groups and progressive groups and folks in between, and were very much in the middle of hiring, starting to figure out what the signatures were going to look like. We had gone to court to make sure that the language on the ballot was going to be appropriate. And so we had very much an interest in it in the short term, but I think for the long term, you were going to see an increasing number of people using this.
I want to say, and I know Bobby I’m giving you a long-winded answer here, but it may be worth noting. I think I’ve heard some of the detractors of the process saying that, “Well, yeah, these Medicaid expansion folks want it. The marijuana folks want it.” It’s important to note that in the history of the ballot initiative process in Mississippi, I think you could say pretty safely conservatives have been more successful using the process than anybody else.
I mean, the two that come to mind are eminent domain and voter ID, which were passed using this process. So I say that just to make the point. People might hear me and think, “Well, Southern Poverty Law Center, they’ve got a particular angle on this.” Well, actually this has been utilized by conservative groups historically in Mississippi to great effect.
Bobby Harrison: [00:03:41] Yeah. I mean, a lot of people would argue that the other side, the progressive side if you will, was just beginning to use a process when it was struck down. Maybe that was a coincidence, but that’s the way it appears to have happened.
Brandon Jones: [00:03:52] You do wonder how long this lawsuit, this particular argument, was sitting in the back pocket.
Like I wonder if 42 had— I don’t know. It makes the mind—you wonder a little bit about why now? Why not before? But, you know, you all have observed this process as long as I have, we scratch our heads a lot of times at the timing of things.
Bobby Harrison: [00:04:14] But politics is a head-scratcher a lot of times.
Geoff Pender: [00:04:17] Brandon just for a second.
Could you run through some of the top lines from your poll? What did it show? What is the feeling out there among the public?
Brandon Jones: [00:04:26] Sure. You know, for us, one of the key things we wanted to figure out was with medical marijuana getting 73% on the November ballot our question was: Okay. We know people are angry.
We know folks are frustrated with the Supreme Court decision back in may. Are they mad because they wanted medical marijuana, which I think we all know now is an issue that is popular with a lot of Mississippians, regardless of what their political stripes are. So what we wanted to know is can we parse out the difference in people who are solely interested in an issue like medical marijuana with folks who are interested in the ballot initiative process itself?
So the top line number for me is 82% of the voters in the state want an initiative process. That is four out of five voters of a 600 voters sample that was tested, tested, and retested to make sure we had the right blend of respondents that looked like a Mississippi election, you know predominantly Republican.
But 82% of them said they wanted an initiative process. So once you establish that, you ask the question of, well, what comes next? Because what the Supreme Court has told us is the Legislature has to do something. So our next question that I think is worth noting for listeners:
Do you want the state Legislature to fix the initiative process? That came in just to touch beneath four out of five, 79%. I mean, statistically four out of five want it. So then, as you all have explored, well, what does that look like? How do you do it? Well, the Legislature only meets during the early months of the year.
If they were going to do something between now and January, it would require the governor to call a special session. So we asked that question: Do you want Governor Reeves to call a special session? And that was three out of four. Seventy-six percent said we would be in favor. And what we noticed was the difference between the big number total and Republicans.
Well, it was just hardly any sunshine at all between those two. I mean it was the same pretty much regardless of your background within, I think the margin of error.
Bobby Harrison: [00:06:32] Yeah, the pollster, and you maybe talk a little about the pollster, but he said that in today’s political environment, he’s seldom seen issues where Republicans and Democrats were in such lock step, that they agreed on the issue. And he said that was a surprising element of the poll for him.
Brandon Jones: [00:06:48] A hundred percent. I mean, you all know better than perhaps anybody in the state that we’re at a divided time in our country. We’re at a particularly divided time in our state.
You can’t get folks to agree on virtually anything. So if you get 80% and it’s coming in from both sides of that. And I’ll just tell you to that point. The folks who I’ve had the most conversations with about taking action at the Legislature are our movement conservatives in the Legislature who feel very strongly about the ballot initiative process.
Geoff Pender: [00:07:14] Your poll, another analysis type finding is our call was that I forget how you phrased it, but there is some political danger here to not heed this, the sentiment of the voters. I guess for the time being anyway, that would fall on the governor’s shoulders. As far as you know, people wanting him to call a session.
Brandon Jones: [00:07:32] Yeah. You know there’s the question of how do you get state leadership to do something that requires a little bit of movement on their part? Like, I mean—
Geoff Pender: [00:07:44] It requires some leadership.
Brandon Jones: [00:07:45] Yeah. I mean, it really is like the governor has to call a special session and then set the agenda and that takes some doing, and so you’re right, Geoff.
I mean, we wanted to test, so you like the initiative process, you believe that the governor should call a special session and those were overwhelming numbers. So we asked people: Well, what if the governor didn’t call a special session? How would that affect your opinion of the governor? And what we found was that, pretty overwhelmingly, 63% said that they would be more likely to vote for a state legislator if they called for a special session. And the numbers flip almost perfectly to how they would feel about the Legislature and those numbers are almost identical to what they said about Governor Reeves. So we’re talking about numbers above the sixties. And so, yeah, I mean, so what we learned was that overwhelmingly people said, “Well, if this doesn’t happen, it’s going to impact our opinion of not only the governor, but also of legislators, depending on how they handle it.
