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Gov. Tate Reeves, with one tweet, digs up his controversial public education record

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Gov. Tate Reeves, with one tweet, digs up his controversial public education record

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.

Senate Republican leaders shocked the state on Feb. 28 when they announced their intention to fully fund Mississippi’s public school formula for just the third time since 2003.

Just a few minutes before the Senate was set to vote on the proposal on March 7, Gov. Tate Reeves took to Twitter with an eyebrow-raising warning to lawmakers.

“Be very cautious of a last minute change in funding formula that seems to have unanimous support amongst Democrats in Senate and liberal activist groups. Very very cautious,” Reeves tweeted, followed by his office sending his tweet to reporters as an official press statement. “Instead of funneling more money to the district offices — where our kids won’t see it — why not another teacher pay raise? Put it in the classroom!”

A little more than an hour later, the supermajority in the Republican state Senate, apparently unfazed by their Republican leader’s words, voted unanimously to do the exact opposite of what Reeves had warned. Every single Republican and Democrat in the Senate voted with virtually no debate to tweak the education funding formula and fully fund public schools.

The Senate plan, which would help local school districts cover basic costs such as supplies, building costs and, yes, teacher salaries, would require the state send an additional $181 million to the Mississippi Adequate Education Program per year. The proposal comes as Mississippi sits on a record revenue surplus of $3.9 billion, and more than $1 billion of that is recurring.

READ MORE: Bill to fully fund public education heads to House for consideration. Here’s what the changes would mean.

The politics of opposing full funding of public education during an election year are questionable at best. And even more problematic for Reeves is that his unprompted Twitter take dredged up his controversial record on one of the single biggest political issues of any campaign.

Reeves, at least on this issue, appears wildly out of step with Mississippi voters, including his Republican base. A new Siena College/Mississippi Today poll released today shows that a whopping 79% of Mississippians — including 73% of Republicans surveyed — believe lawmakers should fully fund public schools this session.

Democrat Brandon Presley, who is getting all sorts of statewide and national attention for his political upside against Reeves in the governor’s race later this year, pounced immediately. As one longtime political operative put it in a text message later in the day: “I hear they’re having a Field Day in Nettleton today,” referencing Presley’s hometown.

“I commend both Republicans and Democrats in the state Senate for coming together across party lines unanimously to better fund our schools,” Presley tweeted shortly after the Senate vote. “As usual, Tate Reeves is now attacking this bipartisan effort and playing politics once again. Tate Reeves has shown over and over he cares more about HIS political career than OUR students. He won’t lead. As governor, I will.”

Reeves’ tweet leads astute political observers to recall Reeves’ many black eyes from his action (or inaction) on public education related issues. If you’re interested in taking a stroll down memory lane, here are just a few of those moments:

  • In eight years as lieutenant governor, when he had deep influence over the state budget, Reeves raised teacher pay just two times — both during election years. And those pay raises were so marginal that education groups and teachers publicly panned them with descriptors like “a joke”; “insufficient”; “a slap in the face’: “insulting”; and “another election-year-timed symbolic gesture.” His March 7 tweet suggested current lawmakers consider another teacher pay raise. Needless to say, that wasn’t received too well.
  • The governor highlighted in his March 7 tweet that the Senate full funding effort was “last minute.” But no one, seemingly, has forgotten about perhaps the most notorious “last minute” leader in modern political history regarding education-related moves. When Reeves was lieutenant governor, he famously sneaked $2 million for private school vouchers into an unrelated appropriations bill in the 2019 election year, drawing the broad ire of every single public education group.
  • In 2017, Reeves and other legislative leaders tried and failed to rewrite the state’s public education funding formula. A majority of Republican senators shot down Reeves’ plan in broad daylight. Shortly after the Senate vote, Reeves went sour grapes and blamed reporters: “I know you’re all smiling big today. You worked really hard to kill this, and you were very, very successful at doing so.” Reeves has rarely publicly discussed the failed rewrite effort since then, and he has neither tried nor proposed another rewrite effort.
  • In Reeves’ last five years as lieutenant governor, the Legislature underfunded Mississippi Adequate Education Program by $1.06 billion, according to data compiled by The Parents’ Campaign. Since 2008 under the same measures, MAEP has gone underfunded by $3.35 billion, including a worst-ever stretch from 2012-2020 — the eight years Reeves served as leader of the Senate.
  • From 2015-2019, his last four years as lieutenant governor, Mississippi’s public education budgets were cut by $173.5 million ($102 million cut to Institutions of Higher Learning, $40 million cut to K-12 education, $32 million to community colleges).
  • Several teacher loan forgiveness programs in 2016 received budget cuts so extreme from the Reeves-led Legislature that they had to stop forgiving loans for teachers. “It really got me thinking, ‘Well, my state’s not really on my side here,’” a north Mississippi teacher said.
  • And how soon we forget one of the biggest political blunders of modern politics. In 2019, late in his heated governor’s race with Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood, Reeves released a TV ad touting his plan to raise public school teacher pay. There was just one problem: most of the ad was filmed inside a private school and featured several private school teachers. That private school, then a little-known entity, is now one of the most familiar schools in the state for all the wrong reasons. Reeves filmed the ad at New Summit School, owned by welfare and education fraudsters Nancy and Zach New, who were 2019 campaign donors of Reeves.

