by Molly Minta and Maya Miller, Mississippi Today
April 2, 2025

“Somebody died in here?” asked one of the guests at the glum election watch party.

On Tuesday night, under a dozen supporters of Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba sat silently with news reporters on the low couches at a downtown marketing office, watching the results of the Democratic primary that played over muted televisions and fanning themselves in the sweltering heat. 

The incumbent had nearly lost the mayoral election outright, earning 17% of the vote compared to Sen. John Horhn’s 48% in the last unofficial count of the night. It was a stacked race of 12 candidates and turnout was low – just 23% of the city’s registered voters participated.

Seven blocks away at The Rookery event venue, Horhn’s watch party was livelier. Around 8:45 p.m., about 100 supporters whooped and cheered as Horhn, his family and his pastor, Bishop Ronnie Crudup Sr., walked into the shiny marbled room. 

“That appears to me to almost be a mandate, for one candidate to secure that much percentage of the vote,” Horhn, the state senator of 32 years, said.

The 2025 Democratic primary for Jackson mayor shaped up to be somewhat of a rematch, with the roles reversed this time. After meeting defeat against Lumumba in the same race in 2017, Horhn nearly avoided a runoff in the unofficial count Tuesday, securing 12,318 of the total 25,665 votes. It is his fourth time running for mayor.

“We knew it was gonna be close and had turnout been a little higher, had we worked a little harder, we might’ve been able to get there.”

Unless he receives nearly all of the mail-in absentee and affidavit votes left to be counted, Horhn will face a runoff, likely with Lumumba, on April 22. Lumumba received 4,267 votes. Tim Henderson, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel known by few at the start of the race, finished close in third with 3,482 votes. 

In a speech, Horhn thanked his father, Charlie, his family, members of the Legislative Black Caucus, and his campaign supporters, shouting out many by name, including well-known restaurateur Jeff Good, whose support of Horhn was seized on by some mayoral candidates as a reason to not vote for the state senator. 

“You know, a lot has been said by some of my opponents about the fact that we were reaching out across different party lines, racial lines, socioeconomic lines, but everybody wants Jackson to do well,” he said. “And in time, Jackson will be well.” 

Good’s support was one reason Horhn’s competitors in the primary tried to paint him as a Trojan Horse for white business interests in the city. He also received endorsements from sitting state representatives and the unions of public sector workers and Jackson firefighters.

“Anyone who thinks that John Horhn is bought by anyone obviously hasn’t seen the depth and breadth of the people that he’s worked for 40 years, and all the endorsements that he has received,” Good said. “The endorsements read like a who’s who of Black leadership. Those are facts. I mean, listen. This is a who’s who room. There’s former supervisors in here, there’s former state senators, current state senators, it’s amazing.” 

The accusation is not grounded in a factual understanding of the Legislature, said Rep. Justis Gibbs, D-Jackson, who noted that Horhn is one of 52 senators in a statehouse led by Republicans, not Democrats. 

And, Horhn’s district is larger than Jackson, so he has other cities to think about, like Edwards and Pocahontas.

“I think he has done well,” Gibbs said. “I know if I need something done … that I have an advocate, not an adversary.” 

Good helped cater the watch party, with Broad Street sandwiches and Sal and Mookie’s pizza. He said he hoped Horhn could continue the vision of former mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. and finally bring a hotel to the downtown convention center, what many hoped would be the starting point of revitalizing the city.

“What was supposed to be the beginning was the end,” he said. 

Last year, Lumumba was indicted on federal charges alleging he took bribes in the form of campaign donations from supposed developers of that same property in exchange for moving up a proposal deadline. He pleaded not guilty and his trial is scheduled for 2026.

“I am going to be clear that I am not guilty of any wrongdoing. I am not guilty of any wrongdoing,” Lumumba told reporters after the election results. “I admit that I love this city so much, and I am going to fight relentlessly in order to make sure that everybody gets the quality of life they deserve.” 

