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Mississippi Today’s political team analyzes the wide-ranging political and policy implications of the Mississippi Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the medical marijuana program and the ballot initiative process.

Stream the episode here.

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Gov. Tate Reeves made three appointments last week to the Mississippi Community College Board — appointments from the same five congressional districts that resulted in the demise of a medical marijuana program and of the state’s initiative process that allowed people to gather signatures to place issues on the ballot.

The law, which is still on the books, enacted a Community College Board in 1986 and mandated the governor to appoint members to staggered terms from five congressional districts. Other agencies of state government also are governed by appointees from those infamous districts that are so disdained by the Supreme Court majority.

Earlier this month the Mississippi Supreme Court in a landmark 6-3 decision struck down the medical marijuana initiative approved overwhelmingly by voters in November and the initiative process itself because of those five pesky districts.

The court ruled, in a lawsuit filed by Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler, that the initiative process was unconstitutional because it required signatures to be gathered equally from five congressional districts to place an initiative on the ballot. The problem is that Mississippi has four congressional districts, having lost one based on the 2000 U.S. Census data. That, the majority reasoned, voided the medical marijuana initiative and the overall initiative process.

Northern District Supreme Court Justice Josiah Coleman, writing for the majority, seemed to place blame for the ruling squarely on the shoulders of Mississippi legislators — those who passed the language creating the initiative process that was approved by voters in 1992, and those who did not fix the process after the state lost a congressional seat in 2000. He reasoned that perhaps the initiative would not have been struck down by he and his colleagues if only legislators had placed the word “current” in front of congressional districts in the proposal creating the initiative process. Then, he reasoned, everyone would have known that the Legislature intended for the 1992 districts to be used to gather the signatures. Interestingly, the word “current” is not part of the law saying the Community College Board and others are to be appointed from five districts.

Coleman wrote that perhaps the legislative drafters of the ballot initiative process “foresaw or even hoped for a drop in congressional representation that would render the ballot initiative process unworkable.” With all due respect to legislators, it is difficult to imagine they were that smart or even that devious. But regardless, it is clear that was not the intent of Mississippi voters who approved the ballot initiative process.

Both the Legislature and Attorney General in an official opinion issued in 2009 surmised that it was understood that it was referring to the districts as they existed in 1992.

In his opinion, Coleman said the Legislature made “no serious attempt” to change the wording in the Constitution to address the issue that the state had lost a district. Perhaps legislators, though, did not take up the issue because they were relying on a commonsense interpretation of the language, meaning that of course the language was referring to the five districts as they existed in 1992. But the Supreme Court eschewed commonsense for a literal reading of the language as is, of course, the right of the justices to do.

While there might be disagreement about whether to deal with the Supreme Court decision in special session or in the 2022 regular session, both House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, have gone on record as supporting the Legislature enacting a medical marijuana law and also fixing the initiative process so people can still gather signatures to place issues on the ballot.

After years of initiatives being used to try to advance conservative causes, in recent years advocates for more progressive issues have started using the process.

For instance, while support for medical marijuana crosses party lines, in general, Democratic politicians have been more supportive of the issue than Republican politicians. And progressives were hopeful of the success of recently filed initiatives to expand Medicaid, to enact early voting and even to legalize recreational marijuana. At least, progressives were hopeful before the state’s highest court stopped Mississippi’s initiative process in its tracks.

To further illustrate how progressives might be able to use the initiative process is the issue of the disenfranchisement of people convicted of felonies. At one point, Florida led the nation in terms of the percentage of people who had lost their right to vote for being convicted of a felony.

But now Mississippi has the highest percentage of its population prohibited from voting because of a felony conviction — 10.6%, according to the Sentencing Project.

Mississippi surpassed Florida for that honor after a ballot initiative in the Sunshine State removed the lifetime ban on voting for being convicted of a felony.

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Expanding Medicaid in Mississippi will create roughly three times the number of jobs as the Nissan plant in Canton and the Toyota Motors Manufacturing plant in Blue Springs did combined, according to a national report released Thursday.

In Mississippi, of the 21,700 new jobs possibly created with Medicaid expansion, 12,500 of the jobs will be created in healthcare, 1,400 in construction, 2,600 in retail, 400 in finance and insurance and 4,900 in other sectors, according to the report, The Economic and Employment Effects of Medicaid Expansions Under the American Rescue Plan.

As a comparison, the Nissan plant in Canton had roughly 5,250 employees pre-pandemic and the Toyota Motors plant had about 2,000 employees pre-pandemic.

The report by the Washington-based Commonwealth Fund, a national philanthropy engaged in independent research on health and social policy, and the George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health says expanding Medicaid in Mississippi and 13 other states can help those states and the rest of the nation recover from recession and the negative effects of COVID-19.

