A coalition of groups has filed a complaint with the state Ethics Commission saying the Joint Legislative Redistricting Committee has violated state law “by deliberating, making decisions and conducting public business outside a properly noticed open meeting.”
The complaint was filed on Wednesday — the same day the Redistricting Committee approved a plan to redraw the state’s four U.S. House seats to match population shifts ascertained by the 2020 Census. That plan will be offered to the full Legislature for approval during the 2022 session beginning Jan. 4. The committee also is working on a plan to redraw the 52 state Senate seats and 122 state House seats.
Those filing the complaint include the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, League of Women Voters of Mississippi, Mississippi Center for Justice, the state conference of the NAACP, Mississippi Votes, Southern Echo and Southern Poverty Law Center.
The complaint said the bulk of the work of the committee has taken place behind closed doors, including the drawing of the congressional redistricting plan approved Wednesday in open session, the complaint said.
“The extent of the redistricting work that the Committee has performed thus far makes it apparent that the Committee has performed public business in private,” the complaint alleges. “In fact, following its November public meeting, Chairman Jim Beckett invited the Committee’s members to his office to view the U.S. congressional map that would be, and was, offered, voted on and adopted by the Committee” on Wednesday.
Traditionally the Legislature has met in public to take up legislation, but often the legislation was crafted behind closed doors. The Ethics Commission will be tasked with determining when the crafting of legislation behind closed doors violates the open meetings law.
Any ruling on open meetings and open records conflicts issued by the Ethics Commission can be appealed to chancery court.
Of the work of the Committee, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said, “Our Standing Joint Congressional Redistricting Committee, under the Senate leadership of Pro Tempore Dean Kirby, held nine hearings in 2021 in all regions of the state to hear from citizens about the map. For the first time, all hearings were webcasted and archived in the interest of accessibility and transparency. We are grateful for the Committee’s work and look forward to seeing their progress on the legislative lines in 2022.”
The complaint said there was no instance of the public comments and redistricting plans offered by the public being considered in open meeting.
The state’s Joint Legislative Redistricting Committee, ignoring the wishes of Mississippi’s lone African American U.S. House member, approved a congressional redistricting plan Wednesday that extends the length of Black majority Congressional District 2 by about 60 miles.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat, had proposed that all of his home county of Hinds be placed in District 2 to maintain some compactness for the district. Instead, the committee opted to extend District 2 nearly the entire length of the state, adding Adams, Amite, Franklin and Walthall counties in southwest Mississippi to the district.
The proposed district would extend more than 300 miles from Tunica in northwest Mississippi to the Louisiana-Mississippi border in southwest Mississippi. The only county that borders the Mississippi River not in the district is heavily Republican DeSoto County.
(Story continues below the proposed map. The state’s current congressional map can be found at the bottom of this story.)
The proposed congressional districts unveiled by lawmakers on Dec. 15, 2021.
District 2, which has long been a majority-Black district, is the only one of the state’s four congressional districts to lose population based on the 2020 Census — more than 9% in 10 years, or about 65,000 people.
Based on federal and state law, the districts have to be redrawn to ensure near equal population representation.
Senate Pro Tem Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, who is co-chair of the redistricting committee, and House Pro Tem Jason White, R-West, who is a member of the committee, said they expect the congressional redistricting plan will be offered to the full Legislature for possible passage in the first or second week of the 2022 session that begins Jan. 4.
“But I heard of about 10 things (to be taken up) in the first week of the session,” White quipped.
The urgency to take up the congressional plan is that elections are slated earlier this year and the deadline for candidates to qualify to run for the congressional seats is March 1. Legislators are expected to take up a plan to redraw their own 174 House and Senate districts later in the session since their elections are not until 2023.
The three African American members of the Redistricting Committee who were present Wednesday all voted against the plan extending District 2 further into southwest Mississippi. Others on the 20-member committee voted for the plan.
Sen. Angela Turner-Ford, D-West Point, said she voted against the plan because of the issue of compactness.
