The House on Wednesday passed a Senate medical marijuana proposal, but only after changing the bill to lower the amount of cannabis a patient could get.
The amended bill now goes back to the Senate. If the Senate does not approve the House changes to the bill, it will move to conference committee, where leaders from both chambers will negotiate the specifics of a final bill.
The House vote on Wednesday was 104-14 on the amended Senate Bill 2095.
“This bill is about the people who are suffering,” said House Drug Policy Chairman Lee Yancey. “That has gotten lost in this debate … These are debilitating conditions, not something you can fake and go to a doctor and get cannabis.”
The House lowered the amount of “flower” a patient could receive from 3.5 ounces a month to 3 ounces a month. The Senate had previously lowered the amount from 4 ounces in its original draft to 3.5 ounces. The lowered amount is likely a nod to Gov. Tate Reeves, who had threatened a veto and said it allowed patients too much marijuana and would be a toehold for recreational use and the black market.
The House also removed the Department of Agriculture from any oversight of the program. State Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson had publicly objected to his office participating in the program.
In addition, the House amended the Senate bill to say that growing operations could be located in areas with local commercial zoning. The original bill said they could locate only in industrial and agricultural zoned areas.
Lawmakers are attempting to reenact a medical marijuana program after voters overwhelmingly passed one — Initiative 65 — in 2020, only to have it shot down on a technicality by the state Supreme Court. But the Legislature in this conservative state has struggled for years with the issue, despite growing voter sentiment that the state join most others in legalizing marijuana for medical use.
House members unsuccessfully attempted numerous other amendments to the Senate marijuana bill in both committee and on the floor, but they failed. They included measures to provide quicker expungement of criminal convictions to allow people to participate in the program, and to reduce or eliminate taxes on medical marijuana. Similar amendments had been unsuccessfully offered in the Senate when it passed the bill.
The bill allows patients with more than two dozen chronic, debilitating conditions, such as cancer and epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease and spastic quadriplegia to be certified to purchase and use medical marijuana. Conditions can be added to the list only by the Department of Health. It allows physicians, certified nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants and optometrists to certify patients for cannabis use. A patient has to have an in-person assessment, a “bona fide relationship” with the practitioner and a follow up assessment within six months. Only physicians can certify minors for use. For people aged 18-25 — most susceptible to abuse of the drug, drafters said — a doctor plus another practitioner have to sign off on certification.
The bill applies the state sales tax (currently 7%) to retail sales of cannabis. It also applies a 5% excise for cultivation and creates a tiered system of licenses and fees for growers and processors. Money collected goes into the state general fund.
The Senate bill has a prohibition on lawmakers voting on the measure or their spouses having an interest in a cannabis business for one year. Rep. Dan Eubanks, R-Walls, tried unsuccessfully to make that prohibition permanent and prevent lawmakers from “cashing in” and provide “integrity and transparency.” His amendment failed on a 69-39 vote.
Rep. Omeria Scott, D-Laurel, unsuccessfully offered an amendment to allow outdoor growing to more easily allow Mississippi farmers to participate in the program. Like similar amendments offered in the Senate, it failed. Bill drafters said that indoor growing allows the program to be more easily monitored and regulated and prevent black market and organized crime infiltration of the program.
As the Legislature debates how to increase pay for Mississippi’s public school teachers, some educators and advocates say they are surprised and pleased by the proposals.
The House and Senate introduced separate proposals last week. The Senate plan would bring the starting salary for teachers up to $40,000 and includes significant pay raises at five-year intervals as teachers gain more experience. The House plan includes a starting salary of $43,000 and a $2,000 raise for teacher assistants.
“When I saw the Senate plan and then the House plan, I was really pleasantly shocked,” said Klara Aizupitis, a U.S. History teacher at South Panola High School. “I was not expecting anything close to this. I had been expecting more of what we had been seeing, the lip service saying there was going to be a raise and then having it actually be something much smaller.”