Which again, when you’re in the position of trying to persuade people in office to take action, that’s one of the key data points you can bring them is to say, “Well, not only do people care about this, they say they’re going to factor that into how they evaluate you as somebody they’d vote for.”
Bobby Harrison: [00:09:03] Large majority of the electorate want it fixed, and they want it fixed now.
Brandon Jones: [00:09:06] Yeah, that’s right. They want it fixed quickly. And you heard, you know, you all talked to Secretary Watson who went into detail about some of the folks he’s heard from on the medical marijuana issue in particular. There is a sense of urgency out there. And there was a sense too, for people who worked on that issue— we did not.
But for folks who advocated on that issue, once they started to put the pieces in place to build out that infrastructure and then they lost it, the impact of that and kind of having people prepared for that. So there is a sense of urgency that comes from that. But as we found here, there’s also a sense of urgency. Just, dadgummit. We want to be able to petition our government.
Bobby Harrison: [00:09:41] Yeah. When I introduced you, one thing I didn’t mention is that you, I don’t think you do it anymore, but for a period of time, you were a television political analyst with your friend on the Republican side, Austin,Barbour.
Brandon Jones: [00:09:52] Well it is deeply sad to me, Bobby, but we still got the show. It’s just only on during the session.
Bobby Harrison: [00:09:56] Oh, that’s right. Well, that’s right. But anyway, so I may be asking you to do some analysis right now in relation to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is an elected body, but, you know, I would venture to guess most people in the state can’t name the Supreme Court justices.
This has kind of brought them to the forefront. They run every six years. Is this the type of issue that could bring them some political consequences? When you talked about it, when you released the poll, you referred to their ruling as they were ruling on a technicality.
So, are there political consequences for the justices?
Brandon Jones: [00:10:32] Yeah. You know, courts have a history of taking antiquated law and kind of weird facts and making them work for the modern era. They do that all the time. And that was the anticipation here. So that’s why I called it a technicality. They hung on this thing that said you couldn’t have more than 20% out of one district, which became impossible under the current math.
Yeah, Bobby, we have all watched as our courts in Mississippi have become increasingly political and as an attorney and, you know, longtime trial lawyer in this state, I think that’s regrettable. I think that’s not a great thing that now we have Supreme Court justices who openly embrace parties and parties openly embrace them.
I couldn’t help but notice in a non-election year Justice Griffis will be speaking at the Neshoba County Fair. I suspect he won’t be talking about the civil rules of procedure. That’ll probably be a quasi political speech. I think that kind of thing is weird, but I think at some point it becomes a question of are you going to deal with the reality of this or not?
Let’s face it. Judges set up campaign committees. Those campaign committees raise money. And depending on which district you’re in, the judges lobby for support from the party, and parties have been happy to give it to them where it worked out. And the business community that funds our statewide elected offices and legislators, it doesn’t take a mathematician or a great accountant to draw a line between the same folks that give money to this guy over here, giving money to the Supreme Court justices. So. Look, I think—
Geoff Pender: [00:11:59] We’ve even seen party endorsements, governors’ endorsements.
Brandon Jones: [00:12:02] That’s right. Yeah. So that the temperature is going way up on all of that. Like nowadays, if somebody was just coming here as an observer that didn’t know anything about how we historically tried to keep that sort of independence, they would probably think, “Well, that looks like a pretty partisan race.”
Now let’s be fair here. Judges aren’t supposed to claim a party, so they don’t say, ” I’m running as a.” But I don’t know how far that really gets. I think that the true reality is it’s political. So to your question, Bobby, yes. I do think that this could have an impact on the way people look at judges, because what we’ve learned is that the same things can be used against any political candidate can be used against the judge.
For example, the 73% of people that just voted for medical marijuana. If the Legislature doesn’t get their act together and figure out a program, if the governor doesn’t call them back in, if somehow this thing doesn’t get delivered, folks are going to be angry. If somehow the Legislature doesn’t figure out the ballot initiative process, if the governor doesn’t call them back in for that, folks could be angry there and they could connect the dots.
It wouldn’t take a great campaign wizard to connect the dots back to the Supreme Court and back to justices. I think that’s just the reality of it. The problem though, is you mentioned these justices don’t run but every six years and they run on a staggered basis. And so the next Supreme Court race by my account is I believe 2024, so it’s still a couple years out. And you know what we say in politics. Man, it’s a lifetime. I mean, so I think to your question, yes, we tested that a little bit. You know, we, we tested: How do you feel about the ballot initiative process being taken away? People overwhelmingly disapproved.
When we said, how do you feel about it being taken away by the Supreme Court? They even got more upset about that. So clearly you could use that, but you know, two years from now, there might be a dozen other things.
Geoff Pender: [00:13:59] Brandon, let me ask you in both the case of the ballot initiative and medical marijuana initiative. If and when the Legislature were to take action, there’s already much talk and debate, and it’s highly likely that the action in either case would not mirror the past ballot initiative process we had, our Initiative 65. They would come up with totally different things. They’re talking about perhaps making the ballot initiative where voters cannot change the constitution, but only the state statute. Do you think there’s a political danger if the Legislature comes up with something too totally different of what voters had already approved?
