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Infighting between Mississippi’s Republican House and Senate legislative leaders reached DEFCON 4 as the 2025 legislative session sputtered to a close last week.

Lawmakers gaveled out unable to set a $7 billion state budget — their main job — or to even agree to negotiate. Gov. Tate Reeves will force them back into session sometime before the end of the fiscal year June 30. At a press conference last week, the governor assured he would do so but did not give a timetable, other than saying he plans to give lawmakers some time to cool off.

The crowning achievement of the 2025 session was passage of a tax overhaul bill a majority of legislators accidentally voted for because of errors in its math. House leaders and the governor nevertheless celebrated passage of the measure, which will phase out the state individual income tax over about 14 years, more quickly trim the sales tax on some groceries to 5% raise the tax on gasoline by 9 cents a gallon, then have automatic gas tax increases thereafter based on the cost of road construction.

The error in the Senate bill accidentally removed safeguards that chamber’s leadership wanted to ensure the income tax would be phased out only if the state sees robust economic growth and controls spending.

The rope-a-dope the House used with the Senate errors to pass the measure also stripped a safeguard House leaders had wanted: a 1.5 cents on the dollar increase in the state’s sales tax, which would have brought it to 8.5%. House leaders said such an increase was needed to offset cutting more than $2 billion from the state’s $7 billion general fund revenue by eliminating the income tax, and to ensure local governments would be kept whole.

Reeves was nonplussed about the flaws in the bill he signed into law (at one point denying there were errors in it) and called it “One big, beautiful bill,” borrowing a phrase from President Donald Trump.

Quote of the Week

“Quite frankly, I think it’s chicken shit what they did.” — Gov. Tate Reeves, at a press conference last week when asked his thoughts about the Senate rejecting his nomination of Cory Custer, Reeves’ deputy chief of staff, to serve as four-year term on the board of Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

Full Legislative Coverage

What happened (or didn’t) in the rancorous 2025 Mississippi Legislative session?

Mississippi Today’s political team unpacks the just ended — for now — legislative session, that crashed at the end with GOP lawmakers unable to pass a budget after much infighting among Republican leaders. The crowning achievement of the session, a tax overhaul bill, was passed by accident and full of major errors and omissions. Listen to the podcast.

Gov. Tate Reeves, legislative leaders tout tax cut, but for some, it could be a tax increase

Many of those retirees who do not pay an income tax under state law and other Mississippians as well will face a tax increase under this newly passed legislation touted by Reeves and others. Read the column.

Trump administration slashes education funding. Mississippi leaders and schools panic

Mississippi schools and the state education system are set to lose over $137 million in federal funds after the U.S. Department of Education halted access to pandemic-era grant money, state leaders said this week. Read the story.

Gov. Tate Reeves says he’ll call Mississippi lawmakers back in special session after they failed to set budget

Gov. Tate Reeves on Thursday said he will call lawmakers into a special session to adopt a budget before state agencies run out of money later in the summer and hinted he might force legislators to consider other measures.  Read the story.

GOP-controlled Senate rejects governor’s pick for public broadcasting board. Reeves calls it ‘chicken s–t’

The Senate on Wednesday roundly rejected the nomination of Cory Custer, Reeves’ deputy chief of staff, to serve a four-year term on the board of directors of Mississippi Public Broadcasting, the statewide public radio and television network. Reeves reacted to the Senate’s vote on Thursday, calling it “chicken shit.” Read the story.

Early voting proposal killed on last day of Mississippi legislative session

Mississippi will remain one of only three states without no-excuse early voting or no-excuse absentee voting.  Read the story.

Mississippi Legislature ends 2025 session without setting a budget over GOP infighting 

The House on Wednesday voted to end what had become a futile legislative session without passing a budget to fund state government, for the first time in 16 years. The Senate is expected to do the same on Thursday.  Read the story.

Mississippi Legislature approves DEI ban after heated debate

Mississippi lawmakers have reached an agreement to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs and a list of “divisive concepts” from public schools across the state education system, following the lead of numerous other Republican-controlled states and President Donald Trump’s administration.   Read the story.

