I am a workaholic. I am not even saying that lightly. It is a hardcore truth. Probably so hardcore that if they had a workaholics anonymous local group, I would need to be there. I have all the signs that point to a crippling disease of stress and overwork. A drive for perfection. A false reality that only I can do it well enough. A drive for success that has left me empty and perhaps, a little scared from life.
I don’t even know how I ended up being in this predicament. I try to think back to where it all started. I guess I was always raised with a hard work ethic and that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop” philosophy. Did that create the harsh reality of where I find myself now? Not being able to turn off my mind, or my laptop, or my phone? Did it all start in school when I wouldn’t settle for less than a straight A report card or a 4.0 GPA? Did it all start in my first job when I was more than willing to work extra hours every single week? To bend over backwards to beat company records? To move up the ranks in my job at lightning speed? Maybe it was a combination of it all and then now, here I stand. Insomnia. Ill health. A doctor that tells me to de-stress before it kills me. A confusion on what de-stress even is? I mean, I know google knows it all…but to have to google de-stress is not something I like to admit I did.
Just this last week I realized I worked until one in the morning almost every night. Finishing up edits for three books that are on the brink of being published. Working on a conference I am hosting. Working on my own writing projects. Worrying that it won’t all be done in time. Trying to show up in all the right places, at all the right times and lead in all the right ways. It is exhausting. I don’t even know the words of stress free or what their meaning is. Am I alone in this? Where are my fellow closet workaholics?
I was thinking of the phrase Netflix and chill. When it occurred to me that I have no idea of the concept. I can’t even tell you what is on Netflix. I don’t watch it and I certainly don’t chill. Who has time for all that nonsense? This past year my business mentor asked me what I was needing help with and I think she probably meant in a business sense because I pay her for her consulting advice. I told her in short, I need to learn how to relax. She looked stunned for a minute and then laughed. She was not even surprised that was an issue for me. She had constantly been on me to stop working 24/7. She set me up with small weekly goals. Like, don’t pick your phone up once you go to bed. Watch one hour of TV or read twice a week with no work involved. Small goals that I am pretty sure you are chuckling over as you read this. Reality is that just thinking about those small goals sent me into a full-blown panic attack. It was something serious to me. All jokes aside.
The stress of being busy can sneak right up on us. We cannot even realize we are swamped in its deep heart wrenching claws. Suddenly we find ourselves in a situation where we can either break from busy or watch busy break us. At thirty-one years old I found myself riddled with seizures that I had never before experienced. I had a mini-stroke no one could explain. I was plagued with migraines that could not be controlled. As I sat in the office of the neurologist, he scribbled on a pad of paper asking me questions. What all did you do last week? I recounted my days for him. What hours did you work? I told him. How much did you sleep? I counted them out. He stops scribbling and looks over his glasses at me sternly. “You mean to tell me you worked 120 hours last week and slept on the average 2 hours a night, yet you wonder why you are sitting here with me right now?” I kind of processed what he said and shrugged. It had been a normal week for me. “If you don’t quit your job, you won’t live to see 40. It is that simple. Stress is killing you.” he said without even caring that he just crucified my heart. What I should have learned at that point, was that stress will break you. Busy will break you. It will break you worse than you ever imagined. However, I chose to ignore his plea and went on to work just as heavy as I did before I walked into his office. I watched as my health declined. Even more serious illnesses creeped into my life. I had to deal with diagnoses on repeat because being busy was more important than living. It was a habit I had created.
This past year I have tried harder than ever to break from busy before it broke me for good. I still have a long battle to go. I can now tell you a couple things on Netflix. I can now tell you I sleep more like 3 to 4 hours a night average. I can also tell you that I try hard to not work when I get home, but the truth is…I still am a workaholic. I still do not know how to de-stress. I did google suggestions just last week. I did hear my doctor say repeatedly the past month that I need to learn to lessen my stress. I do still deal with health issues flamed by stress.