Brandon Jones: [00:14:47] I don’t think there’s any question, Geoff, that, yeah, that would be true. That would be a difficult political posture for elected officials to take. I think we have all seen as our state has sort of solidified behind conservative leadership and sometimes what happens—and this isn’t new to Mississippi.
This happens at the federal level and at state levels and has gone on since time immemorial, but sometimes when one political party or one political piece of the puzzle gets such overwhelming power in a state, as we have in Mississippi, now they start to feel 10 feet tall and bulletproof, and I think they start to think, “Well, 73% is big, but if we just sit, give it back to them in some form or fashion, they’ll be fine with that cause we’re overwhelmingly popular.” Well, it’s part of the reason you do polls to figure out how true is the narrative that’s running through their minds. And what we saw was, you know, Governor Reeves is at a tough position. Like if these numbers are and we believe they are correct, 48% favorability to 46%, favorability, that’s not 10 feet tall and bulletproof. That means you can make a misstep that can cost you your job, even if it’s to another Republican or whoever the case may be. And I think similarly, the Legislature can get a little cocky. They can start to feel that they can do things that maybe the voters have already instructed them not to do.
For the life of me, I don’t know why the Legislature and the leadership in the state wouldn’t when people coalesce around a policy issue, as clearly as they have this one, just sort of step back and let that be the thing. Injecting themselves into this issue in the way that they did last session and in the way that they appear poised to do this time, I think it’s perilous. I think it could be a problem. I mean 73%. It’s a big number. I mean, and if you come back with something that doesn’t resemble that and the people who put the sweat equity into getting that initial idea past the goal line and your idea doesn’t look like theirs, that’s trouble. But, you know, look. The group that’s in power now, the current leadership in the state of Mississippi, have defied the odds in terms of what you think might be harmful. And we have individual politicians who you say, well, they would seem vulnerable. And then when all the votes are cast are not.
And so, you know, I will say that I guess I understand why some folks doing this calculus sort of feel like they can ride this out, but I do think this is one of those moments where the interest is so high. It could be dangerous.
Bobby Harrison: [00:17:14] I’m interested now. What are you referring to where they’ve kind of bucked the odds. Are you talking about— I mean, I guess you mean issues, positions they’ve taken that are not popular with the public. Are you referencing Medicaid expansion?
Brandon Jones: [00:17:27] Yeah. I mean, I guess the one that’s just right on the tip of the tongue for me is Medicaid expansion because we’ve seen conservative state after conservative state find their way to Medicaid expansion, including Mike Pence’s state of Indiana.
Bobby Harrison: [00:17:38] Are we seeing polls in Mississippi?
Brandon Jones: [00:17:40] We’ve seen polls in Mississippi where it’s overwhelmingly, you know, something people are interested in. So I guess that’s the one that comes to mind, but I think if we dug deeper and thought about it a little bit, we would remember times where, you know, the feeling and sentiment on the ground seemed pretty clear and the Legislature just kinda decided to do its own thing.
Geoff Pender: [00:17:58] Brandon, one more thing. This is kind of a broad question, more philosophical. You know, some people point out that with ballot initiative, there’s a danger to direct democracy. We have a representative democracy for a reason, so we don’t have mob rules. How do you juxtapose that with this, what appears to be a grassroots push to reinstate ballot initiative?
Brandon Jones: [00:18:23] Yeah, I’m sensitive to that argument. I’ve heard it referred to as Barabbas’ Law before, and you want to be careful at how how much of that you get into. I think in Mississippi, it’s worth noting that we have the most restrictive ballot initiative process in the country.
So there are so many safeguards and, and some might say, “Well, one of them just worked. The Supreme Court knocked it down after it passed.” But you know, the process you have to go through to get the question certified and then to get it where you are in a position to start collecting signatures and then the harrowing signature process, whether you’re talking about four congressional districts or five is considerable in the cost and sweat equity that goes into that is considerable. And then you have to cross this threshold that is unlike any other electoral threshold we have in the state. So by the time you get to that, it’s been very challenging. I think Geoff, with those safeguards in place, people can have some confidence that you’re not getting something half cocked. Now we’re sitting in Mississippi, and we’re sitting in a state with a questionable pass on a race. We’re sitting in a place with a questionable past on a lot of public policy. We haven’t handled the poor in our state in a way that makes any sense at all.
And so I’m aware that there have been times when 73% of Mississippians could have voted for stuff that was horrible, and we just have to be honest about that. But I think the sentiment here is that there are moments when your government is simply not responsive and we give the government the opportunity in our current process to make a fix as the issue is coming at them.
Don’t forget members of that Legislature could have adopted a medical marijuana solution before this ever hit the ballot in November. I think their math was Mississippi wasn’t ready to pass it. And then they were proved wrong to the tune of about 35% off their number. So I think that we have enough catches and enough ways to look at this that gives people in government an opportunity to self-correct. And look in the same way that I was mentioning a moment ago, sometimes you have a particular perspective that’s overwhelmingly in power. They might have a platform that by and large the people of the state like. You know, by and large we’re okay with this team. That’s our team. We like them, but it’s never been true that people have coalesced around an entire platform.
There might be a couple issues that they’re like, look, I’m not ready to vote for the other people on this yet, but I do care about that issue and I think this type of direct democracy offers that opportunity. I mean, clearly our leadership has been obstinate on some of these issues, but there’s an appetite for them.
