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Democrats: Ignore ‘blue slip’ custom to get federal vacancies filled in Republican states like Mississippi

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Democrats: Ignore ‘blue slip’ custom to get federal vacancies filled in Republican states like Mississippi

by Anna Wolfe, Mississippi Today
February 1, 2023

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and other Democrats in Washington are urging President Joe Biden to send federal appointments for the U.S. Senate’s approval, regardless of prior consent from senators in the nominees’ respective states.

Biden would have to ignore a longstanding tradition called “blue slips” – forms that senators submit to the Senate Judiciary Committee to affirm they’ll vote to approve the president’s candidates for vacancies in their home state.

This matters most in states with one or more Republican senators who are withholding their blue slips, stalling Biden’s nominations from moving through confirmation.

“It’s a custom rather than anything that’s in law. So it’s really a gray area. And in this instance, people who support Democrats are getting penalized in this process,” Thompson, the only Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation, told Mississippi Today on Tuesday.

Mississippi has five federal vacancies. In the fall, Biden made nominations for four of the positions – federal judge for the Northern District, U.S. attorney for the Southern District and two U.S. marshals – but Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith did not return blue slips for any of them. Biden had to recently reissue the nominations, along with dozens more in other states, to the current Congress on Jan. 23. Biden has not made a nomination for the U.S. attorney in the Northern District.

Biden’s nominations include Scott Colom, a district attorney in north Mississippi, for the U.S. district judge in the Northern District; Todd Gee, deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, for U.S. attorney in the Southern District; Dale Bell for U.S. marshal in the Southern District; and Michael Purnell for U.S. marshal in the Northern District.

Gee, a Vicksburg native, would oversee the office currently prosecuting the Mississippi welfare fraud case involving the misspending or theft of at least $77 million in federal funds intended to serve the poor.

Scott Colom, the district attorney for Columbus and surrounding counties

Colom, a Columbus resident, has been the district attorney for the 16th Judicial District, which consists of Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Noxubee and Clay counties, since 2016. He previously worked for the Mississippi Center for Justice and was a municipal court judge.

Wicker has voiced his support for Colom, but that does not appear to have hastened the confirmation process for the district attorney.

“All of a sudden, people who build a career, do what’s right in the community, exhibit leadership traits that other people can identify with, and get an opportunity to be elevated to a higher level based on the hard work that they’ve done over their careers, and politics denies them of that opportunity,” Thompson said. “And we are a better country than that.”

A spokesperson for Wicker would not say whether the senator supported Biden’s nominations, directing Mississippi Today’s questions to the White House and Senate Judiciary Committee. Hyde-Smith’s office did not return Mississippi Today’s email Tuesday.

The White House did not respond to an email Wednesday.

There is no official rule or procedure in Congress requiring the use of blue slips, Thompson said.

And there is some precedent for rejecting the custom. President Donald Trump did away with blue slips for his judicial appointments to circuit courts of appeals, the second highest courts behind the U.S. Supreme Court.

“My personal view is that the blue slip, with regard to circuit court appointments, ought to simply be a notification of how you’re going to vote, not the opportunity to blackball,” then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a 2017 interview with The New York Times.

In remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday, Minority Leader McConnell ridiculed Biden’s judicial nominees.

Some Democrats are arguing that the president’s party should not use the failure of Republican senators to return blue slips as a reason to become complacent about unfilled vacancies.

“I think they (Democrats) have basically allowed the custom to get in the way of excellent people being able to serve in those prestigious positions,” Thompson said. “I think they are acquiescing to an arcane custom that, in this instance, has no basis in law to start with.”

Nationally, discussion around stalled federal appointments has focused on judicial vacancies, considering the power that these lifetime appointments hold in shaping legal precedent and influencing public policy. Currently there are 88 total judge vacancies and 41 pending nominations.

But the U.S. attorney and U.S. marshal vacancies are consequential in their own right.

Thompson backs the nomination of Gee, who previously served as lead counsel on the House Homeland Security Committee that Thompson chaired.

If confirmed, Gee will inherit Mississippi’s blockbuster welfare scandal, in which two key defendants have pleaded guilty and flipped to aid the prosecution.

But since the initial arrests in 2020, federal authorities have not criminally charged any additional people. Sources close to the probe have questioned whether the U.S. Attorney’s Office is likely to take the step of charging new figures in the case before gaining a permanent leader.

And yet, when asked about the welfare investigation, Wicker told WLOX in August, “It’s not something I can have any effect on in Washington.”

“This is a state matter,” Wicker said in the WLOX report, which was following Mississippi Today’s reporting about Gov. Tate Reeves’ connections to welfare purchases targeted in ongoing civil litigation. “It’s just not something that I’m really qualified to talk about.”

Last year, Thompson wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, following the revelations in Mississippi Today’s series “The Backchannel,” urging federal authorities to investigate former Gov. Phil Bryant’s role in welfare misspending.

