Leaders of Mississippi’s largest and capital city say they need at least $1 billion to replace Jackson’s failing water system, which left thousands of residents without water for weeks in March following a historic winter weather event.
The city’s leaders acknowledge they cannot afford the repairs themselves and have begged state and federal leaders for help.
Before the passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package in Congress last week, Democratic President Joe Biden promised to address aging and dangerous water systems across the country.
“Never again can we allow what happened in Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi,” Biden said before the bill was passed by both the Senate and the House.
But the bill does not seem likely to save Jackson’s water system: It includes just $459 million for water improvements across Mississippi — less than half of what the city needs. And that money will likely be spent across the state and will be divvied up by state leaders, who for generations have divested from Jackson and continue to seem unwilling to offer much help.
“We have to make certain that (Jackson not getting its fair share of the federal infrastructure funding) does not happen,” Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba told the Post.
Mississippi Today has extensively covered the Jackson water crisis, explaining why a tense relationship between Jackson City Hall and the state Capitol is keeping Jacksonians fearful of the short and long term future of the water system.
Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, the House minority leader, tells Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison and Geoff Pender it is time to focus on spending the $1.8 billion in federal American Rescue Plan funds on pressing state needs such as health care, aid for essential workers, broadband, water and sewer. To do that, he said, a special session is needed to quickly deal with legalizing medical marijuana.
In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Brittany Wagner. Brittany is a nationally respected athletic academic counselor and motivational speaker best known for her role as the breakout star of the hit Netflix documentary series Last Chance U.
Recognized for her compassion, encouragement, and no-nonsense attitude, Brittany guided many young men to academic and professional success despite run-ins with the law, extreme poverty, abandonment, and often a complete lack of academic preparedness. She has helped over 200 football players academically qualify for nationally respected NCAA Division I schools, and all of the students Brittany advised who are currently playing in the NFL, also hold college degrees.
Brittany’s inadvertent stardom led to feature interviews with ABC’s Nightline, The Dan Patrick Show, GQ,The New York Times, The LA Times and Sports Illustrated — to name a few. For the past four years, Brittany has traveled all over the country as a motivational speaker. In the fall of 2017, she launched her own company, Ten Thousand Pencils (10KP).
Mississippi Democrats must be asking themselves why they cannot do what Republicans did in Virginia and almost did in New Jersey this past week.
In Virginia, of course, the Republican candidate for governor, Glenn Youngkin, defeated the former Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe. In New Jersey, the Republican came close to defeating incumbent Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.
Democrats in Mississippi, on the other hand, have not won a gubernatorial election since 1999. And to top it off, no Democrat running for governor in Mississippi has come as close to winning as Republican Jack Ciattarelli came to upending Murphy in New Jersey.
Both New Jersey and Virginia have been Democratic strongholds. In the 2020 presidential election, Democrat Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by 10 points in Virginia and by 16 points in New Jersey, which incidentally is about the same margin by which Trump won Mississippi.
If Republicans can prevail in those deep blue states, why can’t Democrats win in Mississippi?
No doubt, one day a Democrat will win again in Mississippi. Many view Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley as the next best chance for Democrats to recapture the Governor’s Mansion.
But two years before the 2023 election, Presley is playing his political cards close to his vest.
“That log will shake itself out between now and election year, and, you know, quite frankly, the good Lord will open doors or shut doors however he sees fit,” Presley said recently on Mississippi Today’s The other side podcast.
He added, “We’re two years out… I’m not worried about any of that.”
Presley, despite his country charm and communicative abilities that rival those of former Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, faces headwinds in Mississippi that the Republican candidates in Virginia and New Jersey did not endure.
For instance, a 2020 study by FiveThirtyEight, a respected blog that breaks down political trends and data, labels the Mississippi electorate as the nation’s least elastic or least persuadable. In other words, Mississippi voters are less likely to vote for a candidate of the party they normally oppose even in cases of scandal or economic turmoil.
