Mississippi Today

This man could save the lives of countless Mississippi mothers

Published

2 years ago

February 27, 2023

This man could save the lives of countless Mississippi mothers

by Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today
February 27, 2023

Note: This editorial anchored Mississippi Today’s weekly legislative newsletter.Subscribe to our free newsletterfor exclusive access to legislative analysis and up-to-date information about what’s happening under the Capitol dome.

Every so often in Mississippi politics, there are moments for unexpected heroics — cracked windows of opportunity when someone stands up to lead and does something so brave that it’s remembered for years down the road.

For the next 36 hours or so, one little-known elected official will be sitting alone, squarely in front of that window. He has to decide whether to reach out and open it or let it fall closed.

State Rep. Joey Hood, a 46-year-old Republican from Ackerman, could buck his party leaders and pass a policy that more than two-thirds of Mississippi voters want, that every major medical association in the state wants, that the majority of the GOP-led Senate wants, and that the majority of his GOP-led House wants.

Passing postpartum Medicaid extension would increase health coverage for new, poor mothers from two months to 12 months. It’s a common-sense deal passed by dozens of other states that would tremendously help moms and kids in Mississippi, which boasts one of the highest maternal mortality rates and the highest infant mortality rate in the nation. And it would cost the state just $7 million per year — a drop in the bucket given our current $3.9 billion surplus.

Despite its broad popularity and clear need, Speaker of the House Philip Gunn continues to block it, saying he doesn’t support Medicaid expansion in any form and doesn’t see the health benefits of providing health care to the mothers. And Gov. Tate Reeves, who legislative leaders say could sign the policy into effect himself without their approval, reversed his long opposition on Sunday and said he wants lawmakers to pass it.

But Hood, a husband and father of two young boys, could take matters into his own hands this week. The Senate bill that would extend postpartum Medicaid, which passed overwhelmingly earlier this session, was assigned to the House Medicaid Committee, which Gunn appointed Hood to lead. The bill must pass out of his committee by midnight on Tuesday, Feb. 28, to stay alive.

In the past three terms, Gunn has corralled nearly complete power over bills that enter the House of Representatives. He demands loyalty from his committee chairs and has strategically created an “inner circle” of Republicans most faithful to him. That way if Gunn wants a certain bill to die, he knows his hand-picked chairs will dutifully follow his lead, keeping the bill from being debated in their committee until it dies a quiet and unseemly death at deadline.

Hood, first elected in 2011, is indeed one of Gunn’s “inner circle” Republican chairs and a most loyal soldier. That was evident earlier this session when Hood refused to call a Medicaid Committee meeting, ensuring his House colleagues would not have the chance to even debate the House version of postpartum Medicaid extension.

But whether the speaker likes it or not, Hood possesses the power to place the Senate bill on his committee’s calendar for debate and consideration this week. The speaker, who reiterated last week he does not support postpartum Medicaid extension, cannot legally stop Hood from bringing the bill up in his committee. And if Hood brings it up before his committee, it would almost certainly pass, based on the Mississippi Today survey of House members.

So why would Hood go so directly against Gunn’s wishes? Why is this deadline different? Why is there a cracked window of opportunity?

Because for the first time in 12 years, Gunn’s power is waning in a very real way. The speaker announced last fall he would not seek reelection to his House seat, meaning this current legislative session is his last not just as speaker but in the Legislature. He’s as lame a duck as there is in politics.

Entering this session, there was broad speculation about how Gunn’s final year on High Street might play out. There’s been some behind-the-scenes power positioning happening, with several longtime House Republicans maneuvering to become the next Speaker of the House. But the heir apparent to the speakership is state Rep. Jason White, who has been Gunn’s right-hand man for several years.

Last week, the lame duck reality became clear when House Republicans handed Gunn what must be the single most bitter defeat of his career. At least 25 House Republicans blocked what he calls the single biggest goal of his political life: eliminating the Mississippi income tax. To make matters worse for Gunn, the stand came in a closed-door Republican caucus meeting — a setting famously used by the speaker for years as a power tool to whip votes for his desired policies.

Fresh off the first big dramatic change of this new House order, it’s unclear what Hood will do. Last week, when a Mississippi Today reporter asked him a handful of questions about whether he’ll let the Senate bill come up for a vote in his House committee by deadline, he repeatedly answered: “We’re just going to continue to work it through the process.”

But if he’s thinking clearly about the process and whether to reach out and open the cracked window, he should consider a few things.

