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On this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with former Miss Mississippi and artist Glenda Grubbs. Born and raised in Richton, Glenda got her undergraduate and master’s degrees in music from the University of Southern Mississippi.

After winning Miss Mississippi in 1972, Glenda married Gary Grubbs and moved to Los Angeles where they lived for 25 years. Gary became a prolific character actor, starring in numerous television and movie roles (including a brief cameo in this video as he operates the camera). Glenda taught elementary music education until one day, with the encouragement of Gary, she picked up the paint brush and palate.

Glenda and Gary moved back to Hattiesburg, where her artwork is gaining an audience and he continues to act and write. This is a conversation for anyone who has dreams and wonders the path to take to achieve them. Glenda also tells several entertaining stories from her time as Miss Mississippi and from Gary’s career. 

To see her artwork, click here.

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The devil will be in the details as legislators attempt to revive the state’s ballot initiative process that was killed by the Mississippi Supreme Court in May — and lawmakers appear far from a consensus on how, exactly, to get there.

At the heart of the issue is whether the ballot initiative process should be used to try to amend or change the Mississippi Constitution, general law, or both. When a proposal is added to the Constitution, it is much more difficult to change.

“I hope we spend some time researching that and find something that works for everyone. We need to make sure we get this right,” said Sen. Chris Johnson, R-Hattiesburg, who as chair of the Constitution Committee most likely will play a key role in any effort to revive the ballot initiative process.

Most legislators agree that they need to pass a resolution to place on the ballot a proposal to re-establish the state’s ballot initiative process. But there are sharp differences in how that resolution should be crafted.

For instance, House Speaker Philip Gunn believes that the ballot initiative process should be changed so that it can be used to alter general law and not the Constitution.

Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, argues that the Legislature should re-create the initiative process as it was with the only exception being fixing the language that resulted in the Supreme Court striking down the process.

The Supreme Court struck down both medical marijuana, an initiative that was approved by voters in November, and the entire ballot initiative process. In a 6-3 ruling in May, the court said the constitutional mandate of gathering signatures equally among five congressional districts to place an initiative on the ballot was invalid since the state has had only four districts since the 2000 Census. When the Legislature proposed the initiative process and voters approved it in 1992, the state had five districts.

“Some people are talking about making it more difficult,” Rep. Robert Johnson said. “It is funny that is happening after people are beginning to take partisanship out of the equation and try to use the process for pocketbook issues and for issues that genuinely affect their lives.”

Recent initiative efforts that were halted by the Supreme Court ruling dealt with early voting and expanding Medicaid — both proposals that are opposed by much of the state’s governing Republican majority. And, of course, medical marijuana was approved overwhelmingly by voters in November after years where the issue was ignored by the Legislature.

Soon after the Supreme Court ruling, Gunn voiced support for the governor calling a special session “to fix” the initiative process so that the people can continue to use it. But in fixing the process, Gunn advocates that the initiative be changed so that it can be used to pass general laws, not amend the Constitution.

“That is the way most states do it,” Gunn said.

Gunn and others point out that once an issue is placed in the Constitution it is difficult to amend or to change. To change the Constitution requires approval by a two-thirds majority of both chambers of the Legislature and approval by voters during a statewide election. The other way to change the Constitution before the court ruling was through the initiative process.

“We need to do some research and see what other states are doing and make sure Mississippians have equal access to the ballot initiative process,” said Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, said committee chairs in the upper chamber are doing that research.

In total, 25 states, not counting Mississippi, have an initiative process, according to research done by the National Conference of State Legislatures. In those 25 states, 23 allow changes to general law through the ballot initiative while 15 have processes to change both general law and their constitutions. Illinois and Florida, like Mississippi before the Supreme Court ruling, allow changes to the constitution, but not general law through ballot initiatives.

Some worry that it would be too easy for the Legislature to change the general law that was created through the ballot initiative. It takes a simple majority vote of both chambers and signature of the governor to pass a general law.

An option would be to place a higher threshold — at least for a period of years — on the number of votes needed in the Legislature to change a general law created through the initiative process.

Plus, Rep. Randy Boyd, R-Mantachie, and others argued that there would be “political consequences” for legislators and the governor for making wholesale changes to a law enacted through the initiative process.