Mississippi is not the most Republican state. But it has the least — per capita — persuadable voters, according to FiveThirtyEight. Mississippi has more Republicans who will not vote for the Democratic candidate and more Democrats who will not support the Republican candidate.
An argument can be made that race is a factor in that inelasticity. Most white people vote Republican in Mississippi and most African Americans vote Democratic. Polls bear out that fact. For instance, CNN exit polls from the 2018 Senate special election in Mississippi found 84% of white voters supported the Republican candidates and 94% of African Americans supported the Democratic candidates.
The same FiveThirtyEight study found Virginia in the bottom 10 states in terms of elasticity and New Jersey in the middle. New Hampshire and Rhode Island had the most persuadable voters.
For whatever it is worth, the study found Alabama is the second least persuadable state. Still, Alabama elected Democrat Doug Jones to the U.S. Senate in a 2017 special election. Of course, Jones barely squeaked by controversial former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who among other things was accused of sexual misconduct, including with some underage girls.
Can anyone say scandal?
Of course, three years later in the 2020 regular election, Jones was trounced by former Auburn and Ole Miss football coach Tommy Tuberville, a political novice who ran as a Republican.
While the loss in Virginia and unexpectedly close election in New Jersey do not look good for Democrats, there were some unusual circumstances. In Virginia, McAuliffe, who was first elected governor in 2017, was trying to become the first governor to serve two terms since the 1970s. Virginia governors cannot succeed themselves but can serve multiple terms. Plus, the state has a long history of electing governors opposite of the party of the president at the time.
For instance, a Republican won the governorship in 2009 despite the fact Democrat Barack Obama won the state only a year earlier when running for president. Now granted, Democrats did get trounced a year later in the 2010 midterms, but two years after that shellacking Obama comfortably won re-election.
In New Jersey, Murphy was vying to be the first Democratic governor to serve consecutive terms since the 1970s.
But there are other examples of states electing governors and other statewide officials opposite of the party they most often strongly support in presidential elections. Kentucky and Louisiana, solid Republican states in national elections and in most other instances, have Democratic governors just as strong Democratic states like Massachusetts and Maryland have Republican governors.
So perhaps there is hope yet for Mississippi Democrats.
Sponsors of an early voting ballot initiative are asking the federal courts to revive the state’s initiative process after it was rendered invalid in May by a ruling of the Mississippi Supreme Court.
The motion, filed Friday by attorneys Wilbur Colom of Columbus and Aphrodite Kavyas McCarthy of Pass Christian, would, if approved by the federal court, amend federal court rulings from 2002 and 2011 that redrew Mississippi’s congressional districts. The amendment would state that the 2002 and 2011 actions of the courts redrawing the congressional districts were meant only:
To be used for the redrawing of the congressional districts.
Did not change the five districts that existed before the federal court’s 2002 action for any reason but for the election of members of the U.S. House.
Did not “void any provision of the Mississippi Constitution” that dealt with the initiative process.
The Supreme Court ruled in May that Mississippi’s initiative process was invalid because it required that the mandated number of signatures of registered voters to place proposals on the ballot be gathered equally from the five congressional districts that existed before 2002.
As of result of the 2000 Census, the state lost one of its five congressional districts. When the Mississippi Legislature was unable to agree on a plan to eliminate one of its congressional districts as mandated by the 2000 Census, the federal courts stepped in to draw the map. And after the 2010 Census, the Legislature again was unable to agree on a plan, and again the federal courts drew the map.
Supporters of the early voting initiative now are asking the federal court to amend those 2002 and 2011 orders to say those orders did not apply to the ballot initiative and presumably, then, reinstate that process.
The early voting initiative sponsors reason the federal court could step in and clarify its rulings from 2002 and 2011 were intended only to deal with the election of U.S. House members and for no other reason. Then, the early voting initiative sponsors believe they could get on with their task of trying to gather enough signatures to place the issue on the ballot for voters to decide.
In a motion filed with the U.S. Southern District Court of Mississippi, the early voting initiative sponsors said the actions of the Mississippi Supreme Court meant that “the initiative petition rights of the people of Mississippi have been wrestled from them.”