Fear and loathing: Legislative session crashes with lawmakers unable to set a budget because of Republican infighting

Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and other Senate leaders on Saturday excoriated the Republican House leadership, after the House didn’t show up for what was supposed to be “conference weekend” to haggle out a $7 billion budget. Read the story.

‘We’ll go another year’ without relief: Pharmacy benefit manager reform likely dead

Hotly contested legislation that aimed to increase the transparency and regulation of pharmacy benefit managers appeared dead in the water Tuesday after a lawmaker challenged the bill for a rule violation. Read the story.

The post Mississippi lawmakers end 2025 session unable to agree (or even meet about) state budget: Legislative recap appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Hundreds of Mississippians gathered across three cities on Saturday afternoon as part of a national movement called “Hands Off” to protest President Donald Trump’s policies and Elon Musk’s government cuts.

About 300 people gathered at the state Capitol in Jackson and dozens others gathered at rallies in Gulfport and Tupelo on Saturday. Organizers at the rallies decried many of Trump’s executive orders since he took office for a second term, and they focused attention on Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has abruptly slashed funding for countless public services.

Tens of thousands of Americans participated in the “Hands Off” protests in several cities across the country on Saturday.

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Madison County Circuit Court Judge Bradley Mills dismissed former Gov. Phil Bryant’s defamation lawsuit against Mississippi Today on Friday, ending a nearly two-year case that became a beacon in the fight for American press freedom.

For the past 22 months, we’ve vigorously defended our Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting and our characterizations of Bryant’s role in the Mississippi welfare scandal. We are grateful today that the court, after careful deliberation, dismissed the case.

The reporting speaks for itself. The truth speaks for itself.

This judgment is so much more than vindication for Mississippi Today — it’s a monumental victory for every single Mississippian. Journalism is a public good that all of us deserve and need. Too seldom does our state’s power structure offer taxpayers true government accountability, and Mississippians routinely learn about the actions of their public officials only because of journalism like ours. This reality is precisely why we launched our newsroom nine years ago, and it’s why we devoted so much energy and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending ourselves against this lawsuit. It was an existential threat to our organization that took time and resources away from our primary responsibilities — which is often the goal of these kinds of legal actions. But our fight was never just about us; it was about preserving the public’s sacred, constitutional right to critical information that journalists provide, just as our nation’s Founding Fathers intended.

Mississippi Today remains as committed as ever to deep investigative journalism and working to provide government accountability. We will never be afraid to reveal the actions of powerful leaders, even in the face of intimidation or the threat of litigation. And we will always stand up for Mississippians who deserve to know the truth, and our journalists will continue working to catalyze justice for people in this state who are otherwise cheated, overlooked, or ignored.

We appreciate your support, and we are honored to serve you with the high quality, public service journalism you’ve come to expect from Mississippi Today.

READ MORE: Judge Bradley Mills’ order dismissing the case

READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s brief in support of motion to dismiss

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Mississippi schools and the state education system are set to lose over $137 million in federal funds after the U.S. Department of Education halted access to pandemic-era grant money, state leaders said this week.

In a Wednesday letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Mississippi Superintendent of Education Lance Evans said the federal education department failed to provide states with required notice that it would cut of access to funds committed to schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Schools were already using the money to pay for a range of initiatives, including literacy and mathematics programs, mental health services, construction projects for outdated school facilities and technology for rural districts.

“This unexpected change creates a severe hardship for Mississippi’s students, educators, and school communities,” Evans wrote. “These are not merely numbers on a spreadsheet; they represent critical services and supports that directly benefit our most vulnerable students …”

The abrupt loss of funds sent Mississippi public and private school leaders rushing to brace for the impact of wide ranging cuts. By Friday, some were already forced to fire grant-funded teachers, coaches and nurses.

At St. Richard Catholic School in Jackson, Father Joe Tonos and Principal Russ Nelson said the school would lose approximately $1.5 million, funds that pay staff salaries and fund programs for mental health. All schools staffers who were employed through grants were to be fired by Friday.

