A special legislative session is being discussed by political leaders in the wake of last week’s explosive ruling by the Mississippi Supreme Court striking down both the state’s new medical marijuana program and the entire initiative process where citizens can gather signatures to place issues on the ballot for voters to decide.
Sources close to the issue said that lawmakers have broached the issue of a special session with Gov. Tate Reeves’ office.
Without a special session, the earliest that the Legislature could enact a medical marijuana program would be in January when the 2022 session begins. And it would take even longer to reinstate the initiative process since it would require a two-thirds vote of both chambers of the Legislature and then approval by voters presumably during the November 2022 general election.
During a special session, legislators could have an opportunity to create a medical marijuana program and perhaps to fix the language in the state’s initiative process that resulted in last week’s Supreme Court ruling.
Efforts to garner comments from Reeves, House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, have been unsuccessful thus far. On the day of the Supreme Court ruling, Bailey Martin, a spokesperson for Reeves, told the Daily Journal in Tupelo, “Like most Mississippians, Gov. Reeves is interested and intrigued by the Supreme Court’s decision on the recent ballot initiative. He and his team are currently digesting the Court’s 58 page opinion and will make further comment once that analysis is complete.”
Senate President Pro Tem Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, said he has not heard discussions about a special session, but said, “I would not be opposed to a special session” to take up the issue of medical marijuana. He pointed out the Senate passed a bill earlier this year in the 2021 session that would have put in place a medical marijuana program if the Supreme Court struck down the medical marijuana initiative. The House did not take up the Senate proposal, opting to wait for the Supreme Court ruling.
Kirby said he had not studied the issue of whether there should be an effort in special session to take up fixing the entire initiative process.
Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, the House minority leader, who was critical of last week’s Supreme Court ruling, said he would support a special session to take up both issues.
In a 6-3 ruling last week, the Mississippi Supreme Court struck down the medical marijuana initiative that was approved overwhelmingly by voters in November and in the process voided the state’s initiative that has been in effect since 1992.
In the process of voiding the process, six initiatives that were at varying stages of trying to garner the required number of signatures were killed. Those efforts were:
Expanding Medicaid.
Enacting early voting.
Enacting term limits.
Legalizing recreational marijuana.
Giving voters the opportunity to restore the old flag that contained the Confederate battle emblem in its design.
Replacing the 1890 flag that contained the Confederate battle emblem. That already has been done by the Legislature.
The Supreme Court ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by the city of Madison and its mayor, Mary Hawkins Butler. The lawsuit alleged the initiative process should be voided because the Constitution requires the signatures to be gathered equally from five congressional districts as they were configured in 1990. In 2000, the state lost a U.S. House seat based on U.S. Census data, rendering it impossible to gather the signatures as mandated in the Constitution, the lawsuit argued.
The state’s highest court agreed.
Also at issue is two initiatives that passed in 2011 where the signatures were gathered from the original five congressional districts and whether they will be efforts to challenge those proposals. Those initiatives enacted a requirement to have a government-issued photo ID to vote and a prohibition on the government taking private land for the use of another private entity. After voters approved placing the voter identification issue in the Constitution, it also was approved as general law by the Legislature. So, if the voter ID initiative is struck down, it is not clear how it would impact the general law.
When asked if the Southern Poverty Law Center might challenge the voter ID initiative based on the Supreme Court ruling, Brandon Jones, policy director with the group, said “Like a lot of other folks, we are in the very early stages of considering options for voters and the issues impacted by last week’s ruling. We haven’t made any decision yet.”
SPLC also would have been heavily involved in the effort to pass a Medicaid expansion initiative had it not be halted by the Supreme Court ruling.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it will review Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy — serving as the first opportunity for the 6-3 conservative-majority court to challenge Roe v. Wade.
The 15-week ban, passed by state lawmakers in 2018 and immediately blocked by lower federal courts, will provide one of the first reproductive rights cases argued before the Supreme Court since Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed in 2020. The 6-3 conservative majority is widely expected to curtail access to abortion.
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“As the only abortion clinic left in Mississippi, we see patients who have spent week saving up the money to travel here and pay for childcare, for a place to stay, and everything else involved. If this ban were to take effect, we would be forced to turn many of those patients away, and they would lose the right to abortion in the state,” Diane Derziz, owner of Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the state’s sole abortion clinic, said in a statement. “Mississippi politicians have created countless barriers for people trying to access abortion, intentionally pushing them later in the pregnancy. It’s all part of their strategy to eliminate abortion access entirely.”
The court met 13 different times to consider taking the case, a move many legal analysts have called unprecedented. The taking of this case marks the first time since the landmark 1973 abortion rights case Roe v. Wade that the U.S. Supreme Court has taken up a a pre-viability ban case — a law that prohibits access to abortion based on the amount of time pregnant before the fetus is viable, or around 24 weeks when it is able to live outside the womb.