Aizupitis said the House plan looks “really wonderful” in terms of making Mississippi competitive with other Southern states and was glad to see it includes raises for teacher assistants, but the five-year increases in the Senate proposal shouldn’t be overlooked.
“To have something every five years to be looking forward to…is actually really important for keeping teachers around, not only attracting them to Mississippi but keeping them here,” she said.
Nationally, nearly 50% of new teachers leave the profession within their first five years, according to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.
Aizupitis has been teaching in Mississippi for five years. She coaches varsity soccer and girls powerlifting to supplement her income, as well as teaching at summer school.
“I really want to keep teaching, and at the moment I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. But throughout the year, in the moments when I’ve been working 12, 13, 14, 15-hour days, there’s always something in me that asks ‘is it worth it?’” she said. “That I could be making as much, if not more, to actually have a life outside of my job is always something that is in the back of my mind.”
Tiffany Davis, a kindergarten teacher at Webb Kindergarten Prep in Greenville, called the pay raise plans “long overdue.”
Davis said she appreciated the House plan including a raise for teacher assistants, and had heard some teachers express concern about the Senate’s plan to phase in the raises.
“They’re afraid you’ll get the first year’s (raise) and the next year it will be ‘oh, we ran out of money,’” she said.
Davis, who has been teaching for 25 years, has taught classes at Mississippi Valley State University through a satellite campus and cleaned houses to make ends meet. She is not confident that proposals will make a significant impact, as she believes recruiting new teachers is also about making schools a place where people want to work.
Davis also cited the decrease in new teachers graduating as another point of concern.
According to a report from Mississippi First, there has been a 32% decline in graduates from Mississippi’s educator preparation programs between 2014 to 2018.
“I think (these plans) will be a great starting point, because most people who are in the
profession know going in that this is not a high paying job,” said Athena Lindsey of South Delta Middle School. “So I think (this raise) will help them stay the course, because that’s what we really want. Once you get into the profession and you feel it and you love it and you know that this is your calling, you’ll stay. The problem is getting them in.”
Lindsey said that she likes parts of both plans. She likes the pay bumps in the Senate plan, which she believes will help keep veteran teachers in the classroom, but also appreciates that the House plan includes teacher assistants, saying that they play a vital role in education.
One aspect Lindsey hopes the Legislature will address is student loan forgiveness. She knows many teachers, herself included, who went back to school to see a pay raise by getting advanced degrees.
“But by going back to school, you still put yourself further in debt,” Lindsey said. “So by putting yourself further in debt, even when you get that pay increase, you still can’t really feel it, you can’t see it, you can’t enjoy it.”
Erica Jones, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators, also added that she thinks the plans should include raises for all education support staff, such as bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and facilities management, as well as the raise for teacher assistants currently in the House plan.
“A teacher pay increase at this point will be just what they need,” Jones said. “They have really had to battle going through the pandemic, working remotely, working on a hybrid schedule. As our educators continue to go in every day and do their best, this is the right time for legislators to increase teacher pay.”
Davis and Aizupitis emphasized the essential role that teachers play in shaping society, saying that they are hoping it continues to be recognized after these plans are considered.
“Teachers are the profession that makes all other professions possible,” Davis said.
Clarification 1/19/22: The starting salary at the base level in the House proposal is $43,000, not $43,125.
Bipartisan support has grown in recent years for an equal pay law in Mississippi — the last state in the nation to fail to provide legal recourse for women paid less than men for the same work.
Bills are pending in both the Senate — which has passed equal pay bills twice in recent years — and the House, which killed those Senate bills but in 2018 passed a bill with an equal pay amendment attached and appears to have more support for the measure this year.
“I am pleased that equal pay for equal work has gained so much momentum this year,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who has championed equal pay legislation for years. “It is a simple but powerful way that Mississippi can empower women. It demonstrates our commitment to affirming the inherent dignity of women and ensuring basic human fairness.”
