Mississippians might need to buckle up for the next several months. The issues pending before the Mississippi Legislature could be some of the most impactful in recent history.
Legalizing medical marijuana, spending hundreds of millions of dollars in unexpected federal funds and a major restructuring of the state’s tax law are just some of the issues that the Legislature could consider in the 2022 session or perhaps a 2021 special session. It might behoove legislators and Gov. Tate Reeves to consider some of those issues in special session to ease a crowded regular session agenda.
Presumably, legislative leaders are still working behind the scenes in an attempt to reach agreement on proposals to legalize medical marijuana and to reinstate the ballot initiative process.
If that agreement can be reached, Reeves has indicated he would call a special session to address medical marijuana and the ballot initiative.
But reaching that agreement could prove more difficult than on first blush. While most of the state’s political leadership might agree that they want to legalize medical marijuana and reinstate the initiative process — both of which were struck down in a recent landmark Mississippi Supreme Court decision — the devil might be in the details.
For instance, who can obtain medical marijuana and how much can they obtain are examples of issues that could bog down an agreement on medical marijuana. Or, should Mississippians be allowed to gather signatures through the initiative process just to amend general law or the state Constitution or both?
Many want the two issues addressed during a special session because both have the potential of taking up a lot of time and oxygen during the 2022 regular session.
Politically, legislators will face pressure to approve both issues. They do not want to be accused of ignoring the will of the voters on medical marijuana or restoring the right of citizens to place issues on the ballot.
In other words, if that agreement is not reached in a special session, both issues are expected to be priorities during a busy 2022 legislative session.
In a regular session, medical marijuana and the initiative process will be competing with some other major issues.
First off, in the 2022 session that begins in January, House Speaker Philip Gunn and Reeves will be vying to pass competing tax restructuring plans. Reeves wants to phrase out the general income tax, which accounts for about one-third of the state’s general fund revenue. Reeves’ fellow Republican, Gunn, wants to phase out the income tax, cut in half the 7% sales tax on groceries and raise by 2.5 cents the sales tax on most other retail items.
Either plan would represent a dramatic change in state taxing policy. Reeves’ plan also could dramatically impact the state’s budgetary policy.
But there is more.
The Legislature will have to redraw the four U.S. House seats early in the 2022 session to match population shifts found by the 2020 Census. The Legislature will have to move quickly on congressional redistricting because the deadline to qualify to run for Congress later in 2022 is March 1.
In addition, it is likely that legislators will redraw their own districts later in the 2022 session — always a combustible process that often leads to bitter division and fights.
Then there is the long-shot issue of expanding Medicaid as is allowed under federal law to provide health care coverage to up to 300,000 Mississippians — primarily the working poor who do not earn enough to obtain private health insurance. Both Reeves and Gunn say they oppose expanding Medicaid, but Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, has said that the issue should be studied.
Expanding Medicaid would be a defining accomplishment — for better or worse — in any legislative session.
Oh yeah, legislators in the 2022 session also will have to begin the task of deciding how to spend $1.8 billion in federal American Rescue Plans funds coming to the state. Federal officials are giving the state considerable latitude in how to spend the American Rescue Plan funds. That flexibility could lead to considerable wrangling and deal making during the 2022 session.
The bottom line is that under any circumstances, 2022 will not be an ordinary, mundane session. Any issue that could be resolved earlier — say in special session — probably would help make for a smoother regular session.
Mississippi State players celebrate their walk-off run to win against Texas during a baseball game in the College World Series Saturday, at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha(AP Photo/Rebecca S. Gratz)
OMAHA — Mississippi State did it. As is the Bulldogs’ trademark, they did it dramatically. The ‘Dogs defeated Texas in a 4-3 walk-off nail-biter Saturday night and will play SEC comrade Vanderbilt for the national championship in a best-of-three series beginning Monday.
The usual Bulldog heroes were heroic. Starting pitcher Will Bednar surely did his part. Closer Landon Sims did his. Doesn’t he always? Tanner Allen laced two hits. Logan Tanner had two more. Both knocked in a run. Rowdey Jordan, Brad Cumbest and Kellum Clark all chipped in.
None of that will surprise anyone who has followed the Bulldogs through 48 victories, 17 defeats and regional and super regional championships.