Lumumba arrived at the Fahrenheit Creative Group office for his watch party, a location change from the luxury bed and breakfast where it was originally planned, a little after 9:30 p.m.. His wife Ebony and their two daughters accompanied him. He chalked up his low performance in the race to misinformation.

“When they tell Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary, we should not be standing here,” Lumumba said, dabbing at his brow. “They gave every reason for us not to be standing here, and yet we are standing here.”

One guest, Amina Scott, said she’s supporting Lumumba no matter what. 

“He’s the only option for people in the city of Jackson as a progressive city that’s run by progressive American people,” Scott said.

She points to attempts by the state to take over Jackson Public Schools and the airport. 

“It’s not a new concept that has happened in cities across this country where Black people run the cities and states to try to take them back, and they’re doing the same thing to Jackson,” she said.

“…We have to look at our history and understand it’s not a new thing and it’s an old game, and we need to win this time. And the only way we can do that is as a unit.”

Lumumba became mayor in 2017 after winning 55% of more than 34,000 total votes in the Democratic primary against eight challengers, including the incumbent, making a runoff unnecessary. Horhn, who was running for his third time that year, came in second to Lumumba with 21% of the vote. After his first term, Lumumba won reelection after receiving 69% of the vote in the Democratic primary in 2021 with under 20,000 Jacksonians turning out.

The 2025 election saw similarly low voter turnout of under 25,700 votes in the last tally of the night. Mail-in absentee ballots and affidavit ballots are still left to be counted. With all of the issues voters had identifying their correct precinct due to redistricting last year, an election official said they saw a higher number of affidavit ballots – those cast due to irregularities at the polls. 

The 2025 election represented a drop in nearly 10,000 votes from 2017, but the city has lost more than that in population during that time.

If Horhn is victorious, his pastor Bishop Ronnie Crudup Sr. said he hopes Horhn can hit the ground running to reverse depopulation in Jackson, which has experienced some of the steepest losses in the country since the last census.

“We’re in a really tough and hurtful place in the city of Jackson right now,” he said. “Years ago, we experienced white flight in Jackson to the suburbs, and now we’re experiencing Black flight. People are feeling hopeless.” 

Johnnie Patton, whose family owns the Big Apple Inn, a famous restaurant on downtown’s historic Farish Street, said she wants to see Jackson return to the city she knows it can be. 

“We’ve lost a lot,” she said.

Across town at the Jackson Medical Mall, candidate Tim Henderson gathered with members of his family and volunteers around 7:30 p.m. while the election results trickled in. 

Henderson, a military consultant who went from little name recognition to finishing third in the primary, said people liked him precisely because he was an outsider, having moved back to the city just two years ago.

“We keep electing the politicians that have been around, and we keep getting the same thing,” he said.

Inside the mall, also a voting location, the poll workers were packing up the precinct. In the center of the mall, empty tables and chairs waited for Henderson’s supporters who were steadily showing up for the watch party. Slow jazz music was playing.

Henderson set up his campaign headquarters here in an office he also uses for his consulting business. Since it was close to a precinct, he had to take down his office signage.

But the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel said he would stand outside the medical mall and talk to potential voters as they walked in, including one woman whose mother was killed in a shooting earlier this year.

“People are tired in this city,” he said.

That was reflected in the city’s anemic turnout, he added. At the medical mall, for instance, officials recorded just 115 official votes from the 541, as of 2024, registered there.

“When people have been in such a depressed and distressed state for so long psychologically it impacts them,” he said.

As he spoke to a reporter in his campaign office, someone called his desk phone. “Please, Mayor Henderson, give me a call back,” they said, but Henderson couldn’t answer it in time.

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

by Gwen Dilworth, Mississippi Today
April 1, 2025

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.

The bill was sent back to conference after Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville, raised a point of order challenging the addition of code sections to the bill, which will likely kill it. 