Judiciary A Chairwoman Angela Cockerham, I-Magnolia, has authored House Bill 770, which has been passed out of committee and awaits a full House vote. Cockerham said that could come as early as this week, and that she hopes the measure will have bipartisan support.
“I am grateful that we have gotten it out of committee and before the full chamber,” Cockerham said. “… This would be monumental for the state of Mississippi and for the women of this this state.”
Senate Judiciary A Chairman Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, and Sen. Nicole Akins Boyd, R-Oxford, have co-authored Senate Bill 2451.
Both bills would create a state “actionable right” for any employee paid less for equal work based on sex. Federal law already provides such a right, but taking an employer to task in federal court is a more difficult, and often more costly task for aggrieved employees.
“The House has a number of cosponsors, bipartisan, for their bill as I understand, so I’m optimistic and hopeful that this is the year,” Boyd said. “I think this would send an important message to our young women that you are valued and that we want you to stay in Mississippi.”
Boyd said she recently held an informal “focus group” of young Mississippi law school students, and that to a person, both male and females in the group voiced strong support for equal pay.
Wiggins said the attorney general has continued to champion the legislation, and he said the Senate bill mirrors Alabama’s law, which was passed in 2019, leaving Mississippi as the only state without such a measure.
“This is a conservative approach — meaning the state will no longer be last on this issue, but it will not infringe on the rights of businesses,” Wiggins said. “… Part of the debate has been that people don’t want the state injecting itself into private business, and this minimizes that, while allowing a cause of action (for employees) on a state level … I look at my daughter, and I want this to tell her that the state of Mississippi is good for women in the workforce and for our next generation of women. This is about getting the right policy and I believe our bill does that.”
Over decades, legislative efforts to pass an equal pay law have been quietly snuffed out in committee, typically without a vote and typically without much public discussion by opponents. Opponents’ stated rationale has been that there are already federal equal pay laws, and that they don’t want to put undue regulations on businesses or cause a bunch of unwarranted lawsuits.
But efforts to pass an equal pay law have grown stronger in recent years.
Recent studies show women make up 51.5% of the population in Mississippi and nearly half of its workforce. They are the primary breadwinners for a majority — 53.5% — of families in this state, which is the highest rate in the nation.
But women working full time in Mississippi earn 27% less than men, far greater than the 19% gap nationwide. That gap grows worse for Black and Latina women in Mississippi, who are paid just 54 cents for every dollar paid to white men.
Women make up nearly 60% of those in Mississippi’s workforce living below the poverty line. The state has continually ranked worst or near-worst in most every ranking for working women.
Lawmakers on the Senate Labor Committee heard these and other similar statistics and issues in hearings in the fall. Senate Labor Chairman Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, vowed to push the issue again this year.
“I honestly couldn’t tell you where the opposition has come from,” said Horhn. “This just seems like a no-brainer, and it’s time to get this done.”
But it will likely again be (quietly) opposed by business interests and ultimately decided by a Legislature that is only about 16% female, and remains much whiter and more male than the state of Mississippi at large.
Mickey Spagnola, veteran NFL writer and former Jackson Daily News sports writer, joins the Cleveland boys to discuss the Dallas Cowboys and their devastating Sunday defeat in the NFL playoffs. Spagnola, who has covered America’s Team for 38 years, talks extensively about Dak Prescott, how the Cowboys lost, and about a series of Dallas playoff debacles over the last few years.
For the money Mississippi spends each year to imprison a kid, it could have paid the annual tuition to a state college — twice.
One out of every 14 people in Mississippi’s prison system — about 1,181 — were arrested and detained before the age of 18, Southern Poverty Law Center calculated for a recent report.
The practice of locking up minors especially harms Black families: 85% of these people who arrived to jail as children are Black.
Lawmakers are considering two bills aimed at reducing prison sentences for young people, which would help the state with its goal of decreasing the prison population, after a law passed last year expanded eligibility for parole.