Rick Cleveland
But to win a national championship, you must have surprises. It takes a village. It takes a full team. Here, Saturday night, at TD Ameritrade Park, Tanner Leggett and Brayland Skinner, former teammates at Northwest Community College, were those surprises. They were also heroes. Big ones. Clutch.
Tanner Leggett? Brayland Skinner?
“My juco bandits,” Chris Lemonis called them.
Leggett, the back-up shortstop and a junior from Raymond, didn’t come into the game until the sixth inning after starter Lane Forsythe was lifted for a pinch hitter. Understand, Leggett batted only 79 times all season. Had 18 hits. Batted .228. Knocked in nine runs. It was the 10th RBI he will remember forever. And we’ll get to that.
But first, about Brayland Skinner, who didn’t enter the game until the bottom of the ninth, with the score tied 3-3, as a pinch runner after Kellum Clark reached first, hit by a pitch. Skinner, a sophomore reserve outfielder from Lake Cormorant, doesn’t play much, either. He batted .215 in limited plate appearances this season. But the young man can run like a sprinter. He’s a blur. With one out, he took off and stole second, easily, to move into scoring position. That happened on Longhorn ace reliever Cole Quintanilla’s second to pitch to Leggett.
On Quintinella’s third pitch, Leggett laced a line drive single to left centerfield. Skinner scored standing up just as the ball got back to the infield. Willie Mays, in his prime, could not have thrown out Skinner.
Skinner then joined teammates who raced from the dugout to congratulate Leggett.
Who would have thought it? With all the big names in the Bulldogs lineup, the guys who combined to win the most important game of the year were two small-town Mississippians, juco transfers, who were just waiting for their chance. When they got it, they made good.
Such a situation — hitting with a chance to put your team in the national championship series — might be too big for some guys, especially a guy who hasn’t gotten that many chances especially on a stage like this.
“What an opportunity,” Leggett said. “Some people get nervous for that situation, but I pray for that situation.”
He was hitting against a guy, Quintanilla, who had shut down the Bulldogs over 3.1 innings of stellar relief. Quintanilla was good all season. He entered with a 1.27 ERA, but he hung a slider and Leggett put a short, crisp swing on it and nailed it. Game over.
How did it feel?
“It’s incredible,” Leggett said. “I had a couple guys come up to me in the dugout and tell me that I was going to get a chance to win it. I had a chance for a big hit a couple nights ago but grounded out to third. I kept my head up and said my little prayer and when Bray got the bag stolen — I knew if I got a pitch to hit, I would be short to it, and I did, thank the Lord.”
As has been the case nearly all season, Bednar and Sims were dynamite on the mound. Bednar wasn’t as sharp as he had been in the Bulldogs’ CWS opener, a 2-1 victory over this same Texas team. But he was sharp enough. He gave up three runs on just four hits over 6.1 innings. What he did was set the stage for Sims, who, as usual, was nails. Sims pitched 2.2 hitless innings, striking out four.
“I felt good,” Sims said. “I felt pretty confident right there in the seventh, eighth, ninth inning, and if we had to go into extras, I would have felt confident, too.”
Lemonis must be getting used to these late-game heroics, and the drama that seems to come with each victory. All three Bulldogs victories in the 2021 CWS have been by a single run. Five of their last six postseason victories have been by one run.
“It has become our identity,” Lemonis said. “I told our team last night in the rain delay, if you ever thought it was going to easy, it’s not our way. We have to fight for it and for us to get here, it was going to be a battle. Our team has been so resilient all year It’s probably our No. 1 quality — just grit, being able to stay locked in, focused and keep competing.”
So now they will compete for the one trophy that is not in the Bulldogs’ baseball trophy case, the one that signifies a national championship. They will go against Vanderbilt, a team they know well.
What would it mean to win it all?
Said Landon Sims, “It would mean everything, to us, to the school, to the city. I think it would mean the world. I think we have a really good shot to do it right here.”
Texas’s Ivan Melendez flips his bat after he hit a three-run home run against Mississippi State during the ninth inning of a baseball game in the College World Series at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Neb. (Chris Machian/Omaha World-Herald via AP)
OMAHA — On a bizarre day when the College World Series entered baseball’s version of “The Twilight Zone,” Mississippi State’s road to a national championship hit a stormy detour.
