Mississippi’s rape and sexual battery statutes still contain language right out of the 1800s — about “ravishing” a “female previously of chaste character” — and still provide a spousal defense that can protect those who commit marital rape.
House Bill 1080 would have changed that and brought Mississippi’s laws into the 21st century. But it died without a vote on Tuesday’s deadline for the Senate to pass it out of committee.
“There are a handful of states that still have a spousal defense on the books, even though basically it’s illegal to rape anyone,” said Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus, author of the bill. “… It’s a shame that sometimes in Mississippi, we seem to be the last state in the Union to actually make something right.”
The bill would have clarified the definition and elements of rape and sexual assault, replacing passages such as “assault with the intent to forcibly ravish a female of previously chaste character.”
The bill passed the House by a vote of 119-1, with only Rep. Omeria Scott, D-Laurel, voting against it. But McLean said, “I got word that the leadership over in the Senate had a problem with removing the spousal defense for rape. It’s disheartening, very disheartening.”
Senate Judiciary B Chairman Joey Fillingane said he agreed with the bill’s intent — he even authored a similar one — but he said there were numerous bills in both chambers this session aimed at changing rape and assault laws.
“Any time there’s that many, that means it’s probably time to have hearings out of session and make some sweeping changes instead of with nine different bills,” Fillingane said. As for opposition to removing the spousal defense, Fillingane said, “That might have been a concern of some people, but that was not the overarching concern … I think people believe this is archaic language that doesn’t fit with 2022, and I agree with that.”
Fillingane said Mississippi’s legal code in general probably still has a lot of antiquated language that should be removed and rewritten.
The bill that died Tuesday would have deleted language in the law that said a person would not be guilty of rape or sexual battery if the alleged victim was the defendant’s legal spouse at the time of the offense and the couple is not separated and living apart. It would also change law that said a legal spouse may be found guilty of sexual battery if the spouse engaged in forcible penetration without the consent of the alleged victim.
“What about if a spouse was passed out, or drunk or on drugs?” McLean said. “Should that be OK, because she was not fighting him, or because she passed out?”
McLean said there were references to “a female” in the law that her bill changed to say person, “because men can be raped, too.” She said it also removed language such as, “It shall be presumed that the female was previously of chaste character and the burden of proof is on a defendant to prove she was not of chaste character.”
Although since the early 1990s every state recognizes marital rape as a crime, some including Mississippi still have laws on the books that either provide protection for the perpetrator or lesser penalties.
McLean said she believes a lot of prosecutors use the state’s sexual battery laws instead of the rape statute with harsher penalties because the latter’s language is so antiquated.
This measure, authored by Sen. Brice Wiggins, was the latest in a long-running, usually unsuccessful effort to update the state’s antiquated, misogynistic divorce laws that often trap spouses and children in bad, sometimes abusive and dangerous family situations.
Mississippi and South Dakota remain the only two states without a unilateral no-fault divorce ground. Mississippi’s divorce ground of “irreconcilable differences” requires mutual consent of spouses. This frequently makes getting a divorce in Mississippi difficult and expensive, and it often allows one spouse to delay a divorce for years, sometimes many years.
The bill passed the full Senate, but died in the House Judiciary A committee without a vote.
House leaders, for the second consecutive year on a key deadline day, killed a Senate bill, essentially forcing Senate leaders to pass a House bill to be used as the vehicle to provide Mississippi teachers a pay raise.
Leaders from both chambers argued their bill should be used for the pay raise.
For much of Tuesday, the final day to pass general bills from the other chamber out of committee, leadership from the two chambers played chicken on who would blink first and take the other chamber’s teacher pay bill.
“We have two Senate (teacher pay bills) in the House,” said Senate Education Chair Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, who held a series of meetings throughout the state last year on the issue of teacher pay. “It is the Senate’s No. 1 priority.”
Late Tuesday afternoon after passing the House bill to ensure a teacher pay raise remained alive during the 2022 session DeBar said, “The bottom line is the teachers are the winners here today. The way politics is played up here only lessens our ability to attract teachers … We need to resolve this issue and get on to other things.”
But House Education Chair Richard Bennett, R-Long Beach, countered: “Our priority was a teacher pay raise – it was our first bill — and their priority was medical marijuana as their first bill.