So, if you are like me…a workaholic, I want to say I feel your pain of never-ending deadlines and work. If you are on the opposite end and are more of the Netflix and chill type person…I have mad respect for you. I wish you could just send me some of your chillness! Wherever you are on the charts of busy, try to remember to take a break from busy before busy breaks you. And that my friend, is coming from someone who busy has broken more than once. Let’s go live a little…life is too short to work all the time. Who am I kidding? I am working as I type this out to submit at 9:30 pm at night, far past my 5 pm deadline I give myself. Eh, I am a work in progress. What more can I say?
School buses are parked near Neshoba County Central Middle School during the school’s first day of class, Wednesday, August 5, 2020.
A Lafayette County teacher died this week while self-quarantining with COVID-19 symptoms, prompting fears that an outbreak could occur the week the district’s teachers and students return to classrooms for the first time since March.
Nacoma James, a 42-year-old teacher at Lafayette Middle School and an assistant high school football coach, died on Thursday, the district’s Superintendent Adam Pugh told Mississippi Today. Though teachers and students across the district returned to the classroom this week for the start of the new school year, James did not.
“No one has told me officially that he had COVID, but I do know he was self-quarantining this week,” Pugh said. “Last Thursday would’ve been the last contact he had with any students, at summer workouts for the (high school) football team. I’m not exactly sure what symptoms he had, but he wasn’t around students or teachers this week.”
Pugh said James was with students “all summer” during football workouts, and he said district officials were conducting contact tracing to determine which students might have been exposed.
“In my 30 years in education and the last 12 as a superintendent, I’ve lost more sleep over keeping kids safe than anything,” Pugh said. “Does all this have me worried? Absolutely. I want to keep all of our students as safe as I possibly can. This all worries me a great deal.”
Students of most public schools across the state are returning to the classroom this week as Mississippi has become of the world’s most dangerous COVID-19 hotspots.
Earlier this week, Gov. Tate Reeves, the only elected official who could delay the start of school at the state level, announced that he would allow most schools to reopen in person this month. In doing so, Reeves ignored the advice of the state’s top medical experts, who had publicly urged the governor to postpone school reopenings until early September.
Many health experts and education advocates promptly blasted Reeves’ decision. The Mississippi Association of Educators called the decision “reckless and irresponsible” and said that the decision put “students and educators and their families at risk.”
The Corinth School District, which was the first district in the state to reopen schools in late July, is managing an outbreak at all of its schools. As of Thursday, at least six students and two teachers had tested positive for the virus, and close to 150 students were quarantined.
In a call on Thursday, Dr. Carey Wright, the state’s superintendent of education, was asked if she anticipated a similar situation as most districts resume in-person instruction this month.
“Let me just say: I won’t be surprised,” Wright said, “because I think that COVID is taking no prisoners, and it has no boundaries, it knows no political class, it knows no socioeconomic class. I think that what we’ve got to do is be incredibly diligent and follow through.
Wright continued: “(State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs) said if everybody would just follow the basic rules, we would be in such better shape. Meaning everybody wearing a mask, everybody social distancing, and everybody washing their hands and making sure hygiene… areas are clean. He said that would go such a long way, so we’ve got to really rely on our schools and our principals and our teachers and our superintendents to do exactly that.”
In a Wednesday press conference, Reeves singled out and praised the Lafayette County School District’s hybrid approach to reopening schools. This week, the district split students at its four schools in two groups. The first three weeks of school, beginning this week, the two groups will attend separately. Then on Aug. 24, all students will return to the buildings.
Pugh, who was audibly upset during the phone interview on Thursday, called James “an excellent educator” who was loved by his students and colleagues.
“I’ve known (James) since he was 13 years old because he was a student of mine in one of my very first classes,” Pugh said. “He was such a loving person and a brilliant young man. We’re devastated by this. This has been a really rough day.”