The Bulldogs, 8-5 losers to Texas Friday night (and Saturday morning), now have to defeat the Longhorns Saturday night in order to advance to the CWS championship series. They’ll need to throw more strikes to do it.
The really weird stuff was on the other side of the CWS bracket, where Vanderbilt was declared the winner after a strange sequence of events sci-fi legend and Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling would appreciate. First, the Vandy-North Carolina State game was delayed for more than an hour because the NCAA had to sort out major problems with North Carolina State’s COVID-19 testing. Stay with me here. Apparently, several Wolfpack players tested positive. Others were sidelined because of contact tracing.
Rick Cleveland
North Carolina State was given a choice: forfeit or play with 13 available players, missing several starters and facing Vanderbilt All-American Kumar Rocker on the mound.
The Wolfpack, playing baseball’s version of the Texans at The Alamo, made a terrific game of it before falling 3-1. Then, early Saturday morning, the NCAA announced Saturday’s rematch of the two teams would not be played. North Carolina State was effectively disqualified from the CWS. Because of privacy concerns, the NCAA would not elaborate. So weird. So awful for NC State. And so fortunate for Vandy, which enters the national championship series without having to use any more pitching.
Texas and Mississippi State also endured their own delay, but it came in the ninth inning and was much more routine: a thunderstorm that delayed the game for two hours, 27 minutes and well into Saturday morning.
Amid all the craziness and delays, one fundamental maxim of baseball rang all too true for Mississippi State, that is: Walks will kill you.
The Bulldogs had fought back from a 5-2 deficit to tie the game with a three-run eighth inning. It should be noted that Texas pitchers walked four Bulldogs in that inning, fueling the comeback.
And then, just when it seemed we were watching another one of State’s patented late-game comeback victories, rain commenced and Bulldog reliever Cade Smith walked Mike Antico to start the Texas ninth. There may be worse things than walking the leadoff hitter in a tie game in the ninth inning. Maybe.
State quickly found out. It started raining harder. After a sacrifice bunt, new reliever Parker Stinnett walked Zach Zubia, putting runners at first and second with clean up batter Ivan Melendez coming to the plate. The count went to three balls, two strikes, before Melendez smashed a grooved fastball through the now-pouring rain for a three-run home run to make it 8-5. Stinnett walked the next Texas batter and apparently Mother Nature had seen enough. Heaven knows, Chris Lemonis had. Lightning in the vicinity sent the game into a long delay.
Here’s the deal: The home run surely hurt. But the two walks that preceded it count twice as much in the scorebook. Walks do kill. Seven State pitchers walked 11 Texas batters. Three of those scored. The final score was 8-5. Do the math.
“It’s hard to beat anybody when you walk 11 guys,” Lemonis said. “We’ve just got to make sure – got to throw strikes. We’ve got to compete in the zone. I think that’s where we fell short a little bit tonight.”
He doesn’t think. He knows so.
So, we are left with so many questions. Will we ever learn all that happened behind the scenes on the North Carolina State-Vanderbilt side of the bracket? Eventually, I suspect, the news will leak.
Another question: Had North Carolina State somehow won Friday afternoon’s game, thus eliminating Vandy, would Saturday night’s Texas-Mississippi State winner have been declared the national champion?
We must assume so. As it is, Vandy will have a fresh Jack Leiter to start the championship series. That’s a huge advantage.
On the other side of the bracket: Does State pitch ace Will Bednar Saturday? Surely, the Bulldogs would have much preferred to have Bednar available to open the championship series. Of course, you have to win to get there.
Lemonis wouldn’t say, but I have to believe he goes with his best available and that’s Bednar for certain.
And who does Texas go with? Probably Tristan Stevens, a junior right-hander with an 11-3 record and a 3.23 earned run average, who was mostly ineffective against Tennessee earlier in the week. We can surmise from his numbers he is usually better than that.
Finally, will State pitchers throw strikes?
Where the majority of readers of this column are concerned, that might be the most important question of all.
MOUND BAYOU — For 45 years, Eugene Brown has been the person Mound Bayou residents turn to when they need help.
In 1976, he became an auxiliary police officer and volunteer firefighter. He later stepped into that work full time and was eventually named fire chief, cementing a life of pulling people out of burning homes, wrecked cars and flood waters.
