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It’s the elephant in the cockpit.

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U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves of the Southern District of Mississippi has been nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Reeves will be the first African American to serve as chair of the group that was created in the 1980s to reduce sentencing disparities and promote transparency in criminal sentencing.

Reeves, who has presided over several monumental civil rights cases at the federal level, previously served as a Mississippi Supreme Court clerk, as chief of the civil division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi and in private practice for multiple years.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, Mississippi’s sole African American and Democratic member of Congress, praised the appointment this week on social media.

“I support the appointment of Judge Carlton Reeves on being named head of the United States Sentencing Commission,” Thompson said. “It is a pleasure to witness the first Black judge to be appointed chair of the commission.”

Reeves is the second African American appointed as a judge in the Southern District of Mississippi. He was nominated in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama.

The Sentencing Commission consists of seven members, but has not had enough members since 2019 to function. That inability to function has caused concern among members of the judiciary since federal judges across the nation rely on the commission’s work to set sentencing guidelines.

The membership of the commission must include three federal judges. No more than four members can be of the same political party.

As a federal judge, Reeves has handled some of the most high-profile cases in Mississippi, including the trial and ultimate conviction of three young white men for brutally murdering a Black man in 2011. He also issued the ruling that legalized gay marriage in Mississippi, has heard numerous cases seeking to limit abortion access in the state, and has been overseeing a challenge to the constitutionality of the state’s mental health system.

The post Judge Carlton Reeves nominated to become first Black chair of National Sentencing Commission appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to add a defunct chemical manufacturing plant in Hattiesburg to its priority list of hazardous waste sites around the country.  

Hercules, Inc. produced hundreds of chemical products, such as paints, varnishes, and pesticides in the city from 1923 until 2009. Since its closure, multiple EPA inspections have turned up benzene and over a dozen other contaminants in the underlying groundwater. 

After its most recent inspection in 2021, the agency proposed in March to add Hercules to its Superfund National Priorities List.

In 2016, the Delaware-based company, since bought by Ashland Global, settled a lawsuit with the City of Hattiesburg for $3 million after the city alleged that the factory “knowingly and improperly disposed of hazardous waste.” Two years before that, the EPA ordered Hercules to spend $1 million for groundwater remediation in the city.  

After its 2021 visit, the EPA said that the groundwater contamination extends outside of the Hercules property line, underneath an industrial complex and into a residential area. 

The City of Hattiesburg maintains eight drinking wells within two miles of the site. While the EPA hasn’t found any impact to those wells, it said it will continue sampling the residential area, which includes several apartment complexes within a mile radius of the old factory.  

The agency is receiving comments from the public until June 16, and will hold a public meeting on May 19 at the C.E. Roy Community Center in Hattiesburg at 6 P.M. The EPA will then take the comments into consideration as to whether or not to add the old Hercules site to its National Priorities List, or NPL. 

Doing so would initiate an EPA-lead remediation process, after which the agency would work with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and local stakeholders to redevelop the site. 

Hercules would become the second location in Hattiesburg to make the NPL. In 2000, the EPA added Davis Timber Company, a wood-preservation facility, after detecting contaminants from the company in dead fish at a nearby country club in the 1970s and 1980s. 

The redevelopment effort there resulted in an animal shelter at the site that opened in 2013, joined a few years later by a dog park called Fields of Barktopia. The EPA finally removed it from the NPL in 2018.

If added to the NPL, Hercules would become the ninth current site on the list in Mississippi, all but one of which were either a wood or chemical product facility. The other eight are mapped below:

The post EPA looking to prioritize old Hattiesburg facility for hazardous waste clean-up appeared first on Mississippi Today.

State leaders this week scrambled to clarify that prohibiting contraception isn’t on the table in Mississippi after Gov. Tate Reeves declined on national television to rule out a ban on contraceptives. 

But neither Reeves or Speaker of the House Philip Gunn answered questions from Mississippi Today asking whether they consider intrauterine devices (IUDs) and Plan B – which anti-abortion lawmakers in Louisiana have proposed outlawing – to be contraceptives. Legislators in Idaho have suggested they could ban Plan B, while lawmakers in Missouri have sought to label IUDs and Plan B as abortion-inducing, which doctors say is inaccurate. 

Meanwhile, family planning providers in Mississippi are focused on what they see as the bottom line in the wake of a leaked draft opinion that suggests the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade: Contraceptives of all types are legal in Mississippi, and nothing in the draft opinion itself would change that. 

However, such a ruling would make access more important in a state with such poor outcomes for women and babies. Mississippi has one of the country’s highest rates of unplanned pregnancy and maternal mortality and the highest infant mortality rate.

“What we want to reinforce is that contraception is legally accessible,” said Jamie Bardwell, one of the co-founders of Converge, the nonprofit now administering Mississippi’s $4.5 million federal family planning grant. “There is no law on the table that would limit that right now. A majority of women have used it, and we do anticipate that any future limits on access to abortion will increase the demand for contraception.” 