It remains unclear what Reeves thought he was doing March 7 with his social media warning to lawmakers and his effective trolling of the Senate’s full funding proposal.

The Senate plan now moves to the House, where Republican leaders there have to decide whether to heed Reeves’ warning. But legislative Democrats, like Presley, are already using the moment to apply pressure.

“This appropriation would be less than 5% of our nearly $4 billion surplus and he still doesn’t want to spend it on Mississippi’s public school students,” said Rep. Robert Johnson, the House Democratic leader. “If we’re in the best financial shape in our state’s history, as the governor so often likes to remind us, why should we have to choose? If he isn’t interested in investing in public education now, will he ever be?”

Johnson continued: “If House Republicans and Tate Reeves think blocking $181 million from going into our public schools while they crow about a $4 billion surplus is a winning strategy going into an election year, then good luck to them.”

But before too long, we’ll get some clarity on how Reeves’ questionable take — effectively, “I know we have more money than we’ve ever had, but let’s actually not send additional funding to our consistently struggling public schools during this major election year” — will affect his effort to win one more term in the Governor’s Mansion.

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

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Mississippi Today

Mississippi River flooding Vicksburg, expected to crest on Monday

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

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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Mississippi Today

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

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

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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Court to rule on DeSoto County Senate districts with special elections looming

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-25 15:06:00

A federal three-judge panel will rule in coming days on how political power in northwest Mississippi will be allocated in the state Senate and whether any incumbents in the DeSoto County area might have to campaign against each other in November special elections.  

The panel, comprised of all George W. Bush-appointed judges, ordered state officials last week to, again, craft a new Senate map for the area in the suburbs of Memphis. The panel has held that none of the state’s prior maps gave Black voters a realistic chance to elect candidates of their choice. 

The latest map proposed by the all-Republican State Board of Election Commissioners tweaked only four Senate districts in northwest Mississippi and does not pit any incumbent senators against each other. 

The state’s proposal would keep the Senate districts currently held by Sen. Michael McLendon, a Republican from Hernando and Sen. Kevin Blackwell, a Republican from Southaven, in majority-white districts. 

But it makes Sen. David Parker’s district a slightly majority-Black district. Parker, a white Republican from Olive Branch, would run in a district with a 50.1% black voting-age population, according to court documents. 

The proposal also maintains the district held by Sen. Reginald Jackson, a Democrat from Marks, as a majority-Black district, although it reduces the Black voting age population from 61% to 53%.  

Gov. Tate Reeves, Secretary of State Michael Watson, and Attorney General Lynn Fitch comprise the State Board of Election Commissioners. Reeves and Watson voted to approve the plan. But Watson, according to meeting documents, expressed a wish that the state had more time to consider different proposals. 

Fitch did not attend the meeting, but Deputy Attorney General Whitney Lipscomb attended in her place. Lipscomb voted against the map, although it is unclear why. Fitch’s office declined to comment on why she voted against the map because it involves pending litigation. 

The reason for redrawing the districts is that the state chapter of the NAACP and Black voters in the state sued Mississippi officials for drawing legislative districts in a way that dilutes Black voting power. 

The plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU, are likely to object to the state’s newest proposal, and they have until April 29 to file an objection with the court

The plaintiffs have put forward two alternative proposals for the area in the event the judges rule against the state’s plans. 

The first option would place McLendon and Blackwell in the same district, and the other would place McLendon and Jackson in the same district. 

It is unclear when the panel of judges will issue a ruling on the state’s plan, but they will not issue a ruling until the plaintiffs file their remaining court documents next week. 

While the November election is roughly six months away, changing legislative districts across counties and precincts is technical work, and local election officials need time to prepare for the races. 

The judges have not yet ruled on the full elections calendar, but U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Leslie Southwick said at a hearing earlier this month that the panel was committed have the elections in November. 

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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