But on June 8, as water began seeping into every room of his house, the unbelievable reality set in that this time Brown would be the one who needed rescuing.
“I’ve been 31 years in this house and I’ve never had this. And I worked the fire department and first responders for years. I was the chief taking care of everybody else. This is my first,” he says, trailing off as he surveys his evacuated home.
Eugene Brown indicates the level that the water reached in his Mound Bayou home during the flash flooding in June. Credit: Kelsey Betz
“Realizing that it happened to me has been the hardest part. I’ve always had love and compassion for people,” Brown continued. “That’s why when they call I go. But when I woke up and looked around I realized it was me this time. They couldn’t call me because I was in the same shape or worse as some of them.”
The heavy rains started on June 7, pounding Bolivar, Sunflower and Grenada counties for 5 days.
According to precipitation reports from the National Weather Service, the worst hit parts of these counties received more than 14 inches of rain. The unusually abundant rainfall makes recovering in an area with high poverty rates a steeper challenge.
“There’s a .001% chance of occurring. That’s a pretty extreme event to get that type of rainfall,” said Marty Pope, senior service hydrologist at the National Weather Service.
Brown’s home flooded almost up to his knees in less than an hour, he said.
“The water just started coming in. In about 30 minutes this (the living room) was completely flooded and in the rest of the house, the water was seeping in through the walls,” he recalled.
That gave him about half an hour to evacuate his wife and wheelchair-bound son to higher ground. First they went to a neighbor’s home across the street. When the water continued to rise, it became clear they would have to leave and book a hotel in nearby Cleveland.
Volunteers gather outside of Eugene Brown’s home in Mound Bayou after assessing the damage and helping clear out the home. Credit: Kelsey Betz
Nearly three weeks later, they’re still staying there.
All around Mound Bayou, others were experiencing the same devastation as Brown.
“The ambulance came maybe three times that day (June 8), but they were not able to make it to some peoples’ homes because of the water. They had to come back later on. And with some of them, they (first responders) had to get a boat to get the person and bring them back to the ambulance,” said Leighton Aldridge, mayor elect of Mound Bayou.
He continued: “We had quite a few families who lost when I say everything — they lost everything.”
Mound Bayou wasn’t the only Delta town affected by flooding. Rosedale, 26 miles west of Mound Bayou, and Shelby six milesnorth were flooded by the heavy downpour as well. Sunflower, Grenada and other surrounding counties were also hit hard.
Volunteer first responders worked to rescue people from their homes day and night throughout the rainfall, Bolivar County Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Lamb said.
“They were jumping in water, boats, and helping people get out of homes, getting pets out of homes. A lot of our volunteers — their homes were flooding. They left their homes to go get other people. So that speaks volumes for them,” Lamb said.
The storms finally relented after five days. A week later, standing water still remained on Brown’s street. Tiny fish, washed up from surrounding creeks, swam in the flood water that lingered outside of his now empty home.
Volunteers, both locally and from faith based organizations around the country, have deployed to the areas ravaged by flooding to help.
Organizers say their greatest need right now is manpower. Anyone wanting to help can call Samaritan’s Purse at 662-402-3454 or C2K Ministries at 262-337-1412.
They moved all of the furniture out of homes to keep it from being destroyed by moisture and mold. When they entered Brown’s home to assess the damage, they wore N-95 masks not out of caution for COVID-19, but to prevent themselves from inhaling black mold spores.
And while the help has been deeply appreciated, it has its limits. Government aid would be needed to help rebuild on a wide scale, but Lamb said it looks unlikely that the county’s damages will meet the thresholds required for federal assistance.
Initial assessments by state officials suggest Bolivar County wouldn’t qualify for Individual Assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which sends direct relief to disaster victims. FEMA considers several factors, such as the number of homes with “major” damage, which means in most cases that water has reached 18 inches or an electrical outlet in a home.
Lamb pointed out that it doesn’t make sense to broadly apply an 18 inch threshold to the entire state given its topographical diversity. Bolivar County essentially sits at the bottom of a bowl, he said; once it starts raining, the water has nowhere to go.
He also said that a home shouldn’t have to have 18 inches worth of water in it to be considered major damage.