“It was our first bill we passed and sent to them early and quite frankly it should already be on the governor’s desk.”
After the House adjourned for the day without calling committee meetings to take up the Senate bill, the Senate leaders, instead of letting the all the teacher pay proposals die, opted to take up the House bill. Still, the Senate placed its language in the House bill.
In the end, nobody outside of the ornate Mississippi Capitol cares much whether the bill that will provide the largest pay increase for teachers since the early 2000s is a House bill or a Senate bill. Still, the song and dance routine illustrates the current level of divisiveness as leaders stare down each other over whether the Senate will take up Speaker Philip Gunn’s massive tax cut that will phase out roughly one third of the general fund revenue in the coming years.
A similar song and dance occurred last session when the House leaders killed a Senate pay raise bill, forcing the Senate to take up the House bill. The 2021 legislation provided teachers roughly a $1,000 per year raise.
In 2021 it was obvious to many that the House was trying to use the teacher pay plan as leverage to ensure the passage of Gunn’s tax cut proposal.
On whether he believes this year’s standoff was because of the income tax cut, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, said, “You have to ask the House about that.”
Hosemann continued “Sen. DeBar reached out to the House, and I reached out to the House on this, and they adjourned and went home. Sen. DeBar showed excellent leadership in making sure that teachers don’t become pawns in some other game … He has shown the patience of Job.”
But Gunn said the House wanted it proposal passed because, “our bill is better on a number of factors.” He said it provides a bigger, more immediate raise.
The House plan would increase starting teacher pay from $37,000 a year to $43,125. This would put Mississippi above both the Southeastern average of $39,754 and the national average of $41,163. The Senate plan would increase starting pay to $40,000, but also would provide substantial increases at five-year intervals throughout a teacher’s career.
Both plans would cost about $220 million annually, though, the House plan would be enacted in one year while the Senate proposal would be phased in over two years. The Senate’s plan includes a year-two, $44 million across-the-board increase of $1,000 per teacher. The House plan includes a $2,000 increase for teacher assistants, who are not included in the original Senate plan.
“I’m not willing to pass a bill – when we’ve told teachers wait until next year, wait until next year – where there’s millions held back that they don’t get until the second year, an election year,” Bennett said. “… Teachers need all the money this year. We have the money and they don’t need to wait on it.”
Bennett added: “The way (the Senate’s) scale worked, we wouldn’t get to the Southeastern average or to the national average. With the House bill, we do.”
Both plans would “restructure” the teacher salary ladder that determines pay for teachers at various levels of experience and training. The House plan would provide more immediate increases ranging from $4,000 to $6,000. The Senate plan after two years would provide an average increase of $4,700, but would provide for larger bumps in pay at each five-year interval in a teacher’s career. On Tuesday, the Senate also added language providing for a $2,000 raise over two years for teacher assistants.
Mississippi’s teacher pay by several metrics is the lowest in the nation. Mississippi public education advocates spent much of Tuesday monitoring the game of one upmanship played by House and Senate leaders.
“We are certainly encourage by senators standing up and being leaders for the state,” Antonio Castanon Luna, executive director of the Mississippi Association of Educators, which membership he said includes 10% of the state’s classroom teachers. He said the pay raise will help teachers battle inflation and be able to remain in the classroom.
And the end of the day, he conceded it did not matter whether the pay raise was a Senate or House bill.
“To us it is about students having quality teachers,” he said.
Kelly Riley, executive director of the Mississippi Professional Educators, said, ““We were very frustrated today with the House letting the Senate’s two pay raise bills die. We are very appreciative of the statesmanship and leadership of the Senate. Today’s actions by the Senate, and the lack thereof by the House have sent a clear message to the state’s educators as to who truly prioritizes our state’s teachers and children.”
More than likely the final teacher pay plan will be hammered out by legislative leaders during the final days of the session and will include elements of the plans offered by both the Senate and House. But the final plan will be a House bill instead of a Senate bill.
That is important to some in the Capitol, but the end result for teachers is whether they receive a pay raise. And at the end of a chaotic Tuesday, their pay raise was still on track in the 2022 legislative session.