The authors of Mississippi’s abortion ban bill said their intent in 2018 for passing then the strictest-in-the-nation abortion ban was that the U.S. Supreme Court could challenge Roe v. Wade.
“Assuming this bill were to become law, these challenges take two to three years to make their way up to the Supreme Court,” state Sen. Joey Fillingane, the Republican who authored the bill, said at the time. “The United States Supreme Court … has indicated that the state has a couple of interests when it comes to regulating abortion. One is protecting the health and life of the mother. Another is protecting the potentiality of human life.”
The only abortion clinic in Mississippi, which provides abortions until 16 weeks, sued the state after Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed the law in 2018. The case has been in the federal court appeals process since then.
Legal precedent dictates that states do have legitimate interests in restricting abortion, but that states cannot outright prohibit abortions before viability, nor require an “undue burden” on women seeking an abortion. Courts have said Mississippi’s law banning abortion after 15 weeks does not meet the viability standard. The state has argued that the law is not a ban, and that the “undue burden” standard should come into factor.
If Roe is overturned or its scope limited, abortion would not immediately become illegal across the U.S. But it could allow states to ban or continue to severely limit it.
Both the state’s 2018 15-week law and subsequent stricter 2019 6-week law were ruled unconstitutional twice in the last two years — by both a U.S. District Court and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
After the New Orleans-based federal appeals court upheld the lower ruling by also overturning both Mississippi’s 15-week and 6-week bans in 2019 and 2020. Attorney General Lynn Fitch petitioned the Supreme Court to take the case, citing state’s interests in regulating abortion.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Jackson Women’s Health Organization, responded in August by asking the Court to deny hearing the case based on long-standing precedent. Fitch filed again in October, after the high court three times postponed their conference to decide to take the case or not — twice after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death — pointing to two recent cases that differently interpreted the court’s last abortion case, June Medical vs Russo that allowed an abortion clinic to stay open.
Per precedent, states can regulate abortion before viability, but not outright ban it. Previously, Mississippi has argued that the so-called balancing test should apply in this case — weighing the burdens and benefits of the law.
Every federal court that has heard the case has said that doesn’t apply because based on the nature of the law, an outright ban is unconstitutional regardless of the state’s interests or benefits. Essentially, a regulation that limits choice, such as other laws in Mississippi that require two doctor’s visits and waiting periods for the procedure, merit the benefit or burden test. Outright bans that eliminate choice for certain women are on their face unconstitutional and don’t warrant the balancing test.
Editor’s note: This story is breaking and will be updated.
Mississippi Today this week will launch a reporting project aimed at asking why young Mississippians are leaving in droves and why others are staying. Sam Kapoor, a 28-year-old attorney in Jackson, joins Mississippi Today Editor-in-Chief Adam Ganucheau to discuss why she decided to stay in Mississippi.
Stream the episode here, or read a complete transcript of the interview below.
Mississippi Today: So if you’re listening to this podcast in the early part of the week of May 17th, you’re getting a sneak peek of something we’re really excited to roll out. Later this week, we’re launching a reporting project called NextGen Mississippi, focused all on young Mississippians. I’m not sure anyone would disagree that one of the biggest long term problems facing our state is that our young people are either leaving in droves or want to leave to start their lives and careers elsewhere. We, millennials and Gen Z in particular, are the next generations that will help decide Mississippi’s future and trajectory. The problems, the ones we all know so well, have long gone unacknowledged by all of our state’s leaders, really, and we’ve decided we want to do something about that. This reporting project will feature the voices of young Mississippians, and through boosting their perspectives and lived experiences, we will strive to hold our state’s leaders to account. We’ll ask those leaders tough questions, and we’ll work to make it impossible for them to continue to ignore these problems that we all know exist in the state. Anyways, we’re really excited about it. It’s going to be, I think, a really cool thing, and be on the lookout on our website later this week for more information about it. Like I said, you’ll see the roll out and you’ll also see some information about how you can get involved.
Mississippi Today: With all that being said, I’m excited about our guest today. Joining us is Sam Kapoor, a 28 year old attorney at Forman Watkins & Krutz here in Jackson. She grew up in Ridgeland, went to college at Ole Miss, and law school at Ole Miss. Sam, first off, thank you for being here. I guess, first question, just to kick us off, why did you decide to stay in Mississippi?
Sam Kapoor
Sam Kapoor: Okay, well, thank you for having me here, Adam. I guess, the reason I decided to stay sort of stems from how I got here in the first place. I’m a child of immigrants. My parents moved to America with me and my brother when we were about 12. I was 12, he was 14, and I remember when we first moved to Mississippi, it was not exactly what I imagined it would be like, so I was not super enthused. I wasn’t a big fan of Mississippi.