“Two inches of water inside your home is a lot of water. That will make the floor come up. People here don’t have $10,000 to replace the floors. Hardly anyone (who the county helped) had insurance. The ones who did didn’t have flood insurance,” Lamb said.
Mississippi Emergency Management Agency officials told Mississippi Today that although FEMA doesn’t have a hard minimum, a county usually needs at least 50 homes with major damage to receive Individual Assistance. The last assessment in Bolivar County only found 19.
But that could change as FEMA gives the state 30 days — in this case until July 13 — to submit damage reports, and state officials plan to reassess damages as the water recedes.
“Unfortunately in most cases in Mississippi we just don't meet the federal threshold for individual assistance and we have to get creative,” said Todd DeMuth, MEMA’s State Coordinating Officer.
DeMuth alluded to a new program the state Legislature approved in 2018 called the Disaster Assistance Repair Program, which sends up to $250,000 to a county should it not qualify for federal aid. So far, the program has funded almost $3 million in repairs across 22 counties, rebuilding over 800 homes.
MEMA officials said that Bolivar plans to request DARP funds next week, adding that it usually takes about a week for the county to receive the money and that it can immediately utilize the funds.
“We have about $2 million worth of damage in the county,” Lamb said. “But $250,000 in aid would be better than what we have right now.”
He’s concerned about what the after effects will be for the communities who were hit the hardest but aren’t likely to get aid from FEMA.
“There’s going to end up being a lot of vacant homes and a lot of sick people because they’ve already got mold growing in their homes,” Lamb said.
The board that oversees the Mississippi Public Employee Retirement System is pondering whether to increase the amount paid into the pension plan by state agencies, local governments and education entities.
The issue of whether to increase what is known as the employer contribution rate to ensure the long-term financial viability of the public pension plan was discussed recently by the Administrative Committee of the Board of Trustees of PERS, but no action was taken.
But Shelley Powers, a spokesperson for PERS, said the issue “most likely will be revisited” during the Aug. 23-24 meeting or during a special-called July meeting.
The increase in the contribution rate could cost state and local governments an additional ten of millions of dollars annually.
A recent report by the Legislature’s Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Committee highlighted the possibility of the employer contribution being increased. The report pointed out that because of multiple factors some warning indicators were “flashing red.”
The system had a full-funding ratio of 58.8% last June, down from 61.3% the previous June. That means that it has almost 59% percent of the assets needed to pay the benefits of all the people in the system, ranging from the newest hires to those already retired. Theoretically it is recommended that a system has a funding ratio of about 80%.
Most state, city and county employees and public educators are in the system that currently has about 325,000 members, including current employees, retirees and others who used to work in the public sector but no longer do. In total, about 10% of the state’s population is in the system to some extent.
Under the state Constitution, the Legislature cannot block a decision of the Board of Trustees to increase the amount paid by state agencies, local governments and education entities into the pension plan. If the Legislature opted not to provide the extra money to pay for any increase, it would just come out of the amount the Legislature budgeted for the agency, taking money from other programs.
In 2018, the board increased the contributions from employers from 15.75% of payroll for each employee to 17.4%. That small increase cost state and local governments, including education entities, an additional $100 million annually.
Traditionally, the state does not help local governments funds their share of the retirement system.
Funding the increase, minus the local government’s share, cost about $76 million in 2018 — $18.1 million for state agencies, $15.9 million for universities, $37.4 million for kindergarten through 12th grade and $4.9 million for community colleges.
Employees in the system pay 9% of their salary toward their retirement. It was increased from 7.25% in the late 2000s. The average yearly benefit from the plan is about $24,400.
In June 2020, according to PERS’ actuary, the plan’s funding ratio was projected to be at 67.6% by 2047 compared to a projection of 83.2% by 2047 made the previous year.
The decline in the funding ratio was attributable to multiple factors, including “less than expected revenue gains.”
Chris Lemonis talks his players during the Bulldogs victory over Virginia Tuesday night at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha. (Austin Perryman/MSU Athletics)
OMAHA — We didn’t have a College World Series last year because of COVID-19. Mississippi State’s Bulldogs, who had competed in the two before that, have returned for this one. State has been to 12 in all.
This one is different.
For starters, there was no opening ceremony. There was no pre-tournament press conference or autograph session. There have been no live post-game press conferences. Practices have been closed to the media. In a pre-CWS email from the NCAA, media actually were urged NOT to cover the CWS.