First, Gunn’s waning power will very soon fade into complete darkness. When the April 2 end to the 2023 legislative session arrives, it’s White’s gavel to lose. For what it’s worth, White told Mississippi Today he was “undecided” on whether to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage for new moms. That’s an obvious tell that he is at least open to considering the policy if not outright in support of it.

Second, the earliest Hood could face any political consequences for any decision is August of 2027. He is among the 40% of state lawmakers who has no single challenger in the 2023 election, meaning his reelection is guaranteed. And if he were to bravely buck Gunn’s wishes this week, it would be tough for any 2027 challenger to argue that it was the wrong thing to do, especially given the immense public popularity of the policy.

Lastly, it’s the right thing to do. And he doesn’t have to take it from this journalist. He can take it from the countless physicians, nurses, mothers, children and everyday Mississippians that have all but gotten down on their knees to beg. He can take it from 27-year-old Chelsea Brooks of Florence, 32-year-old Courtney Darby of Heidelberg, 30-year-old Kristen Elliott of Brandon, 31-year-old Laura McCardle of Copiah County, or 32-year-old Emma To of Madison County — real Mississippi mothers who have important postpartum stories to share.

What will they remember about Rep. Joey Hood years from now?

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Mississippi Legislature approves DEI ban after heated debate

Published

10 hours ago

April 2, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-02 16:34:00

by Michael Goldberg, Mississippi Today
April 2, 2025

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.

House and Senate lawmakers approved a compromise bill in votes on Tuesday and Wednesday. It will likely head to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves for his signature after it clears a procedural motion.

The agreement between the Republican-dominated chambers followed hours of heated debate in which Democrats, almost all of whom are Black, excoriated the legislation as a setback in the long struggle to make Mississippi a fairer place for minorities. They also said the bill could bog universities down with costly legal fights and erode academic freedom.

Democratic Rep. Bryant Clark, who seldom addresses the entire House chamber from the podium during debates, rose to speak out against the bill on Tuesday. He is the son of the late Robert Clark, the first Black Mississippian elected to the state Legislature since the 1800s and the first Black Mississippian to serve as speaker pro tempore and preside over the House chamber since Reconstruction.

“We are better than this, and all of you know that we don’t need this with Mississippi history,” Clark said. “We should be the ones that say, ‘listen, we may be from Mississippi, we may have a dark past, but you know what, we’re going to be the first to stand up this time and say there is nothing wrong with DEI.'”

Legislative Republicans argued that the measure — which will apply to all public schools from the K-12 level through universities — will elevate merit in education and remove a list of so-called “divisive concepts” from academic settings. More broadly, conservative critics of DEI say the programs divide people into categories of victims and oppressors and infuse left-wing ideology into campus life.

“We are a diverse state. Nowhere in here are we trying to wipe that out,” said Republican Sen. Tyler McCaughn, one of the bill’s authors. “We’re just trying to change the focus back to that of excellence.”

The House and Senate initially passed proposals that differed in who they would impact, what activities they would regulate and how they aim to reshape the inner workings of the state’s education system. Some House leaders wanted the bill to be “semi-vague” in its language and wanted to create a process for withholding state funds based on complaints that almost anyone could lodge. The Senate wanted to pair a DEI ban with a task force to study inefficiencies in the higher education system, a provision the upper chamber later agreed to scrap.

The concepts that will be rooted out from curricula include the idea that gender identity can be a “subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality.” The move reflects another effort to align with the Trump administration, which has declared via executive order that there are only two sexes.

The House and Senate disagreed on how to enforce the measure but ultimately settled on an agreement that would empower students, parents of minor students, faculty members and contractors to sue schools for violating the law.

People could only sue after they go through an internal campus review process and a 25-day period when schools could fix the alleged violation. Republican Rep. Joey Hood, one of the House negotiators, said that was a compromise between the chambers. The House wanted to make it possible for almost anyone to file lawsuits over the DEI ban, while Senate negotiators initially bristled at the idea of fast-tracking internal campus disputes to the legal system.

The House ultimately held firm in its position to create a private cause of action, or the right to sue, but it agreed to give schools the ability to conduct an investigative process and potentially resolve the alleged violation before letting people sue in chancery courts.

“You have to go through the administrative process,” said Republican Sen. Nicole Boyd, one of the bill’s lead authors. “Because the whole idea is that, if there is a violation, the school needs to cure the violation. That’s what the purpose is. It’s not to create litigation, it’s to cure violations.”