“This funding was not just a budgetary line item; it was a transformational support system for our school,” Nelson wrote in a memo reviewed by Mississippi Today. “Without it, we are facing difficult decisions and significant setbacks in our mission to provide a high-quality, supportive education for every student.”

McMahon set off panic when she declared in a March 28 letter state education heads that schools would lose the federal COVID-19 relief money they originally thought they would be able to spend until 2026.

President Donald Trump’s administration has made deep cuts to government programs, cancelling hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants and other funding to states, a priority McMahon cited as a justification for the education cuts in her letter.

“Extending deadlines for COVID-related grants, which are in fact taxpayer funds, years after the COVID pandemic ended is not consistent with the Department’s priorities and thus not a worthwhile exercise of its discretion,” McMahon wrote.

McMahon indicated the federal education department might consider keeping funds available on a project-by-project basis.

The money was awarded to help schools across the country recover from the disruption wrought by the pandemic. Schools began hiring new staff members, creating new education programs and planning new projects under the assumption they had until 2026 to access the federal money

Phillip Burchfield, executive director of the Mississippi Association of School Superintendents, said the federal government’s decision to move up the deadline will force schools to find money for projects that are already underway.

“Some districts have already received the money and spent it,” Burchfield said. “Where it’s becoming problematic is … services have been committed to, but the money has not yet been received, so it puts districts in a little bit of a bind to come up with the money.” 

The back and forth between Mississippi education leaders and the Trump administration unfolded on the same week state lawmakers left the state Capitol without reaching agreement on an annual budget to fund the state education department and other agencies.

Mississippi is one of the most federally dependent states in the nation.

Superintendent Evans said he has asked the federal government to reinstate access to the money.

Mississippi Today’s Kate Royals contributed to this report.

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In an interview years and years ago, the late Willye B. White told me in her warm, soothing Delta voice, “A dream without a plan is just a wish. As a young girl, I had a plan.”

She most definitely did have a plan. And she executed said plan, as we shall see.

And I know what many readers are thinking: “Who the heck was Willye B. White?” That, or: “Willye B. White, where have I heard that name before?”

Well, you might have driven an eight-mile, flat-as-a-pancake stretch of U.S. 49E, between Sidon and Greenwood, and seen the marker that says: “Willye B. White Memorial Highway.” Or you might have visited the Olympic Room at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and seen where White was a five-time participant and two-time medalist in the Summer Olympics as a jumper and a sprinter.

If you don’t know who Willye B. White was, you should. Every Mississippian should. So pour yourself a cup of coffee or a glass of iced tea, follow along and prepare to be inspired.

Willye B. White was born on the last day of 1939 in Money, near Greenwood, and was raised by grandparents. As a child, she picked cotton to help feed her family. When she wasn’t picking cotton, she was running, really fast, and jumping, really high and really long distances.

She began competing in high school track and field meets at the age of 10. At age 11, she scored enough points in a high school meet to win the competition all by herself. At age 16, in 1956, she competed in the Summer Olympics at Melbourne, Australia.

Her plan then was simple. The Olympics, on the other side of the world, would take place in November. “I didn’t know much about the Olympics, but I knew that if I made the team and I went to the Olympics, I wouldn’t have to pick cotton that year. I was all for that.”

Just imagine. You are 16 years old, a high school sophomore, a poor Black girl. You are from Money, Mississippi, and you walk into the stadium at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds to compete before a crowd of more than 100,000 strangers nearly 10,000 miles from your home.

She competed in the long jump. She won the silver medal to become the first-ever American to win a medal in that event. And then she came home to segregated Mississippi, to little or no fanfare. This was the year after Emmett Till, a year younger than White, was brutally murdered just a short distance from where she lived.

“I used to sit in those cotton fields and watch the trains go by,” she once told an interviewer. “I knew they were going to some place different, some place into the hills and out of those cotton fields.”

Her grandfather had fought in France in World War I. “He told me about all the places he saw,” White said. “I always wanted to travel and see the places he talked about.”