Keri Marshall (far right) talks to the landlord of the home from where her mother, who passed recently, was evicted, while her niece Lillian Cayson and her three children Kamarye Marshall, Ryan Mallard and Tykavian Marshall listen from the front stoop.
Where there’s uncertainty in the pandemic, poverty is a constant
The pandemic has both offered a short reprieve and exacerbated existing turmoil for Mississippi families living in deep poverty, whose complicated circumstances are not addressed by narrow relief.
“I don’t understand how you’re going to continue to pay the rent,” said Keri Marshall’s landlord, his voice coming through the speakerphone on her Android.
An hour earlier on July 28, Marshall, wearing blue skinny jeans, a grey T-shirt and her dark brown hair slicked back in a ponytail, was standing in a Lee County Justice Court room.
A judge told the 34-year-old single mother of four she had three days to pack up her belongings and move out of the three-bedroom Verona home where she and her children lived with her mother Dorothy Meadows.
The property company had evicted Meadows over a light bill, which was in the company’s name and went unpaid for months, racking up nearly $2,000 in debt. The landlord said the tenant should have switched the utility over to her name. Plus, no one but Meadows was supposed to be living there, per the lease. But by the time the 74-year-old Meadows was set to attend court at the end of June, she was too ill to appear.
She died of a heart attack on June 29, leaving Marshall and her children powerless in the eviction and reliant on the goodwill of a businessman.
The big brown recliner chair where Meadows had spent much of her time recently sits under the awning out front of the house now, collecting dirt.
“Everything I know, I learned from her,” said Marshall, who relied heavily on her mother for emotional, childrearing and financial support. “The only thing she never got a chance to teach me was how to be on my own, how to make it on my own.”
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Siblings Ryan Mallard, Tykavian Marshall and Kamarye Marshall stand in the doorway of a rental home in Verona, Mississippi. Their mother, Keri Marshall, is trying to navigate an eviction from the home in late July.
The economic fallout of COVID-19 has thrown many families into uncertainty, especially as relief dwindles in the 20th week of the pandemic and with Congress yet to pass a new stimulus package.
But these conditions are all too familiar for families like the Marshalls, who were already living on the edge of homelessness in the most impoverished state in the nation before shutdowns began in March. In Marshall’s northeast Mississippi town, nearly a third of people live in poverty, compared to about one-fifth statewide.
Landlords typically require proof of income from tenants, which helps ensure landowners, who may have mortgages to pay, will not sustain missed payments. But that requirement also presents an issue for renters with nontraditional employment or who struggle to maintain a job. This is particularly true for single parents and during a shaky economy and can create a cycle of evictions, damaging the tenant’s credit and further entrenching them in poverty.
For some of these families, the pandemic has offered a short reprieve through eviction moratoriums, stimulus checks and increased unemployment benefits. And yet, the pandemic’s devastating impacts on health, social life and the larger economy has exacerbated their turmoil in other ways.
Lacking a high school diploma, Marshall said she’s having trouble finding not only stable employment, but a safe, open childcare center that is accepting new kids. That’s only when her day is not dominated by trying to keep a roof over her family.
Three of Marshall’s young children listened from the cement steps outside their apartment, a pale-blue bungalow, as their mother tried to convince landlord Johnoson Crutchfield of her position. “Mr. John, I’m not struggling. I’m really not,” she said.
Marshall, who last worked a part-time job at Burger King for a short stint, began drawing Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits in the last three weeks after telling the state unemployment office she was jobless due to the pandemic.
With the $600 weekly boost in benefits, Marshall has pulled more income, about $3,000 in July, than ever before. She had the money to pay August rent, she explained to Crutchfield. She could afford to stay another 30 days, at least.
“In the process, I’m trying to figure out where I can place my kids so I could go to work,” she told him. “If I go to work, I don’t have anybody to watch them. I can’t leave them by theyselves.”