One Delta group is already taking action. More than half of counties in the rural region have no OB-GYN. The Delta is home to about a third of all Black Mississippians, who are about three times likelier than white Mississippians to die of pregnancy-related complications and more likely to lose their babies before their first birthday.

Plan A, the mobile health clinic established to expand access to reproductive health care in the area, announced in an email Wednesday that it plans to distribute emergency contraception to more than 250 patients over the next three months, as well as free pregnancy tests.

Reeves said Sunday morning in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper that he believes life begins at conception. When pressed, he declined to say whether he considers “conception” to mean when an egg is fertilized or when there is implantation in the uterus, usually about five to six days later. 

In response to a follow-up question about whether the state would consider banning certain forms of contraceptives, Reeves said, “That is not what we are focused on at this time.” 

The precise meaning of “conception” matters, because some IUDs that usually work by preventing fertilization can also stop a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Laws stating that life begins at fertilization could thus ban certain forms of birth control. 

They could also criminalize emergency contraceptives like Plan B, which most commonly prevents pregnancy by stopping ovulation but can also stop implantation. 

In Louisiana, a legislative committee approved a bill that would make abortion a homicide and states life “should be equally protected from fertilization to natural death.”

Reeves posted a Twitter thread later on Sunday providing “some clarification” on his interviews with Tapper and NBC’s Chuck Todd.

“I’m not interested in banning contraceptives,” he wrote.

Mississippi Today asked Reeves’ office this week whether he considers IUDs to be contraceptives. The office responded with a statement that did not directly answer the question. 

“The Governor has been clear that he has no interest in banning contraceptives,” the statement from a spokesperson said.

Mississippi Today asked a second time if the spokesperson would directly answer whether Reeves considers IUDs and Plan B to be contraceptives. She did not respond.

Speaker of the House Philip Gunn issued a statement saying that the House wouldn’t move legislation banning contraceptives shortly after Reeves’ television interviews. 

“Gov. Reeves’ recent interviews caused confusion on the future of contraceptives in MS after a ruling on Dobbs,” he said on Twitter. “The scaremongering on the left intended to make pro-life states look extreme won’t work. Rest assured, @MSHouseofRep wouldn’t move legislation banning contraceptives.”

Gunn’s office did not respond to phone calls and text messages from Mississippi Today asking whether he considers IUDs and Plan B to be contraceptives.

Reeves’ Twitter thread on Sunday claimed that banning contraceptives has “never been a conversation here.”

But Mississippi lawmakers in the past have supported measures that could have criminalized certain forms of contraceptives. In 2011, many backed a constitutional amendment that sought to define life “to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof.” Opponents argued that if passed, it would ban both contraceptives and  in vitro fertilization (IVF), and 58% of voters rejected it.

Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, the author of many anti-abortion bills, said in an interview with Mississippi Today that he doesn’t anticipate reviving “personhood” legislation because the state’s trigger law will ban abortion in almost all cases. He said he is not interested in banning contraceptives. 

“I’m in favor of all the contraceptive options, short of an abortion,” he said.

The anti-abortion movement contains a range of views on contraceptives. Some see them as a way to reduce abortions, while others oppose them for the same reasons they oppose abortions, believing that life begins at fertilization. Groups like Students for Life of America and Americans United for Life have labeled IUDs and Plan B as “abortifacients,” or a drug or chemical that induces an abortion. 

While there is only one abortion clinic in Missisisippi, IUDs and other forms of long-acting, reversible contraceptives (LARCs) are common. These forms of birth control are the most effective: a copper IUD is more than 99% effective at preventing pregnancy, compared to about 85% for male condoms. 

Family planning providers in Mississippi are preparing for an end to legal abortion access in the state. 

In addition to distributing emergency contraception and pregnancy tests, Plan A said it is working with local OB-GYNs to add prenatal services. 

“Mississippi has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the country and banning abortion will lead to an increase in high-risk pregnancies with no plans to reduce the barriers to care faced by pregnant people,” the email said. “Plan A will help to fill that gap.”

Converge, which administers federal funds to ensure low-income Mississippians can access birth control and other reproductive health services, is focused on rolling out telemedicine to make it easier for people to get prescriptions. 

“I think that we are all preparing for the decision, when it comes, to create a higher need for contraception and a higher need for clear and accurate public communications around the availability of contraception,” said Converge co-founder Danielle Lampton.

Mississippians who use Title X services have historically been less likely to receive highly effective LARCs and more likely to wind up with the pill or male condoms. 

“We don’t want the community to be confused by what’s going on in the news,” said Jitoria Hunter, director of external affairs at Converge.

The post Do Reeves, Gunn consider IUDs contraceptives? They won’t say. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Three former state auditors say they would have recused themselves or limited their involvement in the investigation into Mississippi’s welfare fraud scandal to avoid perceptions of conflict of interest due to current auditor Shad White’s close relationship with former Gov. Phil Bryant.

White and his office identified the misspending and possible theft of tens of millions of dollars in federal money meant to help the state’s poor. But Bryant’s responsibility in directly supervising his welfare department director and the fact that some of the taxpayer money flowed to people and programs favored by the former governor are notably missing from his extensive audit report. 