No alternative was offered for consideration by the committee. But Kirby said he expects alternatives to be offered to the full Legislature for consideration.
Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, who is the House minority leader, said that there would be an effort to amend the plan during the legislative session. Johnson’s state House district includes the area added to U.S. House District 2 in the committee plan.
“It makes it quite a large district that would be difficult to govern,” Johnson said.
White, who presented the plan to the committee, said the plan makes the other three districts more compact.
He said no incumbent congressman “got everything they wanted” in the redistricting, but that District 3 Rep. Michael Guest of Rankin County opposed Thompson’s plan to move all of Hinds into his district. Guest wanted the heavily Republican northeast Jackson area of Hinds.
In addition, White said Guest wanted to maintain a Republican area of south Madison County in his district. A proposal offered by the state chapter of the NAACP would have moved all of Hinds and that portion of south Madison into Thompson’s district.
White also said it makes sense to add southwest Mississippi into the 2nd because as river counties they had many of the same interests as other counties along the Mississippi River in Thompson’s district.
Under the plan approved by the committee, the Black voting-age population of District 2 will be 61.05%, slightly higher than that proposed by the NAACP. The current Black voting-age population of District 2 is 62.27%.
Federal law most likely would mandate that Mississippi, the state with the nation’s highest Black population, maintain an African American majority district.
Secretary of State Michael Watson issued a consent order and fined “Defending the Republic,” a nonprofit run by former Donald Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, for making false statements to solicit funds in Mississippi.
Texas-based DTR and Powell have come under federal and other states’ scrutiny after the group raised nearly $15 million primarily using baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen. Powell could face further problems in Florida — where she was also cited for using deceptive solicitations — for failing to report the Mississippi action.
Powell is facing questions about how much money DTR had solicited and where the money was going. According to the Washington Post, many members of DTR’s staff and board resigned in April, and in early December federal prosecutors subpoenaed financial documents from DTR and a PAC that Powell leads by the same name.
In June, Watson issued a cease-and-desist letter to DTR for falsely claiming it was registered with his office’s Charities Division on billboards and its website soliciting donations in Mississippi. In early December, DTR entered a consent order with Watson’s office. The group paid a $2,500 fine and is now legally registered to solicit donations in Mississippi.
Republican Watson, a Trump supporter, issued a written statement:
“After noticing a solicitation, the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office checked the charity and found it was illegally soliciting in our state in violation of the Mississippi Charitable Solicitations Act. This resulted in the imposed fine against Defending the Republic (DTR) in the amount of $2,500. In an effort to resolve the matter, DTR paid an administrative penalty and entered into a consent order providing it would comply with all of the laws regarding regulation of charitable solicitations. As always, I’m proud of my team for consistently and justly applying the law.”
Powell is a Texas lawyer who joined Trump’s legal team as it unsuccessfully attempted to prove fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election. Powell, who vowed to “release the Kraken,” a phrase from the “Clash of the Titans” movie, made claims that China, Venezuela, Cuba, Antifa, the Clinton Foundation, the late Hugo Chavez and others conspired to steal the election from Trump. None of those allegations have been found to be true.
Trump disavowed Powell after she made claims that Georgia’s Republican governor and secretary of state had been paid off to to help throw the election. Powell continued to independently file unsuccessful election lawsuits in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Jackson-based HOPE Credit Union was awarded $88 million as part of a national effort to increase lending to minority-owned businesses and people with limited access to banking.
The Treasury released a total of $8.7 billion to be split among 186 financial institutions through its Emergency Capital Investment Program, which was included in a 2021 stimulus package passed by Congress. The program is the largest community finance development program ever created.
The financing is the largest investment that HOPE Credit Union has ever been awarded since it was founded in 1994.
Vice President Kamala Harris announced the historic investment during the Freedman’s Bank Forum, which was hosted Tuesday by the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C.
“The wealth gap persists today, the homeownership gap persists,” Harris said. “Black entrepreneurs are three times more likely to report that a lack of access to capital negatively affects their profit margins.”