Travel, she did. In the late 1950s there were two colleges that offered scholarships to young, Black female track and field athletes. One was Tuskegee in Alabama, the other was Tennessee State in Nashville. White chose Tennessee State, she said, “because it was the farthest away from those cotton fields.”

She was getting started on a track and field career that would take her, by her own count, to 150 different countries across the globe. She was the best female long jumper in the U.S. for two decades. She competed in Olympics in Melbourne, Rome, Tokyo, Mexico City and Munich. She would compete on more than 30 U.S. teams in international events. In 1999, Sports Illustrated named her one of the top 100 female athletes of the 20th century.

Chicago became White’s home for most of adulthood. This was long before Olympic athletes were rich, making millions in endorsements and appearance fees. She needed a job, so she became a nurse. Later on, she became an public health administrator as well as a coach. She created the Willye B. White Foundation to help needy children with health and after school care. 

In 1982, at age 42, she returned to Mississippi to be inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and was welcomed back to a reception at the Governor’s Mansion by Gov. William Winter, who introduced her during induction ceremonies. Twenty-six years after she won the silver medal at Melbourne, she called being hosted and celebrated by the governor of her home state “the zenith of her career.”

Willye B. White died of pancreatic cancer in a Chicago hospital in 2007. While working on an obituary/column about her, I talked to the late, great Ralph Boston, the three-time Olympic long jump medalist from Laurel. They were Tennessee State and U.S. Olympic teammates. They shared a healthy respect from one another, and Boston clearly enjoyed talking about White.

At one point, Ralph asked me, “Did you know Willye B. had an even more famous high school classmate.”

No, I said, I did not.

“Ever heard of Morgan Freeman?” Ralph said, laughing.

Of course.

“I was with Morgan one time and I asked him if he ever ran track,” Ralph said, already chuckling about what would come next.

“Morgan said he did not run track in high school because he knew if he ran, he’d have to run against Willye B. White, and Morgan said he didn’t want to lose to a girl.”

The post Meet Willye B. White: A Mississippian we should all celebrate appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Editor’s note: Even though the 2025 Mississippi legislative session ended again without lawmakers addressing Medicaid expansion, Chuck Poole, former senior minister of Northminster Baptist Church in Jackson, writes for Mississippi Today Ideas that it is never too late to provide health care for poor Mississippians. Theoretically, Gov. Tate Reeves could allow legislators to consider Medicaid expansion in the special session that he will call in the coming days.

Like clean air, adequate nutrition, decent shelter and safe water, healthcare is a necessity, not a luxury; which is why Medicaid expansion is a morally right and true thing, not a politically red or blue thing.

We don’t need another dialogue or seminar, hearing or study to tell us what we already know. We just need to act on the truth we already have; the truth that basic fundamental healthcare is a necessary part of a healthy life; a universal need which next door neighbors Mississippi and Alabama can make more available to more people by acting to close the healthcare coverage gap for the nearly 300,000 Mississippians and Alabamians who make too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid, but too little to be able to access private health insurance. 

The fact that Mississippi and Alabama are among the 10 states to refuse to expand Medicaid is all the more bewildering when one considers the fact that year after year, in poll after poll, Mississippi and Alabama are the states that report the highest percentage of Christians; Mississippi and Alabama, annually vying for “Buckle on the Bible Belt.” 

So how is it that the states with the most Christians continue to be among the least Christian when it comes to caring for those who are most in need of healthcare access, equity and justice? The buckle on the Bible belt; in so many ways so beautiful, but in this way badly broken. 

Medicaid expansion is not a magic wand, but we do know that if we fully expand Medicaid, it will infuse new life into struggling Mississippi and Alabama hospitals, shrink Mississippi’s and Alabama’s growing maternal health deserts, create new Mississippi and Alabama healthcare jobs, and, most importantly, bring comfort and care to thousands of hard working Mississippians and Alabamians who are presently struggling and suffering in the healthcare coverage gap. 

And, we know how to pay for it; by accessing the same federal dollars that 40 other states, red and blue,  Republican and Democratic, are receiving to undergird Medicaid expansion for their residents; our federal tax dollars, funding their healthcare, but not our own.

