The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
As the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a case that could further weaken the federal Voting Rights Act, some Mississippi lawmakers are moving to write their own version.
State lawmakers in the the Legislative Black Caucus on Martin Luther King Jr. Day filed legislation to create a state-level version of the Voting Rights Act. They said their act is designed to safeguard minority voting rights, as the nation’s highest court has indicated it’s open to revisit provisions of the Civil Rights era federal law and has already overturned some.
The state legislation would prohibit dilution of minority voters, create a Mississippi Voting Rights Commission and require some jurisdictions to obtain preclearance approval from the newly created commission.
Rep. Zakiya Summers, a Democrat from Jackson and author of the legislation, said at a press conference in front of the state Capitol on Monday that the bill is not about one party or one race, but about protecting the voting rights of future generations.
“I’m a mother of three sons, and what we do today determines what we do with their future,” Summers said.
The bill would be named the Robert G. Clark Jr. Voting Rights Act, in honor of Clark, who in 1967 became the first Black Mississippian elected to the state Legislature in the modern era. Clark was ostracized when first elected to the House and sat at a desk by himself without the traditional deskmates that other House members had. But he became a respected legislative leader.
Clark later held some of the highest positions in the Legislature. He served 10 years as chairman of the House Education Committee, including during the period when the historic Education Reform Act of 1982 was passed.
Clark later served as speaker pro tempore of the House, the second-highest position in the chamber. Clark died last year at age 96.
Rep. Bryant Clark, a Democrat from Pickens and son of Robert Clark, said his father would be horrified to know that the U.S. Supreme Court is considering rolling back the protections that he and so many civil rights pioneers fought for so heavily.
“But my daddy taught me one thing,” Clark said. “He taught me when democracy is threatened, you don’t give up. You fight harder.”
In a Legislature dominated by Republican politics, it’s doubtful that the legislation will gain major traction.
In 2024, a federal three-judge panel ruled the Legislature violated the Voting Rights Act when it redistricted itself and it ordered the lawmakers to redraw some legislative seats to give Black voters in certain areas of the state a fair shot at electing a candidate.
Republican leaders largely complied with the order, though many of them complained that the judges, who were appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, were forcing them to redraw the districts and disagreed with the rulings.
Last year, another federal judge, also appointed by Bush, ruled the state violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting strength in Mississippi’s state Supreme Court district lines and ordered the Legislature to redraw them.
In each of these instances, Black voters were able to file such a suit because of protections in the Voting Rights Act — the same federal law the U.S. Supreme Court is considering dismantling.
Amir Badat, an attorney with Fair Fight Action, encouraged hundreds of people at a rally on Monday to call legislators and urge them to pass the voting rights legislation and to signal to the U.S. Supreme Court that overturning federal voting protections would be a grave mistake.
“Justice does not move on its own,” Badat said. “People move it. So today we are choosing to move. We are choosing to fight.”
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
Editor’s note: The following is part of a series examining how the success of the Ole Mis football team could provide some solutions to Mississippi’s brain drain.
College football fans in Mississippi will be talking about the 2025-26 season for a long time, no matter what team they support. Ole Miss’s record-setting 13-2 season came to an end in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff.
In a state where potential has historically outstripped performance, the Rebels accomplished what few imagined was possible at the beginning of the season – if ever. The first playoff appearance for a team from Mississippi. The most wins in a season. The highest final regular season ranking since 1962. And – one can only assume – the most Trinidad and Tobago flags ever sold outside of the Caribbean.
But this season will also be remembered for the topic that has dominated conversation for months among fans and non-fans alike: Mississippi’s brain drain.
Two days after the Egg Bowl win against rival Mississippi State, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin left Mississippi to take the head job at LSU. Despite six years of tweeting #ComeToTheSip, Kiffin felt that Baton Rouge, Louisiana, offered him more opportunity and prestige than Oxford, Mississippi. Nobody has ever departed the state with so much sound and fury, but plenty before him have moved away for similar reasons. In the past 12 years, Mississippi has lost more people to other states than the 68,251 who filled Vaught-Hemingway Stadium for the first-round playoff game against Tulane.
Kiffin’s departure dramatized the relationship that has always existed between college football and the brain drain. The state’s first intercollegiate game was played in 1893, around the time that Mississippi began losing population to other states. Since that time, Mississippi’s migration history includes long stretches of losing years, punctuated by a few brief periods of success – similar to the records of Mississippi’s major football programs.
Like the brain drain, college football is a prism for a place’s people, culture and economy. It is a national sport built on local pride, and its symbols and traditions are expressions of communal identity. Cowbells, the Grove, the Sonic Boom and the Fighting Okra encapsulate Mississippi culture as well as whole books written on the subject.
But beneath the pageantry, college football boils down to a multibillion-dollar competition for talent. The best teams at the end of the season are almost always the teams that recruited the most talent before the season. It is an open competition, but it is not an equal one. Each school’s recruiting ability is determined by the economic and social structures that surround the university: schools with large fanbases and wealthy donors located in talent-rich regions usually draw the best players.
Mississippi is a small state that produces prodigious football talent, but it is divided between two SEC programs and another in the Sun Belt, as well as a trio of SWAC programs. Schools in Mississippi have rarely been able to amass as much talent as their larger and wealthier rivals from more populous states.
In other words, college football is the brain drain in microcosm. Since most Mississippians follow college football as a matter of birthright, it is the best way to understand why Mississippi loses the talent competition with other states – and what it will take to win.