As is often the case where the NCAA is concerned, there is more than a little incongruity at work here. We’re not having in-person press conferences for safety reasons, yet 24,000 people can cram into TD Ameritrade Park, shoulder to shoulder, with precious few wearing masks. It makes little sense, but then this is the NCAA. Need I say more? After all, this is an NCAA event that makes millions of dollars, yet most of the athletes are not on a full scholarship, and some are not even close.
Rick Cleveland
Your dutiful columnist covered State’s first two games from my living room recliner in Jackson, where, via Zoom, I had every bit as much access to the players and coaches as the media in the press box at TD Ameritrade Park, where I’ll be the rest of the series.
One aspect of the CWS hasn’t changed this year. Mississippi State fans have converged on this clean, sprawling midwestern city in maroon-colored legions that will surely grow this weekend. Dudy North, they call it.
Chris Lemonis, the Bulldogs’s skipper, talked about it Thursday morning during a Zoom media conference when discussing the Tuesday night’s come-from-behind victory over Virginia. “It was a cool thing to look up there and see our people,” Lemonis said. “It looked and sounded like The Dude.”
Mississippi State athletic director John Cohen estimates upward of 5,000 Bulldog fans were in the stadium for the Virginia game — that, despite the fact that State received an allotment of only 600 tickets.
“Our people are getting them directly through Ticketmaster, and through the secondary market (scalpers, StubHub, SeatGeek, etc.),” Cohen said. “I think a lot more are coming this weekend and it’s going to be crazy if we’re lucky enough to get in the championship series. I think we could see more than 10,000 of our people here.”
But even perhaps the most supportive fan base in country presents a tricky problem during the first CWS played during a pandemic.
“We’ve got so many people fans out here and you feel really rude when you can’t sign an autograph or sign a ball for them,” Lemonis said. “We’ve had to tell the players to be careful that we don’t want you signing autographs. For me, the biggest fear is getting a bad test. That’s what you really worry about.”
CWS players are tested every other day while here.
Imagine this nightmare scenario: The Bulldogs get to the best two-of-three championship series next Monday and a key pitcher tests positive. Contract tracing results in his roommate and several others who were in the bullpen with him having to be quarantined. Again, just imagine: You’ve dreamed about this for years, worked you tail off since last fall for this moment, fought through a grueling SEC season, a regional, a super regional, and your bracket of the CWS, and then…
Nobody wants to even think about it.
But Lemonis is right: You have to think about it and protect against it.
The Bulldogs would do well to follow their head coach’s plan Thursday night.
“I’m gonna stay in my room, get on my couch, order some food, and watch the game (Texas-Virginia) tonight,” Lemonis said.
State will play the winner Friday night at 6 p.m. Win that one, and the Bulldogs are in the championship series. This place really would be Dudy Noble North.
Gov. Tate Reeves on Thursday announced staff changes, including a temporary chief of staff to replace Brad White, who was recently appointed director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation.
Reeves has lost at least four senior staffers since becoming governor in January 2020: White, the chief of staff; Parker Briden, a carryover from Reeves’ 2019 campaign who served as deputy chief of staff starting in 2020; Kenny Ellis, a longtime Reeves staffer who served as the governor’s senior policy director; and Renae Eze, another 2019 campaign carryover who served as Reeves’ communications director.
Reeves has also lost several lower-level policy staffers since he took office in 2020.
Liz Welch, currently director of the state Department of Finance and Administration, will temporarily take over White’s duties, Reeves said in a press release on Thursday. A DFA spokeswoman said Welch would continue serving as full-time director of that agency. Welch was former secretary of the Senate when Reeves was lieutenant governor and presided over that chamber, and she was Reeves’ deputy when he was state treasurer.
David Maron, who has been Reeves’ chief legal counsel, will serve as deputy chief of staff and chief legal counsel.
Anne Hall Brashier will serve as deputy chief of staff for policy and legislative affairs. Brashier, who previously worked for U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, U.S. Rep. Trent Kelly and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, joined Reeves’ staff as deputy policy director when he was elected governor in 2019.
