Mississippi Today
Federal judge rejects Republican challenge of Mississippi absentee vote counting
U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola over the weekend rejected a challenge by the Republican National Committee and others to Mississippi’s practice of counting mail-in absentee ballots received up to five days after Election Day.ย
Guirola, a senior-status judge first appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, ruled in a 24-page opinion that the political parties had legal standing to bring the suit, but disagreed with their claim that Mississippi’s statute clashed with federal law.ย
โMississippi’s statutory procedure for counting lawfully cast absentee ballots, postmarked on or before election day, and received no more than five business days after election day is consistent with federal law and does not conflict with the Elections Clause, the Electors’ Clause, or the election-day statutes,โ Guirola wrote.
The state and national Republican parties, a Harrison County election commissioner and the state Libertarian Party were the plaintiffs in the litigation and argued that Guirola should strike down Mississippi’s five-day window because only Congress gets to determine regulations for federal elections.ย
Conor Woodfin, the attorney representing the GOP, and Rusell Nobile, an attorney representing the state Libertarian Party, did not immediately respond to requests for their response to the ruling and whether they plan to appeal it to the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.ย
The law in question is a 2020 state law passed by the Legislature amid the COVID-19 pandemic that allows local election workers to process mail-in absentee ballots for up to five days after an election. The law only permits workers to count the mail-in votes if the ballots were postmarked by the election date.ย
Both chambers of the GOP-majority Legislature voted in favor of the bill, and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed it into law.
The suit put Secretary of State Michael Watson, the named defendant, in the peculiar situation of arguing with his own political party in federal court and defending a law passed by a Republican-supermajority Legislature by using attorneys from Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office.
The litigation comes at a time when voter confidence in elections is at an all-time low and when candidates have started to dispute election results more frequently.
If the plaintiffs appeal the litigation, a prompt resolution before November’s presidential and congressional election would be vital. The appellate process is lengthy and time-consuming, and different rulings from the district and appellate courts could lead to voter confusion.
Mississippians can request an absentee ballot application starting September 6, and the earliest day they can vote by absentee is September 23, according to the secretary of state’s elections calendar.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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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