And from a policy perspective, I, you know, I’m a policy guy. I think that gets us to a better spot. So, you know, I think there’s enough safeguards there, but I do hear that concern. And I do think that we’ve kind of factored that into our interesting process.
Bobby Harrison: [00:21:21] Yeah. Another factor in Mississippi is having to be at Walmart in a parking lot in August gathering signatures. That’s hard.
Brandon Jones: [00:21:29] That’s right. There’s nothing easy about this process. I think people you know, if you’ve never been a part of a signature gathering process, you ought to do it for at least a week just to see what it’s like.
Bobby Harrison: [00:21:40] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it says something that we’ve had it, we had it since ’92 and there’s been two that made it all the way through the process in that time period.
Brandon Jones: [00:21:47] That’s right. That’s right. That was another thing that kind of had me scratching my head at the Supreme Court , those folks that were concerned about this. You know, again, I say this and this may be a weird way of saying it, but we don’t have ballot initiative culture. Nothing to be afraid of yet.
I mean, it’s still a hard, hard goal line to get across.
Bobby Harrison: [00:22:02] I want to change directions for just a second. If you’ll indulge me, I mentioned that you were in the Legislature and I just want to go back to your election in 2007, when you were elected to the Legislature and it was a unique time in the state’s history and that was maybe the last sort of old time speaker’s race.
You don’t have speaker’s races like this now with policy partisan politics, but Jeff Smith, he was a Democrat was running against the incumbent Speaker Bill McCoy. Smith would run in with the support of all the Republicans at the time. The Republicans were still a minority in the Mississippi House at that time.
And he was running with all their support and the support of conservative Democrats. And you were running in what was viewed in Jackson county as a very Republican seat, an open seat and just to make a long story short, you won that election and McCoy won the speakership by 62 to 60. So if you had not won that election— I don’t know. We may still be voting. It was a tie at 61. So just what were your recollections of that time period?
Brandon Jones: [00:23:06] Well, my first moments in elected office were some of the most interesting moments of my life. I mean, it felt like forever that morning, because remember it wasn’t just one vote.
Bobby Harrison: [00:23:16] Right.
Brandon Jones: [00:23:16] But I think about the people involved in that race. You know, we lost Speaker McCoy last year who is one of the most significant legislative leaders of this state whether you’re talking about public education or the development of the highway program, And so we lost a titan of Mississippi politics, and I think just last week they dedicated a portion of highway to him.
That was certainly appropriate. And look I’ll just tell you, I don’t think he would mind me sharing this. Jeff Smith and I stay in touch. You know, Jeff was lobbying me pretty hard to vote for him. And I certainly wasn’t a personal animus towards him that caused me to vote the other way.
We actually have talked about this very issue because I asked him what he thought his folks over in the Republican Party might do about the initiative issue. So we’ve maintained a friendship. I’ll tell you it’s heady, Bobby and Geoff, for a guy who you know, coming out of Hurricane Katrina grew up in Pascagoula, had not really thought about running for this and then decided to, to win an election so narrowly as I did. You know, my community was clearly equally divided on the question of me. So one of the first calls I get is from Governor Haley Barbour to ask me to vote for Jeff Smith. Yeah. And, and any of you who have heard Governor Barbour or studied him, know that you’re dealing with one of the wildest, smartest you know, most persuasive politicians in the world.
And I remember standing in my backyard having this conversation and I thought, “You know I’m not gonna beat this guy in a battle of wits over Mississippi politics. I’m going to say as little as I can and be as respectful as I can and move on along.” But voting for the speaker, Bobby, was not a hard decision for me.
I think Speaker McCoy was a person whose politics appealed to me, even though we could not have come from farther different parts of the state. I come from Southeast Mississippi. He’s from Northeast Mississippi. It’s about a seven and a half hour drive to get there, to get between those places.
But this was a guy who believed deeply in addressing the actual emerging problems of the state. And that was something that really fueled his whole process. And I saw that enacted many times after I got elected, but in the moment, talking to him, getting to know his passion, getting to know what his track record was in that body, it was just not a hard call. We were philosophically aligned, and I was pleased to support them and really honored to try to be a part of leadership with him for four years. But the moments themselves were harrowing. People can appreciate what it’s like to have a close speaker’s race.
The vote count changed by the hour. There were a lot of frantic phone calls going along between people who’d been in the chamber for 20 years. As people know, we don’t have term limits in Mississippi. So some of these folks had been there for quite some time. My freshmen group, which was a big freshman class— I mean, people remember that class.
There were a lot of us. We apparently were not the easiest votes to count because some of those changed the morning of the election and the speaker’s race. It was tough. You know, now it’s this monolithic thing. Like the Republicans have such overwhelming control that they go into a room, somebody tells them who’s going to be the speaker, they let them yell into a pillow for a minute, and then they go out there and that’s who the speaker is. And you never know who thought anything about it. This thing was the street brawl. Yeah. I mean, this thing, there was no coercion of any kind of the kind we see today. I mean, there was certainly persuasion. There were certainly attempts at coercion, but this thing was a free for all.
And you had such uncertainty that, like I said, tied vote. I know it was at least once.
Bobby Harrison: [00:26:51] Twice.