“The Backchannel” revealed for the first time that welfare payments made to former NFL quarterback Brett Favre’s pharmaceutical company Prevacus – the Florida company at the center of the initial criminal indictment – were made in plain sight of Bryant, and that Bryant even agreed to accept stock in the company after leaving office.

While the 2020 charges by Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens described illegal activity regarding investments into the drug company, officials concealed information about Bryant’s involvement from the public until Mississippi Today published private text messages between Bryant, Favre and the founder of Prevacus last April.

“The fact that 100% of the TANF monies involved were federal monies means that the U.S. Attorney’s Office should have been aggressively prosecuting those individuals. And that has not been the case,” Thompson said. “They have actually deferred to the state office to handle federal prosecutions. And there’s a question as to whether or not Hinds County has the resources to pursue all of the areas necessary in that suit. I’m convinced that the investment of those TANF monies that went into the Florida drug company really need to be pursued. But you’ve got to have the staff on board or the reach, like a U.S. attorney’s office in Florida, to pass it off with the FBI and others to investigate it and bring it back. I’m just not certain that a local district attorney’s office has the reach or the finances … to give it what it needs.”

While the local district attorney’s office is still a partner in the ongoing investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District is the lead prosecutor. It is the office that most recently secured a guilty plea on new federal charges against the former welfare director, John Davis, in September.

But more than two years into Biden’s administration, the office still lacks a permanent leader at its helm.

“It means that the single largest criminal action that occurred in our state is being haphazardly pursued in a manner that all the people who are guilty and involved, potentially, will never get brought to trial, because of that lack of leadership in the Southern District office,” Thompson said.

“Look, if we can prosecute single women in Mississippi for food stamp fraud, surely we can prosecute everybody involved in a multimillion dollar scam of federal funds,” he added.

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

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Mississippi Today

1964: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was formed

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7 hours ago

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April 26, 2025

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-26 07:00:00

by Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today
April 26, 2025

April 26, 1964

Aaron Henry testifies before the Credentials Committee at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

Civil rights activists started the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge the state’s all-white regular delegation to the Democratic National Convention. 

The regulars had already adopted this resolution: “We oppose, condemn and deplore the Civil Rights Act of 1964 … We believe in separation of the races in all phases of our society. It is our belief that the separation of the races is necessary for the peace and tranquility of all the people of Mississippi, and the continuing good relationship which has existed over the years.” 

In reality, Black Mississippians had been victims of intimidation, harassment and violence for daring to try and vote as well as laws passed to disenfranchise them. As a result, by 1964, only 6% of Black Mississippians were permitted to vote. A year earlier, activists had run a mock election in which thousands of Black Mississippians showed they would vote if given an opportunity. 

In August 1964, the Freedom Party decided to challenge the all-white delegation, saying they had been illegally elected in a segregated process and had no intention of supporting President Lyndon B. Johnson in the November election. 

The prediction proved true, with white Mississippi Democrats overwhelmingly supporting Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, who opposed the Civil Rights Act. While the activists fell short of replacing the regulars, their courageous stand led to changes in both parties.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Mississippi River flooding Vicksburg, expected to crest on Monday

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22 hours ago

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April 25, 2025

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mississippitoday.org – @alxrzr – 2025-04-25 16:04:00

by Alex Rozier, Mississippi Today
April 25, 2025

Warren County Emergency Management Director John Elfer said Friday floodwaters from the Mississippi River, which have reached homes in and around Vicksburg, will likely persist until early May. Elfer estimated there areabout 15 to 20 roads underwater in the area.

A truck sits in high water after the owner parked, then boated to his residence on Chickasaw Road in Vicksburg as a rising Mississippi River causes backwater flooding, Friday, April 25, 2025.

“We’re about half a foot (on the river gauge) from a major flood,” he said. “But we don’t think it’s going to be like in 2011, so we can kind of manage this.”

The National Weather projects the river to crest at 49.5 feet on Monday, making it the highest peak at the Vicksburg gauge since 2020. Elfer said some residents in north Vicksburg — including at the Ford Subdivision as well as near Chickasaw Road and Hutson Street — are having to take boats to get home, adding that those who live on the unprotected side of the levee are generally prepared for flooding.

A rising Mississippi River causing backwater flooding near Chickasaw Road in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.
Old tires aligned a backyard as a deterrent to rising water north of Vicksburg along U.S. 61, Friday, April 25, 2025.
As the Mississippi River rises, backwater flooding creeps towards a home located on Falk Steel Road in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.

“There are a few (inundated homes), but we’ve mitigated a lot of them,” he said. “Some of the structures have been torn down or raised. There are a few people that still live on the wet side of the levee, but they kind of know what to expect. So we’re not too concerned with that.”

The river first reached flood stage in the city — 43 feet — on April 14. State officials closed Highway 465, which connects the Eagle Lake community just north of Vicksburg to Highway 61, last Friday.

Flood waters along Kings Point Road in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.