He agreed to let her stay, even though Marshall’s name is not on the existing lease. To be sure, he didn’t have to do that. But Marshall’s unemployment benefits, which shrunk to under $100 a week at the end of July, will run out eventually — hence Crutchfield’s hesitancy.
“Basically, I’m still sinking. It’s not even keeping me above water,” Marshall said of the drop in benefits. “I just went straight under.”
Marshall said she spent her recent influx of cashthrough unemployment on past due bills — not just for utilities and cable, but also payments on the rent-to-own television and stove on which her mother had fallen behind — and back-to-school clothing for her growing children. What’s left isn’t more than about $5, she said. And she doesn’t have much family help: Two of her children’s fathers are incarcerated, and the other stopped checking in.
“I’m just living day by day,” Marshall said. “My mom always told me to never plan ahead because if you plan ahead, everything will not turn out the way it’s supposed to be. I literally learned that; I thought she was playing when she said that.”
Marshall wanted to work in the nursing field ever since she was a little girl, and she said she got close to securing her Certified Nursing Assistant credentials through Job Corps in 2004. But the program kicked her out when officers caught her friend shoplifting while they were together at Walmart.
On top of raising four children, she’s held a couple of short-term jobs — from food service gigs to factory positions through a temp agency to hairdressing for cash — every other year or so since then. At times, without her own vehicle, she’d often catch a ride with coworkers, and if they left the job, she’d have to quit too.
Marshall catches on quickly when someone demonstrates a skill or task, but she struggles with reading comprehension — the main barrier to completing her GED.
While the number of jobless Mississippians spiked from about 70,000 at the beginning of 2020 to nearly 104,000 by June, three months into the pandemic, a lesser regarded statistic shows another 86,000 have simply fallen out of the labor force altogether in that time, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Driven in part by the state’s unequal education system, low education attainment and lagging economic development, Mississippi has historically had one of the lowest labor force participation rates.
In June, Mississippi had the smallest workforce in the nation with just 52% of non-institutionalized working-age people in the state either working or looking for a job. The national average was 62%.
A statewide, multi-million dollar, federally funded program called Families First for Mississippi was purportedly designed to help people just like Marshall, who are often disconnected from the workforce, gain useful life skills like parenting, financial literacy and workplace etiquette. But earlier this year, the state auditor revealed that its creators had allegedly perpetuated the largest public embezzlement scheme in state history and the program ceased completely.
Now the state agency hasn’t retooled the welfare program to offer more cash assistance to families struggling to meet basic needs, the way at least one neighboring state has, during the pandemic.
Instead, Gov. Tate Reeves announced on Wednesday the creation of a new workforce development program to help people who have been laid off or otherwise economically damaged and are receiving unemployment benefits. The state is not conducting the job training itself, but is offering to reimburse companies who agree to hire and train new employees by 75% of the person’s wages during the training period, as long as they pay at least $15-an-hour.
Human Services also offers employment services called Skills2Work to low-income people who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, which essentially offers grants to existing work training programs in the community. But a representative at the DHS office in Lee County, where Marshall lives, said their work program has been on hold since the start of the pandemic.
Marshall is considering getting back a night shift at the lawnmower manufacturing facility in town. That way, she can stay with her kids during the day while they conduct their schooling from home, like thousands of other Mississippi children will do this school year due to the virus. Marshall said they’ll use her old cellphones to complete their work. She’d have to find someone who can babysit during the night. Sleep is barely part of the plan.
While the nation is bracing for an avalanche of evictions in coming months if Congress does not appropriate more rental assistance funds, landlords and rental managers told Mississippi Today they have been trying to work with people who have faced hardships due to COVID-19. Crutchfield, Marshall’s landlord and owner of Grab The Map properties, waived late fees in April for his tenants.
Those who have faced evictions since the state moratorium lifted on June 1, Crutchfield told Mississippi Today, “by and large are people who were not paying prior to coronavirus.”