Top programs and places corner the market on talent
The 136 schools that play at the highest Division I-FBS level work year-round to recruit and retain as much talent as possible from a limited pool of 18-to-22-year-old players. It is not uncommon for teams to replace half their rosters between seasons while most coaches last only three to four years at the same school. Despite the rapid personnel turnover, college football is the most hierarchical major American sport. Every program has good and bad years, but most have stayed in the same echelon since the era of leather helmets.
Places are similarly stratified, even as the people who live in them are changing constantly. Almost two in three people live in a different city than where they grew up, and roughly one-third live in a different state.
Yet most of the wealthiest places half a century ago sit atop of the economic hierarchy today, while most of the poorest places remain on the bottom today. The distribution of places by past and present per capita income resembles the ranking of college football programs.
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The top programs and places maintain their preeminence – and prevent the rise of rivals from lower tiers – because the competition for talent is biased in their favor. Five-star prospects go to Ohio State and Alabama for the same reason that the top financiers go to New York and computer scientists go to Silicon Valley: that’s where the best in their fields have always gone. Over time, they have accumulated institutional advantages – more wealth, higher professional ceilings, greater national recognition – that make them attractive destinations for the next generation.
You don’t have to like Kiffin’s decision to acknowledge that it is easier to follow the well-worn path to success than to try to create it where it has not previously existed.
Mississippi excels at producing talent, not recruiting it
You’ll find Mississippians in the top ranks of nearly every profession, but most had to leave the state to get there.
Football is the clearest example, in part because it affords us the most complete data. Mississippi produces football talent at a higher rate than any state in the country. Mississippi ranks first per capita in professional football players all-time, active NFL players, Hall of Famers and professional games played.
By default, every professional football player who grew up in Mississippi left the state for their career. The outmigration of NFL players mirrors the brain drain in other fields. In both cases, Mississippi’s universities are often the launchpad for out-of-state job opportunities. A college education is hardly the only marker of talent, but it is the sharpest dividing line between who stays in Mississippi and who leaves.
Almost half of Mississippi natives move away after earning a bachelor’s degree, compared to only 30% of Mississippians without a four-year degree. University graduates account for all of the net outmigration from Mississippi since 2010. If football is the rite of fall on campus, the rite of spring is newly-minted graduates packing up to leave Mississippi.
It is no coincidence that the most popular destinations are cities with pro football teams like Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Nashville. Other top employers are located in those cities for the same reasons as the NFL: that’s where the people and money are.
Nevertheless, Mississippians are only slightly more likely to leave their home state than other Southerners. What separates Mississippi from nearby states is the ability to recruit newcomers to replace them. For every 100 people born in the average Southern state, 28 move away while 59 move in. Mississippi loses 36 but gains only 26.
College students are the primary exception. The state’s universities are the best recruiters of talent to the state – in part because of the national exposure from their college football teams. Approximately 4,500 more college students move to Mississippi each year than move away, the 15th-highest rate of net in-migration in the country. In total, about 38% of the enrollment at Mississippi’s eight public universities has come from outside the state.
The football rosters are even more geographically diverse than the campuses at large. Nearly three-quarters of Ole Miss’s team moved from another state, and about 60% of the teams at MSU and USM. More than half of the 77 active NFL players who played at one of Mississippi’s D1 programs were born outside of Mississippi. Most of them chose to play college ball in Mississippi over offers around the country. Twice in the past 13 years, the top high school recruit in the country chose to sign with a Mississippi school: Robert Nkemdiche came to Ole Miss from Georgia in 2013 and Travis Hunter came to JSU from Florida in 2021.
Student-athletes enroll at Mississippi’s universities for the same reasons as other students: because they offer quality professional development, vibrant social atmospheres and competitive financial packages. Their recruiting success proves that Mississippi is capable of attracting talent from anywhere – as long as it can match the opportunities that exist in other places.
The brain drain occurs because the opportunities in Mississippi dry up as soon as students graduate. The state ranks last in the share of jobs that require a bachelor’s degree or more. The cost of living is low, but the pay is even lower: college grads take home 10% less in Mississippi than in other Southeastern states even after accounting for price differences. Most of the population lives in rural areas or small towns, which do not appeal to young people seeking big-city amenities or cultural diversity.
As a result, approximately 95% of out-of-state students leave within five years of graduation, to go along with the nearly half of Mississippi natives. Only two graduates move in from another state for every three who leave. From 2010 to 2020, Mississippi’s colleges and universities jumped from 43rd to 29th in the number of bachelor’s degrees granted per capita, but the share of college-educated 25-to-34-year-olds living in Mississippi dropped from 49th to 50th over the same period.
A changing recruiting landscape is creating unlikely winners
Only six schools have won national championships in the playoff era. This year will produce the seventh.
The final four contenders were Indiana, Oregon, Miami and Ole Miss. Only Indiana and Oregon had made a playoff prior to this season, but neither has won a national championship in school history. Miami won its most recent title in 2001, before any of the players on its current team were born. Ole Miss’s last championship (claimed by the school, though not recognized by the NCAA) came in 1962, another season overshadowed by off-field events.
The common thread among the four semifinalists is that they have aggressively adapted to the changing recruiting landscape. On the heels of a Supreme Court decision, the NCAA granted players the ability to be paid for their name, image and likeness (NIL) in 2020, followed by the lifting of restrictions on transferring between schools. Revenue sharing now allows schools to pay players directly.
