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The Mississippi Legislature, trying to limit the potential spread of the coronavirus, will meet in what is expected to be a pared down joint session Tuesday afternoon for Gov. Tate Reeves to deliver the annual State of the State speech.

The speech is scheduled to be delivered on the south steps of the state Capitol, but will be moved to the House chamber if there is inclement weather.

Both presiding officers, Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, will be on hand to officiate as well as the House and Senate committee (three from each chamber) to escort the governor to the joint session.

But the State of the State, in the COVID-19 environment, is expected to take place without the pomp and circumstance that normally surrounds the event.

Gunn said on Monday that he knows scant details about the governor’s State of the State address plans.

“I’m told that I need to show up, bang the gavel and introduce the bugler – it is my understanding there will be a bugler,” Gunn said. “I don’t know who all is coming to it … It’s really up to them, the governor’s office, on how they are going to do it.”

“The governor has requested no audience,” Hosemann said.

On Monday afternoon, the Senate approved the House resolution, passed Friday, authorizing the joint session.

The state Constitution simply instructs the governor “from time to time” to provide information to the Legislature on “the state of the government and recommend for consideration such measurers so may be deemed necessary and expedient.” That constitutional mandate has become the more elaborate State of the State speech that is attended by various representatives of state government, not only from the legislative but also from the judicial and executive branches.

Gunn on Monday gaveled the House to order – via Zoom – and presided over a mostly empty chamber. Only two lawmakers, the speaker pro tempore and Rules Committee chairman were present in the chamber that normally holds a boisterous crowd of 122 lawmakers. Beforehand, about 15 lawmakers were in the chamber, but Gunn asked them to leave before gaveling in.

“My request last week was that no one be in the chamber,” Gunn told the handful of legislators who were at their desks. “Obviously, if we let one of you come in here, we’ll have to let all, and then we will lose our social distancing … We are attempting to comply with the request made by Dr. Dobbs (the state health officer).”

Gunn noted after he gaveled out the brief Zoom session that it was strange looking over a mostly empty chamber.

“It was mighty quiet in here, wasn’t it?” Gunn said.

As an aside to the couple of staff present after he closed Monday’s session, he said, “That seemed to go well enough – maybe we need to conduct all our business that way.”

House committee meetings on Monday were likewise held via Zoom, and broadcast on YouTube. Gunn said there were a few “glitches,” such as members not finding the meeting links sent to them, but “For our maiden voyage it was rather smooth.”

“I’ve not heard any word that business was not able to be conducted in the committees,” Gunn said.

But some lawmakers are still questioning the new pandemic protocols and whether business is being properly and fairly conducted.

“With us bypassing all the initial phases of the process – yes I have some concern,” said Rep. Charles Young Jr., D-Meridian. “You don’t have the option of being able to oppose any of the process like you normally would … I think we should have made more accommodations to uphold our process. You can’t just kill the process, but that’s what we are doing.”

The Senate also is conducting committee meetings via Zoom, but members are not being barred from participating in person when the chamber is in full session or when in committee.

Reeves speech will be carried live on multiple outlets, including WMPN public television and via the airwaves and internet by WJTV television in Jackson.

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READ: Pared down State of State with limited audience set for Tuesday

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In his final week in Jackson, Gerald Harris, a political reporter at WJTV, talks with Mississippi Today Editor-in-Chief Adam Ganucheau about covering state politics and why journalism in Mississippi is important as ever.

Listen here:

The post Gerald Harris, a pillar of the Mississippi press corps, discusses covering state politics appeared first on Mississippi Today.

READ: Lawmakers will work via internet as COVID-19 spreads at the Capitol

The post Marshall Ramsey: Virtual appeared first on Mississippi Today.

As Mississippi legislators grapple with how much and whether they can afford to provide a pay raise to teachers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, what occurred in 2000 might be of interest.

Lawmakers that year passed the state’s largest teacher pay increase: a $337 million proposal that was enacted over a six-year period. That pay raise is equivalent to $523.9 million in today’s dollars.