The program was created this year in response to economic distress caused by COVID-19, which disproportionately affected small and minority-owned businesses. Despite making up 13.4% of the nation’s population, Black Americans control just 4.3% of household wealth, according to the Federal Reserve.
The credit union had to apply to receive the financing, which comes in the form of a 30-year, low-interest loan. The access to the funds allows HOPE and the other recipients to more easily provide loans, grants and forbearance for small businesses to people in underserved and low-income areas.
Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company, commonly called the Freedman’s Bank, was chartered by the U.S. government more than 150 years ago to help newly emancipated African Americans become financially stable. Now, the forum that carries its name is aimed at discussing the systemic wealth gaps in the U.S.
“It is quite fitting that (Tuesday’s) historic announcement of the largest investment ever made in community development finance takes place at a commemoration of the Freedman’s Bank — an institution created to provide former slaves with fair access to the banking system,” HOPE CEO Bill Bynum said in a statement.
“As a fellow financial first responder and longtime advocate for policies, practices and investments that level the financial playing field, HOPE looks forward to building on the Freedman’s Bank proud legacy by working to ensure that Emergency Capital Investment Program resources reach those hardest hit by COVID-19, bridge gaps in the banking system and advance equitable economic prosperity, particularly in communities of color across the Deep South.”
Since its founding, HOPE has generated more than $3.1 billion in financing throughout Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana.
HOPE Credit Union was among the recipients of $10 million from Netflix after the streaming company pledged to invest 2% of its cash holdings to banks and organizations supporting Black communities across the nation. HOPE is also working with Netflix on a streaming television series that will highlight banking discrimination.
What this world does not need are any more obscure college football bowls. We’ve already got Tony the Tiger, the Cheezit, and two bowls scheduled for Frisco, Texas.
The Cleveland boys also discuss recruiting, the Mississippi-Alabama all-star game and the Celebration Bowl.
Dak Prescott, left, and Brett Favre greeted one another at halftime of a Green Bay Packers-Dallas Cowboys game on Oct. 16, 2016. Neither Prescott, nor Favre, was a particularly highly recruited college prospect. (Associated Press) Credit: AP Photo, Matt Ludtke
So, it’s National Signing Day, and worried-sick college football fans across the state of Mississippi are glued to the Internet, hoping for good news for their favorite teams.
The most zealous of these fans know how many recruiting “stars” every player has. They know who is recruiting whom. They know all that and more.
Rick Cleveland
But they should remember this: Many of the greatest players in this state’s football history were not that highly recruited. Some were hardly recruited at all. Some were signed as afterthoughts.
For today’s purposes, let’s just look at quarterbacks. And let’s start with Mississippi State and the greatest quarterback in Bulldog history, Dak Prescott. Now that Prescott has become one of the most highly productive and most highly paid players in the NFL — this after breaking all the passing and total offense records at State — you naturally would assume he was considered a five-star, can’t miss prospect. And you would be wrong.
No, Prescott was a rated a three-star prospect out of Haughton, La. The popular website 247sports.com had him ranked the 23rd best prospect in Louisiana and had him ranked behind 600 other college prospects. Prescott grew up a Texas Longhorns fan. That was his dream school. But Texas would not give him so much as a sniff.
LSU, who normally gets most any Louisiana prospect it wants, recruited him, until after his senior season, as a tight end. Mississippi State was the SEC school that went after him hard. After Prescott came back and lit everyone up his senior year, LSU finally offered him as a quarterback. By then, it was too late. The rest is history, and Dak is still making it.
Oh, and the quarterback Texas signed that year? He was somebody named David Ash.
Let’s move to Southern Miss. Surely the most famous quarterback in Golden Eagle history is Brett Favre. Many long-time USM fans would argue that the best quarterback in school history was Reggie Collier. For today’s purposes, it doesn’t matter. Neither was highly recruited.