“The people who were struggling before the virus are the people who are struggling now,” he said.
Officials from the Mississippi Center for Justice, Mississippi Center for Legal Services and the University of Mississippi’s Housing Clinic confirmed to Mississippi Today that they haven’t seen the wave of COVID-related evictions this summer that they might have anticipated, but they believe it’s coming.
These urgent circumstances could be temporarily relieved through policies — such as extended unemployment benefit enhancements, more rental assistance funding and eviction moratoriums — that Congress is hashing out in the coming stimulus package.
But the narrow relief proposals do not address longstanding barriers to economic mobility for thousands of Mississippians living in poverty, like Marshall, who face limited job prospects and an increasingly unaffordable housing market.
One local housing expert says the policy that would get closest to alleviating these conditions in Mississippi is universal basic income, similar to the $1,200 stimulus check working people received in the spring — only monthly for every adult. Jackson is the home to one such basic income pilot program.
“Nobody wants to be behind on their rent. Nobody wants to be chased by the utility companies and have their water shut off, and their lights shut off and their gas shut off. That is not desirable for anybody,” Scott Spivey, executive director of the Mississippi Home Corporation, told Mississippi Today. “Giving people the resources to where they don’t have to live in that situation would be a huge windfall.”
PHILADELPHIA — Neshoba Central Middle School Principal Cody Killen walked down the school’s quiet halls Wednesday morning before entering into Kristian Swearingen’s English class during the first day of school. Although he was wearing a mask, it was obvious that he was excited.
“First of all, I’ve missed you all,” Killen said. “When we let out for spring break, never did I think that we would see you all at the end of the year, or starting the school year off like this. It is not because we want to, but it’s because we want to work hard to do everything that we can do to continue to have school on campus. That means so much to me.”
The Neshoba County School District was one of many schools to open their doors for a new school year this week.
“This won’t last forever,” Killen said. “I’ll be honest, It’s going to last for a while, but we will get through this.”
Earlier this week, Gov Tate Reeves issued an executive order to delay school start dates for grades 7-12 in some COVID hotspots. Districts in Bolivar, Coahoma, Forrest, George, Hinds, Panola, Sunflower and Washington counties cannot open for those grades until Aug. 17.
According to the Stephanie Peebles, the middle school’s nurse, the school has been strictly following the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines to protect the students and staff.
“Of course we have a lot of parents and students who are nervous, but we want to show the parents that we are here to protect their children, do the best we can, and we are going to love them up and welcome them back,” Peebles said.
As of August 6, the CDC has reported 63,444 confirmed cases and 1,804 deaths in Mississippi. Neshoba County alone has 1,278 confirmed cases and 91 deaths. The county has the second highest number of deaths behind Hinds County, which has 116.
Here are images from Neshoba Central Middle School’s first day of in-person class.
Neshoba County School District students get board school buses after the district’s first day of school on Wednesday, August 5, 2020.
The State Board of Education voted on Thursday to give an optional 10-day waiver to school districts that have either chosen or were ordered to delay their start dates.
Under state law, districts must complete 180 days of school by June 30 each year, which is why school usually begins in August in Mississippi. This waiver will allow affected school districts to only have to complete 170 days.
On Tuesday, Gov. Tate Reeves issued a mandate ordering school districts in eight counties considered hot spots for the coronavirus: Bolivar, Coahoma, Forrest, George, Hinds, Panola, Sunflower and Washington, to push the start of school back until August 17 for students in 7th-12th grades. The order affects 21 school districts, or about seven percent of students.
“This is not requiring 170 days. They [school districts] can do 190 days if they want. But if they need 10 days to work with because of the delay, that’s what I want to bring up,” said Jason Dean, Chair of the State Board of Education.
Dean said that this option is only available to school districts that either affected by the governor’s executive order, or who had to delay their published start dates. Schools that started this week or that plan on starting the next week are not eligible for the waiver.