“We’re trying to make a case that with the juvenile sentencing — it makes common sense. That’s just common sense if you want to decarcerate prisons,” said SPLC policy analyst Delvin Davis, who researched the report.
One bill, authored by Republican Senate Judiciary B Committee Chairman Sen. Joey Fillingane, addresses life sentences for people who were under 18 when they committed a crime. The new law would make most of these people eligible for parole after 20 years.
Another bill, called the Youthful Offender Law and authored by Democratic Rep. Jeffrey Harness makes it easier for people who were under 21 when they were arrested to earn supervised release for good behavior.
Mississippi remains one of the most incarcerating states in the nation, recently surpassing Oklahoma after that state passed significant reform that allowed more people to commute, or shorten, their sentences.
If U.S. states were countries, Mississippi would have the second highest incarceration rate in the world behind Louisiana, according to Prison Policy Initiative. About one out of every 100 people in Mississippi are locked up, including jails and immigration and juvenile detention centers.
The cost is extraordinary: Mississippi spends $18,480 a year to incarcerate one person. To compare, the cost of in-state tuition at Mississippi State University and University of Mississippi are each under $10,000 a year.
The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled in 2012 that sentencing minors to mandatory life without parole is unconstitutional, even in cases of violent crime. Though, Mississippi challenged that ruling, and last year the new conservative court upheld harsh sentencing for juveniles in some instances because of the Mississippi case.
Science shows the human brain doesn’t fully develop until a person’s mid-20s and young people are more susceptible to peer pressure and impulsive behavior.
“Incarcerating youth has been proven to have many consequences, including an increased likelihood of recidivism after release, exacerbation of mental illnesses, and less success with educational achievement and gainful employment,” the SPLC report reads.
Nearly 70 people who entered Mississippi’s prison system as juveniles are still locked up 20 years later. The oldest of them is 67. Imprisoning those people alone is costing taxpayers $1.2 million a year.
The SPLC argues the state may reinvest that money in ways that help people reenter society and become successful, such as job training and counseling.
Delta State Lucy Harris, shown here going to the hoop, dominated the women’s game in much the same manner as Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain dominated men’s basketball. She led Delta State to three national championships. (Photo: Delta State Athletics)
Lusia Harris, the Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell of women’s basketball, has died. The Minter City native who led Delta State to three consecutive national championships at the highest level of women’s college basketball was 66.
Known to her friends and a legion of Delta fans as Lucy, Harris burst on the national basketball scene in 1975 when she led Delta State, known as the Lady Statesmen, to a 28-0 record and the national championship. And that was only the beginning. From a distance of nearly half a century, her accomplishments are mind-numbing. For instance:
She averaged 26 points and 14.5 rebounds per game for her four-year Delta State career and was the MVP of all three national tournaments. She once scored 58 points in a game against Tennessee Tech. She scored 47 points in one of the first women’s games ever played at Madison Square Garden.
She starred on several U.S. National teams and scored the first basket in Olympic women’s basketball history in 1976. That U.S. team won the silver medal.
She remains the only woman ever drafted by an NBA team. The New Orleans Jazz famously drafted Harris in the seventh round in 1977. She declined to try out. There was no WNBA at the time. Harris played one season in a fledging women’s professional league and then returned to the Delta to coach high school basketball.
Harris was one of the first two women inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, the sport’s international hall of fame, in 1992. She was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 1990. She was an inaugural inductee into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.
Lucy Harris with her national team medals.
Langston Rogers, another Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer and longtime Ole Miss sports publicist, was the Delta State sports information director in the 1970s and was there for the women’s basketball team’s incredible four-year run during which they won 109 games and lost only six. Over the three championship seasons, they were 93-4.
“Lucy was truly the first superstar of the women’s game,” Rogers said. “She just dominated. Nobody could dominate a game like Lucy could. She was 6-foot-3, weighed 185. She was a tremendous leaper, and she was so strong. She had great hands. Lucy would be the first to tell you she had a lot of help and she had a great coach (Margaret Wade), but she was the driving force of three national championship teams. She meant so much to Delta State.”