House members in the past have chosen to turn a blind eye to the rule, which would require the added code sections to be removed when the bill is returned to conference. This fatal flaw will make it difficult to revive the legislation. 

“It will almost certainly die,” said House Speaker Jason White, who authored the legislation. “And you can celebrate that with your pharmacist when you see them.”

“…This wasn’t ‘gotcha.’ Everybody in this chamber knew that code sections were added, because the attempt was to make 1123 more suitable to all the parties.”

The bill sought to protect patients and independent pharmacists, who have warned that if legislators do not pass a law this year to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, which serve as middlemen in the pharmaceutical industry, some pharmacies may be forced to close. They say that the companies’ low payments and unfair business practices have left them struggling to break even.

The bill underwent several revisions in the House and Senate before reaching its most recent form, which independent pharmacists say has watered the bill down and will not offer them adequate protection. 

House Bill 1123, authored by White, originally focused on the transparency of pharmacy benefit managers. The Senate then beefed up the bill by adding provisions barring the companies from steering patients to affiliate pharmacies and prohibiting spread pricing – the practice of paying insurers more for drugs than pharmacists in order to inflate pharmacy benefit managers’ profits. 

Independent pharmacists, who have flocked to the Capitol to advocate for reform this session, widely supported the Senate’s version of the bill. 

The Senate incorporated several recommendations from the House into its bill, saying that they believed that the legislation would have the House’s support. 

Instead, the House sent the bill to conference and requested additional changes, including new language that would eliminate self-funded insurance plans, or health plans in which employers assume the financial risk of covering employees’ health care costs themselves, from a section of the bill that prohibits pharmacy benefit managers from steering patients to specific pharmacies.

This language seeks to satisfy employers, who argue that regulating pharmacy benefit managers’ business practices will lead to higher health insurance costs. 

Sen. Rita Parks, R-Corinth, who has spearheaded pharmacy benefit manager reform efforts in the Senate, previously said that adding the language to the bill would “remove any protection out of the law.” But she signed the conference report that included the language Monday after a heated conference meeting between lawmakers. 

Rep. Hank Zuber, R-Ocean Springs and co-author of the bill, said the bill has something for everybody, gesturing to its concessions for employers and independent pharmacists. He said the bill gives independent pharmacists 85% of what they wanted. 

Mississippi Independent Pharmacies Association director Robert Dozier was not available for comment by the time the story published. 

Zuber told House members Tuesday to “blame the Senate” for the slow progress of pharmacy benefit manager reform in Mississippi, citing the body’s failure to take up a drug pricing transparency bill half a decade ago, for three years in a row.

“If the Senate had followed the leadership and the legislation that we drafted those many years ago, we would not be here,” Zuber said. “We would have the information on drug pricing, we would have the information and transparency on (pharmacy benefit managers) and we would have the ultimate reason as to why drug costs continue to rise.”

Members of the House expressed dissatisfaction with the legislation Tuesday, arguing it did not do enough to ensure lower prescription drug costs for consumers. 

“I’m going to try to do something next year that goes even further,” Zuber responded.

For the past several years, lawmakers have proposed bills to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, but none have made it as far as this session. 

“We’ll go another year,” said White. 

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

by Taylor Vance and Michael Goldberg, Mississippi Today
April 1, 2025

After months of bitter Republican political infighting, the Legislature appears likely to end its session Wednesday without passing a $7 billion budget to fund state agencies, potentially threatening a government shutdown if they don’t come back and adopt one by June 30. 

After the House adjourned Tuesday night, Speaker Jason White said he had presented the Senate with a final offer to extend the session, which would give the two chambers more time to negotiate a budget. As for now, the 100 or so bills that make up the state budget are dead.

The Senate leadership was expected to meet and consider the offer Tuesday evening, White said. But numerous senators both Republican and Democrat said they would oppose such a parliamentary resolution, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has also said it’s unlikely and that the governor will have to force lawmakers back into special session.