The motion added, “the initiative petition rights of the people of Mississippi have been sideswiped and killed.”
When the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in May that the initiative process was invalid because of the use of the five districts to gather signatures, that ruling made invalid a medical marijuana initiative that overwhelmingly was approved by voters in November 2020.
In addition, initiatives also had been filed to expand Medicaid, to allow 10 days of early voting, to legalize marijuana for recreational use and other issues.
At the time of the state Supreme Court ruling, legislative leaders said they would work to legalize medical marijuana and to fix the overall initiative process. Thus far, Gov. Tate Reeves has opted not to call a special session to deal with medical marijuana, and legislative leaders have said they do not intend to take up fixing the initiative process until the regular session begins in January. And whatever fix legislators make for the initiative process also would have to be approved by voters, presumably in November 2022.
Chief nursing officers from 36 hospitals across Mississippi are begging Gov. Tate Reeves and other state leaders for help as they stare down closing hundreds of hospital beds this winter due to ongoing labor shortages.
Their latest efforts to get the governor’s attention came in the form of a letter, signed by the nursing officers at three dozen Mississippi hospitals, that was sent to the state’s leaders on Friday.
Reeves, who has the sole authority to call lawmakers into a special session to address pressing matters, said weeks ago he was open to letting lawmakers address the nursing shortage in a special session that he would likely call for medical marijuana. But since then, the governor has remained silent about whether he will call a special session at all.
The nurses are not the only ones waiting to hear back from the governor. Speaker of the House Philip Gunn said he, too, has yet to hear back from the governor’s office about a bill that legislative leaders wrote weeks ago that would create a funding program to assist the state’s struggling hospitals.
“We sent the bill to the governor on Sept. 30,” Gunn said. “I have not heard anything from him or his staff about this bill, medical marijuana or anything else.”
“We had talked about (the nursing shortage) with the lieutenant governor and the speaker,” said Mississippi Hospital Association CEO Tim Moore. “But we couldn’t get any direct communication with the governor. So, we decided let’s just send a letter and let our nursing leaders be a part of that.”
Health care workers have been increasingly drawn away from traditional hospital jobs in favor of temporary jobs with staffing agencies that pay up to four times as much as Mississippi’s average nursing wages. This exodus has strained the state’s hospitals, which say they cannot adequately staff hospital beds.
Nurses say they need immediate help, like a bonus program for in-demand health care workers who agree to stay at Mississippi hospitals. Right now, the state has millions of dollars in federal funds available, but lawmakers cannot allocate that money unless called into special session by Reeves.
While the prospects of the Mississippi nursing crisis worsens, other states are using federal pandemic funds to address nursing and other health worker shortages. Louisiana, for example, has earmarked $5 million for a healthcare employment fund for paying nurses and helping nursing schools. Texas has earmarked $400 million of its federal funds for additional health care staffing.
In the Friday letter to state leaders, the nursing officers say Mississippi hospitals will close more than 500 beds this winter because there won’t be enough staff to cover them.
“We write to both alert you to the forecasted bed capacity shortfalls for the upcoming months and to also stress the urgent need once again for state assistance in maintaining nursing staff,” says a copy of the letter obtained by Mississippi Today.
On Oct. 31, federally-funded nurses who came to help through the delta wave left as their contracts expired. Nurses statewide immediately felt the fallout from losing the extra help. Even as COVID-19 cases decline, hospitals are still short on staff and more nurses continue to leave.
Reeves made some comments about the shortage during a press conference on Monday. He said he would continue conversations with lawmakers about creating a retention program, but he talked more about investing in creating and educating more future nurses.
Reeves’ office did not respond to requests for further comment about the possibilities of a bonus or retention program.
“This is a crisis that won’t wait until we have workforce development six months, a year from now,” said Susan Russell, Singing River Health System’s chief nursing officer. “People’s lives are being put into jeopardy right now.”