Rogers became emotional when asked about Harris as a person. “She was always smiling,” he said. “She was a force on the floor but she was soft-spoken and shy off the court. Everybody loved Lucy. I’m telling you this is a tremendous loss for Delta State, Mississippi and for women’s basketball around the world.”
Harris was the only African American player on the Delta State team, recruited by assistant coach Melvin Hemphill after she had starred for Amanda Elzy High School in Greenwood.
Lucy Harris, a post player, was 6-foot-3. Debbie Brock, a point guard, was 4-foot-11. Both Delta State greats are in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, as well as the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.
Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer Debbie Brock, the ball-handling wizard of a point guard on those Delta State teams, says she and Harris – and all the DSU players – were like sisters.
“There was so much trust, so much love,” Brock said, shortly after learning of Harris’s death. “In my mind, Lucy was the greatest women’s post player in the history of the game. Her game would translate right now. She was such a force, so talented and so strong, and she worked so hard at it.”
Harris traveled to Knoxville last summer for Brock’s induction into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. “Of all the people I wanted to be there, she was at the top of the list,” Brock said. “She was my presenter, even though she was in a wheelchair. I am sure it wasn’t an easy trip for her but she was there.
“And then she called me on New Year’s Day to wish me a happy new year,” Brock continued. “She said she was doing fine. That’s less than three weeks ago. I just can’t believe it.
“Lucy, to me, never changed. She was always soft-spoken, always kind, always full of love. But let me tell you, back then, when she got between the lines, she was all about winning. You know, we all were.”
Harris’s death comes shortly after an award winning documentary “The Queen of Basketball” – detailing her life and career – has introduced her to a new generation of women’s basketball fans.
“I am just so glad that somebody had the forthrightness to do that documentary,” said Ann Meyers Drysdale, the former UCLA basketball All-American who played on U.S. National teams with Harris and has gone on to a successful broadcasting career. “Lucy was the gold standard of what a center is supposed to be. I never played against her in a game but I did in practice, and I did not enjoy that one bit. She was so strong, she had such great footwork. She was unbelievably competitive. You did not want to mess with her or catch one of her elbows.”
Meyers, the widow of baseball Hall of Famer Don Drysdale, was speaking from her home in Huntingdon Beach, Calif.
“She was a great teammate. The thing with Lucy is that she was such a sweet, loving person off the floor,” Meyers continued, choking on her words. “I loved her as a sister and I am going to miss her.”
Navient, one of the country’s largest student loan servicers, has agreed to forgive $8.2 million in private debt for Mississippi borrowers under a settlement reached by the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office last week.
The Attorney General’s Office said it did not know yet how many borrowers qualify for the settlement, but it is likely only a narrow slice of the 438,000 Mississippians with student debt. The settlement mostly applies to borrowers with loans that became past-due starting in July 2014. Borrowers who are current on their loan payments will not see their debt forgiven.
The settlement also requires Navient to make $1.7 million in restitution payments to Mississippi borrowers who the company placed into certain forbearance plans. That will likely amount to an average restitution payment of $260 depending on how many Mississippi borrowers qualify, said Michelle Williams, the attorney general’s chief of staff.
Williams said Mississippi’s settlement is substantially similar to another deal that Navient announced last week. Starting in 2017, 39 states sued Navient for a slew of deceptive and illegal lending practices on subprime student loans the company knew borrowers could likely never repay. The settlement agreement reached with those states requires Navient to cancel $1.7 billion in student debt, and pay $95 million in restitution.
Mississippi did not join that lawsuit and instead sued Navient separately in 2018. In its complaint, the Attorney General’s Office described how Navient’s practices contributed to making Mississippi one of the worst states in the country for borrowers with student loan debt. Borrowers in Mississippi are significantly more likely to default than in other states — the fourth highest rate in the nation.