Players can now move around the country and compare financial offers, just as workers in other sectors have always been able to do. In the new era, recruiting talent has less to do with a program’s pedigree than its budget. The four semifinalists all have well-funded and well-organized NIL collectives that have allowed them to land talented transfers. While blue-bloods Georgia, Ohio State, Alabama still build their rosters through the high school ranks, more than half of the starters at Miami, Indiana and Ole Miss have come out of the portal. In the first two rounds of this year’s playoff, the team that started more transfers was 6-1 (Oregon and James Madison had an equal share).
The changing landscape has not upended the established hierarchy – after all, blue-blood programs typically still have the largest fan bases and deepest pockets – but it has created new opportunities for upward mobility among programs that can raise enough money and invest it wisely.
Broader societal and economic changes in wake of the pandemic have also shifted the migration of talent among the general population. Many of the largest and wealthiest cities began losing residents in 2020 as knowledge workers took advantage of their newfound ability to work remotely. Housing costs had been growing for decades in the nation’s top talent hubs, and COVID-era inflation brought affordability to a breaking point. In response, young professionals have flocked to smaller cities that offer many of the same urban amenities at a fraction of the price.
According to Zillow, the nation’s hottest housing markets in 2025 were Buffalo, New York; Indianapolis, Indiana; Providence, Rhode Island; and Hartford, Connecticut. All have historically been second- or third-tier cities in their regions. Three of the four had lost population since 1970.
As in college football, the established hierarchy remains intact, but with more potential for upward mobility. Talent still tends to flow in the direction of the cities with the biggest economies and highest-paid jobs, but the changes since 2020 have created opportunities to redirect more talent to places that previous generations had left behind.
Ole Miss built one of the nation’s best football teams because it figured out how to use the changing landscape to its advantage. As a state, Mississippi has not yet followed suit.
Jake McGraw leads the Rethink Mississippi initiative at Working Together Mississippi, a nonpartisan civic engagement organization of nonprofits and religious institutions across the state. He began researching and writing about the brain drain when he moved back to Mississippi more than a decade ago. A native of Oxford, he studied public policy and economics at the University of Mississippi and economic history at Oxford University. You can reach him at j.mcgraw@workingtogetherms.org.
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
Notes, quotes and an opinion or three:
The educated guess here is that Trinidad Chambliss will be the starting quarterback for Ole Miss when the Rebels open the 2026 season against Louisville at Nashville on either Sept. 5 or 6.
Rick Cleveland
Yes, I know, the NCAA has denied Chambliss’s initial request for a sixth year of eligibility. But Ole Miss has appealed that decision, and Chambliss has petitioned for both temporary and permanent restraining orders against the NCAA. That case will be heard in the Chancery Court of Lafayette County, about a mile from Vaught-Hemingway Stadium and a decided home field advantage for Chambliss and Ole Miss.
Lose there – as we presume the NCAA will – and the NCAA could appeal to the the Mississippi Supreme Court. Not exactly the most neutral of sites, either.
A decision on the temporary restraining order could come as early as this week. Should the TRO be granted, the legal process to decide the permanent restraining order could take weeks or even months and possibly not be decided until 2027, by which time Chambliss will be preparing for the NFL Draft.
There is also a chance that the NCAA will regroup, consider the likelihood of losing in Mississippi courts (and the cost involved there) and grant the Ole Miss appeal in the near future.
Either way, Chambliss and Ole Miss win.
•••
Should Chambliss be allowed to play another season of college football? Your answer depends on your allegiance. But consider this: Carson Beck was leading Miami into Monday night’s national championship game in his sixth year of college football. We don’t know if Beck, a multimillionaire at 23, will take the team bus to Hard Rock Stadium or make the short drive over in his Lamborghini.
We do know that Beck has made sort of a mockery of the education element of college football during the lead-up to the national championship game against Indiana. Beck graduated from the University of Georgia in 2023. Asked last week if he had attended classes at Miami in the week leading up to the game, Beck responded, “No class. I graduated two years ago.”
Meanwhile, Indiana will be quarterbacked by Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza, a mere 22-year-old who graduated from the University of California last year and has one year of college eligibility remaining. Mendoza is expected to forego that final year of eligibility to likely be the first pick of the upcoming NFL Draft.
You ask me, the best way to prevent these seemingly endless eligibility issues is to give college athletes five years to complete their careers. That would be five years to play as many as five seasons. You could solve other problems by allowing for only one transfer during those five years.
•••
Don’t look now, but Ole Miss is starting to play basketball the way we have become accustomed to Chris Beard-coached teams playing. The Rebels won their third straight game Saturday night, edging Mississippi State 68-67 at Starkville. The victory lifted Ole Miss to 11-7 overall and 3-2 in the SEC, good for a seven-way tie for third place and only one game out of first. State dropped to 10-8, 2-3.
Just goes to show you how fast things can change in the SEC. Ten days ago Ole Miss was 0-2 and in last place. Ten days ago, Mississippi State was 2-0 and tied for first.
Ole Miss plays host to Auburn at 8 p.m. Tuesday. State plays at Texas A&M Wednesday night at 8.
Five games into the SEC schedule, the league has never seemed more balanced. Thirteen of the 16 teams are within two games of first place.
•••
d1baseball.com last week came out with its pre-season college baseball poll and Mississippi State, unranked in the final 2025 poll, has zoomed to No. 4 in the first poll of 2026. Southern Miss was ranked No. 20. Eleven SEC teams, not including Ole Miss, were ranked. No. 6 Coastal Carolina was the only other Sun Belt team ranked.