There are some similarities between what happened then and what is going on now.

In the 1999 gubernatorial election, then-Lt. Gov. Ronnie Musgrove campaigned on moving the pay for Mississippi teachers to the Southeastern average. During the 2019 gubernatorial election, both candidates — Democrat Jim Hood and Republican Tate Reeves — promised large pay raises for teachers.

About a month before the November 2019 general election, Reeves, the eventual winner, proposed raising teacher pay $4,300 over a four-year period, costing, he said at the time, a total of $225 million — far less than the 2000 plan, but still a lofty goal.

In 2000, like now, there were events beyond the control of Mississippi’s politicians making it difficult for them to commit to spending such a large amount of money.

Currently, of course, that event is the COVID-19 pandemic. The pay raise that was planned for the year after the 2019 election was scrapped at the onset of the pandemic because of fears over how the coronavirus would impact the Mississippi economy and revenue collections for state government. Legislators are considering a pay raise again this session.

But there also were economic headwinds in 2000. Granted, there was no event nearly as significant or deadly as the pandemic, but there was a sizable recession that might have impacted Mississippi more than any other state. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the exodus of low paying jobs from America to other countries reached a crescendo. Mississippi had more of those jobs per capita than any state in the nation.

The Mississippi economy tanked. Fiscal year 2001 was the first in the state’s modern history where revenue collections were less for that year than the previous year.

At least in part because of the bad economy, legislative leaders in 2000 said the state could not afford a teacher pay raise — especially such a large one. Despite that headwind, Musgrove continued to lobby for the pay raise, though it looked that with both House Speaker Tim Ford and Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck being in opposition, his primary campaign promise would go unfulfilled.

But then some good, old-fashioned legislative distrust raised its head helping to build momentum. When asked about the pay raise one day, then influential House Ways and Means Chair Billy McCoy, D-Rienzi, said, “To quote Snuffy Smith, time’s a wastin’.” McCoy’s comments were printed over that weekend as being supportive of passing the raise that session.

On that Monday, Senate leaders, knowing McCoy was one of Ford’s key allies, feared that their House counterparts were poised to announce a plan for a pay raise. The Senate leaders, not wanting to be viewed as the only obstacle to the pay raise, called a hastily organized news conference to announce a pay raise plan of their own.

That plan, proposed by Lt. Gov. Tuck, was the one that finally passed. But the numbers were similar enough to what Musgrove had proposed that everyone could claim victory.

As a sidenote, the Senate plan had language saying the salary increase would not go into effect any year where revenue collections did not grow by at least 5%.

While Musgrove opposed the revenue trigger, he feared that fighting it might result in the death of the legislation. Instead, he signed the legislation and later that summer called a special session where he was successful in convincing legislators to remove the trigger.

Musgrove, though, was not serving as governor when most of the pay raise went into effect. Because of the state’s dire economic situation, the pay raise was backloaded with the bulk of it going into effect in the last years of the multi-year commitment.

By that time, Musgrove had lost re-election to Haley Barbour. While revenue collections continued to be tepid when Barbour took office, he never tried to pass legislation that would allow the state to back out of the commitment to teachers, though the pay raise placed a tremendous strain on the state budget.

The point is that there were politicians of both parties at the time who believed it was a commitment worth keeping.

But by the time the pay raise was fully enacted, other states had also increased the salaries for teachers, meaning that Southeastern average still was not reached. Still, the record pay raise put Mississippi teachers closer to that elusive Southeastern average.

The post Lawmakers could take lessons from the historic teacher pay raise of 2000 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Under the COVID-19 safety protocols being put in place for the coming weeks, members of the Mississippi House can participate in the legislative process from the comfort of their homes.

On the Senate side, members also can participate via the internet – through Zoom – but at some point each day they must come to the Capitol if they want to be paid.