Mississippi Today: As like so many of us were, even if we were here from birth.
Sam Kapoor: Right, yeah. Also, 12 is a hard age, I think, in general.
Mississippi Today: For real.
Sam Kapoor: I remember thinking, “Oh, I can’t wait to get out of here,” when I first moved here, but I think, with age and maturity and time, I realized that there was so much more that Mississippi had to offer, and there’s so much that we can do to change Mississippi. I think the impact can be felt through young people in Mississippi a lot better.
Mississippi Today: Sure. I think a lot about, I grew up in Hazlehurst, so a little bit more rural than Ridgeland, but it is still a suburb of Jackson, technically. Jackson was obviously the hub for everything that we wanted to do, and entertainment, shopping, all that. I think a lot about my classmates growing up and people my age, really, for as long as I can remember, making comments about, like, “Oh, yeah, as soon as I graduate from high school I’m out of here. I’m going to move to a big city or I’m going to go to college out of state.” Was that your experience, too? Were your circles growing up, was that the common thread of the conversations and thinking about the future?
Sam Kapoor: Yeah, I would say yes. I noticed that most people that I’m friends with, that I grew up with here in Mississippi, they’ve gone. They’ve left. They went to take jobs in other states, pretty much right out of college. I kind of knew that I wanted to stay when I was in high school, so I was starting to apply for colleges, and as you know, college is extremely expensive.
Mississippi Today: Of course.
Sam Kapoor: That was one of the biggest considerations I had.
Mississippi Today: In-state tuition?
Sam Kapoor: In-state tuition, exactly. Honestly, our family did not have a lot of money, so I don’t think my parents could really even have afforded to send me to college, so staying here really changed my future, because otherwise, I don’t even qualify for student loans, so I couldn’t have gone anywhere but where I went. I could have only gone in state, so I really appreciate that I had that opportunity to do that. Even with law school, I applied to other law schools, but something just told me I need to stay here in Mississippi.
Mississippi Today: I think a lot about my college experience, too, because, like you, I went to Ole Miss, and for a lot of the same reasons. It was, obviously, the most affordable option. They had a couple programs that I thought I was interested when I was in high school. I didn’t end up sticking with those programs, but it just made the most sense. It was easy. The in-state tuition obviously was a huge factor there, but I think a lot about a lot of the native Mississippians who I met there, who I didn’t know in high school. I didn’t have that shared perspective of same upbringings or same region of the state or whatever, backgrounds, anything, but I just remember the thread being the same, just that high school that I just talked about. I don’t know. It would be great if we could stay in Mississippi after we graduate from college, but what are our chances of getting as good a job anywhere in Mississippi, Jackson in particular, maybe, versus Nashville, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans. You name the big city, that seemed to just be the drive for people. I don’t know. I think a lot about my high school graduating class being … It was a smaller school, so there were several people who obviously decided to stay behind and they’re probably still living where we grew up, and that’s great, but most of the people who did go to college, either in state or out of state, are gone now. Then, I look at my college class and it’s the same. Most of my best friends who were from Mississippi, who grew up in Mississippi, no longer live here. Was that something you saw when you were in college and law school, too?
Sam Kapoor: Yes. I remember talking to a lot of my friends about this, because we all wanted to leave. I went back and forth with wanting to leave and wanting to stay. By the time I was already in law school, though, I was like, “Okay, I’m staying. I’m here, I’m invested,” but I remember noticing all the friends trickle away and move away. A lot of it is an economic consideration. They’re just trying to find the best job in the best city that they can live in, and try to put their education to good use, so they’re just trying to pursue whatever field they’re in and whatever opportunities they can get, but I think it just worked out for me in a really great way, I think. I was in law school when I had these interviews with law firms. This is how typically law firms will interview law students when they’re still in law school, and then hire them as interns, and then they eventually will get an offer, sometimes, for a job. Things just sort of worked out for me where I got picked up by a regional firm, by a Jackson firm, and I was given the economic opportunity that I wanted right here in Jackson. Not to be tacky, but sometimes I compare my economic situation with that of my peers who left, and I think I’m still doing a little bit better off, based on the fact that I stayed and that I don’t have massive student loans or anything.
Mississippi Today: Sure. Yeah, I was going to ask you next, just sort of the appeal of Mississippi. We could talk all day about the problems and the issues that face young people in particular in this state, but I also think that if you can find it, there’s room to find a lane and succeed in it and do well. You just mentioned this kind of worked well for you. Some people, it doesn’t work for. There are many people who I know who tried to stay, who wanted to stay, and they couldn’t because of, it comes down to jobs, like you said. I think, for most people, it really is just an economic factor, but it doesn’t work, but it for you, Sam, outside of just the economics, what about Mississippi keeps you here?