“The result of Navient’s conduct is a generation of Mississippi youth suffering under the crushing burden of a mountain of unnecessarily high student loan debt,” the suit alleged.
Mississippi borrowers who think they may qualify for the settlement should make sure their www.studentaid.gov account is updated to their current address.
Note: This analysis first published in Mississippi Today’s weekly legislative newsletter. Subscribe to our free newsletter for exclusive early access to weekly analyses.
Rep. Shanda Yates, D-Jackson, asks a question of a bill presented before the House Judiciary B Committee at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Legislators face a deadline for committees to report on general bills originating in their own house. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Just about everyone who lived in northeast Jackson and southern Madison County got a knock on their door in the summer and fall of 2019.
When they opened their doors, they were greeted by a 37-year-old white woman who began with something like: “My name is Shanda Yates. I’m running as a Democrat to serve you in the state House of Representatives. I’d like to tell you why.”
House District 64 encompasses most of the white neighborhoods in Jackson and a few Reservoir area neighborhoods in Madison County. Those district lines had long been drawn to ensure a white, Republican sliver of the state’s capital city, which is the Blackest large city in America.
The 31-year incumbent of the district was Rep. Bill Denny, chairman of the all-important Apportionment and Elections Committee, overseeing the redrawing of legislative districts. Denny was considered a Republican Party elder and one of the most powerful lawmakers at the Capitol.
But Yates, a former law partner of Republican Speaker of the House Philip Gunn, wanted change for her district. So she went out and sold it, sharing her unabashedly Democratic platform with voters.
Most prognosticators believed she stood no chance. But she received a cascade of financial and political support from in-state Democrats, including party organizations and individual donors and candidates. She was invited to speak at local and state Democratic Party meetings. Former U.S. Congressman Mike Espy, who ran as a Democrat for U.S. Senate in 2018 and 2020, canvassed with her in northeast Jackson.
Several progressive groups based outside Mississippi took notice. For a few cycles, these groups had been investing in districts like House District 64 across America, sensing the left-moving trend of middle-aged white women in suburban areas. Yates’ campaign received tens of thousands of dollars in independent expenditures from out-of-state networks that exclusively support Democrats. She publicly boasted being endorsed by some of these groups.
The bet was risky, but the feeling was unanimous among all the Dems involved: Yates could win. They were right.
When the results were tallied on Nov. 5, 2019, Yates had defeated Denny by 168 votes. Every dollar spent and every vote had counted. But Democrats broadly viewed her victory as bigger than just another D on the House roster and the exceedingly rare defeat of the GOP.
She’d instilled hope among Democrats — not the state party itself, which has long been in shambles, but the group of individuals and organizations that champion progressive causes in the state — that change in ruby red Mississippi was possible. A white Democratic woman had knocked off a Republican icon in Jackson, and several people who helped her campaign in 2019 had already begun planning how to use it as a model for victory in 2023 and beyond.
But in a stunning blow to all those people, that hope abruptly vanished last week.
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Yates announced on Jan. 13 that she had left the Democratic Party and would serve in the Legislature as an independent. She did not inform Democratic Party leadership of her decision before it was made public. Several Democratic lawmakers who consider Yates a close friend were not given a heads up.
Every Democrat who spoke with Mississippi Today shared a feeling of disappointment that Yates didn’t give her colleagues the chance to address her concerns.
“Not mad. Not angry. Just hurt,” a prominent Democrat close with Yates said.
Several of the progressives who helped get Yates elected reached out to express their disappointment and anger.
“We’re Democrats in Mississippi. We’re used to being frustrated and disappointed, but this is different,” said a Democratic operative who worked closely with Yates during her 2019 campaign. “Shanda helped us believe that with the right candidate, in the right district, even in this climate, we could win at the state legislature-level despite the brokenness of the state party. We worked outside the party structure and we won. But here we are two sessions later, and it didn’t matter because ultimately we still lost.”
