Waiting for my suitcase in the arrivals hall at Jackson airport the other evening, I realized that the luggage carrousel was a pretty good metaphor for Mississippi politics. Like suitcases on a carousel, many leaders simply sit on the conveyor belt of state politics, waiting their turn to get moved along to the next role.

Too often, leaders are carried along by time and process, rarely offering any vision as to what our state should do differently.

This explains why Mississippi conservatives have achieved less in 12 years than Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama have accomplished in the past 12 months. Louisiana did not even have a Republican governor this time last year, yet they’ve already passed universal school choice.

Things could be about to change if House Speaker Jason White has his way.

This week, White announced that he will be hosting a Tax Policy Summit on Sept. 24 to take a deep dive into the prospects for Tax Reform.

My friend, Grover Norquist, will be speaking, as will Gov Tate Reeves, as well leading conservative figures from the Legislature.

Having a conversation in public matters because in the past the leadership in our state Senate has done what it can to head off tax cuts. Bringing the facts of what can and cannot be done into the open makes it far harder for anyone to keep finding new excuses to oppose actual conservative policy.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant against the putrid politics of backroom deals. We have seen far too many backroom maneuvers used to kill off good conservative policy in this state.

Back in 2022, Mississippi passed a law to cut the state income tax to a flat 4 percent. This $525 million tax cut, driven forward by Speaker Philip Gunn and Gov Reeves, benefited 1.2 million taxpayers and their families. But we must not forget how some in the Senate fought against it – not in the open, of course.

Weak Senate leadership has a history of opposing conservative proposals in our state. Seldom do they have the courage to come out and explicitly kill off conservative measures. Instead, they do it on the sly.

The Senate leadership maneuvered to stop anti-DEI legislation in 2024. I don’t recall anyone coming out and explaining why they opposed anti-DEI law. They just killed it in committee with a nudge and wink.

For three years in a row, the Senate leadership has killed off attempts to restore the ballot initiative. Again, those against resorting the ballot lack the courage to say they are against it. They killed that, too, on the sly.

Rep Rob Roberson’s excellent school funding reform bill, perhaps the only big strategic achievement of this year’s session, passed despite attempts to scupper it by some in the Senate. (Part of the backroom deal to get the bill passed was to change its name. It really was that petty.)

When the Senate leadership wants to oppose an authentically conservative policy, they follow a now familiar pattern.

A reason is cited as to why what is being proposed can’t be done. School choice, we were once told, would be unconstitutional. An anti-DEI law, it was implied, was unnecessary because there was no DEI on campus.

Once that excuse is shown to be nonsense (there is no constitutional bar to school choice, DEI is rampant on campus), another excuse is promptly conjured up. And on it goes.

Each time the Senate leadership opposes conservative policy this way, I wonder what their alternatives are. The answer is that most of the time there are none. It is pretty low grade to oppose ideas simply because they are not your own.

Eventually, of course, a suitcase that sits on the carousel for too long ends up in lost luggage.

As a direct consequence of the 2022 Reeves-Gunn tax cuts, Mississippi is now starting to see a flood of investment into the state.

Every time you hear about a new factory opening up in our state, remember who and what helped make it happen. I am very optimistic that this Tax Summit could see further progress to make our state more competitive.

Douglas Carswell is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

(The Center Square) – A lawsuit is challenging a federal rule that three states and trade organizations say could hamper oil and gas exploration and production for small, independent operators on the outer continental shelf.

The rule could result in billions in compliance costs for the operators, according to the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit also says the rule will destroy 36,000 jobs, take away $10 billion in gross domestic product and cost the government more than $500 million in oil and gas royalties in 10 years. The complaint also says the Biden Administration’s agenda has been to “throttle the production (of oil and gas) on multiple fronts since day one.”

The Department of Interior, through the Bureau of Energy Management, issued a rule requires oil and gas companies without investment-grade credit rating operating on the outer continental shelf to acquire additional financing to cover potential decommissioning costs for old wells. The rule went into effect June 29. 

The plaintiffs, which include the states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi along with several oil and gas trade associations, filed a lawsuit June 17 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana asking for a stay on the effectiveness of the rule or an injunction stopping its implementation. 

The government says the rule is needed to prevent taxpayers from having to cover potential decommissioning costs for these operators.

In the complaint, the plaintiffs counter that in 75 years of offshore leasing, the government has assumed $58 million in decommissioning liabilities, less than 0.03% of the $208 billion in royalties and related revenue the government has received in the past 40 years. 

