OurTupelo

Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America

Gov. Tate Reeves speaks to media about his shelter-in-place order for Lauderdale County during a press conference at the State of Mississippi Woolfolk Building in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, March 31, 2020.

Gov. Tate Reeves, before a midnight Wednesday deadline, vetoed the bulk of the state public education budget and a handful of other bills, including two criminal justice reform measures aimed at reducing the prison population.

Reeves on Wednesday had telegraphed his intent to veto the education budget, saying it would result in a pay cut for thousands of teachers.

For the criminal justice reform measures, Reeves said they “went too far,” and would result in dangerous criminals on the street.

Reeves in a social media post said his vetoes thwarted “efforts in the Legislature to cut teacher pay and let violent criminals out of prison early.”

It is unclear when the Legislature could return to deal with the vetoes – either sustain or override them – and other unfinished business, because of a COVID-19 outbreak at the Capitol. At least 26 lawmakers and 10 staffers have tested positive, the state health officer said Wednesday.

“It would be at least 14 days from today before the Legislature could meet remotely safe … and that’s only remotely safe,” Reeves said Wednesday.

Highlights of Reeves’ vetoes:

Education budget: Reeves said he vetoed most of the state’s $2.6 billion public education budget because lawmakers shifted $26 million from a teacher incentive pay program to the main operational budget for school districts.

He said that means “23,157 Mississippi teachers would get money that they’ve earned taken out of their pockets.”

The incentive program, which Reeves championed when he was lieutenant governor, was created in 2014 and gives merit pay to teachers in high-performing schools and those in schools that improve a letter grade. The system has received some criticism, saying it exacerbates problems with recruiting teachers to struggling districts.

House Education Chairman Richard Bennett, R-Long Beach, on Wednesday said lawmakers had assured Reeves the program could continue without him vetoing or the Legislature having to redo the budget. But Reeves said the veto was necessary to prevent teachers getting a pay cut.

Reeves said public education is a constitutionally mandated state responsibility and will continue to be funded and function after his veto, and “The bulk of the agency will run in the short term by a letter from me, backed up by an AG opinion” until the Legislature addresses it.

Criminal justice reform: The state faces a prison crisis – overcrowding, violence and lawsuits including one from the Department of Justice – largely from Mississippi’s harsh sentencing laws and lack of reentry programs. Lawmakers passed a suite of reform bills aimed at reducing prison population and other problems.

Reeves vetoed two of the measures.

Reeves said Senate Bill 2123, which would have provided parole eligibility for thousands of inmates, “was well-intentioned but too far.” He said the measure would have allowed parole for people convicted of crimes that could get them the death penalty if they had been sentenced to life instead. He said it would also have allowed parole of violent offenders who are 60 or older, removing restrictions currently in place for violent and habitual offenders.

House Bill 658, aimed at helping convicts re-enter society and the workforce, would increase the number of felony expungements people could get after serving their sentences and a five-year wait from one to three.

Reeves said allowing people to erase multiple felonies from their records would result in “career criminals walking around with no records.”

House Judiciary B Chairman Rep. Nick Bain, R-Corinth, who helped pass the reform measures, said Reeves was under a tight deadline for signing or vetoing bills and “I don’t know if he had all the details from what we did.”

“Particularly (Senate Bill) 2123, we had a lot of input from conservative groups, and lots of criminal justice experts’ input,” Bain said. “We were addressing a lot of issues the DOJ has. That’s certainly the governor’s prerogative to veto. He mentioned in his message wanting to discuss this with us, and I certainly hope he keeps that line of communication open.”

Skills training: Reeves said, “I had to veto one bill that I love,” House Bill 1387, which would allow skills training instead of traditional education.

“It goes just a little bit too far by conflicting with federal law,” Reeves said. “Because of that it put federal dollars for skills training at risk … Great goal – just needs a few tweaks and we can get it done.”

Federal coronavirus health care spending: Reeves vetoed two line items in a bill spending $130 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act money on Mississippi health care.

Reeves vetoed $6 million earmarked for the MAGnet Community Health Disparity Program, calling it “an earmark to give $6 million of CARES Act funds to a cherry-picked corporation to address disparity.”

“If they gave it to the Health Department, that’d be fine,” Reeves said. “But there’s no justification for slipping it to handpicked interests and letting them dole it out to others for a vague mission.”

Reeves also vetoed $2 million in the health CARES spending earmarked for Tate County for “North Regional Medical Center or its successor.” Reeves noted the hospital has been closed since 2018 and asked, “How does that have anything to do with COVID-19? They’ve been closed for two years.”

Reeves said he is signing hundreds of bills lawmakers recently passed, and letting some go into law without his signature “because I didn’t love them – lots of earmarks for special projects.”

“But (I) didn’t feel like they rose to the level of a veto,” Reeves said.

The post Reeves vetoes education budget, criminal justice reforms, COVID-19 spending appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Ole Miss athletics

Tommy Tuberville, who spent four years as Ole Miss football coach, hopes to spend the next six years in the U.S. Senate.