A bill titled “Critical race theory; prohibit” passed the House Universities and Colleges Committee Monday along racial lines with all African American representatives opposing the measure and all white House members supporting it.
Senate Bill 2113 passed 14-9 with no changes from how it passed the Senate earlier this session. All those who voted in favor of the bill were Republican. If it passes the House in the coming days with no changes, it will go straight to Gov. Tate Reeves for his signature.
“Why do we bring this egregious bill up when we all get along?” asked Rep. Greg Holloway, D-Hazlehurst. “We are all trying to work together.”
Instead of debating an issue that no one can identify as a problem in Mississippi, Holloway said, legislators could be working to solve issues actually impacting the state.
Both Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn have been vocal opponents of critical race theory, though, they have not been able to identify any instances of the college-level academic framework being taught in kindergarten through 12th grade schools.
Based on the discussion in the House Universities and Colleges Committee Monday, debate also will be contentious when the issue is brought up in the coming days on the House floor.
Critical race theory has been depicted by conservative media outlets and many Republican politicians as an effort in the public schools and universities to teach discrimination and to divide students by race. Supporters of critical race theory, which is generally taught as a college level class, say it is designed to address issues of institutional racism that still exists in society.
The text of the bill, as Rep. Joey Hood, R-Ackerman, who presented the bill to the committee pointed out, simply said no university, community college or public school “shall direct or compel students to affirm that any sex, race, ethnicity, religion or national origin is inherently superior or that individuals should be adversely treated based on such characteristics.”
But tying the bill to critical race theory is seen by many as an attempt to appease those who oppose discussions of past and current racial shortcomings of the state and nation. The governor has proposed providing funds to schools willing to teach “patriotic” history classes. The Legislature has balked at that recommendation.
Rep. Cheikh Taylor, D-Starkville, said “Critical race theory is…nothing to do with finger pointing or shaming. It has everything to do with searching out institutional racism” and trying to address it.
Rep. Lataisha Jackson, D-Como, questioned whether teachers might be afraid to broach the issue of racism because of the bill. Jackson said she fears, based on the bill, someone might try to penalize African American teachers who tried to address such subjects in their classroom.
While the title of the bill says the teaching of critical race theory is prohibited, Hood conceded that nowhere in the bill is critical race theory defined.
Taylor asked if he could offer an amendment to take out any reference to critical race theory in the legislation. Rep. Donnie Scoggin, Ellisville, who presided over the contentious hearing as vice chair of the committee, told Taylor he would “recommend” that no amendments be offered.
Scoggin said he made the recommendation to prevent additional “arguments” about the bill in the committee hearing.
“They can argue on the floor,” he said.
Taylor said the amendment would be offered on the floor.
Hood could not identify any critical race theory classes being taught in the public schools. When asked by legislators, he said more than once, “I will get back to you.”
Tuesday was the deadline to pass the bill out of committee. Gunn did not assign the bill to the Universities and Colleges Committee until late last week. Most other bills were assigned by the speaker much earlier in the process.
Most familiar with the legislative process assumed Gunn would assign the bill to the Education Committee.
Have questions about critical race theory? Join the conversation this Thursday:
Note: This analysis first published in Mississippi Today’s weekly legislative newsletter. Subscribe to our free newsletter for exclusive early access to weekly analyses.
Remember mid-January, when seemingly all legislative leaders could do was sing the praises of public school teachers as they proposed historic pay raises?
House and Senate leaders garnered broad praise from public education groups in January for passing proposals that would not only offer short-term raises, but increase the teacher pay scale in the long run.
But since then, lawmakers have largely focused their time and energy into cutting or eliminating the state’s income tax, which generates billions in revenue that helps pay those teacher salaries, among many other critical public services.
Teachers across the state are having trouble separating the teacher pay raise and income tax cut proposals.
“The song lawmakers have always sung was that we can’t fund MAEP (the state’s public education funding formula) because we don’t have the money. Now they’re pointing to all this extra money to justify cutting the income tax? It’s not adding up,” said Cagney Weaver, a national board certified teacher at Biloxi Upper Elementary. “I really do think there are good intentions in wanting to pay teachers more and we’ll see what happens with those bills. But why aren’t they talking more about how cutting the income tax could gut the state budget and keep them from paying us down the road?”