“Today one-third of our districts are starting and by Monday [August 10] two-thirds of our districts are starting. If that was your established date, this does not apply to you. If you’re one of the districts in the governor’s eight counties that was included in the executive order or you independently chose to move your start date, this applies to you,” Dean said.
He also said that he foresees this waiver affecting teacher pay, administrator pay and hourly employees, but that will be addressed at the board’s August 27 meeting.
Most school districts are opening this month — two opened in July and 10 plan to open in September.
Though many districts opened this week or plan to later this month, several groups, including the Mississippi Association of Educators, Mississippi State Medical Association and the Mississippi Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics have each advocated for a delayed start until at least Sept. 1.
Good Friday morning everyone! Temperatures are in the upper 60s, under clear skies this morning. It is perfect weather to enjoy that morning cup of coffee on the porch. We will see plenty of sunshine today, with a high near 91. Calm wind becoming north northeast around 5 mph. Tonight will be mostly clear, with a low around 70. North northeast wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
SATURDAY: Sunny and hot, with a high near 97. Calm wind becoming west northwest around 5 mph. Saturday night will be mostly clear, with a low around 73. Calm wind.
SUNDAY: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Otherwise, it will be sunny and hot, with a high near 98! Calm wind becoming west southwest around 5 mph. Sunday night will be partly cloudy, with a low around 74.
I normally don’t do this. I like to write the stories myself, but when I talked to Heather Palmer at Sanctuary Hospice, her answers were perfect. This interview is being pasted in her words. Sorry it is so long but I couldn’t leave anything out.
“I answered these from my job/perspective as Sanctuary’s Director of Outreach/Fundraising. I’ve been here 10 years and one part of my job is helping to be the voice so I hope this helps! It’s been a great, rewarding experience.
Sanctuary Hospice House, LLC first opened its’ doors to the public on November 28th, 2005. We were established by many founders from all over North MS.
Why did you move here? A few of our early founders went on a medical mission trip to Mexico City in August of 2000. While on the trip, one of their stops took them to an end of life centered facility and there began the conversations and vision to create an establishment with the same focus back home. Dr. Joe Bailey, Dr. John Elliott, Dr. Jack Foster, Louise Harris (nurse) and former Senator Nancy Collins (nurse) who were on the trip were all too aware of that type of need from their work with end of life patients. There were 14 home hospice agencies at the time that served the area but home services did not fulfill the need for those facing end of life who could no longer be cared for at home or who did not have appropriate caregivers. In December 2000, a group of medical physicians, nurses and strong community leaders and volunteers came together with the community and began the fundraising efforts that led to the eventual opening of Sanctuary.
What do you love about Tupelo? This community joined hands with our founders and literally made their dream into a reality. To this day, North MS continues to amaze me. Each year, we must raise $1.5 Million dollars to offset operational deficits of care that goes above/beyond traditional reimbursements. Our community continues comes through and support the Sanctuary dream. One of our early founders, Louise Harris once said that “There were so many people here who wanted to give. This is that kind of community. There’s a synergy here that you don’t find in many places but it’s present and alive here. There were so many people who gave so much (time and money), that you couldn’t mention them all. You’d have to have a list as long as my leg. ” I think that statement really sums up Sanctuary’s inception and continued reality.
What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs? We compiled a video 5 years ago that gathered some of our early founders together to share the story of Sanctuary’s beginnings. In that video, our former director, Linda Gholston interviewed Dr. Bailey, Dr. Elliott and his wife Carol, Nancy Collins, Lisa Hawkins, Lauren Patterson, Louise Harris and Joyce Riley. I feel comfortable in speaking for all of them by saying that great faith, prayer, determination, vision and a strong group of allies are very important elements to the beginnings but also to the continual spirit of a nonprofit. They began a culture that still resides in the hearts and souls of employees like myself who are privileged to be a part of the continued Sanctuary story. We want our roots to always be centered around their strong foundation.