Even many of the sponsors of the medical marijuana initiative conceded after the Supreme Court ruling that changes need to be made to what was approved by voters. If medical marijuana was in the Constitution, it would be nearly impossible to make those changes, Sen. Chris Johnson pointed out. He said there needs to be an initiative process that is “pliable” for a few years.

Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, proposed a process where after a sponsor filed an initiative, there would be a period to allow people or groups to offer input on possible changes for the sponsor to consider. The sponsors would have a period of time to consider those recommendations and re-file if they agreed with any of the recommendations.

“People might say why don’t you do X or why are you doing Y,” Bryan said. “Nobody sees everything or thinks of everything. It would be an opportunity to make it better.”

Besides the debate on whether to change general law, the Constitution or both through the initiative process, another issue that might come up is the issue of number of signatures needed to place a proposal on the ballot. In Mississippi, the requirement has been a number equivalent to 12% of the popular vote of the last governor’s election, divided equally among five congressional districts.

When the Legislature approved the process, it was believed that it would be difficult to garner that 12%. But as technology has evolved and an industry has developed specializing in gathering signatures, some believe it is much easier now to obtain the 12% than it was in 1992.

Since the initiative process started in Mississippi, seven proposals have reached the ballot and only three have been approved: medical marijuana, a proposal to limit the taking of private property by the government for the use of another private entity, and a proposal to require that people display a government-issued photo identification to vote.

Gov. Tate Reeves has said he most likely would call a special session if a legislative agreement is reached on legalizing medical marijuana and fixing the initiative process. Reaching that agreement on the details of any proposal is proving troublesome.

READ MORE: Successful special sessions often began without consensus Reeves wants on medical marijuana

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Read the story behind the cartoon here.

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Jackson native Janet Marie Smith, a Mississippi State-educated architect, designed Camden Yards in Baltimore, renovated Fenway Park in Boston, and most recently has renovated Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Her hardhat is in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, and she may be, too, some day.

Stream all episodes here.

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State Sens. Sampson Jackson, D-Preston, and Tammy Witherspoon, D-Magnolia, have announced their resignations midway through their current terms.

Witherspoon was recently elected mayor of Magnolia and began serving in that office on July 1. She has served six years in the Legislature as senator for District 38, which includes Adams, Pike, Walthall and Wilkinson counties. She was chairwoman of the Enrolled Bills Committee and vice chairwoman of the Housing Committee.

Jackson, who represented District 32 including Kemper, Lauderdale, Noxubee and Winston counties, has served in the Legislature for 30 years. He was chairman of the Forestry Committee. He told local news outlets in his home district that he felt it was simply time for him to retire.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann thanked Jackson and Witherspoon for their service and said both senators “had a collegial and congenial nature in the chamber, and oftentimes worked across the aisle on issues aimed at making Mississippi a great place to live and work.”

“After nearly three decades of service, Sen. Jackson has a wealth of experience and knowledge about the legislative process and policy which served his district very well,” Hosemann said in a statement on Tuesday. “Sen. Witherspoon was equally as dedicated to finding solutions and opportunities for her constituents.”

Gov. Tate Reeves will set special elections to fill the final two years of the four-year terms.

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The Mississippi Department of Employment Security has secured a $2.5 million federal grant to improve the state’s employment and workforce data. 

The U.S. Department of Labor’s employment and training administration heads the grant program, which helps states grow databases to examine whether education programs lead to jobs, if jobseekers are selecting training-related positions, and the impact of training on workers’ wages. 

“The grant will allow us to improve the quality and breadth of data in Mississippi’s mature state longitudinal data system,” Mississippi employment office spokeswoman Dianne Bell said in a statement.

Bell also said the funds will allow the state to better evaluate its job training programs by adding information from unemployment insurance wage records.

The grant comes as the state plans to double down on addressing labor shortfalls with a new workforce development office. Ryan Miller, a former program director at the University of Mississippi, began as the office’s first executive director in the spring.

When Miller’s appointment was announced in March, Gov. Tate Reeves said the new office will strategize how to move more Mississippians into higher paying jobs and train more workers to meet the demands of modern labor needs. 

The improved data through the grant program is aimed at aiding state leaders, employers and educators in identifying the pathways and programs that lead skilled workers to higher paying, in-demand positions. The data can also help workers make informed decisions about their own education and job interests, according to the department of labor. 