As bickering between House and Senate leaders over tax cut proposals continues to worsen, lawmakers face a critical deadline on March 1 to decide what to do with the teacher pay raise bills. And educators, watching closely this week, worry that teacher pay could potentially get caught in the middle of the tax cut fight.
“There’s such a long way to go before anything meaningful gets done for teachers,” Weaver said. “And what reason have lawmakers ever given us to feel optimistic about any of this?”
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One year ago today, House and Senate leaders were publicly fighting over a major tax cut proposal. They faced the first major deadline to handle bills originating in the opposite chamber, and because of the bickering, many bills died a quiet death without a vote or even debate. Among the legislation caught up in the fight: a pay raise for public school teachers.
Today, House and Senate leaders are publicly fighting over a major tax cut proposal. They face the first major deadline to handle bills originating in the opposite chamber, and because of the bickering, Capitol observers fear many bills will die a quiet death without a vote or even debate. Among the legislation caught up in the fight: a pay raise for public school teachers.
But for a last-second save last year by Senate leaders, the teacher pay raise would have died on deadline day because Speaker of the House Philip Gunn was upset with a lack of Senate support for his tax cut plan.
A lot of this session looks and feels the same as last year. Both chambers passed their own teacher pay raise bills once again — although this year’s proposals are much larger and would change the pay structure moving forward. The Senate plan would increase annual spending on teacher pay by $210 million, while the House plan would increase annual spending on teacher pay by $219 million. Either proposal, if passed, would represent one of the largest public school teacher salary investments in decades.
But as lawmakers in both chambers mull cutting or eliminating the state’s second-largest revenue source, are those investments sound ones that can be guaranteed long-term?
Gunn, like last year, is expending great political energy to completely eliminate the income tax cut, which could result in $1.5 billion less per year in collected revenue. Hosemann, in response to Gunn, introduced a much smaller income tax cut, but one that could still result in $317 million less per year in collected revenue.
Hosemann says Gunn’s plan is fiscally irresponsible in the long run, and Gunn says Hosemann’s plan doesn’t go far enough. The rancor among House and Senate leaders about their dueling tax cut proposals is growing by the hour.
That fighting has many Capitol observers fearing this deadline day will mean the death of many bills. Teachers worry about their pay raise bill, though it appears unlikely teacher pay will die this week. But it’s very possible lawmakers could opt to kill one of the two pending teacher pay proposals — a prospect that puts many educators on edge.
And even if the pay raise does survive this week, Mississippi teachers will remain anxious over the financial uncertainty of a looming tax cut. All of these thoughts and sentiments are just part of the long-standing feeling among so many public school teachers that lawmakers aren’t in their corner.
“If Mississippi cannot afford to fully fund public schools and pay teachers at the Southeastern average, we cannot afford an income tax cut. It’s that simple,” Nancy Loome of public education advocacy group The Parents’ Campaign wrote last week. “… Legislators are telling teachers that they can’t afford to bring teacher pay to the Southeastern average, telling parents that they can’t afford to fully fund their public schools, and telling children that they can’t afford to honor the Building Fund that would help to fix their schools’ moldy classrooms and broken bathrooms.”
As the Capitol grandstanding heats up, all teachers can do is wait to see if they’ll get the support they’ve requested for years.
“Every session is another letdown in some way,” Weaver said. “Our districts and schools do such a good job working with what we’ve got, but that’s not sustainable. The people in Jackson need to do better for us. It’s as simple as that.”
State Republicans have balked at expanding Medicaid, but are embracing legislation that would take advantage of the federal program to pay for healthcare for very sick incarcerated people — and likely create a money-making opportunity for nursing homes.
Senate Bill 2448, which passed the Senate with little opposition and is now with the House Medicaid Committee, would allow “medically frail” inmates to be paroled to “special care facilities.” These would be specially licensed nursing homes where Medicaid could help pay for their care.
Sponsor Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, says his bill would reduce costs for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, which spends about $77 million annually on healthcare for people in its custody. Medicaid won’t pay for healthcare provided inside jails and prisons, so the state pays the full cost of care for very sick and elderly incarcerated people. Currently, only a small number of Mississippians are granted medical parole every year, according to the Department of Corrections — just three were released in 2021.