What do you love about your job? I think I can speak for all of our employees when I say the “work” we do is both a blessing and a privilege. We have now cared for over 6500 patients and their family members. There are many who help to make the Sanctuary experience whole – Physicians, NPs, RNs, CNAs, Social Workers, Chaplains, Dietary, Volunteers, Board Members and Administration/Support. To know that we all come together to make the last days on earth more peaceful for all we serve, regardless of race, religion, background, etc… is very humbling and very rewarding.
What have you learned from this job or venture? I personally have learned the power of many hands joining together for powerful purpose. There is nothing we do here that you cannot see fingerprints of from a large group of workers and supporters. One person (Sanctuary worker) may very well be the last face that a person sees before they leave this earth for their eternal home but it takes the efforts of many others to get to that point. Each time a person is served, I hope the community who supports us so freely feels the depth of their significant role in that.
What would you like people to know about your business? When hospice is needed or even considered, call us. We are here to help and answer questions and possibly solutions even if hospice is not the answer at the time. We offer services in the home as well as at the hospice house. We never want anyone intimidated to use our services due to inability to pay. That is why the community’s continued financial support is so vital. Verbal support is great as well. Each time a person shares the message of the love they received from Sanctuary whether it be at our hospice house or in the homes of the patients we are privileged to serve, they are helping to share the message of the Sanctuary story.”
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
GOP gubernatorial candidate Tate Reeves speaks to media after voting at Liberty Baptist Church during the GOP runoff elections.
House Speaker Philip Gunn and Pro Tem Jason White filed a lawsuit in Hinds County Chancery Court Wednesday afternoon challenging the constitutionality of partial vetoes issued by Gov. Tate Reeves of two bills lawmakers passed earlier this year.
The lawsuit filed by Gunn and White — the two most powerful leaders in the House — regarded bills they championed and passed earlier this year that funded the state’s public education operations and provided federal coronavirus relief money to health care providers.
Reeves blasted the lawsuit on social media on Wednesday and addressed it at a press conference. In a Facebook post, he said he had vetoed “payoffs for friends of favored House members.” He called the lawsuit a “power grab by some members of the House” and said much of his vetoing was to protect taxpayers from “pet projects stuck in a bill by a legislator” and “earmarks.”
Reeves accused the Republican-led House of letting “liberal Republicans” and Democrats run the show. He said he’s already heard from some Republican lawmakers opposed to the leadership’s lawsuit.
Gunn, White and other lawmakers declined comment on the lawsuit on Wednesday.
The state Constitution gives the governor the authority to issue partial vetoes of appropriations or budget bills, but multiple rulings by the Mississippi Supreme Court have placed strict limits on that authority.
The courts have generally said that the governor could not partially veto conditions or individual projects placed in appropriations bills. A partial veto has not been upheld by the judiciary in recent history.
For more than 100 years, the courts have ruled “the governor is not authorized to pick and choose various portions of bills to veto as Gov. Reeves has done here,” the lawsuit claimed.
Less than 10 years after the Constitution was ratified, the state Supreme Court ruled that there were strict limits on the partial veto authority, according to the lawsuit. The suit maintained that the courts have ruled the partial veto authority could be used if the Legislature adopted an “omnibus” appropriations bill and then only to veto sections of the bill, but not individual line items.
The fight over the partial vetoes is the latest in a long line of disagreements this year — the first of a new four-year term — between Reeves and fellow Republican members of the legislative leadership. They have fought over who had spending authority of $1.25 billion in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds and on various other issues.
On July 8, Reeves vetoed most of the funding going to local school districts because he said the Legislature did not fund a program providing bonuses to the faculty of top performing and improving schools — a program critics say is racially and socioeconomically inequitable. Before the veto, legislative leaders said not funding the program was a mistake and that it could be corrected by the Legislature without the need for a veto.