The plaintiffs say in their complaint the rule would require $6.9 billion in additional financing for the smaller operators. 

“But BOEM knows — or should know — that nobody will be able to provide those bonds, so the lessees will be unable to meet the Rule’s requirement,” the complaint says. “The upshot? Those small and mid-size lessees — which produce over a third of the oil and natural gas from the Outer Continental Shelf — will face potentially existential consequences.

“When they cannot meet the government’s demand for additional bonds, they can be subjected to civil penalties, forced to stop oil and gas production, and banned from operating in the Gulf.”

According to the complaint, surety bond companies told BOEM that they didn’t have the capacity to provide such bonds. 

Mallory Wynne, a partner in Jones Walker’s Corporate Practice Group and a member of the commercial transactions team, told The Center Square that the oil and gas companies posting bonds to secure liabilities and the BOEM’s requirement for supplemental bonds is nothing new. 

Wynne said the new rule may increase the cost doing business in the Gulf of Mexico for smaller lessees and operators. 

Seth Levine is a partner in Jones Walker’s Corporate Practice Group and co-chair of the Industrial, Petrochemical and Advanced Manufacturing Industry Team.

“The rule may result in increased costs of compliance for many lessees,” Levine told the Center Square. “The rule might cause oil and gas companies to reassess and restructure the allocation of risk in transactions involving acquisitions and divestitures of lease interests.”

The American Petroleum Institute has requested to join the lawsuit, along with the Center for Biological Diversity, Healthy Gulf, the Ocean Conservancy and Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, which have all filed amicus briefs. Wynne said additional intervenors are possible. 

(The Center Square) – The University of Mississippi says it will shut down its DEI department “Division for Diversity and Community Engagement” and open in its place the Division of Access, Opportunity, and Community Engagement.

The head of a free market think tank in the state, however, says the announcement is more likely a rebrand to deflect criticism than it is a move away from DEI policies.

“After a yearlong internal review, the University of Mississippi will create a Division of Access, Opportunity and Community Engagement and close its Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, pending approval by the state Institutions of Higher Learning board of trustees,” the school announced in a news release.

“Through a range of programs and services, the division will work with students to strengthen a sense of community, enrich learning and development, enhance research and ensure opportunities for all,” according to the release.

With its new division, the university “seeks to do more to promote student success” in response to the declining rates of high school graduation and higher education enrollment in the state of Mississippi.

“One way in which the division will support students is through opportunities for low-income Mississippi families, such as Ole Miss Opportunity,” the release states. “Also known as OMO, the initiative is a guarantee that eligible lower-income Mississippi residents will receive financial aid to cover the cost of tuition, residence hall housing and an allowance for meals.”

Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Community Engagement Shawnboda Mead will continue as vice chancellor over the new division, according to the school.

The Center Square reached out to the Division for Diversity and Community Engagement for more information from Mead and to the Office of the Chancellor for Ole Miss’ Chancellor Glenn Boyce for comment and was directed to the school’s public relations contact. No response was received from public relations in time for publishing.

President and CEO of Mississippi Center for Public Policy Douglas Carswell told The Center Square via email that he fears Ole Miss’ closure of its DEI department “could just be a re-branding exercise,” since the previous department is being replaced by a new one.

The center is a think tank that helps to make policies, some of its priorities being “opposing ‘woke’ extremism” and “[lowering] taxes,” according to its website.

Carswell told The Center Square: “I fear that tax dollars will still be spent on promoting extreme and divisive left-wing ideology at a public university in our state.”

Carswell said he thinks Boyce made the decision to close one DEI division and open another to “head off anti DEI legislation.”

According to Carswell, Mississippi’s Senate, which has blocked anti-DEI bills, “no longer has the strength” to keep up their opposition. Carswell said Boyce may have realized the Senate’s weakness and thus created the DEI rebrand as a prevention measure.

Carswell told The Center Square about the University of Mississippi’s “five-year university wide strategic plan committed to equity and racial justice” called Pathways to Equity. “Under ‘Pathways to Equity,’ everything at the university – including curriculum content – has been increasingly managed and run through the prism of intersectional ideology.”

“Instead of receiving a rounded education, DEI means that young people are taught the politics of grievance,” Carswell said. “Rather than learning to see themselves as the authors of their own future, DEI ideology teaches young minds to search,” for “victimhood.”