Mississippi is one of five states to receive a total of $11.6 million in federal funds to analyze their respective programs and services that help jobseekers find and keep higher paying positions. 

This is round eight of the program’s grant distribution. Mississippi also received $2.7 million through the same program in 2017. 

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Doris Carpenter worries about her young grandson. It’s been 15 months since he’s seen his father — her son — who is serving a 10-year sentence at the Bolivar County Correctional Facility in Cleveland. That likely won’t change any time soon because of a new policy put in place by the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

The visitation policy, issued by MDOC Commissioner Burl Cain in May 2021, lays out guidelines restricting age and time frames that people can visit their loved ones inside of prison. According to the new policy, incarcerated people can only have two adult visitors and no children per session, and they can only come during specific hours once a month.

“It’s unfortunate that a 7-year-old child cannot see their father and cries all the time… In essence, they’re keeping their children from their loved ones,” Carpenter said.

When Mississippi reported its first case of COVID-19 in March 2020, MDOC suspended all visitation at their facilities, “effective immediately” and “until further notice.” The department reported 109 deaths in 2020 — of those, 22 were determined through autopsy to be caused by COVID-19, though dozens more are still pending autopsy results.

Over a year after COVID-19 gripped the state and the nation, MDOC mandated people incarcerated inside their prisons take COVID-19 vaccinations or forgo visitation once it was reinstated. While people can now visit the prisons, family members like Carpenter say the department’s new policy is not sufficient.

Carpenter said she and her husband are fully vaccinated, and their son received the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in April in the Bolivar County Regional Correctional Facility.

She wasn’t able to see her son until June 19, Carpenter said, her first time seeing him since the pandemic began in 2020. She drove over four hours to visit with her son inside the prison for less than one hour.

She arrived at the Bolivar County Correctional Facility with her husband about an hour before visitation started at 9 a.m., but prison officials only allowed people to begin filing into the prison 10 minutes before the visitation window opened, cutting into visitation time, Carpenter said. She  only got 45 minutes with him and is unsure when prison officials will schedule visits again at the Bolivar County Correctional Facility, she said.

“It’s almost like MDOC is doing everything in their power to prevent the visits than rather allow the visits,” Carpenter said, “even though the inmates have had the vaccine.”

Carpenter worries most about her 7-year-old grandson, the child of her incarcerated son, who is now not allowed to visit his father at all inside the Bolivar County Regional Correctional Facility, per MDOC’s visitation policy, which does not allow any visitors under the age of 18.

Carpenter’s son has been incarcerated since 2016, when his son was just a toddler. Carpenter would bring her grandson to visit his father inside the prison two times a month for a total of six hours. Now, under the new MDOC visitation policy, children are not allowed to visit their incarcerated family members and loved ones, a reality that deeply worries Carpenter.

“At 7 years old, they don’t really understand everything,” Carpenter said. “Even if I wear my mask, can I still not see my daddy? I can only talk to my daddy, but I won’t ever be able to see him again? Those are the kinds of questions I get from a 7-year-old used to seeing their daddy from the time they were two all the way up until 15 months (ago).”

Miles away from the Bolivar County Correctional Facility stands the South Mississippi Correctional Institution (SMCI) near Leakesville, where Sara Jane Scott’s husband is incarcerated. Scott visited her husband for the first time in late May and mid June of this year.

Scott’s husband, who is serving a life sentence, described seeing his wife during visitation as “an amazing feeling.”

Scott, who founded the prison reform advocacy organization The Parchman Project, said she’s heard different visitation guidelines being upheld at different prisons across the state. For instance, while visitation windows at SMCI are three hours, she said they are only one hour at East Mississippi Correctional Facility, a private prison, not operated by MDOC, near Meridian.

She also said prison officials did not screen visitors for COVID-19 symptoms when she visited her husband in SMCI two times.

“They’re not asking COVID questions, so if you’re not asking questions, why are you using that as an excuse (to limit visitation)?” Scott said.

Another man serving a life sentence at Parchman said his mother and girlfriend visited him inside prison on June 13 for the first time in 16 months, a feeling he described as “being able to breathe fresh air again… like hitting reset.”

“It’s a great thing to have somebody come check on you,” Scott’s husband, incarcerated at SMCI, said. “It makes you feel like, OK I’m still here.”

Editor’s note: Doris Carpenter is using a pseudonym over fear that prison officials will transfer her son to another facility. Mississippi Today independently verified her identity, as well as her son’s.

