Mississippi Today
State Republican Party raises fees for candidates to run for some public offices
If Mississippians want to qualify to run for state office as a Republican, they’ll first have to open their wallets wider than ever.
Mississippi Republican Party leaders voted last year to increase candidate qualifying fees, the amount a candidate has to pay to run for office, to the maximum amount allowed under state law for all federal, statewide and regional offices in the state.ย ย
Mississippi GOP Chairman Frank Bordeaux told Mississippi Today the fee increase is comparable to the figure the Republican Party in other states requires for their candidates to run for office.
โThis increase is a way for us to make sure we can continue to provide quality resources to our Republican nominees,โ Bordeaux said.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, opted to keep their fees the same as prior years.
Qualifying fees for all political offices, regardless of party affiliation, were previously spelled out in statute. But state lawmakers in 2022 voted to give political parties a range for how much they can charge candidates and allow the party leaders to choose the specific amount.
The minimum fee parties can charge gubernatorial candidates, for example, is $1,000, and the maximum amount is $5,000. The Democratic Party opted to keep their fee at $1,000, while the GOP decided to raise the fee to $5,000.
New GOP candidate qualifying fees:
- U.S. Senator: $5,000ย (previously $1,000)
- U.S. Representative: $2,500 (previously $500)
- Governor: $5,000 (previously $1,000)
- Other statewide offices: $2,500 (previously $500)
- Transportation Commissioner: $2,500 (previously $500)
- Public Service Commissioner: $2,500 (previously $500)
- District Attorney: $250ย (unchanged)
- State Legislature: $250 (unchanged)
Republican state Sen. Joey Fillingane of Sumrall argued in favor of the 2022 legislation during the legislative session and said at the time that the main reasons for the new law was to give parties more latitude to conduct their primary elections and ensure only serious candidates run for office.
โI think we had a situation not too long ago where maybe a truck driver put his name on the ballot, didn’t campaign, didn’t really run,โ Fillingane said. โHe was running his 18-wheeler truck and ended up winning a major party primary for a major office in Mississippi. And I think you can argue that was a direct result of having extremely low filing fees in that particular race.โ
Fillingane was referring to Robert Gray, a truck driver who won the 2015 Democratic nomination for governor and was handily defeated by former Republican Gov. Phil Bryant.
Opponents of the recent legislation believed higher qualifying fees could bar candidates from running for office and deter a competitive democratic system.
The final version of the bill passed the House 84-31 and the Senate 33-10. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed it into law.
Bordeaux doubted increased fees would keep candidates from entering the Republican primary because serious candidates are usually able to raise larger amounts of money.ย He pointed to the state’s recent gubernatorial election, when the Republican and Democratic nominees for the office collectively raised over $17 million this past year.ย
This is now the first time under the new law that the state Republican Party has raised its qualifying fees. The new fees will primarily impact the Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race next year, when incumbent U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker is up for reelection.ย
Wicker, a Tupelo resident, has previously announced he’s running for reelection. But two lower-profile candidates, Republican state Rep. Dan Eubanks of DeSoto County and retired Marine Col. Ghannon Burton, announced they intend to challenge Wicker in the Republican primary.ย
The qualification period for the U.S. Senate, according to the Secretary of State’s website, opens on Jan. 2 and closes 10 days later on Jan. 12.ย
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1875
Nov. 2, 1875
The first Mississippi Plan, which included violence against Black Americans to keep them from voting, resulted in huge victories for white Democrats across the state.
A year earlier, the Republican Party had carried a majority of the votes, and many Black Mississippians had been elected to office. In the wake of those victories, white leagues arose to challenge Republican rule and began to use widespread violence and fraud to recapture control of the state.
Over several days in September 1875, about 50 Black Mississippians were killed along with white supporters, including a school teacher who worked with the Black community in Clinton.
The governor asked President Ulysses Grant to intervene, but he decided against intervening, and the violence and fraud continued. Other Southern states soon copied the Mississippi plan.
John R. Lynch, the last Black congressman for Mississippi until the 1986 election of Mike Espy, wrote: โIt was a well-known fact that in 1875 nearly every Democratic club in the State was converted into an armed military company.โ
A federal grand jury concluded: โFraud, intimidation, and violence perpetrated at the last election is without a parallel in the annals of history.โ
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Mississippi Todayโs NewsMatch Campaign is Here: Support Journalism that Strengthens Mississippi
High-quality journalism like ours depends on reader support; without it, we simply couldn’t exist. That’s why we’re proud to join the NewsMatch movement, a national initiative aimed at raising $50 million for nonprofit newsrooms that serve communities like ours here in Mississippi, where access to reliable information has often been limited.
In a time when trusted journalists and media sources are disappearing, we believe the stakes couldn’t be higher. Without on-the-ground, trustworthy reporting, civic engagement suffers, accountability falters and corruption often goes unaddressed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Here at Mississippi Today we act as watchdogs, holding those in power accountable, and as storytellers, giving a platform to voices that have been ignored for too long. And we’re committed to keeping our stories free for everyone because information should be accessible when it’s needed most.
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Every dollar raised strengthens our ability to serve you with fact-based journalism on issues that impact your everyday lifeโwhether it’s covering local election issues or reporting on decisions affecting schools, safety and economic growth in Mississippi. Your support makes it possible for us to stay rooted in the community, offering nuanced perspectives that help Mississippians understand and engage with what’s happening around them.
Special Event: โFreedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impactโ
As part of the campaign, we’re excited to host a special virtual event, โFreedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact.โ Join Deep South Today newsrooms Mississippi Today and Verite News, along with national experts on press freedom, for an in-depth discussion on the unique challenges facing journalists in the Deep South. This one-hour session will explore the critical role local newsrooms play in holding power accountable, highlighting recent restrictions on press freedom such as Louisiana’s โ25-foot law,โ which affects journalists’ ability to report vital news.
We’ll examine what’s at stake if local newsrooms lose press freedoms and will discuss how you, as members of the public, can help protect it. This event is open to Mississippi Today and Verite News members as a special thank-you for supporting local journalism and standing with us in this mission. Donate today to RSVP!
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This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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.
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