Mississippi Today
In final words to voters, Reeves stokes fear and Presley pitches new ideas
Welcome to The Homestretch, a daily blog featuring the most comprehensive coverage of the 2023 Mississippi governor’s race. This page, curated by the Mississippi Today politics team, will feature the biggest storylines of the 2023 governor’s race at 7 a.m. every day between now and the Nov. 7 election.
Ballots are printed, polls are open and voters are ready to end this awfully contentious 2023 governor’s race.
There’s good reason the nation is closely watching what happens in Mississippi today in the race between Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and Democratic challenger Brandon Presley.
Republicans are hoping to continue their 20-year reign of the governorship and further their so-far successful effort to make Mississippi a one-party state. Democrats, meanwhile, haven’t had this much hope for a win since arguably 2003, when then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove got beat by Republican challenger Haley Barbour.
For Republicans, that 2003 election was the beginning of what has become a nearly total grip on Mississippi government. For Democrats, it was the beginning of the end.
But today, Democrats have real reason to think they can reclaim some of that GOP control.
Reeves, one of the most prominent political fundraisers in the state’s history, has been outraised by $5 million. He’s consistently polled as unpopular, yet he faces a smooth-talking, affable cousin of Elvis, one of the state’s most beloved celebrities. He’s struggled to enthuse Republican voters ahead of today’s election, yet he faces an apparently fired up electorate targeted by the most broadly coordinated get-out-the-vote effort Democrats have waged in recent history.
Contemplating these strong headwinds in the last month of the campaign, the first-term Republican governor leaned into one major campaign theme: Fear. He’s worked to make Mississippians feel afraid of an impending infringement on โMississippi values.โ He and his allies have tried to convince voters that Presley is beholden to national Democrats, ignoring the fact that Democratic Party voters have recently made up nearly 50% of the state he leads.
The governor has pitched few new ideas all cycle, and he certainly hasn’t focused on them in the run-up to Election Day. Instead, he’s chosen to dwell on fear, fear and fear.
The final words many voters will hear from Reeves before they cast their votes today say it all: โThe out-of-state liberals don’t just want to change governors; they want to change Mississippi. That’s what this race is about. The only thing that stands in their way is you and me. Let’s make our stand.โ
Presley, on the other hand, has floated new policies to, he says, move the state forward. Yes, he has weaved in attacks of Reeves at every given opportunity, and yes, Mississippians are certainly tired of it. But in the same breath, he has contrasted Reeves’ record with three of his own ideas since the day he announced his candidacy in January.
Presley wants to expand Medicaid to provide health coverage to 200,000-plus Mississippians and address the state’s worsening hospital crisis, a policy change Reeves has long refused. He wants to clean up corruption in state government, pointing out regularly that Reeves himself has many ties to the state’s massive welfare scandal. And he wants to cut the state’s highest-in-the-nation grocery tax and car tag fees, ideas he says Reeves hasn’t worked to do in 12-plus years of prominent leadership roles.
“I understand where working people are in Mississippi,” Presley says in his final ad before Election Day. “Everybody cannot be born rich and lucky, and that’s why you need a governor that will stand up for the values of Mississippi. I’m running this race on the values that I learned in my small hometown where I was mayor and I cut taxes twice.”
But seriously, you may ask, isn’t Mississippi still the Mississippi that most of those folks watching around the nation think it is? Reeves today very well could earn the support many would expect of a Republican incumbent in this red state. Perhaps the Republican and Democratic pollsters who have been crunching the numbers are wrong, and Reeves isn’t nearly as unlikable as the data have shown.
Maybe the fear mongering from Reeves worked, and maybe Presley, who’s still not very well known in all parts of the state, couldn’t convince enough Mississippians that he’s not the big, bad liberal Reeves has made him out to be. Maybe Presley’s influx of cash from out-of-state Democrats scared off too many of the voters he’s been targeting.
But maybe the pollsters are right about Reeves and Mississippians are ready for a change in leadership. Maybe Presley did, in fact, do enough to sell voters on electing a leader with different ideas for the future. Maybe Mississippi voters aren’t falling for the fear tactics of Reeves.
That’s a whole lot of โmaybes.โ Maybe that’s why the country is watching so closely today.
We’ll know in a few hours.
Headlines From The Trail
Reeves, Presley make final campaign stops on the politically do-or-die Gulf Coast
Meet five young Mississippians voting for the first time on Nov. 7
Podcast: Chuck Todd, Curtis Wilkie discuss 2023 governor’s race
A Democratic governor in Mississippi? He thinks it’s possible.
The Mississippi governor’s race hasn’t been this competitive in 20 years
Elvis Presley’s cousin, an anti-abortion Democrat, on cusp of unlikely Mississippi victory
Dems find out tomorrow if ‘Blue Dog’ candidate will flip red-state Miss.
Elvis Presley’s cousin Brandon eyeing huge upset in Mississippi
What We’re Watching
1) The results, of course. Mississippi Today is your one stop Election Day source for previews, what to watch for, analyses, and real-time election results. Once results start rolling in at 7 p.m., this link on our site will have the live results.
2) Voting irregularities, polling place problems, hacked state computer systems, or scams. If you hear of anything or see anything, first call the Mississippi Secretary of State’s election hotline at 800-829-6786. If you’re inclined to report to us, we will do our best to get answers for you. Send concerns or questions to adam@mississippitoday.org.