Russell is one of the nurses who signed the letter to Reeves. She said the state needs both immediate and long-term plans to address the shortage.
“We need to have reward programs now,” Russell said. “Something that says we want you to stay in this state, we need you to stay in this state.”
Singing River, which has three hospitals on the Gulf Coast, has lost a dozen of its fully staffed hospital nurses in the last week alone. That’s in addition to the 73 temporary nurses that left following the end of their state-funded contracts.
Singing River has put itself at the center of the nursing crisis, calling for the Legislature to use part of the $1.8 billion in American Rescue Plan funds given to the state to create $20,000 bonuses to be given to health care workers over two years.
“I visited University of Mississippi Medical Center, Forrest General, Gulfport Memorial, and Singing River,” Gunn told Mississippi Today. “I saw with my own eyes the citizens who were in need of help. The motivation here (with this bill) is to help our citizens, to make sure they have health care available to them during this pandemic.”
The bill that the speaker’s office and lieutenant governor’s office drafted doesn’t go as far as Singing River’s proposal. But it does call for $56 million of the federal rescue plan funds to allow Mississippi hospitals, long term care facilities and ambulance companies to give up to $5,000 in bonuses to those who agree to stay for a period of five months.
The creation of any type of bonus program would require legislative approval, which cannot happen until January 2022 unless the governor calls a special session before then. Both Gunn and Hosemann have asked Reeves to call a special session to address COVID-19 concerns and the medical marijuana program.
Reeves has announced no plans to do that.
Nursing officers, like Russell, are panicked. They know contract nurses who are not tied down will likely opt out of contracts this holiday season to take a break. Some can afford to take months off, given the high wages they earned working as temp nurses with staffing companies.
Russell, who has spent 38 years in nursing at Singing River, has never seen anything like the current staffing crisis.
“Our hospitals are doing their best, but their funds are also limited, and the costs of labor has increased significantly,” the nurses wrote in their letter. “Such a program would demonstrate your commitment to and appreciation of those workers who have taken care of all of us during the pandemic. These are the workers who have healed and comforted over the last eighteen months and who will be relied upon to continue doing so in the months ahead.”
Gov. Tate Reeves on Friday announced the filing of a lawsuit challenging President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees of companies that have contracts with the federal government.
The lawsuit, first filed by the Indiana attorney general, is joined by the attorney general from Louisiana and Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in the Western District of Louisiana.
Reeves also promised he is working with Fitch to file another lawsuit challenging the president’ vaccine mandate for companies with 100 or more employees.
For much of the pandemic, Reeves imposed mask mandates and other mandates for large swarths of the state. But this past summer as the COVID-19 delta variant surged and overwhelmed hospitals, the Republican governor refused to impose any mandates even as Mississippi became the state with the highest fatality rate per capita from the coronavirus. Mississippi also is one of the nation’s least vaccinated states.
The lawsuit claimed Biden’s efforts at stemming the spread of COVID-19 are unconstitutional.
“The Biden regime has used World War II era procurement laws to impose a vaccine mandate on one-fifth of all Americans,” Reeves said in a statement. “The unprecedented and clearly unconstitutional contractor vaccine mandate is the desperate act of a fading tyrant frustrated by Americans exercising their fundamental rights of freedom and self-determination.”
The mandate for private companies employing more than 100 people is based on provisions of law giving the federal government the authority to impose regulations to ensure worker safety.
The guidelines for the mandate allow exemptions for religious and health reasons.
Various Republican leaders nationwide have filed lawsuits and voiced opposition to the Biden mandate. Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn sent a letter to House members expressing his opposition.
“I believe strongly the government should not force any Mississippian to take the vaccine against his or her will,” the speaker wrote.
As political leaders of the state for multiple years, both Gunn and Reeves have been imposing vaccine mandates. For decades there have been multiple vaccine mandates in the country, including in Mississippi. Vaccines are mandated to enter secondary schools and universities. On the national level, the military for years has required vaccines and vaccines have been required for American citizens to travel to certain countries.