White also faced questions early on — and criticism from the U.S. Attorney’s Office — as to why he didn’t promptly bring in federal authorities, who have massive investigative resources, particularly since the malfeasance involved federal tax dollars. 

The spotlight on White has grown more intense in the wake of Mississippi Today’s “The Backchannel” investigation, which showed Bryant using private texts to influence his welfare director and try to broker a deal with a pharmaceutical startup that enticed him with stock in the company. 

Bryant has since acknowledged that the content of his messages “doesn’t look good,” but while the auditor’s office has possessed the records for over two years, it concealed them from the public and has not made any indication it has further investigated the matter.

White’s relationship with Bryant goes back more than a decade. He served as policy director when Bryant was lieutenant governor and was his gubernatorial campaign manager in 2015. Bryant appointed White as state auditor, a job that has been a launching pad for runs to higher office, and supported him in his subsequent election.

Those connections have helped cast doubt over the independence and rigor of the state welfare investigation led by White. 

“The rule that I lived by was if there is any question whatsoever, don’t do it,” said Pete Johnson, who served as state auditor from 1988-1992, and ran unsuccessfully for governor, losing to Kirk Fordice in the Republican primary in 1991. Johnson said under similar circumstances, if he had such connections to someone potentially involved, he would have recused himself or limited his role in the investigation.

“You’re not only jeopardizing your integrity but the integrity of the purpose you’re pursuing … Those facts raise the question of whether or not it passes the smell test,” Johnson said. “And when those facts are looming out there, you’ve got to back off and ask will my involvement jeopardize the integrity of the investigation … I think (White) is a man of high integrity, but you asked me personally what I would do and that’s it.”

Former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus served as state auditor from 1984 to 1988. He worked closely with federal authorities in the “Operation Pretense” investigation and prosecution of widespread county government corruption across Mississippi. Mabus said that given White’s ties to Bryant, he should have handed off his lead role in investigating to someone else.

“Look, if you’re going to give the taxpayers confidence that investigations are being done impartially and objectively, even if this one is being done that way, it’s never going to look that way because of their closeness, and nobody’s going to believe that punches weren’t pulled,” Mabus said.

“… I guess a similar situation would have been if I ever learned something about (former Gov.) William Winter, whom I worked for as governor and a little bit on a campaign and I was his legal counsel,” Mabus said. “William Winter is the very last person who would ever do anything like that, but if I had come across evidence, I would have removed myself. Especially if I wasn’t going to take strong action on it, I would turn it over to somebody else.”

Steve Patterson was state auditor from 1992 to 1996, when he resigned after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of using a false affidavit to buy a car tag. In 2009 he was sentenced to two years in federal prison for his role in a judicial bribery case.

Patterson said that were he in White’s position, “I would hope that I would have recused myself or brought the attorney general in to do the investigation.”

“Having said that, it’s a timing thing,” Patterson said. “You get those complaints that come in, and it’s what did you know and when did you know it. Knowing what we know now, clearly he should have recused himself and should be recusing himself now.”

Former Auditor Stacey Pickering, whom Bryant replaced with White, declined comment.

White as auditor has burnished a reputation as a hard-charging defender of state tax dollars, and was credited with unmasking a massive scheme in the 2019 welfare scandal. But some holes in the audit have since emerged, especially relating to Bryant’s involvement behind the scenes.

The Mississippi Today investigation revealed that the former governor assisted a company called Prevacus, which improperly received welfare money, and he was poised to receive stock in the company until White’s office made arrests and announced its investigation.

READ MORE: State Auditor Shad White discusses welfare investigation, former Gov. Phil Bryant

The text messages between Bryant, the owner of Prevacus and retired NFL star Brett Favre have been in the possession of the auditor’s office for more than two years. They show the two men telling Bryant the company had received public funds, and that the governor intended to make his own business deal with Prevacus after he left office. But White did not reveal that storyline to the public.

Instead, White has credited Bryant as the “whistle blower” who prompted his investigation, and said that it was Bryant’s welfare director’s responsibility to know the law and refuse any improper directives from the governor.

Questions about if and when White’s office alerted other authorities to the text messages remain. The auditor’s office refused to turn the messages over to Mississippi Today after a public records request, and the outlet has a pending Ethics Commission records complaint against the office.

White and numerous other officials have declined comment on the case for months citing a gag order from a state judge.

But in an October 2021 interview with Mississippi Today — before the judge strengthened the gag order in the case to further restrict White — the auditor said he had not seen instances of Bryant directing his welfare chief to spend federal money on specific programs. Mississippi Today later obtained communications between the governor and principal players in the scandal discussing the allocation of financial aid.

White also said then that it was the welfare director’s duty to reject improper requests from the governor, not the governor’s responsibility to know the rules and laws.

An early oddity in the auditor’s probe came when White went to the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office — notoriously understaffed and suffering huge backlogs of cases — after he launched an eight-month investigation without notifying federal authorities.

Then-Southern District U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst in early 2020 issued a release noting, “We in the United States Attorney’s Office and the FBI only learned … from media reports about the indictments and arrests, at the same time the general public did.”