3) Will there be a runoff? Republican and Democratic consultants have made it clear that they’re geared up for a Nov. 28 runoff if neither Reeves nor Presley gets 50% of the vote today. And one more thing to note: If the election is as close as some predict, a winner might not be known tonight. Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison breaks down this vote-counting scenario.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/?p=303374
Mississippi Today
Hinds County loses fight over control of jail
The Hinds County sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.
Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, including a failure to protect detainees from harm.
However, the appeals court called the new injunction โoverly broadโ in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.
The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be removed.
The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as โfederal intrusion into RDC’s budgetโ โ especially if the receivership has no end date.
Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion.ย
In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which holds people facing trial.
โBut the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,โ the appeals court wrote.
This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022.
The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the solutions they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in Jackson.
The county had a chance to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the death of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old infrastructure and use of force.
Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.
But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff.
The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference.
Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
2 out of 5 child care teachers make so little they need public assistance tosupport their families
This story about child care wages was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit,
independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger’s early childhood newsletter.
Caring for children during their first few years is a complex and critical job: A child’s
brain develops more in the first five years than at any other point in life. Yet in America,
individuals engaged in this crucial role are paid less than animal caretakers and
dressing room attendants.
That’s a major finding of one of two new reports on the dismal treatment of child care
workers. Together, the reports offer a distressing picture of how child care staff are
faring economically, including the troubling changes low wages have caused to the
workforce.
Early childhood workers nationally earn a median wage of $13.07 per hour, resulting in
poverty-level earnings for 13 percent of such educators, according to the first report, the
Early Childhood Workforce Index 2024. Released earlier this month by the Center for
the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley, the annual
report also found:
? 43 percent of families of early educators rely on public assistance like
food stamps and Medicaid.
? Pay inequity exists within these low wages: Black early childhood
educators earn about $8,000 less per year than their white peers. The
same pay gap exists between early educators who work with infants and
toddlers and those who work with preschoolers, who have more
opportunities to work in school districts that pay higher wages.
? Wages for early educators are rising more slowly than wages in other
industries, including fast food and retail.
In part due to these conditions, the industry is losing some of its highest-educated
workers, according to a second new report, by Chris M. Herbst, a professor at Arizona
State University’s School of Public Affairs. That study compares the pay of child care
workers with that of workers in other lower-income professions, including cooks and
retail workers; it finds child care workers are the tenth lowest-paid occupation out of
around 750 in the economy. The report also looks at the โrelative quality’ of child care
staff, as defined by math and literacy scores and education level. Higher-educated
workers, Herbst suggests, are being siphoned off by higher-paying jobs.
That’s led to a โbit of a death spiralโ in terms of how child care work is perceived, and
contributes to the persistent low wages, he said in an interview. Some additional
findings from Herbst’s study:
? Higher-educated women increasingly find employment in the child care
industry to be less attractive. The share of workers in the child care
industry with a bachelor’s degree barely budged over the past few
decades, increasing by only 0.3 percent. In contrast, the share of those in
the industry who have 12 years of schooling but no high school degree,
quadrupled.
? Median numeracy and literacy scores for female child care workers
(who are the majority of the industry staff) fall at the 35 th and 36 th
percentiles respectively, compared to all female workers. Improving these
scores is important, Herbst says, considering the importance of education
in the early years, when children experience rapid brain development.
This doesn’t mean child care staff with lower education levels can’t be good early
educators. Patience, communication skills and a commitment to working with young
children also matter greatly, Herbst writes. However, higher education levels may mean
staff have a stronger background not only in English and math but also in topics like
behavior modification and special education, which are sometimes left out of
certification programs for child care teachers.
You can read Herbst’s full report here, and the 2024 workforce index here.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1890
Nov. 1, 1890
Mississippi adopted a new state constitution aimed at barring Black voters and restoring white supremacy. The disenfranchisement clause struck all voters from the rolls and then required them to register again to vote โ but only approved them if they paid poll taxes, could read and pass a quiz on the constitution.
โDressed up in the genteel garb of bringing integrity to the voting booth,โ โOne Person, No Vote‘ opined, โthis feigned legal innocence was legislative evil genius.โ
There was no mystery to those involved.
โThere is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter,โ future Gov. and U.S. Sen. James K. Vardaman declared, โMississippi’s constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the n—– from politics.โ
The changes worked. Within a decade, the number of Black registered voters fell from more than 130,000 to less than 1,300. Other Southern states followed Mississippi’s lead, barring Black voters in every way they could. There were โgrandfather clauses,โ which required voters to have a grandfather who voted. There were even โwhite primaries,โ where white Southern Democrats barred Black voters from their primaries.
โJim Crow was never policed just by laws written out on paper,โ according to โOur Unfinished March‘. โIt was enforced with broken bones and crushed skulls, with rope wrapped around trees and knots tied around necks, with bodies displayed in town squares or made to disappear at the bottom of rivers.โ
Unlike Mississippi’s prior constitution, voters did not approve or ratify the document. The lone Black member of the constitutional constitution was Isaiah T. Montgomery, who was once enslaved by Jefferson Davis and had since helped found the all-Black town, Mount Bayou. Montgomery voted for the constitution, hoping this disenfranchisement might mean an end to violence against Black Mississippians. It didn’t.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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