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“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” — Pete Townshend in The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

Mississippi’s settlement of a lawsuit with state Medicaid contractor Centene was based on the same blueprint as other cases: private lawyers were hired by the attorney general to pursue allegations of wrongdoing against mega companies.

Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch sent out a news release last month touting the $55 million settlement of the lawsuit that accused Centene of overcharging the state for pharmacy benefits it was contracted to provide to the Medicaid program.

The big difference is that Fitch’s predecessor — Democrat Jim Hood — often called news conferences to announce such settlements where reporters routinely quizzed the state’s only elected Democrat about the use of private attorney for such lawsuits.

Hood was often savaged for the use of outside counsel by legislators, former Gov. Haley Barbour and by others. Legislation was filed to try to prevent the hiring of private attorneys.

But when Fitch and state Auditor Shad White announced they had settled with Centene, the same people who used to complain about the use of private attorneys by Hood and his predecessor — Democrat Mike Moore — uttered not a single negative word.

There was no criticism even though the case against Centene had elements similar to Moore’s lawsuit against the tobacco companies from the 1990s — still the best known and perhaps most successful use of outside counsel. In that lawsuit, Mississippi received what is known as a “lead dog” commitment. If another state later received a better settlement, then Mississippi, as the lead dog, would get the same settlement.

In the Centene case, Ohio filed and settled the first lawsuit and received “lead dog” status.

And like with the tobacco lawsuits and scores of lawsuits since then, the private attorneys were paid only if they prevailed — a percentage of the settlement, or about $2.5 million in the Centene case.

In recent days, Fitch has announced she has filed another lawsuit against insulin manufacturers. The lawsuit alleges the companies are artificially inflating the price of the life-saving drug.

“As the mother of a diabetic, I know the emotional, physical and financial toll the unconscionable price of insulin has on families,” Fitch said in a statement. “I filed this lawsuit on behalf of every Mississippian who relies on this medication to survive. These companies are exploiting the vulnerable. I’m fighting back because you should never have to decide between paying the ever-increasing price of insulin or compromising your care.”

The insulin lawsuit is being pursued for Fitch by the attorneys who worked on the Centene case: Ridgeland-based Liston & Deas. And if they win, they will receive a percentage of the settlement — 5% of any settlement above $25 million — a larger percentage for smaller settlements. The attorneys pay all the expenses of the lawsuits, and they receive nothing if they lose.

Hood used to argue that the outside counsel was needed to pursue cases where the state did not have the expertise, manpower or finances to be successful against large corporations with deep pockets. In the Centene case, for example, work on the concept that led to the lawsuit began years ago.

The fact that Fitch is pursuing much the same course as Hood and Moore should not be a surprise.

During the campaign, a Fitch spokesperson said, “The default should be in-house counsel, of course, because it is usually the best, most efficient, and most cost-effective way. But, just like any law firm, if there’s a case that requires specialized knowledge and the people’s interests are better served with some outside expertise working alongside AG attorneys, Lynn Fitch won’t foreclose the option.”

Also during the campaign, Jennifer Riley Collins, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, complained that many of the lawyers and others who had supported Hood financially were contributing to the Fitch campaign. The message some saw in that was that in Republican-controlled Mississippi, Riley Collins did not have much of a chance of winning, so they contributed to the Republican who essentially would play by the same rules as previous Democratic attorneys general.

During Hood’s tenure, $2.8 billion was awarded to the state in lawsuits assisted by outside counsel. The private attorneys received $121.1 million in fees and expenses, or 4.3% of the total awarded to the state, according to information compiled by Hood’s office before his tenure ended. Those numbers do not include the annual payments to the state from the tobacco lawsuit.

In the early 1990s, cigar-chomping Rep. Charlie Capps, D-Cleveland, the powerful Appropriations chair, warned Moore he had better not spend state funds on the dubious and unwinnable lawsuit against the cigarette makers.

Moore did not. But the state still is spending the money — about $100 million annually — Moore garnered in settlements from the litigation.

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It took 129 years of playing college baseball and 12 trips to the College World Series, but Mississippi State’s Bulldogs are national champions. Tyler Cleveland interviews his pops, Rick Cleveland, on State’s incredible run to a national title and what it means to the most passionate fan base in America.

Stream all episodes here.

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