“While we commend the reported actions, neither the FBI nor the United States Attorney’s Office was contacted by the State Auditor or the Hinds County District Attorney about this investigation, although millions of federal dollars are alleged to have been stolen.”

White at the time said that his office moved swiftly and without notifying or involving federal authorities so as to halt the scheme before any more money was misspent or stolen. White has pointed to slow action by federal authorities as justification for his agency investigating and making the arrests. More than two years later, federal authorities have not brought any charges related to the welfare scandal.

White did face questions about Bryant, given that the former governor’s director of human services and close friends of Bryant were among those arrested and indicted, and the malfeasance appeared to involve programs or companies Bryant had championed. But shortly after the arrests, White said that then-Gov. Bryant was actually the whistleblower who prompted the auditor’s office investigation.

READ MORE: Phil Bryant had his sights on a payout as welfare funds flowed to Brett Favre

Federal criminal investigations are notoriously slow, but also notoriously thorough. Their vast undercover, wiretap and other resources allow the FBI and DOJ to cast wide nets over criminal conspiracies.

Hurst, in his statement at the time of the arrests, noted, “Investigating and prosecuting cases of this magnitude and complexity is routinely what the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Offices do here in Mississippi and around the country.”

Hurst, a Trump administration appointee who left office in early 2021, declined a recent request for comment on the case.

White has said that after his initial eight-month investigation and arrests, he has involved federal authorities and turned over everything his investigators have.

Nearly three years after the massive scandal involving at least $77 million in misspent or stolen federal welfare dollars, the state Department of Human Services on Monday announced a civil lawsuit attempting to claw back $24 million from famous former athletes and pro wrestlers — including Bryant’s friend Brett Favre and Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase – among others.

It’s unclear where any continuing federal or state investigations stand at this point. No further arrests have been made since White’s office initially arrested six people in February of 2020 — Bryant’s head of DHS and another agency employee, former pro wrestler Brett DiBiase, a nonprofit and private school owner and her son and an accountant that worked for them. Four out of six have since pleaded guilty to state charges.

In a statement about the DHS lawsuit White said: “We will continue to work alongside our federal partners — who have been given access to all our evidence for more than two years — to make sure the case is fully investigated.”

Bryant’s appointment of his former campaign manager and policy director White as state auditor in 2018 was something of a surprise to most political observers. Bryant said at the time that he wanted someone with “independence” who did not have numerous political relationships and ties to the government officials and institutions he would be auditing.

At White’s swearing in as auditor after he appointed him, Bryant said: “When I was auditor, I used to enjoy saying, ‘In God we trust. All others, we audit.’ Shad, you’re welcome to use that.”

Note: After this story published, Auditor Shad White responded on Twitter.

The post Former auditors question whether Shad White was too close to investigate Phil Bryant appeared first on Mississippi Today.

HATTIESBURG — To paraphrase the great Twain: Reports of the demise of the Ole Miss Rebels baseball team have been greatly exaggerated.

Yes, the road to a fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament — and the 21st in Mike Bianco’s 26-season Ole Miss coaching stint — looked at dead end just a few days ago. The Rebels were floundering at 24-19, and a lowly 7-14 in the SEC. 

But that was before the Rebels swept three straight from Missouri by a combined score of 25-8 and then bested Southern Miss 4-1 before a packed house of 6,346 at Pete Taylor Park.

All of the sudden, the Rebs are 28-19 with a No. 49 RPI (up six places in one night) and with a chance to make a quantum leap this weekend at LSU.

As mid-week victories go, the Rebs’ conquest of the Golden Eagles was about as big as they come. Southern Miss came in at 36-12 and with a No. 16 RPI. The victory was earned before a standing-room-only crowd of 6,346, the largest in Southern Miss history by more than 600. You’d have needed a shoehorn to get another warm body in the place.

There’s a baseball lesson here for the taking. In this most capricious of sports, things are never quite as desperate as they may seem. Seasons can turn around as quickly as a couple bats heat up or a key player gets healthy. Look at the Atlanta Braves or the Mississippi State Bulldogs last season. Look at Southern Miss’ only College World Series team back in 2009. The Eagles were dead in the water in early May, in Omaha in June. This stuff just happens in baseball. Things change. Fast.

And here’s another lesson: In baseball, things often aren’t nearly as rosy as they may seem, either. Just two weeks ago, Southern Miss had just won its school-record 15th straight game, had a 33-8 record and was ranked as high as No. 4 in the nation. Then a couple sluggers got hurt, a couple breaks went the wrong way, and now the Golden Eagles have lost five of their last eight games and back-to-back Conference USA series, and seem to be limping toward the finish.

Their Conference USA lead is down to two games over UTSA. And guess who comes to town Friday. If you guessed the UTSA Roadrunners, winners of their last six conference series, you would be absolutely correct.

But let’s get back to Ole Miss for the moment. Once the No. 1 ranked team in the land (before the Tennessee monster appeared), the Rebels are fully capable of extending this modest four-game win streak and playing their way into the NCAA Tournament. Few teams can slug with the Rebels when they are on seeing the ball as they appear to be seeing it now.