All of which is to say that there is simply no good reason for Mississippi and Alabama to refuse to do the right thing and close the healthcare coverage gap; not someday, or next legislative session, or once we find out what the new administration in Washington might do, but now. 

As Preacher King, one of the Bible belt’s most courageous Jesus preachers, once wisely said, “It is never the wrong time to do the right thing.”

Chuck Poole retired in 2022 from 45 years of pastoral life during which he served churches in Jackson, Georgia, North Carolina and Washington D.C. The author of nine books, numerous published articles, one gospel song and the lyrics to three hymns, Poole has served as a “minister on the street” in Jackson, as an advocate for interfaith conversation, and as an ally to our immigrant neighbors. Poole and his wife Marcia now live in Birmingham, where he serves on the staff of Together for Hope.

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President Donald Trump’s first-term push to open the Gulf of Mexico and other federal waters to fish farming has come to a halt in the early days of his second term. 

A federal judge in Washington state ruled against a nationwide aquaculture permit the Trump administration sought in 2020. The wide-ranging permit would have allowed the first offshore farms in the Gulf and the likely expansion of the aquaculture industry into federally managed waters on the East and West coasts. 

The ruling, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Kymberly K. Evanson on March 17, was applauded by several environmental groups.

“A nationwide permit isn’t at all appropriate because our federal waters are so different,” said Marianne Cufone, executive director of the New Orleans-based Recirculating Farms Coalition, a group opposed to offshore aquaculture. “Florida is not Maine. California is not Texas. And in just the Gulf of Mexico, there are significantly different habitats [and] different fish species that could be affected.”

Offshore aquaculture, which involves raising large quantities of fish in floating net pens, has been blamed for increased marine pollution and escapes that can harm wild fish populations. In the Gulf, there’s particular concern about the “dead zone,” a New Jersey-size area of low oxygen fueled by rising temperatures and nutrient-rich pollution from fertilizers, urban runoff and sewer plants. Adding millions of caged fish would generate even more waste and worsen the dead zone, Cufone said. 

Fish farming is an “existential threat” to the Gulf’s fishing industry, said Ryan Bradley, executive director of the Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United. Besides the “cascading negative impacts” on the environment, offshore aquaculture often undercuts the prices of wild-caught fish and shrimp, he said. The Gulf’s fishers are already facing intense competition from foreign fish farms. 

“Offshore aquaculture poses too much risk and not enough reward,” Bradley said. 

The aquaculture industry says fish farming is the only way to meet surging demand for seafood, particularly high-value species like salmon and tuna. As wild fish stocks struggle under climate change, offshore farming could help the U.S. adapt, producing food in a managed environment less affected by ecological conditions, aquaculture advocates say.

Late last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration identified five areas in the Gulf that the agency said are best suited for offshore aquaculture. The development of these “aquaculture opportunity areas” near the coasts of Texas and Louisiana received a strong push during Trump’s first term but slowed under President Joe Biden. Evanson’s decision blocks what might have been a speedy approval process for fish farms in opportunity areas.

The fight over fish farms

A cumbersome permitting process and opposition from environmentalists and catchers of wild seafood had long stymied plans for fish farms in the Gulf, which Trump recently renamed the Gulf of America. In 2020, the aquaculture industry got a big boost when Trump signed an executive order that directed federal agencies to “identify and remove unnecessary regulatory barriers” restricting farming in federal waters. 

Trump’s order led the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to issue the sweeping national permit to open nearly all federal ocean waters to aquaculture. The Center for Food Safety and other environmental groups sued, arguing that the permit failed to analyze fish farming’s threats to water quality and marine life, including several species protected under the Endangered Species Act. 

In October, an initial decision by Evanson, who was appointed by Biden, faulted the Corps for failing to acknowledge aquaculture’s adverse environmental impacts. Evanson’s latest decision vacates, or sets aside as unlawful, the nationwide permit. 

The Corps declined to comment on the decision.

Federal courts have also struck down efforts to establish offshore aquaculture in the Gulf in 2018 and 2020. 