Believe it or not, opening weekend for D1 teams is just 25 days away.
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
A Chancery Court judge has agreed to dissolve a partnership formed to profit from uninsured motorists whose license plates were captured by traffic cameras in Ocean Springs, Biloxi and other Mississippi cities.
A politically prominent trio of Mississippians formed QJR LLC to run the uninsured motorist program in Mississippi with Jonathan Miller, chairman of Georgia-based Securix LLC. Miller and his company have a proprietary system that randomly checks license plate numbers against state databases to identify uninsured vehicles and ticket their owners through law enforcement agencies.
Miller and Securix started the program in Ocean Springs, signing a contract in May 2021 with the city. Miller then teamed up with QJR, whose members are Quinton Dickerson and Josh Gregory of Frontier Strategies advertising firm in the metro Jackson area, plus attorney Robert Wilkinson of Pascagoula.
Frontier manages high-profile state and local political campaigns, while Wilkinson was city attorney for Ocean Springs when the partners formed Securix Mississippi to spread the potentially profitable program to more cities and states. Miller was supposed to manage the technology, while an operating agreement between his company and QJR stipulated that only QJR would handle marketing and direct contact with Mississippi customers.
Motorist ticketing program unravels
The partnership began to unravel within a month, Josh Gregory testified in Chancery Court before Judge Harris. Miller failed to show up for the trial. He was representing himself after Harris excused Miller’s attorney from the case in October, when the attorney-client relationship had completely broken down.
QJR filed its lawsuit against Miller and Georgia Securix in September 2024, asking that Harris dissolve Securix Mississippi and order Miller to stop defaming QJR and its members and levy punitive damages against him. The lawsuit was sealed for more than a year, although Harris did not follow established procedure for removing the case from public view. He unsealed most, but not all, records in the case after statewide media company Mississippi Today, later joined by the Sun Herald, objected to the sealing.
Harris decided that Securix Mississippi bank records would remain sealed — again without establishing a need to prevent public access to the entire bank record.
By the time QJR filed its lawsuit, the state Department of Public Safety had cut off Securix Mississippi’s access to the database of uninsured motorists after receiving at least one complaint from Miller about how Securix Mississippi was operating.
Gregory testified that Miller was not supposed to be communicating with public officials, according to their operating agreement. He said Securix Mississippi had ceased operations by 2025 and has no remaining assets. The company had previously pulled in $1.3 million in a year, according to records in a federal case that motorists filed in August 2023 against Georgia Securix.
MS partner testifies about Securix
Gregory testified that Miller was spreading false rumors of criminal wrongdoing against him and QJR. Miller sent emails and letters to public officials, including Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell, and others. Miller claimed QJR was misusing sensitive personal information about vehicle owners that only law enforcement officers were supposed to access.
“Pretty much everything he wrote, via email, letter or post, was untrue,” Gregory testified. “ . . . If he didn’t get his way, he would send email after email, to the point that we had to block his emails. They were excessive.”
Gregory said that QJR had attempted to keep Miller out of day-to-day operations in Mississippi because the program Miller and Georgia Securix ran in Ocean Springs was “such a disaster.” One of Miller’s later allegations was that Wilkinson was involved in the Ocean Springs program and shared in its profits, which Gregory testified was “completely untrue.”
Commissioner Tindell pulled Securix access to the uninsured motorist database in August 2023, court records show, after a letter from Miller alleged the program was being mismanaged.
Gregory testified that Miller did not provide documentation of the wrongdoing that he alleged.
Judge Harris has found Miller in contempt of court multiple times, but Miller has not returned to Mississippi and still owes more than $63,603 in attorney’s fees that Harris ordered the businessman to pay QJR’s attorney, Jaklyn Wrigley. Harris ordered the fees paid after finding that Miller had wrongly tried to move QJR’s case to federal court. The federal judge sent the case back to Harris.
In addition to dissolving Securix Mississippi, Harris also could consider QJR’s request for punitive damages against Miller and Georgia Securix, along with other relief QJR is seeking.
“While the other side did not show up for court yet again, we continued to provide the facts about this matter and are glad to be moving toward the resolution we’ve been advocating for since the start of this process more than a year ago,” said Jaklyn Wrigley, attorney for QJR.
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
Republican Speaker Jason White got his omnibus education overhaul/school-choice bill through the House last week, but it was a squeaker for the speaker.
The vote was 61-59 with 17 of White’s GOP supermajority peeling off and voting no, and two either absent or “taking a walk” and not voting.
White put on a full-court press in whipping reluctant Republicans to vote for the measure, which would, notably, allow families to use state tax dollars for private schooling.
Last week White invoked President Donald Trump and secured a social media endorsement for the bill from Trump Education Secretary Linda McMahon. White has touted letters of endorsement from the state’s Catholic dioceses and other religious groups supporting school choice that could garner their school systems public money. And famed football star Tim Tebow is coming to Mississippi this week to promote the “Tim Tebow Act” part of the House bill that would allow homeschooled kids to play public-school sports.
But opposition to the bill appears more grassroots, and lawmakers are getting calls from their school superintendents and teachers back home urging them to oppose it.
Can White keep his razor-thin vote together for what promises to be an uphill battle for House Bill 2? Senate Republican leaders have declared the House school-choice bill — at least the part about using tax dollars for private schools — dead on arrival.
A win-one-for-the-Gipper campaign, even with Trump as the Gipper, might not be enough to keep the bill alive through a battle with the Senate, especially if House supermajority votes are needed to do so later in the session.