If people disagree with the findings from that process, they could also ask the attorney general’s office to sue on their behalf.

Under the new law, Mississippi could withhold state funds from schools that don’t comply. Schools would be required to compile reports on all complaints filed in response to the new law.

Trump promised in his 2024 campaign to eliminate DEI in the federal government. One of the first executive orders he signed did that. Some Mississippi lawmakers introduced bills in the 2024 session to restrict DEI, but the proposals never made it out of committee. With the national headwinds at their backs and several other laws in Republican-led states to use as models, Mississippi lawmakers made plans to introduce anti-DEI legislation.

The policy debate also unfolded amid the early stages of a potential Republican primary matchup in the 2027 governor’s race between State Auditor Shad White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. White, who has been one of the state’s loudest advocates for banning DEI, had branded Hosemann in the months before the 2025 session “DEI Delbert,” claiming the Senate leader has stood in the way of DEI restrictions passing the Legislature.

During the first Senate floor debate over the chamber’s DEI legislation during this year’s legislative session, Hosemann seemed to be conscious of these political attacks. He walked over to staff members and asked how many people were watching the debate live on YouTube.

As the DEI debate cleared one of its final hurdles Wednesday afternoon, the House and Senate remained at loggerheads over the state budget amid Republican infighting. It appeared likely the Legislature would end its session Wednesday or Thursday without passing a $7 billion budget to fund state agencies, potentially threatening a government shutdown.

“It is my understanding that we don’t have a budget and will likely leave here without a budget. But this piece of legislation …which I don’t think remedies any of Mississippi’s issues, this has become one of the top priorities that we had to get done,” said Democratic Sen. Rod Hickman. “I just want to say, if we put that much work into everything else we did, Mississippi might be a much better place.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

House gives Senate 5 p.m. deadline to come to table, or legislative session ends with no state budget

Published

11 hours ago

April 2, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-02 16:13:00

by Taylor Vance, Mississippi Today
April 2, 2025

The House on Wednesday attempted one final time to revive negotiations between it and the Senate over passing a state budget.

Otherwise, the two Republican-led chambers will likely end their session without funding government services for the next fiscal year and potentially jeopardize state agencies.

The House on Wednesday unanimously passed a measure to extend the legislative session and revive budget bills that had died on legislative deadlines last weekend.

House Speaker Jason White said he did not have any prior commitment that the Senate would agree to the proposal, but he wanted to extend one last offer to pass the budget. White, a Republican from West, said if he did not hear from the Senate by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, his chamber would end its regular session.

“The ball is in their court,” White said of the Senate. “Every indication has been that they would not agree to extend the deadlines for purposes of doing the budget. I don’t know why that is. We did it last year, and we’ve done it most years.”

But it did not appear likely Wednesday afternoon that the Senate would comply.

The Mississippi Legislature has not left Jackson without setting at least most of the state budget since 2009, when then Gov. Haley Barbour had to force them back to set one to avoid a government shutdown.

The House measure to extend the session is now before the Senate for consideration. To pass, it would require a two-thirds majority vote of senators. But that might prove impossible. Numerous senators on both sides of the aisle vowed to vote against extending the current session, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann who oversees the chamber said such an extension likely couldn’t pass.

Senate leadership seemed surprised at the news that the House passed the resolution to negotiate a budget, and several senators earlier on Wednesday made passing references to ending the session without passing a budget.

“We’ll look at it after it passes the full House,” Senate President Pro Tempore Dean Kirby said.

The House and Senate, each having a Republican supermajority, have fought over many issues since the legislative session began early January.

But the battle over a tax overhaul plan, including elimination of the state individual income tax, appeared to cause a major rift. Lawmakers did pass a tax overhaul, which the governor has signed into law, but Senate leaders cried foul over how it passed, with the House seizing on typos in the Senate’s proposal that accidentally resembled the House’s more aggressive elimination plan.

The Senate had urged caution in eliminating the income tax, and had economic growth triggers that would have likely phased in the elimination over many years. But the typos essentially negated the triggers, and the House and governor ran with it.

The two chambers have also recently fought over the budget. White said he communicated directly with Senate leaders that the House would stand firm on not passing a budget late in the session.

But Senate leaders said they had trouble getting the House to meet with them to haggle out the final budget.

On the normally scheduled “conference weekend” with a deadline to agree to a budget last Saturday, the House did not show, taking the weekend off. This angered Hosemann and the Senate. All the budget bills died, requiring a vote to extend the session, or the governor forcing them into a special session.