Sam Kapoor: Several things keep me here, but one of the biggest things is family. My family lives in Jackson. I’m incredibly close to them, so that’s something that … I wish I could be more, I guess, modern, where I wouldn’t mind living on the opposite end of the continent from my parents, but I knew people who do that, I just wish I could be like that, but I guess I’m just not like that. That’s one thing, and another thing that I’ve really been thinking about lately is the community impact and how staying in Mississippi as a young professional, if you’re young, you’re educated, you have resources, you can actually do a lot more by staying than you could by leaving. Being able to stay, for instance, our law firm launched a program recently, it was a pro bono kind of deal, called the Diversity Pipeline Project, through Tougaloo College, and so we would take under represented pre-law students and give them the opportunity to shadow attorneys within the firm. I think that the kind of, I guess, information we were able to give them, the kind of training we were able to give them, over the course of three days, was really, I wouldn’t say life changing, because I don’t know if it changed their lives, but I think it’s really important. If I had something like that, that would have completely changed my law school perspective.
Mississippi Today: Yeah.
Sam Kapoor: I think that we can do a lot more, just because everything in Mississippi is smaller. Everyone knows each other.
Mississippi Today: That community really is important here, too. It’s like, community is sort of the thing that makes Mississippi work, in a way, and everyone looks out for each other. There’s times, obviously, where the community isn’t there, and we could go through the many examples of the problems in that regard, but you’re right. I think the community aspect of this place is unlike a lot of other places where we could move or we could choose to start our lives or build our careers or whatever. I think you’re exactly right. I call Mississippi a blank canvas, because it’s true. There are so few people, like you said, if you have some resources, if you’re young and educated and eager and have the ability and the means to do it, you can really, I think, do important work in a place that really needs that important work, and you can do it early. I’m a 28 year old journalist, and there aren’t many 28 year old journalists in America who have been able to write some of the impactful things that I’ve done. I could go down my list and I know you could go down your list and that’s the case for all of us, but then there’s this other dark side that I want to ask you about, where, I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine last week, actually, about Mississippi and what she thinks about all these things that we tell ourselves, basically.
Mississippi Today: It’s like, we tell ourselves that it’s a blank canvas or that there’s an opportunity to do really important community-oriented work and make an impact, but is that just something we’re telling ourselves to make ourselves feel better about being miserable in this place? That’s kind of an exaggeration for some people. For other people, I know it’s not. I’m interested in this reporting project that we’re launching and to tapping into some of that, for some of us who are here, who have decided to stay and do this work here, do our work here, start our lives, is there this sort of underlying feeling of regret or guilt about not trying to go elsewhere? My question for you, do you ever think about leaving?
Sam Kapoor: I do think about leaving. I’ve thought about it. I kind of go back and forth about it. There’s no way I can say that I just don’t think about it at all, but I just think that the good outweighs the bad, for me, at least. Every person’s situation is different, but I’ve found that my life is massively privileged and, this question is just making me think about my dad a lot and what he has to say about moving to Mississippi. He grew up incredibly poor and his, I guess, lesson, or his mantra that he’s always telling me and my brother is that we are so privileged to live here, and that even living in Mississippi is 100 million times better than living anywhere else in the world, because we have things here that we take so much for granted, that maybe people don’t consider Mississippi to be the best state to live in, but if you look at the world in general, Mississippi is actually …
Sam Kapoor: We have roads here. We’ve got running water. I don’t know. I know that sounds kind of silly, but I think that we’re massively privileged just to be here, and that it’s a gold mine. There’s so much that we can do in Mississippi. First of all, there’s just so much land. There’s so few people. Any idea you have for anything that you want to launch, the possibilities are endless, I think, if you have the resources. Something that my dad is always saying is that we’re just so privileged just to be here. I guess, I just don’t really see the … There’s no part of me that feels miserable about staying. I like it here. I know that if I had the opportunity to go somewhere else, I’m a young, educated attorney, if I really wanted to I could leave, but I don’t think IN would find the community that I love somewhere else.
Sam Kapoor: I don’t think I would find the family connection, obviously, and I honestly don’t know if I would make as much if I left, and considering with prices going up when you live somewhere else, so I guess I just don’t see …
Mississippi Today: Yeah, yeah. I think you made a really good point just know about positions of privilege and, as we’re thinking through our reporting series that I just talked about a little bit, we understand that everybody has different outlooks on life and different lived experiences, and we’re going to make sure to center not only the voices of people like me and you, Sam, who had the privilege of having enough resources to go to college and get our education and start our careers early, but also the many, many, many thousands of young Mississippians who hadn’t had any of that, and they didn’t have an opportunity to have any of that, and they may want to leave Mississippi more than anyone else, but they might not have the resources to do so.