They can strike like lightning, as they showed in the fourth inning Wednesday night. Southern Miss starter Matt Adams had faced the minimum through three innings and the Eagles held a 1-0 lead. Then, Jacob Gonzalez singled up the middle, and one batter later, sweet-swinging Kevin Graham slammed a two-run home run into USM’s Right Field Roost. Before the home crowd could recover from that, Kemp Alderman then launched a massive, solo home run to left field. Little did we know, the Rebels had all the runs they would need with five innings still to play.

Graham’s homer was the game’s big blow and it came on a change-up from Adams that Graham was totally expecting. “He threw me four changes my first at bat,” Graham said. “That’s what I was expecting. That’s what I got, over the middle of the plate and down.”

Drew McDaniel gave the Rebels a quality start, five innings 0f one-run baseball. Jackson Kimbrell, Josh Mallitz and Brandon Johnson then shut the Eagles down on one hit over the last four frames.

“This was obviously a big win,” Bianco said. “They’ve been a top 10 team and this is a tough place to play. You can’t say enough about the job Scott Berry has done here. We needed this and it’s nice to play well tonight in this atmosphere after we played so well last weekend.”

Across the field, Berry lamented what he called “too many non-competitive at bats.”

“We struck out 15 times, and I can’t remember a time when we’ve struck out more than our opponents, but that’s what happened tonight. Not taking anything away from Ole Miss, they pitched it well, but we just didn’t compete. We had runners in scoring position in four innings and didn’t get a hit. We didn’t get anything but Sarge’s (Christopher Sargent’s) second inning home run.

“We’ve scored five runs in our last three losses,” Berry continued. “That’s not going to get it.”

Slugger Slade Wilks is back in the Eagles lineup after missing four games, but Reece Ewing, the normally the No. 3 hitter in the Southern Miss order, has now missed nine straight games with a broken hand that has healed slowly. Let’s put it this way: The Eagles lineup looks a lot different without him in it.

Berry said Ewing will visit a hand specialist Thursday, but he didn’t sound hopeful of getting him back any time soon — and certainly not for this weekend’s big conference series.

Berry’s offense currently needs a shot in the arm, and Ewing is not where it’s coming from — at least not immediately. If there’s a silver lining for the Golden Eagles, it’s this: This is baseball. It can turn back around as quickly as it just turned around.

The post Ole Miss shows they have some fight left in them. Meanwhile, USM must find some. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Formula None appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Editor’s note: A full list of cities and counties that opted out are included at the bottom of this story.

At least 28 cities and a dozen counties completely opted out of Mississippi’s medical marijuana program by the May 3 deadline, but the state’s health department isn’t keeping an official list of all the municipalities restricting cannabis businesses.  

It is also unclear if the Department of Revenue, the other state agency charged with running and overseeing the program, has any sort of official list of local governments who don’t want to participate. The agency didn’t respond to a request for comment by the time of publishing.

Both agencies will soon be accepting applications to administer licenses for the state’s long-awaited medical marijuana program. 

The Mississippi State Department of Health does have an optional verification form for municipalities on its website, but in a statement MSDH said “there is no mandate for local governments to report to us that they are opting out.” The department also said it does not have a comprehensive list. 

As a result, the most complete list showing which areas have opted out of the program was put together by the Mississippi Cannabis Trade Association, a business and advocate group. Their list shows cities around Jackson and counties in the Delta choosing not to allow dispensaries, cultivation and production facilities to open in their areas. 

Ken Newburger, the director of the Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association, said the law itself didn’t include a directive for municipalities to report. At the same time, the lack of an official list at this point shouldn’t embolden anyone to attempt to get around the system when it’s time to put in applications, he said. 

“If you try to open a dispensary in a city that has opted out, the local officials have every power to 1. Stop you and 2. Report you to the state,” Newburger said. 

There has been some confusion in the week after the opt-out deadline. Flowood, for example, voted to opt out of all three categories the law allows cities to have a say in: distribution, cultivation, and processing products. Yet, some thought the city must have opted in because it will have a testing facility.

But testing facilities aren’t one of the categories municipalities can control – so the city’s medical marijuana status won’t affect the testing facility slated to open there.  

READ MORE: As Mississippi cities opt out of medical marijuana, business hopefuls shut out

Each county’s decision to opt out only covers its unincorporated areas, meaning some cities within opt-out counties are still able to have businesses in the program. Patients who live in opt-out areas can still possess and take medical marijuana. 

The trade association is working with advocates and entrepreneurs in opt-out areas to sign petitions that would trigger a special election over the matter. Local governments that opted out also have the choice to opt back in at any time.

Those that didn’t opt out by the May 3 deadline, however, don’t have any flexibility.

Beginning in June, the health department says it plans to begin accepting online applications for licenses for patients, medical practitioners, cultivation facilities, processing facilities, testing facilities, waste disposal businesses and transportation businesses. 

The Department of Revenue is responsible for licensing dispensaries and will start accepting applications in July. The agency now has waiver forms available that allow potential businesses to get permission from schools or churches to operate if they’re less than 1,000 feet away but no closer than 500 feet. 

