Mississippi Today
Do voters know enough to elect Mississippi judges?
Here’s a quick pop quiz:
Who are the justices on the state Supreme Court running for reelection this year?
What judicial elections will be on the Mississippi ballot this November?
Who are the judges who hear cases where you live?
And, what are the differences between chancery and circuit judges?
Granted, that last one is a tough one.
Odds are many people cannot answer those questions and others involving the Mississippi judiciary. And that might be considered disappointing since most judges in Mississippi, including the nine justices on the state Supreme Court, the 10 Court of Appeal judges and the 57 circuit and 52 chancery court judges are elected.
There are a few instances in Mississippi where judges are appointed, but in general the state Constitution mandates that judges be elected instead of appointed.
In the 1990s there were serious discussions in the Legislature about whether Mississippi judges should be elected or appointed. Some states elect judges while others have judges appointed by the governor or some type of judicial commission. Some states have a combination of both elected and appointed judges. Other states require appointed judges to stand for a retention election. In some states, judges are appointed for a specified number of years.
On the federal level, President Joe Biden recently has proposed changing the tenure for the United States Supreme Court justices from a lifetime appointment to an appointment for 18 years.
No doubt, judges play a vital role in a representative democracy.
The Legislature chose in the 1990s to leave in place Mississippi’s system of electing nearly all judges, though the end result of those discussions was a subtle but important change in the method of selecting judges.
The change was that when an appellate judge steps down the governor can name a replacement to serve the remainder of his term if the term is more than halfway complete. And even when a special election is required, the appointed judge gets to serve for at least nine months before the election.
Previously, at least in many cases, a special election was held much sooner to replace the retiring judge.
The ability to serve out the remainder of a term, especially if it is an eight year term that Supreme Court justices and Court of Appeal judges serve, gives a gubernatorial appointee a tremendous advantage โ the ability to run essentially as an incumbent.
And it should be noted that there is a long tradition in the state of judges, especially Supreme Court justices, leaving office before their terms expire.
The issue of Mississippi’s system of selecting justices came to the forefront this past week as four of the five candidates vying for a Central District Supreme Court race spoke and campaigned at the Neshoba County Fair.
Justice James Kitchens is seeking reelection in the Central District. In a sense, Kitchens is an anomaly. In most instances, justices on the Supreme Court are first appointed by the governor as mentioned earlier to replace a retiring incumbent and then elected to a full eight year term, or the justice made it to the state’s highest court by winning an open seat.
Kitchens is the rare justice who earned his seat on the state Supreme Court by defeating an incumbent โ then-Chief Justice James Smith in 2008.
Theย other candidates in the Central District race this year are Republican state Sen. Jennifer Branning, Jackson attorneys Abby Gale Robinson and Byron Carter and former Court of Appeals Judge Ceola James.
In the Southern District incumbent Supreme Court Justice Dawn Beam is being challenged by Coast attorney David Sullivan, son of a former Supreme Court justice.
Also in south Mississippi, Assistant District Attorney Ian Baker, Chancery Court Judge Jennifer Schloegel and municipal Judge Amy St. Pe are vying for a Court of Appeals post.
Supreme Court Justices Robert Chamberlin and James Maxwell, both of the Northern District, are running unopposed.
The judicial contests might be Mississippi’s most competitive elections this year. The federal elections on the state ballot โ for president and for U.S. senator and representatives — are not expected to be competitive in Mississippi.
But some of the judicial elections, which many Mississippians know little about, could be real donnybrooks.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/?p=382138
Mississippi Today
AT&T, union reach deal ending strike
AT&T workers are back on the job today after the company reached a tentative agreement with the Communications Workers of America to end a month-long strike in the Southeast.
The new deal includes a 19.33% pay increase for all workers, and more affordable healthcare premiums.
Wire technicians and utility operations employes get an extra 3% pay increase.
In a statement, CWA president Claude Cummings Jr. praised the solidarity of the striking workers.
โI believe in the power of unity, and the unity our members and retirees have shown during these contract negotiations has been outstanding and gave our bargaining teams the backing they needed to deliver strong contracts,โ he said.
CWA district president Jermaine Travis told Mississippi Today that he and his coworkers are happy to be back at work.ย
โIt’s been a long month, so everybody is excited to get back to work and get back to taking care of business,โ he said.
Travis also noted the significance of the strike, the longest telecommunications strike in the Southeast.
โI think we’re gonna look back at this strike, at this moment in history, and see it was really important for workers to stand up for the rights and force companies to do right by them, so I think we did a good thing,โ he said.
AT&T has also reached a tentative agreement with the CWA in the West.
“As we’ve said since day 1, our goal has been to reach fair agreements that recognize the hard work our employees do to serve our customers with competitive market-based pay and benefits that are among the best in the nation — and that’s exactly what was accomplished,โ AT&T said in a released statement. โThese agreements also support our competitive position in the broadband industry where we can grow and win against our mostly non-union competitors.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1925
Sept. 16, 1925
โThe King of the Bluesโ was born Riley B. King on a plantation near Itta Bena, Mississippi, the son of sharecroppers.
While singing in the church choir, he watched the pastor playing a Sears Roebuck guitar and told the preacher he wanted to learn how to play. By age 12, he had his own guitar and began listening to the blues on the radio. After playing in churches, he went to Memphis to pursue a music career in 1948, playing on the radio and working as a deejay who was known as โBlues Boyโ and eventually โB.B.โ
Within a year, B.B. King was recording songs, many of them produced by Sam Phillips, who later founded Sun Records. In 1952, โ3 O’Clock Bluesโ became a hit, and dozens followed.
While others sought to bring change through the courts, King did it through music. The songs that he and other blues artists created drew many listeners across racial lines. One of the biggest fans walked into the studio one day and called him โsir.โ His name? Elvis Presley, whose first big hit was the blues song, โThat’s All Right, Mama.โ
King explained that music was like water โ something โfor every living person and every living thing.โ His smash hit, โThe Thrill Is Gone,โ made him an international star and led to collaborations with some of the world’s greatest artists.
He survived a fire that almost burned up his beloved guitar, โLucille,โ and won 18 Grammys as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1987, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Both Time and Rolling Stone magazines ranked him as one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
In 2006, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the greatest civilian honor. Two years later, his hometown of Indianola honored him by opening the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center. After he died in 2015, thousands flocked to the Mississippi Delta for the wake and funeral.
โHands that once picked cotton,โ the preacher told the crowd, โwould someday pick guitar strings on a national and international stage.โ He performed till the end, telling Rolling Stone in 2013 that he had only missed 18 days of performing in 65 years. He died two years later at 89 after battling diabetes for decades.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Podcast: Sen. David Blount discusses tax cuts, retirement system, mobile sports betting
State Sen. David Blount sits down with Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison and Adam Ganucheau to discuss the push for income tax elimination and how that would affect the state’s budget. He also talks about needed funding for the state’s troubledย retirement system and whether Mississippi will soon adopt mobile sports betting.
READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs
The post Podcast: Sen. David Blount discusses tax cuts, retirement system, mobile sports betting appeared first on Mississippi Today.
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