Mississippi Today: Again, talking about young Mississippians, obviously, you can’t lump all young Mississippians in the same bucket, but we’re going to dig into a lot of that. I guess, thinking about something else you touched on is, you mentioned a gold mine, that’s another good illustration of what it could be. One question that I’ve been asking a lot of my friends is, if you were asked by a group of Mississippi high school kids, what is your pitch for staying in Mississippi? What would yours be? I’m just curious.
Sam Kapoor: Gosh, that’s really hard.
Mississippi Today: I know. I’m putting you on the spot here.
Sam Kapoor: I don’t know what my pitch would be. I guess, my biggest thing is that everything looks really exciting in other places, I’m sure, but if you really work at it and you stay here, the possibilities are so endless, because I look at what my parents had when they first moved to America, and what they have now, and they haven’t been here that long and it’s like we’ve basically changed an entire generation, wealth-wise. When I see that illustration in front of me, it’s really hard for me to say that that’s not possible for everyone, because, I know everyone’s got different experiences and different backgrounds and different set of circumstances, but when I see how my parents basically turned their life around with nothing, really, I just know that anyone can do it. If you just stay here and you work hard, there’s just so many opportunities.
Sam Kapoor: For instance, I don’t want to say this like a brag. I went to college at Ole Miss and I applied for a scholarship, and I was able to get a full ride to Ole Miss. After I finished college, I applied for scholarships when I went to law school, which, most people might not know, you can actually get scholarships for law school, and I was able to get a full ride to law school, as well. That, I guess, financial benefit, I just don’t think I could have gotten that if I’d gone to another state. Something I would tell high schoolers is, hey, you want to go to college, you don’t want to be saddled with student debt, try here first, and if you really hate it then consider leaving, but there’s so much more if you just stay and work at it, and there’s so many opportunities that, I wouldn’t say land in your lap, but if you work hard, people will notice, and because the community here is so small, you will get connected with the type of people that you want to be connected to.
Sam Kapoor: If you’re a journalist or you’re a lawyer, someone will know somebody and will help you, or you can ask for help and use that community network, and you can get a lot further with that than you could if you went to some random college on the other side of the country.
Mississippi Today: Sure. Well, it’s a great perspective. I think your story is a unique one in Mississippi, but also, I think, it’s a valuable one for a lot of people to hear. Sam, I couldn’t thank you enough for coming on and sharing a little bit of that with us. I could sit here and talk with you all day about this stuff. Our stories are two of tens, hundreds of thousands in Mississippi, and I’m just excited about this project we’re launching, and I can’t wait to share the perspectives of so many other people who are thinking about a lot of these same questions, but thank you for being our first. Really, really excited about what’s to come, but thank you for your time, Sam.
Sam Kapoor: Thank you, Adam. Thank you for having me.
The state’s political leaders who are cutting off federal coronavirus-related federal unemployment benefits could provide needy Mississippians cash assistance through another federal program.
Apparently, a portion of the $1.8 billion the state is receiving from the American Rescue Plan, signed into law earlier this year by President Joe Biden, could be paid to Mississippians in direct payments.
The law provides for “direct assistance to households and populations facing negative economic impacts due to COVID-19.”
The payments would be similar to the federal benefits sent out over the past year. Those federal checks have totaled $3,200 for most Mississippians. U.S. Treasury Department regulations, released last week, specified that the cash payments could not be significantly larger than the checks sent out by the federal government, but with more limitations to narrowly target those who need help the most. The language in the law appears to allow benefits to be paid to the families of people who died from COVID-19.
The Legislature cannot use the $1.8 billion in federal funds for recurring expenses, such as for pay raises, since the money must be spent by the end of 2024. And the funds are not needed to fill budget shortfalls caused by a decline in tax collections, as some states have experienced, because of COVID-19. With two months left in the fiscal year, Mississippi has a surplus of $804 million.
Presumably, the Mississippi Legislature could craft a program to provide the cash assistance to the needy during the 2022 session that begins in January. Of course, Gov. Tate Reeves could call a special session to immediately consider the program.
Just last week Reeves, after strong urging from state House Speaker Philip Gunn, opted out of a federal program that provides unemployed Mississippians an additional $300 weekly in jobless benefits, thanks to the American Rescue Plan. The federal assistance is in addition to the normal state unemployment benefit of up to $235 per week.
Gunn wrote in a letter to Reeves that businesses “are suffering from a labor shortage caused by unemployment benefits that exceed normal wage levels for productive work.”
When asked about the issue of the enhanced federal unemployment benefits last May as the pandemic intensified, former state Economist Darrin Webb pointed out, “They (unemployed Mississippians) do want to work, but they also respond to market forces.”
Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, the House minority leader, argued that before eliminating the federal unemployment benefits, the state should look to raise the $7.25 per hour minimum wage as an incentive to encourage more people to want to work.
The issue of the level of federal assistance is being debated against the backdrop of Mississippi having the nation’s lowest per capita income. And Mississippi does perhaps less to help its low wage earners than any state in the nation.