Brandon Jones: [00:26:52] Yeah. So two tied votes and think about that. You, you just don’t have that type of political uncertainty. And so as a person who is newly elected, first time there, overwhelmingly Republican district voting for a Democratic speaker that my predecessor Republican Carmel Wells had voted for, but Republicans smelled blood in the water and they saw that they were about to have a chance to take over state leadership.
And they knew that the time was right to strike at leadership. And so there’s no question that the prevailing political winds in my district were to vote for Jeff Smith, who was perceived as the gateway drug to Republican leadership in the House. And so it was wild, and there were friends of mine who are still friends to this day.
I’ve used friends kind of in quotations who were up in the gallery from Jackson County that were yelling down, that were passing notes. But you know, I think part of what really helped me, Bobby, was when, you know, winning is not assured.
Secretary Watson was on the show. He and I ran at the same time. He was running in the Senate. I was running in the House. Our districts were fairly well overlapping, except he went off into the county. I remember asking Michael while we were running, “How do you feel about this?” And he was a hundred percent sure. He was taking on a 20-year incumbent.
Michael knew he was going to win. There was never any doubt. He asked me the same question. I said, “Who knows? I mean, I might have to really pull something out of a hat here to win it.” I felt like I was sort of prepared for the uncertainty cause it was like, “I know that four years is probably the best I’m going to get. I’m going to have to swing away. I get this one opportunity. I’m going to use it.” So if you’ll remember, as scary and weird as that whole thing was, I think I was one of the first speeches after the speaker’s race was settled because we had a rules fight right after that.
Bobby Harrison: [00:28:47] That’s right.
Brandon Jones: [00:28:47] And I was fighting against this committee. Now I’ll tell you I’m a lawyer by training, but I didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about the procedure of the House, but I knew I didn’t want to stand sentinel over my desk so that Mark Formby or Greg Snowden or Philip Gunn could call us into a committee at any moment. So I fought like crazy against that.
So it’s a wild time. I mean, it’s not that long ago, but it feels like different generations.
Bobby Harrison: [00:29:10] And just a little backstory. You mentioned the freshmen class and some people change their votes along the way, but each side had packs where they were supporting candidates, who they thought would be loyal to their speakers candidate.
And if I remember correctly, there was some dispute about whether to waste money on you because they felt there was such a strong Republican district. Do I have that, right?
Brandon Jones: [00:29:33] Yeah. You did. You do. You know, I was not one of the ones that got the most assistance, but ultimately the decision to give me some was, I think in my understanding, came from the speaker. But even more significant than that, Bobby, and in the same vein you know, I was a member of the Mississippi Association for Justice, this lawyer’s group, and they decided not to put money in. And they put money in races everywhere.
And I remember having a long conversation with Meredith Cox at the convention. I was like, “Man, I’m a member. I’m on the Board of Governors. I’m a practicing lawyer. I’m in good standing. I do this work every day.” And he just said, “Look, Bubba, you can’t win. And Jerry Nash, doesn’t think you’d win either.”
Bobby Harrison: [00:30:11] You know who thought you could win? Carmel, your predecessor.
I remember her being in the Capitol during that campaign. And she was not happy about it. She said, “He has a chance to win.”
Brandon Jones: [00:30:21] I don’t think she said that with any excitement. Yeah. Well look, as you both know these races in the Legislature, we have 122 of them across the state.
It’s not that incredibly big, and so shoe leather does matter. You can still win races. I know it’s a little bit more divided than maybe it’s ever been. And partisanship has a huge shadow over this stuff. As I think about what it took to win, I think about walking through that district two and three times, and man, I’m glad to be sitting in an air conditioned space with you guys.
Bobby Harrison: [00:30:53] It was interesting to talk about this poll and about your unique history and state politics. Thanks for being here and have a good week.
Brandon Jones: [00:31:00] Yeah. Thank you.
Geoff Pender: [00:31:01] Thanks, Brandon.
Adam Ganucheau: [00:31:09]
As we cover the biggest political stories in the state, you don’t want to miss an episode of The Other Side. We’ll bring you more reporting from every corner of the state, sharing the voices of Mississippians and how they’re impacted by the news. So, what do we need from you, the listener? We need your feedback and support.
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Subscribe to our weekly podcast on your favorite podcast app or stream episodes online at MississippiToday.org/the-other-side. For the Mississippi Today team I’m Adam Ganucheau. The Other Side is produced by Mississippi Today and engineered by Blue Sky Studios. We hope you’ll join us for our next episode.
Brandon Jones, policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Action Funds, talks with Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison and Geoff Pender about results of the poll his organization commissioned on reinstating the ballot initiative process that was struck down by Mississippi Supreme Court.
Stream the episode here and read the transcript here.
The narrative has developed that 74% of the people who went to the polls in November supported medical marijuana legalization. But in reality, the convoluted process enacted by legislators used to place an alternative to a citizen-sponsored initiative on the ballot makes it difficult to gauge the precise level of support for medical marijuana.
Still, that narrative led to the creation of the “We are the 74” group and Facebook page referencing the 74% of voters who presumably voted in favor of legalizing medical marijuana. “We are the 74” is the rallying cry of a large number of people who want the Legislature to approve medical marijuana — sooner rather than later — after the Mississippi Supreme Court struck down the medical marijuana initiative approved overwhelmingly by voters.