Both chambers have reported positive COVID tests in recent days – at least two in the Senate and one the House. Legislative leaders are trying to prevent what happened last summer while in session where 49 members tested positive, as did multiple staff members and lobbyists.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, has proposed recessing the session until later in the year to provide time for more COVID-19 vaccines to be administered. House Speaker Philip Gunn has rejected that proposal. Instead, the House leadership has developed a unique plan where members can log into Zoom to participate not only when the Legislature is in full session, but also when they are in committee meetings.

When House members log in for the full session, they are counted as present and thus receive the $151 per diem that legislators receive during the legislative session.

“We are not going to meet on the floor – we are going to do it by Zoom,” Gunn said. “That was our idea. I told Delbert (Wednesday) night that we were planning to do that. We talked with legal staff to make sure we could do that. They said, yes that’s fine. Then we talked with the IT people to make sure it could be done, and they said yes, in fact, he’s already got it set up to go.

“What we’re doing is, a chairman will be in (a committee room) by himself on a computer,” Gunn added. “All the members will attend by Zoom, and they’ll have the ability to ask questions and offer amendments and debate and do all the normal stuff.”

On Friday the House passed legislation that changes the section of House rules which state there must be a quorum (at least half the members) present to conduct business to say participating online will count toward the quorum until March 1.

In the Senate, the plan also is for committee meetings to be online for senators to participate, but to receive per diem they must check in at the Capitol at some point during the day.

Senate leaders are basing that decision on a section of state law saying the per diem pay is based on “actual attendance at a session.” The Constitution, which is more vague, simply says, “a majority of each house shall constitute a quorum to do business.”

Gunn said the Legislature is at a point in the session making it easier to conduct business online. The Legislature will meet primarily in committees until Feb. 2, passing out bills to be considered before the full chambers. The two chambers’ time in full session during this period of the legislative process is normally brief.

After the committee work is complete, Gunn said it will not be as easy to meet remotely when legislators are in full session for long periods daily to take up and vote on bills. Gunn said at that point other safety precautions will be taken to socially distance in the Capitol.

But with proper safety precautions, Gunn said he sees no need to delay the session.

Referring to the Senate’s call to recess the session, he said, “What they need to do is take a vote… They’ve been talking about it and talking about it, and they need to vote on something and send it to me. It’s a two-thirds vote. If they feel strongly about it, let them take a vote – do they have two thirds that agree on anything?  Until then it’s an academic discussion.”

But many members of the Senate see the situation differently. Sen. Derrick Simmons of Greenville, the Senate Democratic leader, said he agrees with Hosemann that the session should be delayed.

“It is more valuable when we fully participate in the process by being here,” Simmons said. “Anytime we change the way we do our work we are not effectively representing our people.”

 But not every member of the Senate seemed enamored with taking a break. Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, pointed out members had committed to leases in Jackson for the planned three-month session and a delay would mean they could lose that money as well as incur other expenses when they came back later in the year.

“Will we be compensated for having to incur the extra days and cover the things that go along with that?” Wiggins asked. “I think everyone knows that we are citizen legislators. People have jobs. People have things like that and accommodations must be made.”

Wiggins said it would be better to take safety precautions and remain in session.

Legislators receive $10,000 salary for the session and the per diem plus mileage. In addition, legislators receive $1,500 monthly out of session. The $10,000 salary is not prorated based on how many days the members are in session.

Also on Friday, the House passed a resolution to call for a joint session for Gov. Tate Reeves to deliver a State of the State speech at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 26, on the south steps of the Capitol. If there is inclement weather, the resolution calls for the joint session to be held in the House chamber where presumably many members would watch via the internet.

The House’s State of the State resolution most likely will be taken up Monday by senators who could change it.

Members of the public should be able to watch most committee meetings online through a YouTube channel that can be accessed here.

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The Mississippi State Board of Education waived passing score requirements for high school end-of-course assessments and the third grade literacy test this school year.

The board also voted to allow schools and districts to suspend the assignment of letter grades, which measure school and district performance, for the 2020-21 year.