White said he believes, if the Senate would agree to extend the session and restart negotiations, lawmakers could pass a budget and end the 2025 session by Sunday, only a few days later than planned.

But if the Senate chooses not to pass a resolution extending the session, White said the House would end the session on Wednesday.

It would take a two-thirds vote of support in both chambers to suspend the rules and extend the session. The Senate opposition appears to be enough to prevent that. 

Still, the speaker said he believes Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Senate leaders are considering the proposal. But he said if he doesn’t hear a positive response by Wednesday, the House will adjourn and wait for Gov. Tate Reeves to call a special session at a later date. 

“We are open to (extending the session), but we will not stay here until Sunday waiting around to see if they might do it,” White said.  

White said leaving the Capitol without a budget and punting the issue to a special session might not cool tensions between the chambers, as some lawmakers hope. 

“I think when you leave here and you end up in a special session, some folks say, ‘Well everybody that’s upset will cool down by then.’ They may, or it may get worse. It may shine a different and specific light on some of the things in this budget and the differences in the House and Senate,” White said. “Whereas, I think everybody now is in the legislative mode, and we might get there.”

The Mississippi Constitution does not grant the governor much power, but if Gov. Tate Reeves calls lawmakers into a special session, he gets to set the specific legislative agenda — not lawmakers. 

White said the governor could potentially use his executive authority to direct lawmakers to take up other bills, such as those related to education, before getting to the budget. 

“When we leave here without a budget, it is entirely the governor’s prerogative to when he (sets a special session) and how he does that.”

While the future of the state’s budget hangs in the balance, lawmakers have spent the remaining days of their regular session trying to pass the few remaining bills that remained alive on their calendars. 

House approves DEI ban, Senate could follow suit on Wednesday 

The House on Tuesday passed a proposal to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs from public schools, and both chambers approved a measure to establish a form of early voting. 

The House approved a conference report compromise to ban DEI programs and a list of “divisive concepts” from K-12 schools, community colleges and universities. If the Senate follows suit, Mississippi would join a number of other Republican-controlled states and President Donald Trump, who has made rooting DEI out of the federal government one of his top priorities. 

The agreement between the Republican-dominated chambers follows hours of heated debate in which Democrats, all almost of whom are Black, excoriated the legislation as a setback in the long struggle to make Mississippi a fairer place for minorities. Legislative Republicans argued the legislation will elevate merit in education and remove from school settings “divisive concepts” that exacerbate divisions among different identity groups. 

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 act, but ultimately settled on an agreement that would empower students, faculty members and contractors to sue schools for violating the law, but only after they go through an internal campus review process that would give schools time to make changes. The legislation could also withhold state funds from schools that don’t comply. 

Legislature sends ‘early voting lite’ bill to governor 

The Legislature also overwhelmingly passed a proposal to establish a watered down version of early voting, though the legislation is titled “in-person excused voting,” and not early voting.

The proposal establishes 22 days of in-person voting before Election Day that requires voters to go to the circuit clerk’s office or another location county officials have designated as a secure early voting facility, such as a courtroom or a board of supervisors meeting room. 

To cast an early vote, someone must present a valid form of photo ID and list one of about 15 legal excuses to vote before Election Day. The excuses, however, are broad and would, in theory, allow many people to cast early ballots. 

Examples of valid excuses are voters expecting to work on Election Day, being at least 65 years old, being currently enrolled in college or potentially travelling outside of their county on Election Day. 

Since most eligible voters either work, go to college or are older than 65 years of age, these excuses would apply to almost everyone. 

“Even though this isn’t early voting as we saw originally, it makes this more convenient for hard working Mississippians to go by their clerks’ office and vote in person after showing an ID 22 days prior to an election,” Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England said. 

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves opposes early voting, so it’s unclear if he would sign the measure into law or veto it. 

Both chambers are expected to gavel at 10 a.m. on Wednesday to debate the final items on their agenda. 

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