Collier’s college recruitment was overshadowed and then some by another quarterback from nearby Collier’s D’Iberville home. Ocean Springs’ Eddie Hornback might have been the most highly recruited player in the country in 1978. Nearly every football power in the country flocked to Ocean Springs to recruit Hornback. Meanwhile, Southern Miss had to fight off only Tulane to land Collier, who became one of the greatest dual threat quarterbacks ever — Lamar Jackson before Lamar Jackson. Collier numbered Alabama, Florida State, Ole Miss and Mississippi State among his victims. Hornback, a fine athlete who battled injuries, wound up playing another position at State.
About a decade later, on the other end of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, another unsung high school quarterback was even more lightly recruited than Collier. His name was Favre, and he thought he was going to Delta State until the day before signing day. That’s when Southern Miss lost a quarterback recruit to Alabama, opening up a scholarship. Favre got it. He went to USM as the seventh QB on a seven-QB depth chart. By the third game of his freshman season, he was a 17-year-old starter. You know the rest of that story.
And that brings us to Ole Miss and 1966, and the most beloved player in Rebel football history, College Football Hall of Fame and consensus All American Archie Manning. On signing day in 1966, Manning was one of six quarterbacks signed by Ole Miss — and he might have been the least recruited of all.
For certain, four of the other five were considered much more valued recruiting prizes than Manning, a talented, but rail-thin athlete from the tiny Delta town of Drew. Just consider the way Ole Miss coaching legend John Vaught handled recruiting day. He sent Tom Swayze, his recruiting guru, to Meridian to sign Bob White, the state’s most prized recruit. If there had been recruiting stars back then, White would have been awarded all five.
Vaught went himself to McComb to sign the great Freddy Brister, who played QB at McComb but would become a terrific Ole Miss linebacker. He sent trusted lieutenant Roland Dale to Gulfport to sign Don Farrar, another quarterback who would become a linebacker. And he sent John Cain, another long-time and trusted assistant off to Center Point, Ala., to sign Shug Chumbler, who would become Manning’s back-up.
Archie Manning, 1966.
Archie Manning? Vaught called on graduate assistant Roy Stinnett, a former high school coach, to sign Manning. It was a matter of convenience, really. Manning was playing in a basketball tournament at Clarksdale that weekend. Stinnett, who refereed high school basketball on the side, was officiating every game.
So you can imagine how that that went. Drew won on Thursday night and again on Friday night. With Manning leading the way, Drew won in the semifinals again on Saturday morning. That afternoon, Manning changed out of his basketball uniform, and Stinnett changed out of his referee’s uniform, and they posed for photos of Manning signing his scholarship.
That night, Manning led Drew to the championship. He might have had some help.
Fifty-five years later, what does Manning remember most about the day?
Says Manning, “I shot about a million free throws. That’s all I’m gonna say about that.”
Alcorn State University’s president could be getting a $55,000 raise from the nonprofit foundation that supports the school.
In June, ASU Foundation board members unanimously voted to increase President Felecia Nave’s annual salary supplement to $90,000, up from the $35,000 she currently receives, according to documents obtained by Mississippi Today. This would raise her total annual salary to $305,000.
Felecia Nave answers questions after the IHL board announced her appointment in April 2019. Credit: Mississippi Public Universities
But six months after the request, Nave has yet to receive the raise. The Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, which must OK the pay bump, did not receive a letter seeking approval from the foundation’s chairman until late October, documents show. Caron Blanton, IHL spokesperson, wrote in an email that the board has not acted on the request.
If approved by the IHL board, the raise would significant increase spending for ASU’s foundation, which has one of the lowest budgets in the state.
An explanation of why the foundation voted to raise Nave’s salary supplement was not included in the resolution sent to the IHL board. The letter from the ASU foundation chairman, Robert Gage, did not account for the gap between when the vote took place and when IHL received the request on Oct. 25.
University presidents in Mississippi are state employees who are paid with state funds by the IHL, but it’s common for them to receive an additional salary from the school’s nonprofit foundation. Seven out of the eight current university presidents receive such a supplement, which vastly range in size. At University of Mississippi, Glenn Boyce receives $500,000 annually from the school’s foundation. At Mississippi Valley State University, Jerryl Briggs does not receive a foundation supplement.