When Mississippi Today asked for an estimate of the savings, Wiggins said he didn’t have the number offhand but could get it later. He did not respond to subsequent phone calls and text messages.
Wiggins said he continues to oppose Medicaid expansion, which would save Mississippi an estimated net $200 million by 2027. He declined to explain why.
“I answered your question on the legislation, which is fair,” he said. “And then you jumped into Medicaid. I’m not discussing that.”
House Medicaid Committee Chair Rep. Joey Hood, R-Ackerman, did not respond to a request for comment.
Some prominent proponents of Medicaid expansion in Mississippi are skeptical of the bill.
“If what we’re doing is offloading and giving parole to inmates so they can then get off the state’s dime, and putting them on Medicaid, when we’re not allowing working Mississippians who pay taxes to have the same benefit of healthcare coverage as these inmates who have committed crimes against society, who haven’t paid taxes in years, that’s just wrong,” said Richard Roberson, vice president of state policy for the Mississippi Hospital Association.
To Roberson, the politics around SB 2448 are puzzling.
“Any time you see something unusual from the Capitol that seems a little out of sorts like this one does, where you have Republicans passing a bill to expand Medicaid to inmates, that seems inconsistent with the ‘no to Obamacare,’ ‘no to Medicaid expansion,’” he said. “That typically tells me that there’s something under the surface somewhere.”
Senate Bill 2448 defines “medically frail” inmates as those who are “a minimal threat to society” because of their medical condition, who can’t perform daily living activities on their own, and who may have limited mobility because of their condition. Sex offenders and people on death row would not be eligible.
MDOC does not currently use the term “medically frail” to categorize incarcerated people, so the Department could not immediately say how many people might be eligible for parole if SB 2448 became law.
If the bill were to pass, people could be paroled to “special care facilities” that offer services like other nursing homes, including recreation and spiritual activities as well as medical care.
“It reduces the cost to the state,” Wiggins said. “It places these inmates in a place to receive medical treatment. And it’s a win-win all around.”
One additional potential winner of the legislation: nursing facilities. By getting licensed as “special care facilities,” they could welcome new patients with guaranteed funding.
Wiggins said a number of facilities around the state are interested in becoming licensed for the purpose, though he did not say which ones.
In 2013, Connecticut became the first state to contract with a nursing facility to house people paroled from prisons with serious medical needs. The facility, 60 West, now houses about 40 people paroled from prison, out of a total of about 85 residents. Other residents are considered “hard to place” for other reasons, such as prior criminal history or registered sex offender status.
David Skoczulek, vice president of business development at iCare Health Network, which operates 60 West, said the facility is “a financially viable model” — that is, profitable for the operator.
Skoczulek said he was vaguely familiar with the Mississippi proposal because a year or two ago, his company was contacted by someone in Mississippi who wanted to pursue a similar project. He didn’t remember the specifics, but said the Mississippian had an existing property in mind and wanted advice from iCare on turning it into a facility that could care for paroled prisoners, or possibly to pursue a joint venture.
“They were interested in getting it pushed along in the legislature,” Skoczulek said.
Other states have also followed Connecticut’s example in expanding medical parole to send inmates to nursing homes. That’s the model Wiggins’ bill would emulate.
Skoczulek said iCare frequently provides information and advice to people in other states seeking to replicate the success of 60 West. The company also operates a similar facility in Massachusetts.
The Mississippi Health Care Association, the state’s largest organization of nursing homes, has not taken a position on the bill. The organization declined to comment for the story.
The Mississippi State Department of Health, which would be responsible for licensing the special care facilities, said it had not been contacted by any interested facilities. The agency also said it had not seen an analysis of the bill’s costs and savings.
After the 1970s, tough-on-crime policies and harsh mandatory minimum sentencing laws led to an explosion in the number of incarcerated Americans. Now, those policies mean more people are growing old in prison.
According to a 2012 ACLU report, the number of incarcerated Americans over age 55 quadrupled from 1995 to 2010. By 2030, they could comprise a third of all prisoners. Providing healthcare for an older, sicker prisoner is expensive: In North Carolina, officials estimated the average cost of caring for someone over age 55 was four times that of someone under 55.