So I am trying to wrap my arms around the fact former Ole Miss football coach Tommy Tuberville, who hails from Arkansas and recently has lived on the beach in Florida, might well be the next U.S. Senator from Alabama.

Turns out, my arms are not nearly long enough.

Polls show Tuberville leading Jeff Sessions, whom he faces in a July 14 Republican primary runoff. The winner will be favored to defeat incumbent Doug Jones. Nothing – in football or politics – is certain, but Tuberville, who won 25 games and lost 20 at Ole Miss in his four seasons from 1995-98, is the clear favorite to become Senator Tuberville.

Rick Cleveland

The guess here is that the average Mississippi football fan could not have told you Tuberville’s Ole Miss record before reading that last sentence. But the average fan could certainly tell you the circumstances of Tuberville’s departure from Oxford.

For weeks during the fall of 1998, rumors had circulated that Tuberville was headed to Auburn. For weeks, Tuberville denied the rumors. He looked directly into the eyes of sports writers, one of whom was me, and said this: “They’ll have to carry me out of here in a pine box.”

Two days later, he stepped onto a private jet, sent from Auburn, and took the job after all. Turns out, no pine box was required, although many Ole Miss fans would have gladly provided.

“I’m a Rebel at heart,” he had told us. “I want to be where people want you, where you have a chance to win, where your players are giving all they can and where it’s a great place to live. That’s exactly what we have here in Oxford.”

As former Ole Miss athletic director Pete Boone says, “Tommy always did have the gift of gab.”

Often, politicians talk out of both sides of their mouth. Tuberville has that part down pat. And he has for a long time. As one of his best Ole Miss players told me recently, “Tubs was always a politician.”

Long after he left Ole Miss, long after he was fired by Auburn, Tuberville was the head coach at Texas Tech. In December of 2012, Tuberville was at a dinner with several recruits, talking up the Red Raiders program. Shortly before dinner was served, Tuberville got up and left the table. “We thought he was going to the bathroom,” a recruit later said.

Tuberville never returned. The next day, he became the head coach at Cincinnati, proving once and for all that the grass is not always greener. Tuberville was 85-40 in 10 years at Auburn, 20-17 in three years at Texas Tech, and 29-22 in four years at Cincinnati.

This is not to say Tuberville could not coach. He most certainly could. You could argue – and I would – that Tuberville’s best coaching was done at Ole Miss, where he became known as The Riverboat Gambler for his propensity to buck traditional football odds. He inherited a program decimated by severe NCAA sanctions and somehow won six games his first season. His 1997 Rebels finished 8-4 and he was voted SEC Coach of the Year and deserved the honor.

Ole Miss athletics

Tuberville lifted the Golden Egg high after the 1995 Egg Bowl. victory in Starkville.

He used it, too. After that 1997 season, rumors were rampant that Tuberville was headed to Arkansas to replace Danny Ford as the head coach there. Tuberville got a huge raise and announced he was staying at Ole Miss. And then Frank Broyles, the Arkansas athletic director and legendary former coach, said Tuberville was never offered the job. Broyles, you may remember, hired Houston Nutt.

Tuberville resigned from his last coaching job at Cincinnati in 2016 when his final Bearcats team finished 4-8. He moved to Santa Rosa Beach, Fla., and voted there, as a Floridian, in 2018 – as Jeff Sessions gleefully reminds everyone in his campaign ads, one of which shows an interview with Tuberville talking about moving to the “white sands and blue water of Santa Rosa – what a great place to live.”

The Sessions campaign lately also has zeroed in on Tuberville’s involvement in an investment fraud case from back in his coaching days. Former Lehman Brothers broker John David Stroud, with whom Tuberville founded a hedge fund, was sentenced to 10 years for bilking investors out of millions. Tuberville, who says he was an innocent victim, was sued for millions and settled out of court in 2013. Make of it what you like, but know this: The investment firms in question were TS Capital Management and TS Capital Partners. The T stood for Tuberville, the S for Stroud.

T also stands for Trump, and Tuberville famously has the president’s endorsement, which is like gold in Alabama and which he flouts in his campaign ads. In fact, Tuberville’s campaign can be summarized thusly: God, guns and Trump. That’s not all together different from Sessions, who also touts his own experience while Coach Tuberville touts his leadership qualities. The self-promotion is winding down, and this last week of the primary campaign will likely get down and dirty – entertaining to watch from one state over.

One factor I wonder about: When push comes to shove, how will Alabama Crimson Tide fans vote? Would Ole Miss fans vote for Jackie Sherrill? Would Mississippi State fans vote for Hugh Freeze?

Keep in mind, when Tuberville was the coach at Auburn, he won 7 of 10 against Bama and once beat the Crimson Tide six straight years.

Again, like him or not or trust him or not, nobody ever said Tuberville couldn’t coach.

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