Mississippi is one of 12 states that have not expanded Medicaid to provide health care coverage to primarily the working poor.
Until this past session, Mississippi provided the lowest cash assistance in the nation to poor children through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Children Program even though the benefits are paid with federal not state funds. This past session the Mississippi Legislature agreed to increase those federal funds $90 per month for a family of three to $260 per month, meaning while still low nationally, it is not the lowest.
Mississippi is among the 20 states that have not increased the minimum wage above the federally mandated base level of $7.25 per hour, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The maximum compensation paid by the state to workers who lose their job through no fault of their own also is the lowest in the nation at $235 per week.
And to top it off, Mississippi has one of the nation’s most regressive tax structures.
“The lower and middle individuals share a greater burden than the state’s wealthiest,” Kyra Roby, a policy analyst for One Voice that advocates for Mississippi’s poor and working families, recently said while explaining Mississippi’s regressive tax structure.
For instance, those earning less than $16,100 pay 10.2% of their income on state and local taxes, primarily because of Mississippi’s high sales tax rate, which includes the 7% tax on groceries. Those in the middle — earning between $43,000 and $77,500 pay — pay 9.2% of their income on state and local taxes, while those earning more than $162,200 pay 6.5% of their income on state and local taxes, a study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says.
Tax plans offered by both Reeves and Gunn would further lessen the tax burden on the wealthy.
This past year, the Mississippi Legislature and the governor offered federal coronavirus-relief funds to many Mississippi businesses, which indeed did face hardships because of the pandemic.
Many of Mississippi’s lower-income residents face similar hardships all the time.
The NCAA Baseball Committee Friday named its 20 potential regional tournament sites and Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Southern Miss all made the cut. The 16 actual sites will be revealed at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 30.
We will get to what this means, but first we should just take a step back and marvel at the fact that the Magnolia State, relatively small and sparsely populated, gets 15% of the potential NCAA Regional sites.
That’s as many as Texas and two more than such populous states such as Florida and California. That’s also three more than neighboring Alabama, two more than neighboring Louisiana and one more than neighboring Tennessee.
Rick Cleveland
We could go on with such comparisons but you get the idea. Friday’s announcement is a testament to not only the quality of college baseball in the state but also the sport’s unique popularity in Mississippi. If you play quality baseball in Mississippi, people will come watch.
And it’s not limited to State, Ole Miss and USM. Jackson State was undefeated in the SWAC regular season. Delta State continues as a Division II, Gulf South Conference powerhouse. William Carey has won the Southern States Athletic Conference championship and an automatic bid into the NAIA National Championship.
Now then, back to the NCAA Regional sites, which are predetermined this spring because of health and safety protocols surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides the Mississippi three, the potential sites include (in alphabetical order): Arizona, Arkansas, Charlotte, East Carolina, Florida, Gonzaga, Louisiana Tech, Notre Dame, Oregon, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Stanford, Tennessee, Texas, Texas Tech, TCU and Vanderbilt.
Of the three Mississippi schools, State would appear the only lock to be a regional host. The Bulldogs are ranked No. 3 nationally and, barring a collapse, have all the requisite numbers to not only host a regional but to be a top 8 national seed. No. 18 Ole Miss and No. 19 Southern Miss presumably still have work to do. And that begins Friday night with Ole Miss hosting No. 2 ranked Vanderbilt for the first of a three-game series, and Southern Miss playing the first of a tough four-game road series with Florida Atlantic.
Ole Miss positives include a 9-6 record against Top 25 opposition, a No. 11 RPI and a 13-9 record against Top 50 RPI teams. Negatives include the loss of Friday starter Gunnar Hoglund to a season-ending arm injury and the fact that the Rebels have lost five of their last six weekend series, albeit against strong competition. The Rebels would appear to need a strong finish to ensure a host spot. They wind down the regular season with a three-game series at Georgia next weekend.
Southern Miss likely has even more work to do. The Golden Eagles have a No. 26 RPI, which places them 19th among the 20 teams still in the running for the 16 regional sites. On the plus side, the Eagles lead Louisiana Tech by a half game in the Conference USA western division and CUSA has never been stronger than this season with four teams among the top 26 in RPI. The guess here is that in order to host, Southern Miss must win the FAU series, no easy task, and then win several games in the CUSA Tournament at Louisiana Tech. Otherwise, Southern Miss probably will enter the NCAA Tournament as a strong No. 2 seed, playing on the road, which surely would be nothing new for the Golden Eagles.
The Eagles’ only College World Series appearance (2009) came when they entered the tournament as a No. 3 seed. Just goes to show that the key to college baseball success, as always, is to be playing your best baseball when it matters most — and that begins now.