The repeated legal setbacks should send a clear signal to the industry, said George Kimbrell, the Center for Food Safety’s legal director. 

“It has no place in U.S. ocean waters,” he said.

The aquaculture industry isn’t giving up. Paul Zajicek, executive director of the National Aquaculture Association, said expanding U.S. fish farming is critical for meeting the growing American appetite for seafood. He noted that the U.S. consumed nearly 7 billion pounds of seafood in 2022, the most recent year data was available. About 83% of the seafood was imported, contributing to a trade deficit of about $24 billion, Zajicek said. 

“The heavy reliance on imports for a foodstuff critical to people’s health not only creates a massive trade imbalance, it also creates food security and food safety issues for our country,” he wrote in an email. 

Tilting the balance of international trade is a keen interest for Trump, who on Wednesday announced far-reaching and expensive tariffs that the president says will help U.S. producers and boost the country’s economy.

Farming fish on land but not sea

The U.S. has a robust land-based aquaculture industry, producing pond-raised catfish, trout and other fish. No fish are raised commercially in federal waters, and fish farming operations are increasingly rare in state-managed marine waters. Washington state once had a large salmon farming industry, but large-scale escapes of non-native Atlantic salmon and concerns about pollution and the spread of disease led to a halt on fish farm leases in 2022 and a full ban in January. Hawaii’s state waters host the only offshore fish farm in the U.S.

Other countries have embraced offshore aquaculture on a large scale. China accounts for more than half of global aquaculture production, according to NOAA. Asian countries and Ecuador supply most of the shrimp consumed in the U.S., while farms in Canada, Norway and Chile produce two-thirds of the salmon Americans eat. 

Companies have tried to open the Gulf to aquaculture for more than a decade, yet none of the proposals for floating pens filled with redfish, amberjack and other high-value species have managed to take hold. In 2017, the federal government helped fund a pilot project that would have placed a floating farm about 45 miles from Sarasota, Fla. The project was derailed after regulators received nearly 45,000 public comments opposing it, according to Zajicek. 

Proposed farms face “a permitting system that is too lengthy, too costly, and too subject to legal challenges from groups opposed to commercial aquaculture,” he said. 

Last month’s court decision means companies may now narrow their focus and seek permits for individual projects, Zajicek said. 

That approach also won’t be easy, Cufone warned. The process for permitting each project will likely be slower and more deliberative, giving more consideration to a proposed farm’s impacts on the surrounding environment and nearby communities. 

“Claiming one size fits all doesn’t seem realistic, and the court agreed,” she said. “Now they can’t use one big permit to speed these things through.” 

The post Judge blocks Trump’s plan for industrial fish farming in the Gulf appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Candidates in Jackson’s 2025 municipal races raised and spent over half a million dollars, at least, on their campaigns for office, mostly in the mayor’s race.

John Horhn, a 32-year state senator from Jackson, dominated the primary election April 1, receiving over 48% of the unofficial vote after raising over $101,000 and spending about half that in 2025.

Incumbent Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and Horhn, who are expected to challenge each other in the April 22 runoff, have significantly unequal war chests after Horhn out-raised Lumumba nearly 10-to-1 in 2025 so far, according to campaign finance reports.

By Mar. 23, Horhn reported having nearly $50,000 in cash on hand while Lumumba reported having about $46,000. However, Horhn’s campaign said it would file an amended report addressing that cash on hand total, since his previous report shows he raised $80,000 in 2024 and started 2025 with about $65,000, which should have left him $115,000 cash on hand if his most recent contribution and expenditure reporting is accurate.

Lumumba’s pre-election report shows he raised just $11,000 in 2025 so far, and told reporters after the primary that he has not been soliciting donations. Though he raised nearly $114,000 in 2024.

In addition to Horhn, two other campaigns for candidates in the mayor’s race brought in more than $100,000, both of which were primarily self-funded, but money did not necessarily equate to success at the polls.

While Marcus Wallace, a contractor and former mayor of Edwards, spent by far the most of any candidate, $190,000, which included a tour bus with his photo wrapped on its side, he received just 4% of the vote Tuesday, per the unofficial count.