Cory Custer will serve as deputy chief of staff for external affairs, Reeves’ release said. Custer is a former Trump administration appointee serving as assistant commissioner of public affairs at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“I am confident that each of these individuals have the credentials and passion to help continue implementing my pro-business, pro-jobs, pro-economic growth agenda,” said Reeves.
He’s been crisscrossing the state for months meeting with local leaders. He’s on track to have $1 million in his campaign coffer this year. He’s taking jabs at Gov. Tate Reeves at every opportunity.
Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn sure shows all the signs of someone strongly considering a gubernatorial run in 2023.
It hasn’t gone unnoticed. A potential internecine GOP battle between Gunn and Reeves has become the buzz of the summer among Mississippi politicos. They appear to be split between calling it a fool’s errand or a golden opportunity to oust an incumbent known more for creating enemies and strong-arming campaign donors than pushing policy and building consensus.
Asked directly about whether he would run in 2023, Gunn told Mississippi Today: “My focus is doing a good job as speaker of the House. I’m traveling the state talking about what we are trying to accomplish legislatively. I do not know what the future holds.”
Note he did not say he isn’t considering a run.
Modern history shows unseating an incumbent governor — especially a Republican — in a primary is a difficult task and a rare occurrence nationwide. The governor in Mississippi is de facto head of the state party, and by custom picks their own party chairman, which Reeves has done. Big money campaign donors are typically reluctant to switch horses midstream.
Gunn, 58, is said to be receiving encouragement to run from many powerful quarters, but so far, those quarters are hesitant to say so publicly. Several declined to speak on the record with Mississippi Today about a possible Gunn challenge.
Reeves, 47, should have every tailwind as the incumbent. But over two terms as lieutenant governor and half a term as governor, Reeves has shown a penchant for hacking people off, even fellow Republican leaders and his own loyalists. He himself has chalked this up to, “I know how to say no to my friends.”
Political acrimony between Gunn and Reeves goes back to early in their first terms as speaker and lieutenant governor, respectively. It reached perhaps a fever pitch in last year’s fight over control of spending of federal COVID-19 relief spending. Gunn accused Reeves of “cheap theatrics and false personal attacks.” Reeves warned that “people will die” because the Legislature wouldn’t let him control the money.
If Gunn were to make a gubernatorial run, he’d have to get cracking early. Despite three terms as House speaker — the third-longest run in state history — Gunn lacks name recognition. The speaker is typically not a household name despite the power they wield at the Capitol.
But as many politicos say, one can buy name recognition with enough campaign cash and media. That would bring Gunn’s first clear-and-present challenge: to raise $3 million to $4 million for a serious primary challenge against an incumbent known for his fundraising prowess.
Gunn would have to be fundraising now — and it appears he is — in order to make a gubernatorial run even a possibility. He would need to make his personal decision by the end of this year or early 2022 to begin quietly convincing movers and shakers who want a change to back him. He would likely need to make a public announcement and begin public campaigning by late summer or early fall of 2022 to build momentum and name recognition.
Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. knows these political considerations intimately. Waller challenged Reeves in the 2019 Republican primary for governor and lost by just eight points in a runoff. In an interview with Mississippi Today, Waller pointed out that Mississippi continues to struggle with poverty, population loss, crumbling infrastructure, lack of economic growth and health and education issues.
“I think the people of Mississippi are ready for a new look, new leadership,” Waller said, acknowledging “there’s certainly some smoke in the air” about Gunn running.
“I think (Gunn) has a lot of attractive features,” Waller said. “He’s young and aggressive… I think he’s been an effective speaker, and he certainly has an eye to addressing some of the problems the state has experienced, an eye to trying to improve the state versus the experience we’ve had with Reeves in the position of lieutenant governor and governor.”
Waller continued: “I don’t know many things that (Reeves) wants to do except defeat Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi… I hope people look at the issues… We’ve got problems.”
When asked if he would run for governor again himself in 2023, Waller said, “I am considering it, but we are undecided.” Asked about the timing of announcing his challenge of Reeves in 2019,Waller said he made a mistake in his last run of waiting too late to get into the race — about six months before the primary — and would not make that mistake again if he runs again.
Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, in December 2014. Reeves says the House and Senate have reached a deal on the anticipated special session on transportation. Credit: Rogelio V. Solis, Associated Press
Conventional wisdom is that Gunn would have to first clearly point out Reeves’ faults, then promptly build himself up as a positive alternative. Gunn would have to defend his long record as a lawmaker, but then so, too, would Reeves. Gunn would likely point to Reeves’ history of mostly being against initiatives and killing or co-opting others’ proposals as opposed to offering his own plans to help the state prosper.