When Trump says jump, Republican Mississippi politicians typically only ask “how high?”
But so far, this appears to be the odd occurrence where a majority of Republicans in the 174-member Legislature in ruby red, Trump-supporting Mississippi are prepared to buck a proposal from his White House.
Quote of the Week
“If little Johnny’s momma is on crystal meth, and little Johnny’s daddy is a pimp, can you tell me how they (are) gonna be able to choose that little Johnny is getting the right kind of education services when that’s not even on their plate?” — Rep. John Hines, during debate over accountability for private schools if the Legislature approves letting parents use tax dollars to pay tuition.
In Brief
Legislation would support nuclear expansion in MS
State officials have signaled they are open to expanding nuclear power development in the state.
Bills to support this have been proposed in the House and Senate, driven in part by demand for power created by data centers popping up all over the South and Mississippi to support the artificial intelligence boom.
A bill authored by Sen. Joel Carter, a Republican from Gulfport, would provide $10 million to the Mississippi Development Authority to spend on “future nuclear development” for the upcoming fiscal year. A House bill by Rep. Jody Steverson, a Republican from Ripley, would create a special fund for MDA to administer nuclear site development grants, including reimbursement for some expenses. – Katherine Lin
Antisemitism bill would exempt reporting from DEI ban
Mississippi captured international attention last week after a 19-year-old Madison man allegedly set fire to the state’s largest synagogue, allegedly for its “Jewish ties.”
In the Legislature, Rep. Lee Yancey, a Republican from Brandon, has introduced a bill to combat what he says is a “historic rise in antisemitic violence, harassment and discrimination targeting Jewish students” at K-12 schools and in the higher education system.
The bill would require public schools to prohibit and report antisemitic discrimination and use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, which has been adopted by several other state legislatures. Notably, the bill exempts all its provisions of a law the Legislature passed last year to ban DEI statements. This could mean that public school might be required to implement measures that might otherwise be considered DEI-related. – Michael Goldberg
Senate considering pieces of House ed plan
Senate leaders have started filing education bills that mirror portions of the massive education package the House passed Thursday.
This includes a bill that would allow homeschooled children to play public school sports and another that would establish a math program modeled after the 2013 literacy act. It’s a sign that the Senate is going to kill the House bill — after they pick the sections that they like.
Another education issue showing up in both chambers: cellphone bans. Both the House and the Senate have filed multiple bills that restrict or prohibit the usage of cellphones in school.
Youth mental health concerns have resulted in similar bans in at least 11 other states. A bill that would have required Mississippi school boards to create cell phone policies died last year, but several Mississippi school districts have since passed their own policies, including Jackson Public Schools and Madison County. – Devna Bose
More money for career coaching proposed
Rep. Donnie Bell, a Republican from Fulton, has proposed a bill to provide $20 million to expand a career coaching program for middle- and high-school students.
The career coaching program under Accelerate Mississippi, the state’s office of workforce development, helps students figure out their post graduation paths.
In a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting last week week, Courtney Taylor, director of Accelerate Mississippi, said there are currently 204 career coaches that serve 209 schools. The office has identified healthcare, advanced manufacturing and construction as priority career fields. – Katherine Lin
Sales tax exemption for farmers considered
Farmers are being squeezed from both sides with high input costs and low crop prices.
While there are larger economic forces at play, a bill authored by Sen. Neil Whaley, a Republican from Potts Camp and chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, would exempt commercial farmers from the 1.5% state sales tax on some agricultural and logging equipment. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has also championed this exemption. – Katherine Lin
Stand-alone tourism department considered again
A bill to create a Department of Tourism has once again passed the Senate.
A bill authored by Sen. Lydia Chassaniol, a Republican from Winona and chair of the Tourism Committee, would remove tourism from the purview of the Mississippi Development Authority.
Last year, a similar bill was vetoed by Gov. Tate Reeves over funding issues, and the issue has been debated for years. In 2024, tourism contributed over $18 billion to the state’s economy and provided 136,094 jobs. – Katherine Lin
Bill would create Bobbie Gentry Day
Rep. Sam Creekmore IV, a Republican from New Albany, has filed legislation to designate June 3 as Bobbie Gentry Day in Mississippi — a nod to the date that Gentry once described in a song as “another sleepy, dusty Delta day.” The bill would honor Gentry, born Roberta Lee Streeter, a singer-songwriter from Woodland in northeastern Mississippi’s Chickasaw County. Gentry rose to national prominence in 1967 with her hit “Ode to Billie Joe,” a haunting song in which an unnamed narrator learns that Billie Joe McAllister has died after jumping from the Tallahatchie Bridge. Gentry has not made public appearances for decades and has largely avoided speaking with fans or the media, including in her home state. – Taylor Vance
Workers’ Compensation exemption proposed
A new exception to the workers’ compensation law would allow employers to not pay workers’ compensation for death or injury when an employee deliberately breaks a safety regulation.
The measure, authored by Rep. Donnie Bell, a Republican from Fulton, places the onus on the employer to prove that they had clearly communicated safety rules to the employee. – Katherine Lin
By the Numbers
$162 million
Estimated first-year cost of the House’s omnibus public education bill, including providing tax dollars for parents to use for private schooling or homeschooling.
More Legislative Coverage
Tears, Trump and student transfers: House barely passes school-choice bill. Will it survive?