Without a waiver, dispensaries must be at least 1,000 feet away. The law also doesn’t allow dispensaries to be within 1,500 feet of each other. 

READ MORE: New medical marijuana law draws millions in Mississippi investment

Melvin Robinson III, the spokesman for the trade association, said so far the early stages of the program and its rules are rolling out as expected. 

“Everyone is excited as it gets closer to the date,” Robinson said.

Given the interest, Robinson said he won’t be surprised if the agencies handling licensing wind up hitting a backlog in applications. He expects their websites to be swamped once they start accepting online applications this summer.  

Newberger said the health department is using a portal for applications that has been used and tested in other states. He, too, expected an application rush.

“Not everyone who applies is going to get one,” he said. 

The Department of Health has said it plans on a 30-day approval period for its business and physician related licenses and a five-day period for patients. 

Cities that opted out of dispensaries and cultivation/processing

• Amory
• Belmont
• Brandon
• Booneville
• Caledonia
• Carrollton
• Clinton
• D’Iberville
• Ecru
• Flora
• Gluckstad
• Greenwood
• Horn Lake
• Kilmichael
• Lucedale
• Madison
• New Albany
• Noxapater 
• Pass Christian
• Picayune
• Poplarville
• Pontotoc
• Ridgeland
• Southaven 
• Sumrall
• Tishomingo 
• Vaiden 

Cities that don’t allow dispensaries but do allow cultivation and processing

• Winona 
• North Carrollton

Counties that opted out of dispensaries and cultivation/processing (only applies to unincorporated areas)

• Carroll County
• George County
• Leflore County
• Lincoln County
• Newton County
• Neshoba County
• Pearl River County
• Pontotoc County
• Tippah County
• Union County
• Choctaw County
• Lauderdale County

Counties that don’t allow dispensaries but do allow cultivation/processing (only applies to unincorporated areas) 

• Jones County
• Madison County

Clarification 5/11/22: This story has been updated to show Madison County has opted out of dispensaries but does allow cultivation.

The post At least 28 cities have opted out of medical marijuana, but the state is not keeping track appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Veteran civil rights attorney Carroll Rhodes of Hazlehurst said Tuesday that talks are ongoing over whether to file a lawsuit challenging the 174 state legislative districts for diluting the voting strength of Mississippi’s minority population.

Rhodes, who has been involved for decades in efforts to ensure Black voters have opportunities to elect candidates of their choice, said the NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union and others are still debating whether to challenge the redistricting plan approved by the Legislature during the 2022 session as unconstitutional.

“There are additional districts to be created for Black voters to elect candidates of their choice,” Rhodes said Tuesday during a virtual media presentation by multiple attorneys involved in redistricting litigation throughout the country.

During the 2022 session, the Mississippi Legislature enacted a “status quo” redistricting plan, Rhodes pointed out. Under the plan, 42 of the state’s 122 House districts are majority African American, while 15 of the 52 Senate districts have majority Black populations.

The redistricting plan was approved even though based on the 2020 U.S. Census data the state’s non-white population grew during the last 10 years while the state’s white population decreased significantly.

Based on the 2020 Census, Mississippi’s white population decreased 95,791 people the past 10 years to 1,658,893. During the same time period, the Black population declined just 13,940 to 1,084,481. Other minority groups experienced slight upticks, though still making up a much smaller percentage of the state’s overall population when compared to the white and African American population.

The percentage of Mississippians identifying as other than solely white or African American was 3.85% in 2010, and now stands at 7.36%, according to Census data.

Under the plan approved by the Legislature and facing a possible federal lawsuit, 29% of the Senate districts are majority African American while 34% of the House districts are. Based on the 2020 Census, the state’s African American or partially African American population is 38%, while the white population is 59%.

During the media presentation, Rhodes said the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the redistricting plan approved by the Legislature for the four U.S. House districts is ongoing. No one is certain whether the three judge federal panel that is hearing the congressional lawsuit will rule before the 2022 election. The party primary election for the House seats is June 7. The general election is slated for November.

Rhodes, who is representing the NAACP in the congressional U.S. House redistricting lawsuit, said there is more time to decide whether to challenge the newly drawn state legislative districts since those elections will not occur until 2023.

The post Civil rights attorney signals possible lawsuit over new legislative districts that dilute Black votes appeared first on Mississippi Today.

HATTIESBURG — Janice Jones scanned the growing crowd, her brown eyes squinting in the bright sun. 

About 30 people, some wearing red t-shirts and holding signs, were gathering at a fountain near University of Southern Mississippi’s Danforth Chapel for a protest. The group planned to march to President Rodney Bennett’s office and deliver more than 250 pledge cards calling on him to raise the university’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.

All week, Jones and her fellow custodians had talked about attending. Custodians she didn’t know had stopped her in the hall to ask if she was going. But now it was fifteen minutes past four, the rally was set to start, and only one of Jones’ coworkers had shown up. 

“Most of them are Black,” she said. “I’m looking, and I’m like, where are all the Black faces?” 