The school districts recently received their first state funding installment of the new fiscal year based on a letter Reeves sent to the state fiscal officer authorizing the release of the funds. He said he had the authority to release the funds based on an official opinion issued by former Attorney General Jim Hood saying the schools must be funded regardless of whether there is a legislative appropriation because the Constitution mandates a public education system.
At a Wednesday afternoon news conference, he defended his vetoes but did not address the merits of the lawsuit. Reeves said one item he vetoed — $2 million awarded to a shuttered hospital — was a “pet project for an individual legislator.” The hospital is in the district of House Ways and Means Chair Rep. Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia.
“With the CARES Act money … there were several projects that quite frankly were earmarks, one of which was an earmark for a hospital in Tate County — a hospital that hasn’t been open in two years,” Reeves said. “Not only have they not treated any COVID patients, they haven’t treated any patients at all during the life of this pandemic.”
The bill stated the hospital would receive the funds — like other Mississippi hospitals will — if it reopened this year and began to treat coronavirus patients. The Tate County Board of Supervisors has been in negotiations to reopen the hospital.
Reeves said another item he vetoed for $6 million to Federally Qualified Health Centers also appeared to be earmarked “for a hand selected few FQHCs to do a disparity study” while leaving other centers out.
Beyond the lawsuit, legislative leaders are also considering calling themselves back into session to consider overriding some of his vetoes.
Reeves noted that lawmakers’ ability to call themselves back into session is very limited per the Legislature’s own resolution.
“I think if you actually read the order that passed the House and Senate, it’s very clear they can bring themselves back for any COVID-19 related issues, for a total of six days between now and the end of October,” Reeves said.
Otherwise, Reeves has sole authority to call lawmakers back in special session and he said he is reluctant to do so now for lawmakers’ own health and wellbeing because of an outbreak of COVID-19 at the Capitol that infected about 50 lawmakers and staff in July.
“I am not willing to play political games at the expense of the public health and the safety of the men and women who go into that (Capitol) building across the street,” Reeves said. “A lot of them are friends of mine and a lot of them are really good people.”
Reeves said he knows of at least one lawmaker — whom he did not name — that tested positive very recently.
“We certainly want them to come back for a special session and we have to bring them back in a special session,” Reeves said. “… But obviously this lawsuit complicates things a little bit … they chose to sue us rather than work this out, which I don’t think is a very wise decision.”
Reeves didn’t directly answer media questions as to why it would be safe for schools to reopen, and for bars and other businesses statewide to be open as the number of new cases soars, but not for the Legislature to return in session. He noted that many schools have detailed reopening plans and safety protocols and that young children appear less likely to transmit COVID-19 or to die from it if infected.
“We’ve dealt with everything in 2020 from tornadoes, to a prison crisis, to a state agency head from the previous administration being indicted, to the third-largest tornado in American history,” Reeves said. “… We’ve dealt with just about everything you can imagine, so dealing with yet another power grab by some members of the House is not all that surprising to me. But I never would have guessed it a year or so ago.”
The House leaders are being represented by Madison County attorney Andy Taggart, who was chief of staff for Gov. Kirk Fordice in the 1990s when his efforts at partial vetoes was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. At the time, Taggart advocated for the governor having much broader partial veto authority.
The lawsuit is seeking a quick resolution of the issue since the CARES Act mandates the funds be spent this calendar year.
Reeves said: “There’s a small group in the House that only wants to pick fights with me—some liberal Republicans who’ve joined forces with liberal House Dems. They run the show these days: Democrats and some left-leaning GOP politicians. (Republican) Trey Lamar and (Democratic caucus leader) Robert Johnson lead that crew around.”
“They don’t have the votes to override the vetoes, so this is their Hail Mary,” Reeves continued. “I wish they wouldn’t waste your money and pull us away from all the crises we’re managing to deal with their nonsense, but it’s their favorite game.”