The Mississippi House narrowly passed a major public-education overhaul Thursday after four hours of debate that centered on school choice — but also invoked President Trump, rifles and shotguns, the Psalm of David, pimps and meth addicts and even sexual innuendo. Read the story.
‘Absent’ Republicans, heavy whipping help Speaker Jason White pass school-choice bill
After perhaps the most intense vote-whipping he’s done as House speaker, Republican Jason White prevailed on a major school-choice bill, but only by a razor-thin, two-vote margin, with the future of the legislation uncertain. Read the story.
Mississippi House speaker invokes Trump in push for school choice. How involved might the president get?
Faced with internecine Republican opposition to “school-choice,” or spending tax dollars earmarked for public education on private schools, House Speaker Jason White broke out the biggest gun in Mississippi GOP politics: He invoked President Donald J. Trump. Read the story.
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
HERNANDO — Some DeSoto County School Board members want a legal process by which an elected peer — another school board member — can be ousted for concerns including malfeasance and abuse of power. They passed a resolution in November formally asking lawmakers to consider granting that authority in the current legislative session.
A new law “would give school boards more authority when situations arise that cause concern in the community,” school board President Jerald Wheeler said in a statement to Mississippi Today.
For now, there is no legal mechanism for a school board to remove one of its members, said Jim Keith, attorney for the DeSoto County School Board.
The board members may get their wish to change that, at least in terms of a bill.
Sen. Kevin Blackwell, a Republican from Southaven, has filed Senate Bill 2068, which would allow a school district’s local governing authority, by majority vote, to remove a school board member for breach of public trust, neglect of duty and abuse of authority. The school board would first have to vote on a recommendation.
Rep. Kimberly Remak, a Republican from Olive Branch, is the primary author of House Bill 573, the House version of Blackwell’s bill. The bill now has multiple coauthors and bipartisan support. Remak did not respond to requests for comment.
On Dec. 30, Sen. Michael McLendon, a Republican from Hernando, announced on Facebook plans to introduce the Whiteside Accountability Act, a separate bill that, if passed into law, would provide “a statutory recall process for school board members who engage in conduct that undermines student safety, including actions that defend or minimize sexual crimes against minors.” The bill would give the power to school board members to remove other board members.
DeSoto County School Board members’ interest in ousting another elected board member stems from public calls for Michele Henley to resign after she wrote a letter and testified on behalf of Lindsey Whiteside, a former volunteer assistant girls’ basketball coach at DeSoto Central High School who had already pleaded guilty to sexual battery of a minor. At least nine other district employees wrote letters of support for Whiteside.
On Oct. 13, a judge sentenced Whiteside to three years of house arrest and seven years of probation — a much lighter sentence than the 30 years that prosecutors sought. The sentence divided the tranquil Memphis suburbs in Mississippi, where Whiteside was also a youth pastor.
Whiteside pleaded guilty earlier that day to committing sexual battery against a minor who attended her church. Some people, disturbed by Henley’s testimony and that some school district staff also wrote letters vouching for Whiteside’s character, began calling for Henley’s removal from the school board. They took to social media and spoke out at school board meetings.
“Disappointment, outrage, neglect of power” are a few reactions McLendon has heard from constituents since the conclusion of the Whiteside trial.
“It’s one thing to write a letter on the character of a person that you know, but writing the letter on official letterhead and using your elected title carries weight as an authoritative figure,” McLendon said of Henley.
Henley did not respond to multiple requests for comment by Mississippi Today.
DeSoto County School board member Michele Henley listens to public comments during the DeSoto County School Board meeting in Hernando, Miss. on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
In a statement posted to Facebook on Oct. 15, Henley said the letter she wrote did not express support for Whiteside’s actions “or endorse her behavior.” The letter, shared in the post, describes Whiteside coaching and supporting Henley’s daughter in basketball.
As for her testimony, Henley wrote, “Contrary to what has been claimed, I did not testify for the defense. I was subpoenaed by the District Attorney to appear in court. While on the stand, I was asked whether I condoned Lindsey’s actions. My response was no. When asked about what her sentence should be, I stated that such a decision was for the judge to determine.”
‘A mechanism is necessary’
A half-dozen DeSoto County residents told Mississippi Today they believe Henley abused their trust when she wrote a letter of support on Whiteside’s behalf. The victim’s family said they felt Henley exercised poor judgment in supporting Whiteside over a district student.
The family members also said they felt Henley’s actions should be grounds for removal from the school board. After making a statement condemning Henley’s actions, the school board passed a resolution formally asking the legislature for legal recourse to grant them the power to oust one of their members, due in part to public outcry.
“The Board of Trustees of the DeSoto County School District firmly believes that a mechanism is necessary for the removal of school board members … to ensure a safe and supportive learning environment for students,” read the Nov. 20 resolution by the DeSoto County School Board.
Hope Hughes gives her comments during the DeSoto County School board meeting in Hernando, Miss. on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Every board member save Henley, who abstained, voted in support of the recent motion.
Katie Sasso, the mother of a DeSoto County School District student, said Henley’s departure would allow for the community to heal. Aubrie Johnson, a concerned community member, said, “It was shocking to see (someone) support a real-life predator.”
DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton wrote Henley in October that “when an elected official chooses to protect the abuser rather than the abused, she ceases to serve the public good.” Barton said he called for Henley’s resignation so integrity and confidence could be restored to the school board.
On Nov. 6, at Henley’s first school board meeting appearance since the hearing, two members of the victim’s family called for her resignation. Pam Pegram, the victim’s grandmother, asked that Henley look at her during their exchange, pausing for Henley’s response. Pegram was met with nearly two minutes of silence.