It is inaccurate to say that 74% of people who went to the polls in November favored the legalization of medical marijuana. It would be true to say that the November vote indicates a strong majority favored medical marijuana legalization.
Granted, in the grand scheme, it makes little difference whether medical marijuana support at the polls in November was at 65%, 75% or some other overwhelming number. Still, it is important to provide accurate information and the context of that support.
The 74% is the percentage of people who voted for the citizen-sponsored Initiative 65, which legalized medical marijuana, compared to the 26% who voted for the legislative alternative. Both legalized medical marijuana, though the legislative alternative did so with many more restrictions than did the citizen-sponsored initiative. But based on that outcome, 100% of voters supported legalizing medical marijuana in some manner. But to argue that 100% of people voted in favor of medical marijuana also would be a false narrative.
What is important to remember is that Mississippians are faced with two questions when the Legislature opts to place on the ballot an alternative — competing proposal — to a citizen-sponsored initiative. Some argue that the Legislature intentionally developed the convoluted, two-question process to enact a citizen-sponsored initiative to make it more difficult to pass any proposal opposed by the Legislature.
Under that convoluted process, the first question gives voters two options: to support either the citizen-sponsored initiative or the legislative alternative, while the second option is to oppose both.
If opposition to both receives more votes than the support for either the citizen-sponsored initiative or the legislative alternative, then that is the ballgame. Both are defeated. But this past November, 816,107 (68.5%) voted in favor of the citizen-sponsored initiative or the legislative alternative, while 374,931 (31.5%) voted against both, according to official results from the Mississippi Secretary of State.
Perhaps it could be argued, based on the first question, that almost 69% favored the legalization of medical marijuana, not 74%. But it could be argued that number is not correct either. After all, there theoretically could have been voters who opposed both the citizen-sponsored initiative and the legislative alternative, but supported the concept of medical marijuana. If that was the case, and if they took the question literally, they would have voted no on the first question.
And incidentally, to further complicate a complicated process, people who vote against both on the first question can still vote for either the legislative alternative or the citizen-sponsored initiative on the second question.
Of course, this all came up after the Supreme Court in late May in a landmark and controversial 6-3 decision struck down the medical marijuana initiative approved by voters in November and while doing so struck down the entire initiative process. The court ruled the initiative process invalid because language in the Constitution requires signatures to place an issue on the ballot be gathered equally from five congressional districts. The problem, the Court ruled, is that the state has had only four districts since the 2000 Census.
Supporters of medical marijuana, upset with the court ruling, rallied around the “We are the 74” mantra. There is nothing wrong with that. It makes the point that a large percentage of Mississippians support the legalization of medical marijuana and are now asking the Legislature to enact what was taken away from them by the Supreme Court.
It might be 74% who support medical marijuana. It might be a little less. It might be a little more.
It is just hard to ascertain from the November election. Perhaps it would be a public service if legislators would simplify a convoluted ballot process as they work in the coming months to revive the initiative process struck down by the Supreme Court.
For much of their life, Kyle Simpson, a Perry County resident who identifies as non-binary or as someone who identifies neither as female or male, has felt invisible.
“I have always been punished for who I am,” said Simpson, who is an aspiring counseling psychologist. “I have spent my life with people telling me that I’m the problem.”
Like Simpson, many people are feeling unaffirmed in Mississippi, where 3.5% of its population identifies as LGBTQ+. Several LGBTQ+ Mississippians responded to Mississippi Today’s NextGen survey and shared their experiences.
Many of the LGBTQ+ residents who spoke with Mississippi Today said they feel connected to Mississippi, but they all expressed a desire for affirmation in the state that sometimes fails to recognize them. Acknowledging their existence, several of them shared, is key to building a more accepting community.
While each respondent’s perspectives varied, several overarching themes emerged: feeling tension between upbringings and finding acceptance in the state, wanting to stay in the state but feeling a lack of community or a lack of resources, and struggling to reckon with harmful policies championed by some of the state’s elected officials.
Simpson acknowledged these problems are not unique to Mississippi but tie into America’s complex history of disenfranchising marginalized groups.
“Change is threatening, but people have to know the truth of the South even though it is a beautiful paradise with great people,” Simpson said, alluding to the long history of the South’s leaders, in particular, passing policies that marginalize certain groups.
Several of the survey’s respondents mentioned policies championed by some of the state’s most powerful elected officials like House Bill 1523 passed in 2016, which is often referred to as the most sweeping anti-gay legislation in the country.
“People feel if they allow other marginalized people to feel valued then they worry their own experiences will be invalidated,” Simpson said. “I don’t want to be treated like a trans person. I’m Kyle Simpson first.”
Derrick Dupuy, a 22-year-old Millsaps College graduate, was early into his fellowship at the Meridian Freedom Summer Project — a program for sixth through twelfth graders designed to foster academic, leadership and professional successes — when he was asked by a young student when he knew that he liked boys.
Dupuy, who teaches arts-integrated Black history with an emphasis on civil rights and Afro-religions, opened up a dialogue that day to be “real” about his sexuality as a gay Black man.
“Masculinity is all about choice, and that’s not something that has been afforded to the Black man or to the Black community,” Dupuy shared.