The raise would see ASU’s foundation, whose revenue has wavered in recent years, pay Nave a greater salary supplement than Thomas Hudson receives at Jackson State. Jackson State University’s Development Foundation, which brought in more than $10 million in revenue in 2019, pays Hudson a $75,000 annual supplement. The ASU foundation made $5 million that same year.
Since 2008, no other president at ASU has received such a raise from the foundation. IHL Commissioner Alfred Rankins, who was president of Alcorn from 2014 to 2018, never received a raise in his foundation supplement. He was paid $35,000 by the foundation all four years, according to IHL data, and his total salary the year he left was $250,000.
A private nonprofit, the mission of ASU’s foundation is “to invest restricted funds to provide general support to university athletics, academic, institutional, and scholarship programs,” according to its most recent Form 990.
To that end, the foundation provides scholarships, financial awards to students who graduate with outstanding grades. It fundraises by soliciting donations from alumni and many faculty, who are encouraged to donate a certain percentage of their paycheck to the foundation each month.
The foundation has 10 members, most of whom are graduates, and an executive committee of three members. Gage, the foundation chairman, did not attend Alcorn but is from Port Gibson.
Gage and other members of the foundation did not respond to Mississippi Today’s requests for comment.
The Mississippi Legislature’s Joint Redistricting Committee is expected to approve a congressional redistricting plan Wednesday that will soon be presented to the full Legislature.
It is likely that the full Legislature will take up the committee’s proposal in the first week of the 2022 session. The map that will be unveiled Wednesday was drawn behind closed doors, but lawmakers on the committee and later in the full chambers of the Legislature can vote to change it or vote against it.
The leaders of the Redistricting Committee, Rep. Jim Beckett, R-Bruce, and Sen. Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, have said they intend to take up the issue of congressional redistricting early in the 2022 session, which convenes Jan. 4. Beckett told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal this week the goal is to take up the plan during the session’s first week.
“My hope is we take up congressional redistricting, medical marijuana and the re-enactment of the initiative process in the first week of the session,” said Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, who is a member of the redistricting committee.
A medical marijuana initiative approved by voters in 2020 and the entire initiative process allowing citizens to bypass the Legislature and place issues on the ballot were struck down by the Mississippi Supreme Court in May due to a technicality in the language enacting the initiative process. Legislative leaders have said they want to reinstate both in the 2022 session.
The state’s four congressional districts must be redrawn to match population shifts found by the 2020 U.S. Census. After both the 2000 and 2010 censuses, state legislators could not agree on a plan to redraw the congressional districts, leaving it to the federal courts to establish the districts in response to litigation.
Both federal and state law require near equal representation for congressional and state legislative districts.
The reason for the need for swift action on congressional redistricting is because the deadline for candidates to qualify to run for the congressional seats is March 1. The primary election will be held June 7 and the general election will be in November.
Based on Census data, the 2nd District — the state’s lone Black majority district — saw a population loss during the past 10 years and is 65,829 people short of the ideal district size. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who represents the 2nd District, has advocated including the portion of Hinds County not currently in his district to partially offset the population loss.
Federal law would require that the district be maintained as a Black majority district.
Based on Census numbers:
The 1st District, which includes much of north Mississippi, including the Memphis suburb of DeSoto County in northwest Mississippi, and the Tupelo area in northeast Mississippi, is 17,913 people more than the ideal size.
The 3rd District, which stretches from east Mississippi to southwest Mississippi and includes much of the Jackson metro area, is 10,719 more than the ideal size.
The Gulf Coast-based 4th District has been the fastest growing district, 37,196 more than the ideal size.
Legislators are expected to take up the issue of redrawing the 52 state Senate and 122 state House districts later in the session since those seats will not be up for election until 2023.
At a status conference Friday morning, attorneys for former Mississippi Department of Human Services Director John Davis asked the judge to reinforce an existing gag order in his case.