The Mississippi Supreme Court on Friday issued a much-anticipated ruling that strikes down the Medical marijuana program enshrined in the state constitution by voters in November.
The ruling also voids — for now — the state’s ballot initiative process that allows voters to take matters in hand and pass constitutional amendments. The court ruled that the state’s ballot initiative process is “unworkable and inoperative” until lawmakers and voters fix state law and the constitution.
With six of the nine state justices agreeing, the court wrote, “We grant the petition, reverse the Secretary of State’s certification of initiative 65 and hold that any subsequent proceedings on it are void.”
Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler filed a Supreme Court challenge to Initiative 65 just days before voters approved it on Nov. 3. Butler argued that Mississippi’s ballot initiative process is constitutionally flawed and Initiative 65 was not legally before voters. She said a provision requiring an equal number of signatures from Mississippi’s five congressional districts could not be met, because Mississippi has only had four districts for two decades.
Besides derailing the medical marijuana program, the ruling also jeopardizes six pending ballot initiatives, including one to expand Medicaid and others to reinstate the state’s 1890 state flag, allow early voting and to approve recreational marijuana use. The ruling also could open to challenge two constitutional amendments that voters have passed since they were allowed to do so in 1992, one limiting eminent domain powers over government to take private land and one requiring a government-issued ID to vote.
The now-voided constitutional amendment passed by voters would have required Mississippi to have a medical marijuana program up and running by August.
Justice Josiah Coleman, writing for the majority, said, “the loss of congressional districts did, indeed, break (the ballot initiative provision) so that, absent amendment, it no longer functions.”
Both sides in the legal battle had asked the high court to make a ruling based on “plain reading” of the constitutional provision — one side saying the four vs. five districts discrepancy plainly voids it, the other said the constitution plainly gives people the right to amend the constitution and that shouldn’t be thwarted by a technicality.
The court majority ruled that the provision plainly says signatures are to be gathered equally between five districts, one of which no longer exists.
The court said: “Unlike the other two branches of government, the courts may not act proactively to address problems such as the one here … It is our duty to interpret our Constitution when its meaning is put at issue … The Court does not have jurisdiction to review, affirm, or overturn the ‘will of the people’ … The November 2020 results are not before us … The reduction in Mississippi’s congressional representation renders (the ballot initiative provision) unworkable and inoperable on its face.”
The court noted that the Legislature has been well aware of the congressional district disparity in law and constitutional provisions for years, but has not changed it, even after seven failed attempts.
Justice Robert Chamberlin, in a dissenting opinion wrote that the majority ruling, “does not avoid absurdity, rather, it invites it.”
Concurring in the majority opinion were Chief Justice Michael K. Randolph and Justices Coleman, Leslie King, Dawn Beam, David Ishee and Kenneth Griffis. Justices Chamberlin, James Maxwell II and James Kitchens disagreed, with Maxwell and Chamberlin writing separate dissenting opinions.
Maxwell, in his dissent, noted the majority of the court correctly pointed out that it doesn’t have the authority to amend the state constitution, “Yet the majority does just that — stepping completely outside of Mississippi law — to employ an interpretation that not only amends but judicially kills Mississippi’s citizen initiative process.”
Chamberlin wrote that “it stretches the bounds of reason to conclude that the Legislature in 1992, when drafting (the ballot initiative process) would have placed a poison pill within the language of the provision that would allow the provision and the right of the people to amend the constitution through initiative to be eviscerated at the whim of a federal injunction (on congressional districts) of such limited scope.”
The Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association in a statement called the ruling “devastating for not only patients, but voters as a whole.”
“The Mississippi Supreme Court just overturned the will of the people of Mississippi,” said association Director Ken Newburger. “Patients will now continue the suffering that so many Mississippians voted to end. The Court ignored existing case law and prior decisions. Their reasoning ignores the intent of the constitution and takes away people’s constitutional right. It’s a sad day for Mississippi when the Supreme Court communicates to a vast majority of the voters that their vote doesn’t matter.”
Angie Calhoun, an association member and mother of a son with a rare illness treatable by medical marijuana, said: “In addition to silencing the votes of three-fourths of the state, today the Supreme Court squashed the hope of thousands of patients like my son, who will now not be able to find relief through medical marijuana. As a mother of a patient, I am heartbroken and outraged that this was allowed to happen.”
Butler, in her lawsuit against Secretary of State Michael Watson, argued that the ballot initiative language added to Section 273 of the state constitution in 1992 requires proponents to gather signatures evenly from five Mississippi congressional districts — with no more than 1/5, or 20% coming from any single district. Problem is, Mississippi has had only four congressional districts since the 2000 Census showed it lost population. Therefore, Butler argues, it’s a “mathematical certainty” that of the nearly 106,000 certified voter signatures collected from what are now four districts to put Initiative 65 on the ballot last year, signatures from at least one of the districts surpasses 20%.