Strengthening the blow, most every Democratic official learned of Yates’ decision from Y’all Politics, a political blog that regularly runs messaging for Mississippi Republican Party leaders. The GOP blog bearing the bad news has been one of the toughest pills for Democrats to swallow and has heightened speculation about why Yates ditched the party.
The reason for her decision, Yates fired off in a series of tweets over the weekend, was the Democratic Party’s “toxic environment.” In an interview with WLBT, she broadly alluded to pushback she received over her vote to approve the new Republican-drawn congressional districts — the only House Democrat to do so. She offered no specifics beyond that.
Yates spoke with Mississippi Today via text message on Sunday, and offered few additional specifics.
“Following the (congressional redistricting) vote, members of the Democratic Party and my legislative caucus made it clear to me that I was not welcome in the party any longer,” Yates told Mississippi Today. “I do not plan to publicly elaborate on the specific content of the statements that were made to relay this message as doing so would serve no purpose aside from further dividing the Democratic Party and this is not my intent.”
She continued: “I am saddened that some seem to assume that I have abandoned my beliefs and ideals yet have no desire to look at the underlying issues that led to this decision. My constituents and those who supported me should know that I am the same person I have always been. The letter behind my name doesn’t change that. I will continue to represent District 64 to the best of my ability.”
Yates said she would no longer caucus with Democrats, though “(House Democratic leader Rep. Robert Johnson) and I have a good working relationship, and he knows that he can come to me anytime it may be needed.” Yates said she did not plan to caucus with Republicans, either, but is instead planning to “work individually with members, as needed, depending on the issue/bill.”
Repeatedly pressed for specifics about her party switch, Yates declined to offer them.
Mississippi Today spoke with 10 House Democrats and asked what they’ve heard about the reasoning for Yates’ defection. Rep. Robert Johnson, the House Democratic leader, was one of the only Democrats in contact with Yates about her concerns — which she first expressed a little more than one day before she announced her decision to switch parties.
Here’s what Johnson said went down:
“This all unfolded in a couple days. Shanda has always been a great Democrat, always has voted with us when we’ve asked. After the (Jan. 11) redistricting vote, two or three members of the Hinds County delegation told me they were upset that she voted with the Republicans on final passage. I told them they didn’t need to worry about it, that she’d co-authored our amendment and voted with us there, and that we’d accomplished exactly what we were hoping to with that vote. I thought that would be the end of it.
Those couple members apparently shared their disappointment with some of their friends, who said some stuff about Shanda at the Hinds County Democratic Executive Committee meeting that day. That got back to Shanda. She first told me about everything on that Wednesday (Jan. 12). She let me know that people were calling her law office and berating her staff over her vote. I was upset when I heard that, but told her that it was coming from just two members. I let her know that she had the full support of the overwhelming majority of the Democratic Caucus and that the one or two Hinds County members were not a problem.
Still, we gathered a small group of Democrats and told those couple Hinds County members they got it wrong. She knew she had the support of the House Democratic Caucus. I wish she’d just weathered it. And look, I’m not necessarily defending her, but it’s hard enough being a white Democrat in the House of Representatives for any member to beat up on somebody like this. We don’t do that, except in Hinds County. The Hinds County delegation can be rough. It’s all part of it. I just wish she’d stayed because she could have with the major support she had. She’s been a good member, a good Democrat. But any idea that she didn’t have support of the overwhelming majority of the caucus is wrong. If two or three loud Hinds County Democrats made it unbearable for her, I hate that.”
Rep. Robert Johnson, House minority leader
Several Democrats told Mississippi Today that Rep. Earle Banks, a Jackson Democrat, led the charge against Yates for her redistricting vote. Banks, long a provocateur among even his fellow Democrats, did not return several messages requesting comment before this story published.
A few minutes after the story published, Banks texted and said: “That is not true. I never stirred up any thing against her after that vote.”