Hinds County prosecutors have accused Davis of fraud and conspiring with nonprofit founder Nancy New and her son Zach New to embezzle from a federal public assistance program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, commonly referred to as “welfare.”
Davis has pleaded not guilty, but nearly two years after his initial arrest, his trial date remains elusive. The FBI has also been investigating the welfare scandal in the meantime and has yet to make public charges.
Chuck Mullins of Jackson law firm Coxwell & Associates told Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Adrienne Wooten Friday that current welfare agency director Bob Anderson and State Auditor Shad White have been making statements to the media that threaten his client’s ability to have a fair trial. During the hearing, Wooten was receptive to expanding the suppression order to expressly include the two officials. The order prohibits the parties from discussing the case with the media.
According to Mississippi Today’s past interviews with State Auditor Shad White and office spokesperson Logan Reeves, the auditor’s office has already been operating under the assumption it is included in the original Feb. 4 gag order. White has attempted to follow the order by refraining from discussing specific criminal charges, including with Mississippi Today, but he continues to discuss the audit findings that are separate from the criminal case, such as the welfare money he says was improperly paid to retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre. Favre has not faced criminal or civil charges, though the welfare agency has contracted with former U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott to file civil litigation against many of the improper welfare recipients. He has not filed the case yet.
Mississippi Department of Human Services spokesperson Mark Jones said Anderson was aware of the recent motion.
Wooten filed the original suppression order in Davis’ case because of a Feb. 3 Mississippi Today article that described how she rejected a plea deal — a rare occurrence — in the related case of nonprofit accountant Ann McGrew.
With the gag order in place, the public is less likely to learn more about how officials frittered away tens of millions of welfare dollars, and who else might be responsible for the scheme, until trial.
Both prosecuting and defense attorneys keep requesting the trial be pushed back because the discovery — documents investigators have compiled to make their case — is so massive. The district attorney’s office is still turning over new records to the defense counsel, as recently as early December.
While officials have accused Davis of conspiring with New to steal over $4 million in federal welfare dollars, the charges in his indictment are more narrowly focused on how his agency paid Brett DiBiase, an ex-wrestler who has battled drug addiction, $48,000 under a contract for opioid addiction education he did not fulfill. The indictment also alleges Davis conspired with New to use taxpayer dollars to pay for DiBiase’s four-month long stay in a luxury Malibu rehab facility. DiBiase pleaded guilty in December of 2020 and has agreed to be a state’s witness.
Based on its recent motion to extend the court’s gag order, Davis’ counsel appears poised to defend against his charges by showing how agency policy sanctioned many of his actions and how he received approval by other employees, including legal staff, in his office.
“Both Mr. Anderson and Mr. White have repeatedly made comments about Mr. Davis, inferring matters about his guilt, but failing to report instances when the actions taken by Mr. Davis were approved by MDHS policies,” reads the motion filed Dec. 13. “In some instances, Mr. White and Mr. Davis have made comments about Mr. Davis’s actions when those actions were approved by other people at MDHS.”
As Mississippi Today first reported in May, 14 different agency employees signed off on the “grant closeout” documents that New’s nonprofit Mississippi Community Education Center submitted to the welfare agency to describe what it did with its millions of grant funding each year.
On Dec. 7, two days before the latest status hearing, Mississippi Today published a story prompted by an Oct. 8 statement from Anderson. In a Facebook interview, Anderson explained the agency’s primary process for holding accountable the private organizations who receive subgrants from the state — where most of the alleged misspending in the welfare scandal occurred.
The department conducts routine audits and if it finds any subgrantee purchases were improper, it sends a letter, asking the nonprofits to justify the spending or return the funds. Anderson said that under the Davis administration, the agency simply failed to send these letters out.
Mississippi Today requested all the findings letters Anderson’s department has issued in the most recent year and found that it demanded subgrantees return $1 million. The agency attempted to charge Mississippi Today nearly $400 for the letters sent under the previous four years, under Davis. The news organization agreed to pay for one year’s worth of letters and is waiting for the request to be filled.