Butler’s lawyers also argued that there have been at least seven unsuccessful attempts in the Legislature to address the congressional district issue, and that other parts of the constitution either refer to congressional districts “as now existing” or referring to their makeup at a specific date.
Butler did not respond to requests for comments on Friday.
Kendra James, a spokeswoman for Watson said: “We received a copy of the Supreme Court’s opinion this afternoon and are currently in the process of reviewing it. Once our office has had a chance to digest the opinion, we will issue an official statement.”
After years of inaction by the Legislature despite growing grassroots, bipartisan support, voters in November approved Initiative 65. It’s a constitutional amendment mandating and specifying a state medical marijuana program. But opponents — some who said they support medical marijuana in general — said such a program has no place in the constitution and opposed the program not allowing any legislative oversight or taxation.
State Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, the House minority leader, questioned why the Supreme Court would take away from the people the initiative process on what he called a technicality.
“It has been like this for 20 years and no one has said a word,” he said. “Now they don’t like the results and they do this after the people have spoken. I can’t say it better than Justice Chamberlin – it is absurd.”
He said expanding Medicaid, an ongoing initiative effort, like legalizing marijuana is popular. He said the action of the Supreme Court takes away the voice of the people to act on popular issues when the Legislature will not.
House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, on Friday said: “If I have said it once, I feel like I’ve said it 1,000 times. The language of Initiative 65 that would have gone into our constitution was not good for the people of Mississippi. I thank our Supreme Court for having the courage to rule according to the law and for protecting our citizens from the unintended consequences of Initiative 65. Now, we should craft a legitimate medical marijuana program that will truly help the people who would benefit from it without all of the unintended consequences that would have come with 65.”
Andy Taggart, an attorney, politico and author who had vocally opposed the Initiative 65 campaign, in a statement on Friday said: “The hardest job an elected Supreme Court ever faces is when it has to apply the law in the face of political opposition. I think the Court reached the correct decision, but no matter how anyone voted in the referendum, we all owe the Court our respect for following the law as it was written.”
Earlier this year, the state Senate passed an “alternative” medical marijuana program that proponents said could serve as a backstop in case the court struck down Initiative 65,but that measure was killed in the House. House Speaker Philip Gunn said lawmakers could consider a medical marijuana program in the event the court voided Initiative 65.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, on Friday said, “The senate passed backstop legislation which we anticipate revisiting in January.”
Friday’s ruling marks the second time the state Supreme Court has killed Mississippi’s initiative process. While the current initiative process has been in effect since 1992, in the 1910s, legislators also gave Mississippians the opportunity to vote to enact an initiative process. They voted overwhelmingly to do so, but in the 1920s, because of what the Mississippi Supreme Court justices saw as a problem with the wording in that initiative, they threw it out. Legislators did not enact a new initiative until 70 years later.
Tim Moore, president of the Mississippi Hospital Association and a leader of the move to expand Medicaid through a ballot initiative said the court’s ruling “came as quite a surprise.”
“We’re going to evaluate all of the parameters and go from there,” Moore said. “I don’t have an answer for you right now. We just have a lot of questions. We’re going to meet with the powers that be and determine where we go from there.”
As Mississippi continues to rank last in the nation in the share of its population that has been vaccinated, the message from the state’s top health officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs is clear: get vaccinated or get COVID-19.
COVID is not gone.
You will likely either 1) get COVID or 2) get the COVID vaccine
Getting vaccinated is the best option by far for every age group and risk category https://t.co/vz3cmdmrFp
“I want us all to really sit back and realize that you’re likely either to get the COVID vaccine, or the COVID virus,” Dr. Thomas Dobbs, State Health Officer, said during a Thursday press conference. “And under every circumstance, under every conceivable scenario, you are a thousandfold if not a millionfold better off getting the vaccine than contracting COVID. So please take this opportunity if you’re eligible to go ahead and get yourself or your kids vaccinated.”
The state’s vaccination rate has dropped 65% from its peak in late February. Now nationally and locally, groups are looking for new ways to motivate more people to get vaccinated. On Thursday, the Center for Disease Control released new recommendations saying that Americans who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus may stop wearing masks and maintaining social distance in most indoor and outdoor settings, regardless of size. Part of the motivation behind the move by the CDC is to tantalize the unvaccinated with the opportunity to return to more pre-pandemic activities.
Miracle Temple Church of Deliverance in Jackson is going as far as to offer $35 gas cards to anyone who comes and gets a shot during their vaccination event on Saturday.
Thousands of vaccination appointments are currently available on the MSDH vaccine scheduler, and parents can now schedule appointments for their children ages 12-15.
MSDH reported on Friday that 985,219 people in Mississippi — about 33% of the state’s population — have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. More than 855,000 people have been fully inoculated since the state began distributing vaccines in December.