“You heard the brave young girl read her victim statement and tell everyone in that courtroom about the vile and evil things that the predator had done. You heard the despair in the victim’s mother’s letter. You heard the frustration and the anger from the victim’s stepdad,” Pegram said. “You could have any time said, ‘I’m so sorry. I can no longer support this.’ But you cowardly refused to stand up for a child that attended school in your district.”
At that meeting, the school board voted to replace Henley as its president. Henley remains a board member.
In conversation with the public
DeSoto County Parents for Accountability, a parent group that found a broad audience on Facebook, is also pushing for Henley’s resignation.
The effort included organizing a protest of the school board on Oct. 17. The group has also criticized the school board, saying it meets at times when parents can’t attend.
The parents’ rights group helped organize a boycott of the school district the week after the Whiteside verdict. They protested what they called a lack of transparency and response by district leadership.
Hope Hughes gives her comments during the DeSoto County School board meeting in Hernando, Miss. on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Nancy Kemper, grandmother of a DeSoto County student, said during the public comments section of the meeting that she was unable to attend past meetings because they were scheduled during school pickup time. She said she felt the meeting schedule gave Henley the opportunity to dodge accountability.
“I know a lot of people that wanted to come here today and they feel like it was really convenient — especially for (Henley) — that they couldn’t come and speak because they are in line picking up their children.”
Seeking a legislative response
The bills introduced this legislative session aren’t the first attempts to extend school boards’ authority, including their power to remove other school board members.
In November, the DeSoto County School Board voted to support HB 817, which Remak introduced during the 2025 legislative session. HB 817 would have allowed school board members, by a majority vote and through the local governing agency, to remove a colleague for “malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance,” breach of public trust and abuse of authority.
The DeSoto board’s vote was symbolic; the bill had died in committee.
Another bill filed this session, authored by Kabir Karriem, a Democrat from Columbus, would also allow for the removal of a school board member for misconduct and “breach of public trust.” House Bill 521 would also limit a school board’s power to request a hike in property tax.
Karriem said he hoped to prevent school boards from triggering “irresponsible” property tax increases or other rash actions. He was inspired to reintroduce his bill from the 2025 legislative session because of his constituents’ concerns in Columbus.
“When you have school board members that feel like they have complete autonomy that creates problems for the community,” Karriem said. “And there always needs to be checks and balances.”
“There needs to be the opportunity to remove bad actors.”
If one of the bills to let school boards oust another board member becomes law, Mississippi will be one of the first state to grant that power. New York allows school board members to vote out their peers for “official misconduct.” Indiana allows removal by a circuit judge, while Virginia and Alabama give that right to governors. Illinois grants the power to a regional superintendent. In 24 states, excluding Mississippi, an elected school board member can be removed by a recall vote.
There is a lot of support for the bills before the Legislature this session, McLendon said. “It’s a nonpartisan bill that holds everyone accountable for their actions when it comes to protecting children.”
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
The Mississippi House will try for the third year straight to legalize mobile sports betting with new provisions aimed at winning over Senate lawmakers who have opposed the measure, the House Gaming Committee Chairman said.
This year’s legislation — in a key change from last year’s proposal — would direct all state revenue from online betting to the state’s government pension system, Casey Eure, a Republican from Saucier who chairs House Gaming, told Mississippi Today.
The House and Senate are still at loggerheads over how to shore up the Public Employees’ Retirement System, which has unfunded liabilities of about $26 billion.
The new proposal will also contain other “compromises” for those who have previously opposed legalization.
The persistence of a thriving black market in Mississippi and an estimated tens of millions a year in tax revenue that legal sports betting could generate has prompted a fierce push from some lawmakers to legalize the practice.
“By legalizing mobile sports betting, we can eliminate much of the illegal market — including protecting underage bettors — and provide real consumer safeguards in a regulated environment,” Eure said. “This legislation will also give our brick-and-mortar casinos a new revenue stream to ensure their continued success, while the state revenue generated will help close the gap in funding for our public employees’ retirement system.”
The effort also has a strong and well-funded lobby from sports betting companies. But the legalization effort could again face significant headwinds, from skeptical state lawmakers in both parties and federal regulatory changes since the election of President Donald Trump.
Senate Gaming Chairman David Blount, a Democrat from Jackson who has thus far opposed mobile sports betting legalization, told Mississippi Today he wouldn’t take a position on Eure’s bill until he read it. But he said directing the revenue to PERS wouldn’t be near enough to justify legalization.
“These are the same people who abolished the income tax last year, which generates more than $2 billion a year to the state budget. If we legalized mobile sports betting tomorrow, it would take more than 1,000 years to pay off the unfunded liability in the retirement system,” Blount said. “The amount of money that we’re talking about is infinitesimal compared to the $26 billion unfunded liability of the retirement system.”
Eure has said legalizing online betting could generate as much as $80 million a year in tax revenue. Blount said the estimates he’s seen max out at about $30 million. Either way, the total would not pay off the system’s unfunded liabilities in the near term.
The Senate has already sent the House a bill to put half-a-billion dollars of the state’s current surplus into PERS, in addition to putting $50 million a year over the next decade. House leaders have proposed a recurring revenue stream for PERS, either from the state lottery or by legalizing mobile sports betting.