Every Democrat who spoke with Mississippi Today said they were given little or no heads up about Yates’ concerns and ultimately her decision to switch. Most of them hadn’t even heard that she was struggling with her place in the party — a reality that has spurred feelings of confusion among Democrats, and has left open the door for wild speculation among both Democrats and Republicans at the Capitol.
As the dust settles, Democrats — already in the super-minority in both the House and Senate, desperate for any legislative momentum — are now down another member.
Yates is the latest of a string of white Democrats to defect; there are just three white Democrats left in the House, and two in the Senate. Those who have left in recent years have reaped rewards from Gunn or other Republican leaders:
In 2019, Democrat Rep. Nick Bain flipped to the Republican Party. The next year, Gunn named Bain chairman of the House Judiciary B Committee.
In 2020, longtime Democrat Rep. Kevin Horan announced he would become an independent. Less than a week later, Gunn made Horan chairman of the House Corrections Committee. Horan is now listed on the Legislature’s website as a Republican.
In 2020, Democratic Rep. Michael Ted Evans announced he would serve as an independent. That year, Gunn named him to the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. The next year, Gunn appointed him to the House Transportation Committee.
In 2021, freshman Democratic Rep. Jon Lancaster announced he was flipping to the Republican Party. Lancaster was praised publicly by top leaders of the Mississippi Republican Party, including Gunn and Gov. Tate Reeves.
As for the Y’all Politics speculation, Yates chalked it up to coincidence, saying she sent the press release at the same time to the blog and the Northside Sun, a weekly newspaper that covers her district. She said she had not communicated with Gunn about her party switch before she announced it, saying: “He did not know. Not sure if he even knows I left the party.”
“No nefarious intent,” Yates said. “If that were the case I would be naming names and saying lots of things. I’m not. I tried to do this quietly with a very mildly worded press release.”
She continued: “I care enough about the party to not give specifics about the comments and statements that other members of the party made to me. Doing that would only hurt the party. And if the fact that I don’t want to hurt the party (that I was told I didn’t belong in) isn’t proof enough that I care about the underlying good of the party and the people who elected me, then I’m sorry.”
State of play and what to watch for:
1. The Mississippi Democratic Party continues to be a mess. The party baffled most everyone Friday with a strange, cryptic tweet about Yates’ decision to switch parties. Even had Yates given her legislative colleagues a chance to make whatever wrong was occurring right, there’s not much the party itself could offer her by way of financial or political support. Democrats at the Capitol had a great deal of respect for Yates, but respect from colleagues can only go so far when Republicans can pass any bill they want without a single Democratic vote.
2. Yates had support from legislative Democrats. In her first term, her colleagues elected her vice-chair of the House Democratic Caucus. Even feeling burned by Yates for her decision to leave, every legislative Democrat spoke highly of her and said they regretted she left the party. Will Democrats make any move to extend an olive branch to Yates or bring her back into the fold? Will any Democratic leader work to get to the bottom of why this happened in efforts to prevent it from happening again?
3. The non state party affiliated progressives who helped Yates get elected in 2019 — the groups responsible for the only semblance of effective Democratic politics in Mississippi — are already discussing with each other whether they will support her in a possible re-election bid in 2023. Yates told Mississippi Today that she does currently plan to run for re-election. No matter how they handle her, those individuals and groups will almost certainly add a new question when deciding whether to support legislative candidates moving forward: “Will you flip if you’re elected?”
4. Legislative redistricting looms. Population changes in the 2020 Census indicate that two of Jackson’s majority-Black House districts may need to consolidated. Could Gunn or other powerful Republicans reward Yates for leaving the Democratic Party with a redder district? It’s extremely possible some of those progressives feeling burned by Yates could work to find a Democratic challenger to run against her in 2023. How her district is redrawn in a couple months could very well decide her fate at the Capitol.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated news of Rep. Jon Lancaster’s party flip was broken by a conservative political blog. Taylor Vance at The Daily Journal broke that news.