If the Legislature ends its regular session without adopting a budget, the only option to fund state agencies before their budgets expire on June 30 is for Gov. Tate Reeves to call lawmakers back into a special session later.

“There really isn’t any other option (than the governor calling a special session),” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann previously said.

If Reeves calls a special session, he gets to set the Legislature’s agenda. A special session call gives an otherwise constitutionally weak Mississippi governor more power over the Legislature.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

Amount of federal cuts to health agencies doubles

Published

12 hours ago

April 2, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-02 14:48:00

by Gwen Dilworth, Mississippi Today
April 2, 2025

Cuts to public health and mental health funding in Mississippi have doubled – reaching approximately $238 million – since initial estimates last week, when cancellations to federal grants allocated for COVID-19 pandemic relief were first announced.

Slashed funding to the state’s health department will impact community health workers, planned improvements to the public health laboratory, the agency’s ability to provide COVID-19 vaccinations and preparedness efforts for emerging pathogens, like H5 bird flu.

The grant cancellations, which total $230 million, will not be catastrophic for the agency, State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney told members of the Mississippi House Democratic Caucus at the Capitol April 1.

But they will set back the agency, which is still working to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic decimated its workforce and exposed “serious deficiencies” in the agency’s data collection and management systems.

The cuts will have a more significant impact on the state’s economy and agency subgrantees, who carry out public health work on the ground with health department grants, he said.

“The agency is okay. But I’m very worried about all of our partners all over the state,” Edney told lawmakers.

The health department was forced to lay off 17 contract workers as a result of the grant cancellations, though Edney said he aims to rehire them under new contracts.

Other positions funded by health department grants are in jeopardy. Two community health workers at Back Bay Mission, a nonprofit that supports people living in poverty in Biloxi, were laid off as a result of the cuts, according to WLOX. It’s unclear how many more community health workers, who educate and help people access health care, have been impacted statewide.

The department was in the process of purchasing a comprehensive data management system before the cuts and has lost the ability to invest in the Mississippi Public Health Laboratory, he said. The laboratory performs environmental and clinical testing services that aid in the prevention and control of disease.

Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney addresses lawmakers during the Democratic caucus meeting at the State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. The discussion centered on potential federal healthcare funding cuts.

The agency has worked to reduce its dependence on federal funds, Edney said, which will help it weather the storm. Sixty-six percent of the department’s budget is federally funded.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pulled back $11.4 billion in funding to state health departments nationwide last week. The funding was originally allocated by Congress for testing and vaccination against the coronavirus as part of COVID-19 relief legislation, and to address health disparities in high-risk and underserved populations. An additional $1 billion from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration was also terminated.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” the Department of Health and Human Services Director of Communications Andrew Nixon said in a statement.

HHS did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today about the cuts in Mississippi.

Democratic attorneys general and governors in 23 states filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Tuesday, arguing that the sudden cancellation of the funding was unlawful and seeking injunctive relief to halt the cuts. Mississippi did not join the suit.

Mental health cuts

The Department of Mental Health received about $7.5 million in cuts to federal grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Phaedre Cole, president of the Mississippi Association of Community Mental Health Centers, speaks to lawmakers about federal healthcare funding cuts during the Democratic caucus meeting at the State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., on Tuesday, April 1, 2025.

Over half of the cuts were to community mental health centers, and supported alcohol and drug treatment services for people who can not afford treatment, housing services for parenting and pregnant women and their children, and prevention services.

The cuts could result in reduced beds at community mental health centers, Phaedre Cole, the director of Life Help and President of Mississippi Association of Community Mental Health Centers, told lawmakers April 1.

Community mental health centers in Mississippi are already struggling to keep their doors open. Four centers in the state have closed since 2012, and a third have an imminent to high risk of closure, Cole told legislators at a hearing last December.

“We are facing a financial crisis that threatens our ability to maintain our mission,” she said Dec. 5.

Cuts to the department will also impact diversion coordinators, who are charged with reducing recidivism of people with serious mental illness to the state’s mental health hospital, a program for first-episode psychosis, youth mental health court funding, school-aged mental health programs and suicide response programs.

The Department of Mental Health hopes to reallocate existing funding from alcohol tax revenue and federal block grant funding to discontinued programs.

The agency posted a list of all the services that have received funding cuts. The State Department of Health plans to post such a list, said spokesperson Greg Flynn.

Health leaders have expressed fear that there could be more funding cuts coming.

“My concern is that this is the beginning and not the end,” said Edney.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.