Lumumba received about 17% of the unofficial vote, coming in second, despite the lower-dollar campaign. He filed his campaign finance report on Mar. 31, one day before the election and several days after the deadline.

The majority of candidates were also late or failed to file, including six unsuccessful mayoral candidates and five council candidates who still had not filed reports by Election Day. One Ward 6 council candidate who is expected to go to a runoff, Lashia Brown-Thomas, did not file a report, according to documents retrieved from the City Clerk. She told Mississippi Today her roughly $2,000 campaign was self-funded.

Money raised in council races varied greatly, from just over $4,000 in the three-candidate Ward 5 race to nearly $62,000 in the five-candidate Ward 7 race.

View the breakdown of the fundraising and spending with links to reports retrieved from the City Clerk’s office below. Through a public records request for all reports, the Clerk did not provide all reports filed, so some of the data was retrieved in-person. Some candidates said they filed reports, such as James Hopkins, who said he filed Thursday, but they were not provided by the clerk.

The post Financial interests in the Jackson municipal elections appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Gov. Tate Reeves on Thursday said he will call lawmakers into a special session to adopt a budget before state agencies run out of money later in the summer and hinted he might force legislators to consider other measures. 

Hours after the Senate ended its regular session on Thursday morning, Reeves said in a press conference that he didn’t have a specific date set for a special session, but his office will work with legislative leaders to quickly adopt a budget before the current fiscal year ends on June 30. 

“I am confident that the House and the Senate will be able to work together and get this done,” Reeves said. “In fact, I have been in personal communication with legislative leadership over the last several weeks, and I don’t think they’re really that far apart (on a budget).” 

House and Senate leaders ended their session this week without adopting an entire state budget, primarily because of intraparty Republican bickering. House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann have blamed each other for blowing past the deadline to pass a budget. 

White, a Republican from West, said on social media Thursday that one of the key differences between the House and the Senate on the budget is finding a recurring revenue stream to help reduce the $25 billion unfunded liability for the public employee retirement system. 

“We will continue these discussions with the Senate to produce a budget that reflects our commitment to smaller government with focused spending, while meeting the core functions and responsibilities to the taxpayers of Mississippi,” White said. 

Hosemann on Wednesday night told reporters that Senate leaders will begin working on finalizing a budget as quickly as possible. 

As has been the case with Reeves for past special sessions, he told reporters he would wait until the House and Senate reach at least a handshake agreement before calling them into a special session to pass a budget. 

But Reeves could force the Legislature to address other issues during a special session.

Under the state Constitution, one of few powers a governor has over the Legislature is the sole authority to call it into special session, and to set the “call” or agenda lawmakers can consider in a special session. Lawmakers can refuse to pass items the governor puts on their agenda, but he could hold them in special session indefinitely, and “feed” items to them one at a time until they are passed.

Reeves said he did not have a specific agenda list, but he was considering adding school choice, a parental bill of rights, certificate of need reform and mobile sports betting as potential items for lawmakers to address during the special session. 

“There are a large number of items at this point,” Reeves said. “I will rule nothing out. Y’all know I am reluctant to add things to a special session. I’m reluctant to call special sessions because of the cost associated with them.” 

Each day of a special session can easily cost upwards of $100,000, to pay, feed and house lawmakers and provide staff and security at the Capitol.

The governor said taxpayers and agency leaders should not fear government services shutting down because he’s confident the Legislature can iron out a final budget before the next fiscal year starts July 1. Reeves said that a few agencies are facing deficits for the current budget year and that, while not a crisis at this point, should be addressed “sooner rather than later.”

Rep. Karl Oliver, a Republican from Winona who leads a House Appropriations Committee, told Mississippi Today that most of the House’s proposed budgets levels would fund state agencies near level to this year, with some added funds for public pension contributions and increased insurance costs. 

The House’s total state-funded budget proposal is a little over $7 billion, according to Oliver, which is similar to the budget the Legislature adopted last year. Some Senate leaders have also said they don’t expect any large increases in spending would be approved for the coming budget year.

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