“Medicaid expansion is a no-brainer for Mississippi,” said Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson. “Refusal to expand Medicaid has cost our Mississippi hospitals and health care providers billions of dollars.”

Estimates put the amount that Mississippi has already forfeited for rejecting Medicaid expansion at about $7 billion. If the state continues to reject expansion, the state would forfeit another $13 billion, according to Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney. President Joe Biden included in his American Rescue Plan additional money for expanding Medicaid in the 14 states.

“States that have elected not to expand Medicaid are leaving millions of the poorest people in the country without access to affordable health insurance,” Commonwealth Fund President Dr. David Blumenthal said in a statement.

READ MORE: Mississippi missed out on $7 billion when it did not expand Medicaid. Will that figure jump to $20 billion?

In addition to providing health insurance and strengthening access to affordable health care, the additional federal support could create more than 1 million new jobs if all 14 states decide to expand Medicaid by 2022, the report stated.

In addition to Mississippi, the other states that have yet to expand Medicaid are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Last year, Missouri and Oklahoma passed ballot expansions to begin Medicaid expansion, but Missouri’s governor has stated his opposition to that expansion.

Blumenthal said Biden’s plan is a fresh opportunity not only to extend healthcare coverage to more than 4 million people but also to promote job and economic growth.

The report says expanding Medicaid in the 14 states could produce more than 1 million new jobs in 2022.

Blount said there are more than 100,000 Mississippians who are self-employed or work in jobs that do not provide health insurance that have no access to regular health care.

“For more than a decade we’ve heard political excuses and no alternative plan at all. Will the poorest and least healthy state be the last in the country to make the obvious choice?” Blount asked. Medicaid expansion legislation once again failed in the Mississippi Legislature this year as in previous years.

Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves and his predecessor former Gov. Phil Bryant, also a Republican, have opposed Medicaid expansion.

Reeves recently said he remains opposed to expanding Medicaid citing cost despite the sweetened federal funding. However, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, also a Republican, has said he is open to a discussion about expanding Medicaid. He said the same during his campaign for that office.

Mississippi Hospital Association President Tim Moore said the association has advocated for Medicaid expansion for almost decade. He said expanding Medicaid in 2022 would lead to more than 200,000 working poor having access to health care. The state will gain up to $800 million in additional federal funds over the next two years, then more than a $1 billion in subsequent years. Moore also said Medicaid expansion is crucial to keeping rural hospitals open. He said when a family member is having a heart attack, stroke or is injured on the farm, you can’t afford to drive long distances to get emergency care.

Often, in many rural communities, hospitals and the healthcare industry serve as the largest employers, Moore said.

“We have to preserve our community hospitals,” Moore said.

Over the past decade, a half dozen of Mississippi’s rural hospitals have closed, he said. More than half are now at risk of immediate closure. Moore believes momentum is at its highest level to expand Medicaid in Mississippi. He said surveys show the public support Medicaid expansion.

A grassroots effort had begun to collect the more the more than 106,000 signatures needed of registered voters to place Medicaid expansion on the 2022 ballot, but the effort has been suspended after a Mississippi Supreme Court decision May 14 overturning a medical marijuana initiative approved by voters last year. A majority of state high court justices ruled the state’s initiative process was outdated.

Speaker of the House Philip Gunn and some other state leaders are now urging Gov. Tate Reeves to call a special session to allow lawmakers to reinstate the voters’ initiative.

This report was produced in partnership with the Community Foundation for Mississippi’s local news collaborative, which is independently funded in part by Microsoft Corp. The collaborative includes the Clarion Ledger, the Jackson Advocate, Jackson State University, Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, Mississippi Public Broadcasting and Mississippi Today.

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Mississippi Rep. Michael Guest was one of the 35 Republicans to break party ranks on Wednesday and vote to create an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. 

The bill passed in the House 252 to 175, but it faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where Republicans are determined to stop its passage and eager to move on politically from the deadly pro-Trump riot.

The 35 Republicans who supported the bill included moderate and conservative legislators who held up the bipartisan commission as a balanced and necessary step in acquiring a full understanding of the most violent attack on Congress since the War of 1812. 

“We need answers to questions surrounding the events of Jan. 6,” Guest told Mississippi Today in a statement. “I believe the long conversations that have happened over the last few months have produced a commission that is fair and is structured to find actions that Congress can take to prevent another such attack.”

The commission would be bipartisan and composed of 10 members, with both parties appointing half of them. The commission was modeled after the commission that studied the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, would have subpoena powers and would deliver its findings to Congress by Dec. 31.

READ MORE: Pro-Trump mob storms U.S. Capitol, members of Congress evacuated.

The commission bill was the result of bipartisan negotiations between House Homeland Security Chairman and Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson and the committee’s Republican ranking member Rep. John Katko of New York.