Mississippi currently incarcerates 507 people aged 65 or older, according to MDOC.
To save money, some states have expanded compassionate release policies to send people home, where Medicaid and Medicare can help pay for all of their care.
Mississippi also has a compassionate release policy. People who are 60 years or older or have a severe medical condition with no chance of recovery– a condition that is “incapacitating, totally disabling, and/or terminal in nature”– can qualify for early release.
But as in many states, Mississippi’s policy is little used. According to MDOC, 10 people were granted parole under the policy in 2019, followed by seven in 2020 and only three last year.
If saving money for the state’s prison system is the goal, there’s another measure that experts say would be even more effective: expanding Medicaid eligibility for all Mississippians.
In states that have expanded Medicaid coverage, incarcerated people are nearly always eligible because of their limited incomes. Medicaid won’t pay for healthcare provided inside jails and prisons, but it can reimburse states for care that takes place off-site and requires at least a 24-hour stay in a hospital or nursing facility.
If a healthy 35-year-old incarcerated in Kentucky gets appendicitis and requires a two-day hospital stay, for example, Medicaid can help pay for his care. That saved the state $16.4 million in 2014 and 2015, according to the Pew Charitable Trust.
In Mississippi, the state picks up the entire tab. MDOC spent $24 million on off-site care in fiscal year 2020.
Dan Mistak, acting president and director of Health Care Initiatives for Justice-Involved Populations at the non-profit Community Oriented Correctional Health Services, said SB 2448 would likely affect only a small number of incarcerated people, limiting the potential savings for Mississippi.
Not only would broader Medicaid expansion allow MDOC to get reimbursed by for a greater share of medical expenses, it could also help reduce the number of people who wind up in the criminal justice system, Mistak said. Expanding access to mental and behavioral health care and substance use treatment programs could mean fewer people sent to jails and prisons.
“What this legislator seems to be trying to do is patch this up at the very end of this, at the most expensive side, rather than go upstream and say how do we improve people’s health, and keep them out of prisons,” Mistak said.
Some states have found that paroling incarcerated people to nursing homes is not as simple as passing a law. In Colorado, officials have struggled to find nursing homes willing to accept medical parolees because of their criminal records.
And initially, Medicaid refused to reimburse Connecticut for parolees’ care at 60 West, citing the fact that some residents lived in a secure unit with no medical justification. But the federal government later certified 60 West for reimbursement.
If a facility resembles a prison, Medicaid won’t pay for a person’s care there.
“If I had you tour both nursing homes right now and didn’t tell you what the mission was, you would have no idea you were in anything other than a standard nursing home,” Skoczulek said. “There are no guards, no gates, no shackles, no lights out, no any of that stuff… We have to preserve resident rights.”
Wiggins, a former prosecutor, told Mississippi Today paroling “convicted felons” to medical facilities was better than paroling them to their homes to be with their families.
“They gotta serve their time,” he said. “And they would be considered an inmate.”
Mississippi Today’s political team discussing the growing tension over dueling House and Senate income tax proposals. Many fear all legislation is in jeopardy because leaders can’t agree on tax cut details.
In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey brings back Canopy CEO, John Damon to discuss the current mental health challenges facing our nation, avenues to get help for both adults and children, and ways to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health.
Damon’s clinical and executive leadership experience spans more than 25 years. Joining Canopy in 1993, he has been the Chief Executive Office since 2013. Damon is a Fellow of the fifth class of the Health Innovators Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He is a board member of the Mississippi Business Group on Health. He was selected as a Top CEO by the Mississippi Business Journal. John currently serves on the Mississippi Children’s Justice Commission. John has also served on other committees including the Governor’s Healthcare Task Force, the Mental Health Task Force (chair), Mississippi’s Children’s Mental Health Task Force, and the Mississippi Autism Advisory Committee.
John holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Mississippi College, a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy from Reformed Theological Seminary, and earned his doctorate in Philosophy in Clinical Psychology from Jackson State University. He completed his residency in Child Psychology at University of Mississippi Medical Center. John and his wife are proud parents of five children.