Growing up in New Orleans, Dupuy recalled “being bullied for being gay.” But Dupuy’s experience, unlike white LGBTQ+ members, highlights a common aspect that people of color face: increased homophobia and stigmatization.
While Dupuy recalled homophobic and racist experiences at Millsaps College prior to coming out, he said he is ultimately proud of his decision to publicly acknowledge his identity. Dupuy reiterated that affirmation for LGBTQ+ Mississippians begins with people “looking in the mirror” to break the cycle of judgment and fear.
“That’s the beautiful part of being LGBTQ+ is that we’re multidimensional and when we’re given space to flourish, we flourish,” Dupuy said.
Melanie Walsh, a Mississippi State University researcher who also works with the LGBTQ Fund of Mississippi, has sat on the organization’s grants review committee for two years and has studied the extent of Mississippi’s resources that support organizations aiding LGBTQ+ people.
A lead researcher on the LGBTQ Fund’s statewide needs assessment, Walsh’s research drew in 500 survey participants, conducted focus groups in seven regions of Mississippi, and identified 28 LGBTQ+ organizations in the state.
Walsh knows that even with some resources in the state, LGBTQ+ life in the South can be an isolating experience.
“I think for a lot of youth, it’s hard to see role models in this community,” Walsh said. “There’s a lot of us out there, but the visibility isn’t there.”
While Walsh listed social media and Gay-Straight Alliances as ways for LGBTQ+ Mississippians to connect, she emphasized that safety is a vital factor.
“We always want to make sure safety comes first,” Walsh said. “Being somewhat visible if it’s safe.”
Walsh and several others detailed to Mississippi Today the emotional labor of coming out to oneself and to others.
“When I told my mom, I was actually crying,” Sebastian Prisock, an 18-year-old Madison Central graduate, shared as he referred to his coming out as a trans man in the seventh grade.
Backed by a supportive mother, Prisock had the opportunity to “openly talk about those things” in his community growing up; however, he attested to experiences that made him feel targeted in school.
“My counselor had seen me literally holding hands with my girlfriend even though there were tons of people doing other things than holding hands. A week later, she called me in and said we can’t be doing that,” Prisock said.
Prisock’s experience echoed the difference in treatment regarding LGBTQ+ members and heteronormative or straight members, though he said his teachers still respected him “if they were not completely accepting”.
Starting hormone therapy in February of this year, Prisock realized that awareness of LGBTQ+ resources — particularly hormone therapy — in Mississippi is scarce.
“Even when people make the smallest bit of change, people will always push back some. But if policies change, then people change,” Prisock said.
Adam Connor, a University of Mississippi graduate, learned through an experience of not being able to come out on his own terms that it is important to initiate the narrative on his identity.
“I think that’s a part of why I’m so open today,” Connor said. “I’d rather just tell people things first than have them hear some convoluted story. I just want to be the provider of that piece of information.”
Those “convoluted stories” Connor referred to are micro-aggressions and indirect discrimination against a marginalized group in the workplace, like when he is asked outright “if he is gay” or more subtly asked if he is dating anyone.
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Connor recognized that genuine support can derive from such questions; however, he reiterated that only further misunderstanding is created about LGBTQ+ identities.
“They’ll ask and they’ll be supportive of it like, ‘Oh, that’s so great. I love gay people. I need a new gay bestie and then we can go shopping and do all the stereotypical stuff together,’” Connor said.
When same-sex marriage became legalized in Mississippi in 2014, Connor revealed a common stressor for non-marginalized groups: the fear of having their rights stripped away.
“That whole gay marriage debate was messy, and my viewpoints on marriage are messy,” Connor said. “Because of it, I grew up not expecting being able to exercise this right.”
Although not always acknowledged or heard in Mississippi, many LGBTQ+ Mississippians shared a fondness for the state they live in. But they also recognize the challenges of building community here while expressing hope that they would be more broadly accepted in the future.
“It is disrupting the status quo, but it is a necessary disruption,” Walsh said. “It is absolutely imperative that we’re acknowledging our identities.”
The rapid rise of Delta variant cases and virus outbreaks combined with the state’s low vaccination rate led the Mississippi Department of Health to release a slew of new COVID-related guidelines on Friday.
The new recommendations, which will stay in place through July 26, are:
All Mississippi residents ages 65 and older, as well as anyone with a chronic underlying medical condition, should avoid all indoor mass gatherings regardless of their vaccination status.
All unvaccinated Mississippians wear a mask when indoors in public settings.
All Mississippians 12 years of age and older get vaccinated.
State Health Officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, said that these recommendations were decided on because Mississippians collectively have not done what it takes to protect us all, and MSDH wants to give the most vulnerable individuals the best guidance so they can survive the Delta surge the state is facing.
“At this pace, and given the sort of external dynamics that are in play here, we’re going to remain vulnerable for a long time,” Dobbs said. “I don’t think that we’re going to have some miraculous increase in our vaccination rate over the next few weeks, so people are going to die needlessly. And so when we look at who our most vulnerable people are, it’s going to be the people 65 and older, or who have chronic medical issues.”
While MSDH has made these new recommendations, they are just that. Mississippi has had next to no COVID-related restrictions at the state level since Gov. Tate Reeves repealed most of them in March.