Katko, who previously worked in federal law enforcement for 20 years, said just prior to the vote that the 9/11 commission made the country “infinitely safer” following the infamous attacks and that the proposed Jan. 6 commission would have the same effect.

“I ask my colleagues to consider the fact that this commission is built to work, and it will be depoliticized, and it will get the results we need,” Katko told reporters on Wednesday. 

Despite the bipartisan negotiations, House GOP leadership on Tuesday recommended a “no” vote on the commission bill. Despite authorizing Katko to negotiate with Thompson, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy ultimately argued that the commission would duplicate other ongoing congressional investigations and should have included investigations of leftist protests from last summer. 

Thompson told reporters Wednesday that the Homeland Security panel kept both Republican and Democratic leadership informed throughout negotiations and made suggested changes to the bill.

“It’s unfortunate that the minority leader has, at the last moment, raised issues that basically we had gone past, and there was no issue on his part,” Thompson told reporters on Wednesday. “But I guess that’s politics.”

READ MORE: Mississippi’s GOP congressmen voted to overturn Biden win in Arizona, Pennsylvania.

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Mississippi became the second state in the nation to make all of its residents eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in March 2021. Since then, about 25% of Mississippi’s total population has been fully vaccinated.

Will Stribling, Mississippi Today’s health and breaking news reporter, talked to five Mississippians about what the last year has been like for them and how their lives have changed after becoming fully vaccinated. This is MT Speaks, Mississippi Today’s new video series that connects our reporting with the experiences of Mississippians from across the state. We hope this series not only keeps you informed, but also inspires you to create a better Mississippi.

For more COVID-19 and vaccination resources, visit our COVD-19 Resource Portal.

Want more MT Speaks? Enter your email address and we’ll send you a message when a new episode goes live.

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ITTA BENA — When the pandemic first hit and halted most university operations, faculty at Mississippi Valley State University found themselves with a fleet of unused transit buses that usually took students to and from class.

The unlikely scenario became an opportunity to innovate, though, especially once vaccines started to become available in Mississippi. 

“There are segments of our community that are underserved as far as having transportation. Some people don’t have transportation, period. Therefore, we thought this would be a good opportunity for us to provide something to help those citizens out, especially if people want to get the vaccine,” said Sonji Foster, project director for MVSU mass transit. 

So the mass transit operation at MVSU pivoted. Instead of sitting vacant while students attended virtual classes, transit buses started picking people up who needed a ride and taking them to designated vaccine locations. 

The concept was simple: once a person made an appointment to get the vaccine, they could call MVSU and arrange a ride. As long as the riders gave the transit system 24 hours notice, a transit bus would come pick the person up at whatever location they specified and bring them back home afterward. 

In Bolivar County, community activist Pam Chatman has been organizing similar efforts. Instead of utilizing university transit systems, Chatman has worked with local transportation agencies and philanthropic groups to arrange vaccination transportation for people who need it. 

Chatman advertises around the community that this service is available, which includes what number to call to get a ride. Once a person calls the number to the transportation agency and tells them they need a ride to get vaccinated, that ride is arranged at no cost to the rider. The Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi made an initial contribution of $2,500 to this effort, which has helped fund the free rides.

While the Delta is not short on people working to solve the vaccination transportation issue, the barriers those organizers face are significant.

Part of the challenge is getting the word out. Because broadband internet and computer access is scarce in the Delta, people rely on churches, community groups and word of mouth to spread information.

But with COVID-19 causing church services to go virtual and group gatherings to diminish, information sharing has slowed.

“A huge barrier is that people seem to not know that we’re doing this. Places where people would normally gather to get the word out, those places are not gathering anymore right now,” Foster said.  

To her point, about 25 people have taken advantage of MSVU’s transit system since the opportunity was first announced in March. 

Chatman agreed that information access has been one of the barriers with helping people take advantage of the vaccination transportation system and with setting up appointments to get vaccinated at all.

“That’s why I say it’s so important that churches and community organizations get involved in spreading the word because there’s a lot of parts of Mississippi rural that do not have the computers or broadband to schedule an appointment,” Chatman said. 

Meanwhile, Mississippi’s vaccination rate has plummeted since peaking in late February. 

MSDH reported on Wednesday that 999,042 people in Mississippi — over 33% of the state’s population — have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Nearly 870,000 people have been fully inoculated since the state began distributing vaccines in December.

Mississippi continues to rank last in the nation in the share of its population that has been vaccinated, and the state’s vaccination rate has dropped nearly 75% from its peak in late February. Fewer than 1,000 Mississippians ages 12-15 received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine in the week following its approval for that age group.

“We know that there is an issue, there is a concern,” Chatman said about vaccination access. “And so, it’s up to us as Mississippians to try all of us to help these people in rural areas.” 