Blount also pointed to the rise of “prediction markets,” exchanges where people bet on the outcomes of future events. These markets, dominated by platforms such as Kalshi, are different from traditional sports betting because traders set prices. Also, prediction markets try to make money by letting people trade against each other to reveal how likely an event is, while sports betting companies make money by setting odds so the bookmaker always takes a cut.
Under the Trump administration, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has taken a lax approach to regulating prediction markets, allowing platforms to expand their offerings in states around the country, including states such as Mississippi, where mobile sports betting remains illegal.
“Predictions markets have essentially legalized nationwide mobile betting,” Blount said. “Whatever amount of money was promised last year, that number is reduced, maybe greatly reduced. Because due to the actions of the current administration, no state can tax or regulate prediction markets, which are effectively gambling.”
Two U.S. Senate committees could take up a bill later this month to establish new rules for the cryptocurrency industry, and some on Capitol Hill are pushing to include language that would tighten regulations on prediction markets.
In addition to the role PERS and prediction markets might play in the debate over mobile sports betting legalization in Mississippi, a proposal this year would likely need to assuage the concerns of lawmakers from districts with casinos. Some brick-and-mortar casinos have feared the legalization of online betting could undercut their profits.
To protect smaller casinos from revenue losses, Eure’s bill last year would create a pot of money that establishments could draw from for the first five years after online sports betting becomes legal. It also included safeguards to prevent people from placing bets with credit cards.
Eure still believes legalization would be an economic boon for Mississippi.
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
Lawyers for Attorney General Lynn Fitch and State Auditor Shad White will argue before the Mississippi Supreme Court on Tuesday over which of them has the right to claw back state money they believe was illegally spent.
Fitch believes she has the exclusive right to file a civil lawsuit on behalf of the state. White contends state law gives him the authority to file a suit to recoup funds in some instances.
The issue is over a section of Mississippi law stating that the state auditor is “to institute suit, and the attorney general shall prosecute the same in any court of the state,” when recovering misspent tax dollars.
Fitch first took White to court when the auditor attempted to sue Pro Football Hall of Fame athlete Brett Favre to recoup allegedly misspent welfare money. A Hinds County chancery judge disagreed with Fitch, so the attorney general appealed to the state’s highest court.
The two officials have said they’re considering running for governor and have clashed in recent years over the handling of Mississippi’s massive welfare scandal, which has seen multiple people plead guilty to state and federal crimes.
Fitch also withdrew her office’s representation of the auditor in two defamation lawsuits, including one filed by Favre, after determining a book White wrote about the welfare scandal cast her office in a negative light and created a conflict of interest.
The audio version of this story is AI generated and is not human reviewed. It may contain errors or inaccuracies.
The effort of Mississippi House leaders and others to expand programs providing public funds to private schools validates the oft-repeated quote that “history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
Efforts by Mississippi legislators to send public funds to private schools go back to at least the 1960s.
The current effort, led by House Speaker Jason White and buttressed by President Donald Trump and Gov. Tate Reeves, would provide funds to parents to allow them to help pay for the children’s education at a private school.
The argument is made that such a scheme, sending the money to parents to help pay for their child’s private school education, will not violate Section 208 of the Mississippi Constitution, which states definitively that public money may not go to schools not operating as “free schools.”
The argument is being made that it would be constitutional because the public money is going to the parent instead of the private school. Some would argue that the process is simply trying to achieve through deception what the Mississippi Constitution says is prohibited and, who knows, maybe that is the definition of lawyering.
There have been limited state court cases involving Section 208, and none of those addressed directly the issue of whether providing public funds to a family to be spent on a private school education is constitutional.
It is almost certain that many of the nine members of the Mississippi Supreme Court would prefer not to have to take up the explosive issue. But if the bill passes the Legislature, it is almost certain that it will land in justices’ laps at the state’s highest court.
While it does not appear there has been a state case addressing the particulars that will be in front of the Mississippi Supreme Court if the bill becomes law, in 1969 there was a federal case with similar facts. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a state law sending public funds, called tuition grants, to families to be spent on a private school education.
As the number of Mississippi private schools exploded in the 1960s to provide white students an escape from attending classes with Black students, the Mississippi Legislature passed a bill to provide funds to white students to be used to attend segregationist academies.
Many of those academies still exist today and could benefit if the new effort to provide public funds to private schools becomes law.
The 5th Circuit did not address Section 208 of the Mississippi Constitution, but instead said the law was discriminatory. The 5th Circuit found that the law “encourages, facilitates and supports the establishment of a system of private schools operated on a racially segregated basis as an alternative available to white students seeking to avoid desegregated public schools.”
Granted, 2026 is much different than the 1960s. There are many private schools that enroll and do a good job educating Black students.
But there are still private schools that take great pride in being the sole overseer of their enrollment criteria. The private schools told legislators during a hearing on the issue last year that they would not relinquish their authority to decide who they enroll.
There are, no doubt, private schools that deny enrollment to certain disabled students because of the high cost of providing those children an education.
And, no doubt, there would be private schools that would balk at enrolling gay or trans students. Some private schools also might deny enrollment to students who openly embrace certain religious practices.
Are those forms of discrimination?
In 1969, like today, the executive branch of the federal government got involved in the issue of sending public funds to private schools. The Trump administration has endorsed the bill pending in the Mississippi Legislature.
In 1969 the Justice Department of then-president Richard Nixon opposed the effort to provide “tuition grants” for students to attend private schools.
The opposing positions taken by the two presidents perhaps proves that sometimes history does not repeat itself and doesn’t even rhyme.
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