Jones has worked as a custodian at USM for about three years. She hadn’t intended to stay for long until a car accident at the start of the pandemic left her scrambling to save for knee surgery. These days, she clocks in just before 5 a.m. for her shift, cleaning toilets, sanitizing desks and door handles, and sweeping sunflower seeds from between seats in the M.M. Roberts Stadium. For that work, Jones makes about $10 an hour, the lowest wage on campus. 

Shortly before her car accident, Jones learned about a group called United Campus Workers (UCW). The labor union, an affiliate of Communication Workers of America, was looking for custodians to join its “Fight for $15” campaign, and she quickly got involved in the chapter. But the pandemic made it difficult to organize. As USM went “back to normal,” turnover increased. Jones said it felt like the workload tripled. USM started bussing Jones and the remaining custodians around campus, often requiring them to work “mandatory overtime” at 1.5 times their typical hourly pay.

Then in January, Bennett, who made history when he became USM’s first Black president eight years ago, announced his intent to step down in 2023. Jones and other members of UCW spotted an opportunity. One of Bennett’s first acts as president had been to establish the $10 minimum wage on campus — UCW thought maybe that could be one of Bennett’s last acts too. So about a month ago, UCW members got together and voted to hold a protest the first week of May. 

In front of the fountain, Jones tried to put her coworkers out of her mind as Samuel Ewing, another UCW member, climbed onto a concrete hedge to start the rally. Through a megaphone, Ewing told the crowd that he was one of the many workers on campus who made far less than $10 an hour. As an adjunct professor, he had taught four classes this past year and made just $12,000. 

UCW’s campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, he said, would benefit “a broad swath” of workers on campus. 

“I’m talking custodial, janitorial workers, these are library workers, administrators — the people who run this university, who make this place what it is,” he said. “If we want to be a place that’s welcoming to students, that’s supporting the students, we’ve got to support the people who make this university work.” 

“The university is going to raise the wage,” Ewing continued, “but they’re only gonna do it if we demand it. They’re only gonna do it if we show them that we want it, that we deserve it, that we need it, and that we’re gonna build a healthy community.” 

“Yes, yes!” Jones said, nodding her head. 

It was February 2020, and Jones was taking her 12 o’clock break outside the liberal arts building when a tall, white man with long hair approached her. His name was John Jester, he said, and he was an organizer with United Campus Workers. Did she have some time to talk about the union? 

As Jones smoked a cigarette, Jester started his spiel. UCW got its start in 2000, he said, when a group of faculty, student workers and community members at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, voted to form a “wall-to-wall” union that any employee could join. Now, amid a national wave of unionization, UCW was on a mission to organize higher education in the South — a difficult task in Mississippi, considering state law bans public employees from going on strike. 

“We’re not trying to go for an election,” Jester said. “It’s really about bringing all the different constituencies around campus together — faculty, tenured and non-tenured, grad staff, facilities and maintenance — and just identifying the issues that need to be changed.” 

If Jester wanted custodians to join UCW, Jones said there were a lot of places he could start. For one, custodians needed a significant raise. Most took on extra jobs to make ends meet; at the time, Jones was working for a temp agency. 

Another issue, Jones said, was the attendance-based point system used by the Physical Plant, the department that oversees custodians. Per the policy, custodians can accrue points for missing a shift, clocking in late, or leaving early — accumulating 10 points can result in dismissal. The policy was intended to curb excessive absences, but Jones said she felt like it was regularly misused. She said she was one of many custodians who were given points even after providing human resources with a doctor’s note. 

About a month later, the pandemic hit Mississippi. Jones was driving a van for her second job when she got into an accident and tore a ligament in her right knee. She requested accommodations at USM, but the best the school could do was limit the time she spent cleaning stairs. To this day, Jones wears a blue brace because she is still saving to pay for surgery.

“They explained there’s no such thing as ‘light duty’ out here,” she said. “You either can do the job or you can’t.” 

Jones gave Jester her phone number that day in February 2020. Over the course of the next year, she regularly joined him outside the gate of the Physical Plant to talk to her coworkers about unionizing. 

When Jones talked to coworkers about the union, she tried to explain it through her personal experience. In the 1960s, when she was growing up in Hattiesburg, her dad had been a member of the union at the now-closed Hercules chemical plant. He was one of the first Black employees there. Jones, who described herself as a “nosy child,” said she would bug her dad to explain why he was “always talking about ‘the union.’” She later learned a union steward had helped her parents access credit that allowed them to buy their home, a small three-bedroom in an all-white neighborhood. 

“He would explain to us that when you have a union, you have a group of people that are gonna be there for you,” she said. “Some companies, they’re in control of everything — whatever they say or decide, it’s entirely up to them. When you have a union rep, you’ve got somebody that’s gonna fight for you.” 

Some of Jones’ co-workers responded to her stories enthusiastically and they too started passing out fliers. But others were wary. They’d sign pledge cards but never show up to meetings. Once, Jones said that several coworkers she’d invited to an off-campus UCW meeting left when they couldn’t find parking at the restaurant. 