Will Stribling contributed to this report.

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The Supreme Court’s elimination of the Mississippi medical marijuana program halted millions of dollars worth of planned in-state spending and job creation, leaving many business owners with little to show for their months of investment and efforts.

Steve Merritt, the chief operating officer for Southern Sky Brands, has called off an $1 million steel order with a Mississippi company. The materials were for the grow facility he intended to start building in Canton.

GrowGeneration, one of the nation’s leading marijuana business suppliers, said it has stopped investing in its Mississippi projects. The Denver-based company had already leased property in Jackson and was considering more.

Quentin Whitwell, a healthcare executive working to create cannabis testing facilities, has an outfitted laboratory in Marshall County waiting on the go-ahead to hire employees. Now, it will continue to sit vacant. 

“Tens of millions of dollars have already been spent in anticipation of the program and hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised,” Whitwell said. “The state stands to lose one of its highest GDP producing industries because of a politically driven court decision.” 

Last week, Mississippi’s Supreme Court struck down the ballot initiative process that voters used to pass the medical marijuana program. Despite 74% of Mississippains voting to change the state constitution to include the medical marijuana program, its future is in limbo. 

“This is not only an affront to voters, but to patients and to the businesses and people who were investing in Mississippi, ready to open in Mississippi,” said Ken Newburger, the executive director of the Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association. “They’re all, at worst, at a loss and, at best, a time lag.” 

The program’s supporters are pushing the Legislature to hold a special session to fix the initiative process and adopt the medical marijuana program. Gov. Tate Reeves has said he’s “a long way” from deciding whether to hold that special session. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said he thinks lawmakers could pass a new medical marijuana program in a special session.

Plenty of entrepreneurs already have several thousands of dollars of their own money tied up in preparing for the program, which was expected to begin in August. 

“Most people didn’t think this was a possibility,” Newburger said. “We believed so wholeheartedly in the democratic process.”

While most medical marijuana-related businesses in the state are now holding off on major planned expenses, many are still moving forward at least with planning. On Tuesday, the Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association hosted a workshop on how to use sales software inside dispensaries. Newburger said 90 people attended. 

One of them was Cindy Ayers-Elliott, who owns and operates Foot Print Farms in west Jackson. The urban farmer’s experience lies in fruit and vegetables and ensuring fresh produce is available to her community’s food deserts.

She said she has already spent $70,000 as she researched and prepared for the cannabis program. Her research isn’t just for her own benefit, but because she wants to be able to share what she learns with smaller farmers and farmers of color. She sees the program as a way to create new wealth in the state with marijuana as a cash crop. 

“It’s a clear pathway as an economic engine to help create entrepreneurs, more business owners, more opportunities for a new caliber of training for our workforce, so we can have a livable wage in this state,” she said. “Something is wrong with the jobs we have here and we continue to repress opportunities.” 

Merritt used to work for an agricultural company that specializes in building cannabis grow rooms before he joined Southern Sky Brands, a Mississippi company that hopes to grow and distribute medical marijuana. 

He estimates he’s had his hands in the construction of about 150 marijuana growing facilities across the country. But all the planned construction for his own 70,000-square-foot facility in Canton is on pause. The construction workers who were hauling dirt have been put on hiatus. 

Marcy Croft, an attorney and founder of the Mississippi Cannabis Trade Association, said there are tens of millions of dollars now held up in businesses that were rearing to support the industry from construction and real estate to testing centers, waste disposal and transportation. 

“All of that promise, all of that passion, all of that money, all of that drive and all the jobs for the Supreme Court to pull the plug — it’s just devastating,” Croft said. 

GrowGeneration announced it leased a 40,000-square-foot warehouse in Jackson in April. The company’s leadership said at that time it hoped Mississippi could be the gateway for medical marijuana in the South. 

The company’s president Michael Salaman now estimates the medical marijuana market in Mississippi won’t be live until 2022. GrowGeneration won’t make any further investments in the state until that market “becomes reality,” Salaman said in a statement. He also said he hopes his company is able “bring jobs and services” as it planned. 

Whitwell, who hopes to help run up to four labs in the state, said his facilities would attract scientists, technicians and workers with doctorate degrees. These are high-paying jobs — the kind that could attract, or keep, young professionals in Mississippi. Each lab would hire up to 20 workers. 

Croft, the trade association founder, said retail and grow operations have discussed starting wages of entry-level jobs of $15 per hour, more than double the federally mandated minimum wage.

Jackson farmer Ayers-Elliott’s preparation plans for the medical marijuana program have shifted. Now her focus is on organizing and educating voters on the Supreme Court’s decision to recall the ballot initiative process.

“This is not just about growing marijuana,” she said. “It’s silencing the people’s voices.”

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