The Delta strain is currently circulating much more quickly than other variants in Mississippi. Over the past two weeks, the number of Delta cases in Mississippi has increased more than fivefold, up from 29 to 137.
Delta is now also the dominant variant across the United States. Nationally, the average number of new cases has started to trend upwards due to localized Delta outbreaks in places, like Mississippi, that have low vaccination rates. The Mississippi State Department of Health reported 427 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, the most for any one day since March 13.
The Delta variant has considerably increased the already high risks posed by the virus to unvaccinated people. Between June 3 and July 1, 95% of all COVID infections in Mississippi were among the unvaccinated. During that period, the same group also accounted for 90% of hospitalizations and 89% of deaths.
The vaccines are nearly as effective against the Delta variant as the original strain, greatly minimizing the chance of infection and nearly eliminating the risks of developing a serious illness. Studies suggest, however, that being fully vaccinated is the only adequate protection against the Delta variant, as a single shot of either of the two-dose mRNA vaccines provides only weak protection against infection. The Delta variant, first identified in India, is believed to be about 60% more contagious than the Alpha variant and up to twice as contagious as the original strain of COVID-19.
On Thursday, Pfizer announced that it will seek emergency FDA authorization for a third booster shot that better protects against the Delta variant. Dobbs is already recommending that immunocompromised Mississippians get tested to check their antibody levels after getting vaccinated, and ask their doctors about getting a third dose if their immune system did not respond strongly to the first two doses.
State Epidemiologist Paul Byers added that the decision to receive a third dose right now will be on an individual basis and based on the physician/patient relationship.
“As far as an overall booster recommendation for a specific group, or for the total population, I think we are still not at that point yet,” Byers said. “That’s not a guarantee that we won’t be at a booster point down the road, but I think that the vaccines that we have right now are still showing effective long-term immunity.”
Despite the wide availability of vaccines and the risks posed by variants, Mississippi continues to rank last in the nation in the share of its population that has been vaccinated. With over 2 million shots administered, only 31% of Mississippians have been fully vaccinated.
TUTWILER — It’s been a 32-year journey for Mary Willis Mackey, Quilt Director of the Tutwiler Quilters. Mackey’s passion for quilting began in 1989, a year after Sister Maureen Delaney of the Sister of the Holy Name Order started the quilting program for women in the community to get out of the house, come together and make money.
It was a way for friends to get together and share stories, laughter, and of course, stitching. Once she started, Mackey caught the bug. She studied patterns and how to lay them out, working with cardboard cut-outs as her patch shapes before ever taking scissors to actual material. She taught herself how to use a sewing machine too.
“It’s a lost art and I want to keep it going,” said Mackey, who is passing the tradition down to her granddaughter. “She just came to me one day and said, ‘Grandma, I want to make a quilt.’ And that was it. She took right to it.”
“I love it. I really do,” said Mary Willis Mackey, Quilt Director of the Tutwiler Quilters. “One day, I hope to travel around the state and teach all who want to learn how to quilt.”
“It takes patience, but it’s a lot of fun,” said Mary Willis Mackey, Tutwiler Quilt Director, as she touches up a few stitches on a music-themed quilt at the Tutwiler Community Education Center.
“I studied what I could. Taught myself on the side about patterns, and how to use a sewing machine. I have to admit, I’m addicted to quilting. I love it,” said Mary Willis Mackey, Quilt Director of the Tutwiler Quilters.
“I want to keep this tradition alive,” Mary Willis Mackey, Quilt Director of the Tutwiler Quilters.
“I love it. I really do,” said Mary Willis Mackey, Quilt Director of the Tutwiler Quilters, meticulously snipping loose threads from a quilt. “I want to keep the tradition alive.”
“It’s a dying art. I want to teach as many people as I can,” said Mary Willis Mackey, Quilt Director of the Tutwiler Quilters.
Many towns and cities in the Delta claim they are the birthplace of the Blues. For Tutwiler, local legend tells of W. C. Handy waiting on a train to Memphis, when he heard a man playing “the strangest music he ever heard,” on a slide guitar.
Local legend tells of W. C. Handy waiting on a train in Tutwiler to Memphis, when he heard a man playing, “Where the Southern Cross the Dog,” on a slide guitar. The song is a reference to the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad, called the Yellow Dog by locals, that crossed paths with the Southern Railway. And therein lies Tutwiler’s claim as the birthplace of the Blues.
Backing of a music-themed quilt.
Potholders created by the Tutwiler Quilters.
Mackey can be found every Saturday morning at the Ruby Armstrong Brown Resource Center in Jonestown passing down her knowledge to a quilting class of nearly 80 ladies.
“They’re really enthusiastic to learn,” said Mackey. “We usually run on past the time class is supposed to end because no one wants to stop. They all want to see that quilt take shape.”
Today, the Tutwiler Quilters program serves as a way for people, women especially, to learn a quilting style specific to the Delta and create art that they can use to support themselves.
“It takes patience though, and a lot of love,” said Mackey. “And I love it. I absolutely do. The learning is in the head, but you do it from the heart,” she said, while storing away all manner of quilting materials donated by a woman who traveled with a friend from Iowa.
“One day, what I’d really like to do is get me a little bus or van, and travel around to communities all over the state and teach people how to quilt. Keep a long tradition going, Plus, it really is a whole lot of fun,” Mackey said.