Gunn championed changing the state flag to remove the divisive Confederate battle emblem. Early on, Gunn was the lone state elected Republican to do so, and some surmised it would kill any chances he might have for higher office in the GOP. But the legislative flag change turned into a bipartisan movement, and the issue appears to be settled beyond a small, vocal far-right group. Despite waffling on the issue himself, Reeves signed the measure into law and appears to be the recipient of just as much scorn from the old flag supporters as Gunn or other lawmakers.
Recent polling has shown Reeves underwater, with nearly half of Mississippi voters disapproving of the job he’s done. But the same poll showed nearly half disapproving of the state Legislature as well. One difference: Reeves still has relatively strong approval from Republican voters. The Legislature got low marks across the board.
Nathan Shrader, government and politics professor at Millsaps College and a facilitator of the quarterly Millsaps College/Chism Strategies State of the State Survey, said he’s heard the buzz about Gunn but doesn’t see Reeves as vulnerable in a Republican gubernatorial primary.
“I just don’t expect Republican voters to turn on a Republican governor who they generally agree with on policy, who has committed no heresy as far as Republican politics and who has carried the Trump banner,” Shrader said. “… What issue has Gov. Reeves departed from the Republican orthodoxy to the point that it is going to light a brush fire under him? He has been the flag bearer of Trumpism in Mississippi, and that’s what the Republican Party is about here right now. I don’t see that changing much, at least not for the next couple of years.”
Shrader continued: “I do think it would be good for the state to have such a race, two of the highest ranking members of the party offering competing visions.” And, “It would be intriguing, if he’s out there really ramping up or laying the groundwork, how the legislative and executive branch relationship may look for the next two years.”
Gunn, a Clinton resident, has been elected to the House since 2004 in District 56, population of about 25,000. He’s been elected House speaker by the membership of the House since 2012, and he has never run a statewide campaign.
Besides building statewide name recognition, Gunn would have to make political inroads in GOP strongholds such as the populous Mississippi Coast, a region that led Reeves to victory in both the 2019 Republican primary runoff and in the general election against Democrat Jim Hood.
Gunn has been a frequent visitor to the Coast recently, meeting with business, community and political leaders. It’s been part of his statewide tour promoting his proposal to eliminate the state’s personal income tax. Although there is disagreement on particulars of Gunn’s proposal — such as replacing the income tax with increases in sales and other consumption taxes — there are worse messages to approach business and Republican leaders with in such a tour.
Ricky Mathews, a longtime Coast newspaper publisher and media executive, columnist and host of a Supertalk Mississippi radio show, said the Coast “definitely could be in play” if Gunn challenged Reeves in 2023.
“I think (Reeves) is spending a little too much time holed up in the Governor’s Mansion and not spending enough time trying to bring our big three together — the speaker, lieutenant governor and governor — on important issues,” Mathews said.
“… I think (Reeves) has struggled somewhat in the governor’s position, where he doesn’t have the constitutional power he had as lieutenant governor and it requires more of the force of leadership,” Mathews said. “I recall what I have previously written, that one businessman on the Coast told me that when Reeves came into the room, there was a chill. Philip Gunn is the type of guy who lights up a room and can work a room.”
Mathews said he believes Gunn can show a track record of helping the Coast as speaker and that he “empowers his Coast delegation (in the House) and listens to them.”
“I can’t think of one issue where Reeves would have a leg up as it pertains to the Coast,” Mathews said.
Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, one of Gunn’s top lieutenants in the House and a close friend, was guarded with his comments about a potential Gunn-Reeves matchup in 2023.
“We’re blessed in the Republican Party to have more than one leader capable of running our state,” Lamar said. “Speaker Gunn is a fantastic leader. I can also say that Tate Reeves has done some good things for our state as well. He’s inherited a mess and made some excellent decisions as far as agency heads go.”
Lamar continued: “Philip Gunn is one of my best friends, and as quality a human being as there is. He’s a fantastic leader for the state of Mississippi and those leadership traits would certainly carry over to the role of governor should he be elected.
