Mississippi Today
Hosemann: Lawmakers must focus on workforce participation, PERS, health care
Delbert Hosemann, moments after being sworn in for his second term as lieutenant governor, cited three issues he said must be addressed during the next four-year term for Mississippi to prosper.
Those issues are:
- Improving Mississippi’s workforce participation rate, which at 53.8% is the worst in the county.
- Ensuring the state’s public pension plan is financially viable.
- Addressing the state’s health care crisis. He said addressing the crisis in “a shotgun approach is not the answer. A comprehensive approach is.”
On Thursday afternoon during a joint session of the Mississippi Legislature, the seven statewide elected officials other than the governor were sworn in for a new four-year term. Gov. Tate Reeves, who attended the pomp and circumstance Thursday, will be sworn in Tuesday afternoon during another joint session on the grounds of the state Capitol.
It is tradition for the lieutenant governor to offer comments to the joint session after he is sworn in. Hosemann kept his remarks short, but used them to challenge legislators to tackle problems he cited. He said, based on their accomplishments during the past four years, that they could solve those problems.
He said Mississippi’s low workforce participation rate — people able to work who are not — is not economically sustainable. The key, he said, is educating people and imposing workforce skills.
“Economic development will wilt without an educated work force to sustain it,” Hosemann said. He said education must be adequately funded from pre-kindergarten up. He again proposed “the last dollar tuition program” that will ensure all students who meet a certain grade point average and other requirements will be able to attend community college tuition free.
Hosemann addressed education and health care, but made no direct comment on some of the big issues that could be debated during the legislative session – such as providing vouchers for students to attend private school or expanding Medicaid to provide health care for primarily the working poor.
But Hosemann did say that it was the responsibility of the Legislature to ensure the Public Employees Retirement System remains viable. PERS provides retirement benefits for most state and local government employees, including schoolteachers.
“This absolute obligation of the state will drive most of your decisions this year and in the future,” Hosemann told legislators. Providing more state funds for PERS is expected to be a major issue during the 2024 session.
In ending the joint assembly, Hosemann told legislators, “We have a bright future … It is just whether we are going to achieve it or not. I see in this room the ability to do that.”
Hosemann also reiterated his comments from four years ago, saying that too often in the past the rotunda has been a roadblock keeping the House and Senate from working together. He said four years ago there were walkways around that rotunda that go both ways.
“We will continue to use those walkways,” Hosemann said.
The other statewide officials sworn in were:
- Secretary of State Michael Watson
- Attorney General Lynn Fitch
- Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney
- Auditor Shad White
- Treasurer David McRae
- Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson
All eight elected statewide officials are incumbents.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
An ad supporting Jenifer Branning finds imaginary liberals on the Mississippi Supreme Court
The Improve Mississippi PAC claims in advertising that the state Supreme Court “is in danger of being dominated by liberal justices” unless Jenifer Branning is elected in Tuesday’s runoff.
Improve Mississippi made the almost laughable claim in both radio commercials and mailers that were sent to homes in the court’s central district, where a runoff election will be held on Tuesday.
Improve Mississippi is an independent, third party political action committee created to aid state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County in her efforts to defeat longtime Central District Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens of Copiah County.
The PAC should receive an award or at least be considered for an honor for best fiction writing.
At least seven current members of the nine-member Supreme Court would be shocked to know anyone considered them liberal.
It is telling that the ads do not offer any examples of “liberal” Supreme Court opinions issued by the current majority. It is even more telling that there have been no ads by Improve Mississippi or any other group citing the liberal dissenting opinions written or joined by Kitchens.
Granted, it is fair and likely accurate to point out that Branning is more conservative than Kitchens. After all, Branning is considered one of the more conservative members of a supermajority Republican Mississippi Senate.
As a member of the Senate, for example, she voted against removing the Confederate battle emblem from the Mississippi state flag, opposed Medicaid expansion and an equal pay bill for women.
And if she is elected to the state Supreme Court in Tuesday’s runoff election, she might be one of the panel’s more conservative members. But she will be surrounded by a Supreme Court bench full of conservatives.
A look at the history of the members of the Supreme Court might be helpful.
Chief Justice Michael Randolph originally was appointed to the court by Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who is credited with leading the effort to make the Republican Party dominant in Mississippi. Before Randolph was appointed by Barbour, he served a stint on the National Coal Council — appointed to the post by President Ronald Reagan who is considered an icon in the conservative movement.
Justices James Maxwell, Dawn Beam, David Ishee and Kenneth Griffis were appointed by Republican Gov. Phil Bryant.
Only three members of the current court were not initially appointed to the Supreme Court by conservative Republican governors: Kitchens, Josiah Coleman and Robert Chamberlin. All three got their initial posts on the court by winning elections for full eight-year terms.
But Chamberlin, once a Republican state senator from Southaven, was appointed as a circuit court judge by Barbour before winning his Supreme Court post. And Coleman was endorsed in his election effort by both the Republican Party and by current Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who also contributed to his campaign.
Only Kitchens earned a spot on the court without either being appointed by a Republican governor or being endorsed by the state Republican Party.
The ninth member of the court is Leslie King, who, like Kitchens, is viewed as not as conservative as the other seven justices. King, former chief judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals, was originally appointed to the Supreme Court by Barbour, who to his credit made the appointment at least in part to ensure that a Black Mississippian remained on the nine-member court.
It should be noted that Beam was defeated on Nov. 5 by David Sullivan, a Gulf Coast municipal judge who has a local reputation for leaning conservative. Even if Sullivan is less conservative when he takes his new post in January, there still be six justices on the Supreme Court with strong conservative bonafides, not counting what happens in the Branning-Kitchens runoff.
Granted, Kitchens is next in line to serve as chief justice should Randolph, who has been on the court since 2004, step down. The longest tenured justice serves as the chief justice.
But to think that Kitchens as chief justice would be able to exert enough influence to force the other longtime conservative members of the court to start voting as liberals is even more fiction.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1968
Nov. 24, 1968
Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver fled the U.S. to avoid imprisonment on a parole violation. He wrote in “Soul on Ice”: “If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can change, then there is hope for America.”
The Arkansas native began to be incarcerated when he was still in junior high and soon read about Malcolm X. He began writing his own essays, drawing the praise of Norman Mailer and others. That work helped him win parole in 1966. His “Soul on Ice” memoir, written from Folsom state prison, described his journey from selling marijuana to following Malcolm X. The book he wrote became a seminal work in Black literature, and he became a national figure.
Cleaver soon joined the Black Panther Party, serving as the minister of information. After a Panther shootout with police that left him injured, one Panther dead and two officers wounded, he jumped bail and fled the U.S. In 1977, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, he returned to the U.S. pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault and served 1,200 hours of community service.
From that point forward, “Mr. Cleaver metamorphosed into variously a born-again Christian, a follower of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a Mormon, a crack cocaine addict, a designer of men’s trousers featuring a codpiece and even, finally, a Republican,” The New York Times wrote in his 1998 obituary. His wife said he was suffering from mental illness and never recovered.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1867
Nov. 23, 1867
The Louisiana Constitutional Convention, composed of 49 White delegates and 49 Black delegates, met in New Orleans. The new constitution became the first in the state’s history to include a bill of rights.
The document gave property rights to married women, funded public education without segregated schools, provided full citizenship for Black Americans, and eliminated the Black Codes of 1865 and property qualifications for officeholders.
The voters ratified the constitution months later. Despite the document, prejudice and corruption continued to reign in Louisiana, and when Reconstruction ended, the constitution was replaced with one that helped restore the rule of white supremacy.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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