Although passing requirements are waived, state testing will still be administered. Carey Wright, state superintendent of education, and other education officials have said it is important to have that data to determine the impact of the pandemic on student learning. It is also mandated by the U.S. Department of Education.

Based on a 2013 law called the Literacy-Based Promotion Act, third graders in Mississippi public schools must pass a reading test to continue to fourth grade. This year, third grade students who do not pass the test will still be promoted and receive additional support in the fourth grade, according to the board.

High schoolers take tests in Algebra I, English II, Biology and U.S. History, and will not be prevented from graduating if they don’t pass these assessments this year.

Gov. Tate Reeves in April issued an executive order granting the State Board of Education the ability to suspend or amend state laws and policies if necessary to cope with the effects of the coronavirus.

Earlier this month Wright told lawmakers the Mississippi Department of Education would be making these recommendations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she felt it was important for this to be a “year of grace” and that holding children accountable in this way would be unfair. On Thursday, the board approved her recommendations.

Board Chair Jason Dean emphasized that assessment and accountability will return to normal in the 2021-22 school year, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

The board also approved adjustments and waivers of parts of the state’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan, including identifying struggling schools and the timelines for improvement in those schools.

The post Passing requirements waived for some state tests in 2020-21 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, said Thursday that the House will start meeting online as COVID-19 spreads at the Capitol, but he expressed no interest in recessing the legislative session as a safety precaution.

By Thursday afternoon, at least two senators and possibly more have contracted the coronavirus since lawmakers began the 2021 session on Jan. 5. One House member had tested positive.

Though legislative leaders adopted safety guidelines this session, many lawmakers at the Capitol have been regularly seen without masks, and others have held maskless meetings in small spaces. Visitors to the Capitol have also been seen wearing masks improperly or not at all.

Gunn said the one member in his chamber who tested positive had the coronavirus last week. He said based on that test, an unspecified number of House members were quarantined. That quarantine is slated to end Friday. Gunn said the House leadership was following the recommendations of State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs.

Senate leadership on Thursday announced that they, too, would allow senators to attend committee meetings online starting next Monday. Several senators are expected to receive quarantine orders after being exposed to at least two COVID-19 positive colleagues. A third senator on Thursday was displaying symptoms but had yet to test positive.

READ MORE: COVID-19 spreads at the Capitol, quarantine orders expected for some senators.

Gunn said House members can fully participate and vote online. Senate Rules Vice Chair Walter Michel, R-Ridgeland, said the Senate needs to have enough members attend committee meetings in person at the beginning to establish a quorum. The members can then leave the committee room and participate via Zoom.

In both chambers, the plan is to have a link on the legislative web page to allow the public to access the meetings via the internet.

Before the session began, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, proposed recessing the session until later this year. He cited fears that another outbreak would occur at the Capitol. In June 2020, a COVID-19 outbreak at the Capitol infected at least 49 lawmakers, including Hosemann and Gunn, and was responsible for the death of at least one Mississippian.

READ MORE: Hosemann wants to delay 2021 session as COVID-19 spikes. House leaders remain hesitant.

Before the Senate adjourned for the weekend on Thursday, calls for the session to be recessed intensified amongst some members of the Senate.

Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, said he agreed with Hosemann that the “best course in light of what we are dealing with is to suspend the session… A lot of members have said it was not a matter of if we would have an outbreak, but a matter of when.”

The Senate is unable to recess for a long period of time without the consent of the House. At this point with no agreement from the House, the plan is for both chambers to conduct more business online.

“We have a plan to allow us to work and to work in a safe manner,” Gunn said Thursday. He said he “would like to see a vote” from senators to see if a two-thirds majority, which is required to recess the session, actually supports the idea of postponing.

The Legislature is at the point in the session where most of the work is done in committee meetings instead of in the chamber before the full membership. Gunn said in the coming days as the committee work continues, both the committee meetings and the full sessions, which will be brief each day, will be conducted online.

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