In Mississippi, which has long had one of the lowest rates of union membership in the country, Jones knew that organizing was a fraught and unfamiliar subject for many people. But she hadn’t realized exactly how scared her coworkers were of losing their job — not the money, but some of its crucial benefits, like access to the state of Mississippi’s retirement plan and discounted tuition for their kids. 

It also seemed to Jones like custodians were being warned not to speak out. During summer 2021, Jones and Jester were leafleting outside the gate when a police car pulled up. The officers told Jester he was violating the campus solicitation policy and had to leave. (USM officials did not dispute this description of the incident.)

Jones doesn’t know who called the police, but after Jester left, a manager at the Physical Plant asked Jones to follow her back to her office so she could make a copy of UCW’s fliers. Jones told her no, she was off the clock. If she wanted one, she could’ve asked Jester for it. 

Around the same time, 24-year-old Kyrelle Harris, a former custodian, said he was fired because he accumulated too many points. Harris said he was outspoken about how USM made him use vacation time when he got COVID in early 2020 and was still too sick to return to work after his quarantine period. After he complained, he said he started to get “nitpicked” about his work on the job. 

In a statement, Margaret Ann McCloud, USM’s spokesperson, wrote USM “offers staff members with medical conditions access to multiple avenues of employment protection” and does not retaliate. She said “only one Physical Plant employee has lost a job for excessive absences under the points system in the past 12 months.” 

Harris never joined UCW, even though he wanted his working conditions to improve. He said he couldn’t afford the $15 monthly dues on his paycheck. He also said he felt like custodians who had advocated for higher wages never got anywhere, which made him feel discouraged from trying. 

After Ewing finished his speech on Thursday, he led Jones, Jester, and the rest of the protesters in a short march to the Aubrey K. Lucas Administration Building, where Bennett’s office is. Jester paused on the steps. He held up a manila envelope of pledge cards, turned to Jones, and nodded. They had spent a year working toward this moment, but neither of them knew what to expect. “Alright,” he said. 

The inside of the administration building was cooler than outside, lined with dark wood and granite. In a single-file line, Jones, Jester, and J. Theresa Bush, a third member of UCW, walked up to the front desk, introduced themselves to the receptionist, and asked if they could talk to Bennett. After a moment, a white man came out, and Jester handed him the envelope. They turned to leave. Then Bennett walked out the glass doors of his office. 

“Good to see you,” he said. “Tell me what this is about.” 

Since Bennett became president in 2013, USM has grown its economic footprint and reached record levels of enrollment. Raising the minimum wage that year was just one of a number of decisions that garnered good will. According to Gulf Live, Bennett made the decision in response to a request from a worker at an open forum. 

“This will allow employees to live the type of life that USM employees should be able to live,” Bennett said at the time. “I think it will allow employees to spend more time with their families and children. It’s the right thing to do, and it will have an impact on the economics of the community.” 

But in the eight years since the raise, many low-wage workers say their take-home pay has not significantly increased. In a statement, Jim Coll, USM’s chief communication officer, said that “while the USM minimum pay rate has remained the same, employees at all pay levels have received pay increases on multiple occasions over the past decade, and have benefitted from promotion opportunities.”

Standing next to Bennett, Jones felt nervous. She thought he seemed surprised by the protest, and she hoped he would take them seriously. 

“We’re just appealing to you,” Jester said, “because when you came in you raised the wages.” 

“That was a real priority for me when I first got here to do that,” Bennett replied. 

Everybody shook hands and, at first, it seemed like Bennett was going to go back inside his office. Then Bush made a request: Would Bennett come back outside with them? An assistant professor of theater, Bush wanted to give Bennett a chance to acknowledge that he had received UCW’s pledge cards to the protesters. 

“Everybody’s there,” she said. “That would be amazing.” 

Outside, Bennett held up the manila envelope of pledge cards. 

“I’ve got my materials,” he said. “So we’ll take a look at it. Thank y’all for being here.” 

After the protest, Jones and her coworker stuck around the fountain and talked about everything they’d like to see improved at work — the point system, the mandatory overtime, the pay. Jones’ thoughts turned to her brief interaction with Bennett. She felt teary-eyed. 

“I hope it doesn’t turn ugly,” she thought. “But he’s on his way out. The way he looked, he’s only going to do what they let him.” 

Jones also kept thinking about her coworkers, the ones who said they’d be there but didn’t come. In the two years she’d been organizing with USM, the chapter had grown to about 30 members, but it was mostly faculty. Still, she was shocked that so few Physical Plant workers showed up because custodians and other low-wage workers stood to gain the most from a wage increase. 

“It’s their security blanket,” Jones said. “They want more, they know they deserve more, but they’re so afraid of losing this job, they just disconnect, and they don’t want to be associated with it, but they’re willing to reap any benefits that come out of this.” 

A local TV station had filmed the protest, and the next day, Jones heard about the segment from some of her coworkers. They could tell she was in the crowd by her bedazzled “Limited Edition” baseball hat and shiny gold hoops. Jones was tempted to ask where they’d been. Instead, she told them they missed out.

The post ‘We need it’: How one custodian is fighting fear to get a pay raise at University of Southern Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.