Elfer said the areas impacted are mostly residential and he didn’t believe any businesses have been affected, emphasizing that downtown Vicksburg is still safe for visitors. He said Warren County has worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to secure pumps and barriers.

“Everybody thus far has been very cooperative,” he said. “We continue to tell people stay out of the flood areas, don’t drive around barricades and don’t drive around road close signs. Not only is it illegal, it’s dangerous.”

NWS projects the river to stay at flood stage in Vicksburg until May 6. The river reached its record crest of 57.1 feet in 2011.

The boat launch area is closed and shored up on Levee Street in Vicksburg as the Mississippi River rises, Friday, April 25, 2025.
The boat launch area (right) is closed and under water on Levee Street in Vicksburg as the Mississippi River rises, Friday, April 25, 2025.
City of Vicksburg workers shore up the bank along Levee Street as the Mississippi River rises, Friday, April 25, 2025.
The old pedestrian bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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With domestic violence law, victims ‘will be a number with a purpose,’ mother says

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23 hours ago

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April 25, 2025

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-25 15:07:00

by Mina Corpuz, Mississippi Today
April 25, 2025

Joslin Napier. Carlos Collins. Bailey Mae Reed. 

They are among Mississippi domestic violence homicide victims whose family members carried their photos as the governor signed a bill that will establish a board to study such deaths and how to prevent them. 

Tara Gandy, who lost her daughter Napier in Waynesboro in 2022, said it’s a moment she plans to tell her 5-year-old grandson about when he is old enough. Napier’s presence, in spirit, at the bill signing can be another way for her grandson to feel proud of his mother. 

“(The board) will allow for my daughter and those who have already lost their lives to domestic violence … to no longer be just a number,” Gandy said. “They will be a number with a purpose.” 

Family members at the April 15 private bill signing included Ashla Hudson, whose son Collins, died last year in Jackson. Grandparents Mary and Charles Reed and brother Colby Kernell attended the event in honor of Bailey Mae Reed, who died in Oxford in 2023. 

Joining them were staff and board members from the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the statewide group that supports shelters and advocated for the passage of Senate Bill 2886 to form a Domestic Violence Facility Review Board. 

The law will go into effect July 1, and the coalition hopes to partner with elected officials who will make recommendations for members to serve on the board. The coalition wants to see appointees who have frontline experience with domestic violence survivors, said Luis Montgomery, public policy specialist for the coalition. 

A spokesperson from Gov. Tate Reeves’ office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Establishment of the board would make Mississippi the 45th state to review domestic violence fatalities. 

Montgomery has worked on passing a review board bill since December 2023. After an unsuccessful effort in 2024, the coalition worked to build support and educate people about the need for such a board. 

In the recent legislative session, there were House and Senate versions of the bill that unanimously passed their respective chambers. Authors of the bills are from both political parties. 

The review board is tasked with reviewing a variety of documents to learn about the lead up and circumstances in which people died in domestic violence-related fatalities, near fatalities and suicides – records that can include police records, court documents, medical records and more. 

From each review, trends will emerge and that information can be used for the board to make recommendations to lawmakers about how to prevent domestic violence deaths. 

“This is coming at a really great time because we can really get proactive,” Montgomery said. 

Without a board and data collection, advocates say it is difficult to know how many people have died or been injured in domestic-violence related incidents.

A Mississippi Today analysis found at least 300 people, including victims, abusers and collateral victims, died from domestic violence between 2020 and 2024. That analysis came from reviewing local news stories, the Gun Violence Archive, the National Gun Violence Memorial, law enforcement reports and court documents. 

Some recent cases the board could review are the deaths of Collins, Napier and Reed. 

In court records, prosecutors wrote that Napier, 24, faced increased violence after ending a relationship with Chance Fabian Jones. She took action, including purchasing a firearm and filing for a protective order against Jones.

Jones’s trial is set for May 12 in Wayne County. His indictment for capital murder came on the first anniversary of her death, according to court records. 

Collins, 25, worked as a nurse and was from Yazoo City. His ex-boyfriend Marcus Johnson has been indicted for capital murder and shooting into Collins’ apartment. Family members say Collins had filed several restraining orders against Johnson. 

Johnson was denied bond and remains in jail. His trial is scheduled for July 28 in Hinds County.  

He was a Jackson police officer for eight months in 2013. Johnson was separated from the department pending disciplinary action leading up to immediate termination, but he resigned before he was fired, Jackson police confirmed to local media. 

Reed, 21, was born and raised in Michigan and moved to Water Valley to live with her grandparents and help care for her cousin, according to her obituary. 

Kylan Jacques Phillips was charged with first degree murder for beating Reed, according to court records. In February, the court ordered him to undergo a mental evaluation to determine if he is competent to stand trial, according to court documents. 

At the bill signing, Gandy said it was bittersweet and an honor to meet the families of other domestic violence homicide victims.

“We were there knowing we are not alone, we can travel this road together and hopefully find ways to prevent and bring more awareness about domestic violence,” she said.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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