Mississippi Today
What lieutenant governor candidate Chris McDaniel wants to do for Mississippi
Four-term Republican state Sen. Chris McDaniel said that if elected lieutenant governor, “tax relief” would be his top priority.
“That would include income tax elimination and grocery tax elimination,” McDaniel said, “which leads to more job creation and economic growth … The grocery tax is particularly regressive and punishes people for purchasing necessities and impacts lower-income people the most. I think it’s wrong to tax necessities.”
McDaniel is running against incumbent Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann in the Aug. 6 Republican primary. Mississippi Today recently asked McDaniel and Hosemann to share their ideas for Mississippi’s future.
READ MORE: What Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann wants to do for Mississippi
Another top priority if elected, McDaniel said, would be reinstating voters’ right to ballot initiative — bypassing the Legislature and putting issues or policies to a direct popular vote. A state Supreme Court decision in 2021 nullified Mississippi’s ballot initiative process. Attempts to reinstate it failed the last two years in the Legislature, with many including McDaniel blaming Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and his Senate leadership for its failure.
“The ballot initiative is frankly right up there with tax relief, tied for number one of my priorities,” McDaniel said. “The ballot initiative in my mind is a constitutional right that allows people to circumvent politicians who aren’t listening to their wishes.”
McDaniel said if elected, he plans to push for more parental rights in education, cutting red tape that hinders businesses, protecting property rights, promoting religious freedom, vaccination freedom and pro-life policies. He said he will support policies that are tough on violent crime and generally work to bring more conservative policies to the state Legislature and combat “woke ideology,” particularly in the classroom.
“What we are seeing now nationwide is the insertion of liberal philosophy into the classroom, particularly with sexual orientation and transgender … orientation in the classroom,” McDaniel said. “I believe that teachers should be focused on education, not new gender fads and political philosophies we’re seeing across the country. I have watched Florida push back against this woke ideology, and I respect that very much.”
McDaniel said he believes in smaller government and will work to reduce spending and eliminate “fraud, waste and abuse.”
McDaniel said he believes he can get his major policy initiatives through the Republican-controlled Legislature, a process that has been likened to “herding cats.”
“We have a supermajority, and I expect Republicans to behave like Republicans,” McDaniel said. “… We shouldn’t have to bet Republicans to behave like Republicans. I don’t think I would have to herd too many cats. You would expect them to to adhere to our platform and behave the way they campaigned, and I would expect the people that elected them to hold them to that.”
Here is a list of McDaniel’s legislative priorities if elected lieutenant governor:
Education reform
McDaniel said he will promote “parents’ rights and voices in their children’s education. He vows to end “the one-size-fits-all approach to learning, support student tailored education through school choice and protect children in the classroom by ending woke indoctrination.”
Fiscal conservatism
McDaniel said he would work to “put the hard-earned paychecks of Mississippians back in their pockets by eliminating the income tax” and grocery tax. He said he will “fight for the American dream by cutting red tape that is crushing small businesses,” and cut wasteful spending.
Constitutional rights
McDaniel said he will work to “preserve religious freedom and allow for constitutionally protected prayer.” He said he would protect freedom of speech by reinstating the ballot initiative process for voters and protect private property rights of Mississippians. McDaniel said he wants prayer back in school, and “I would like to see us pass legislation whereby we reimplement prayer, and if challenged, take it up to the Supreme Court like we did with Roe v. Wade.”
Pro-life, tough-on-crime policies
McDaniel vows to “protect Mississippi’s most precious through preserving pro-life policies,” and “end soft-on-crime policies that jeopardize the safety of our communities.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
An old drug charge sent her to prison despite a life transformation. Now Georgia Sloan is home
CANTON – Georgia Sloan is home, back from a potentially life-derailing stint in prison that she was determined to instead make meaningful.
She hadn’t used drugs in three years and she had a life waiting for her outside the Mississippi Correctional Institute for Women in Pearl: a daughter she was trying to reunite with, a sick mother and a career where she found purpose.
During 10 months of incarceration, Sloan, who spent over half of her life using drugs, took classes, read her Bible and helped other women. Her drug possession charge was parole eligible, and the Parole Board approved her for early release.
At the end of October, she left the prison and returned to Madison County. The next day she was back at work at Musee, a Canton-based bath products company that employs formerly incarcerated women like Sloan and others in the community facing difficulties. She first started working at the company in 2021.
“This side of life is so beautiful. I would literally hold on to my promise every single minute of the day while I was in (prison),” Sloan told Mississippi Today in December.
Next year, she is moving into a home in central Mississippi, closer to work and her new support system. Sloan plans to bring her daughter and mother to live with her. Sloan is hopeful of regaining custody of her child, who has been cared for by her aunt on a temporary basis.
“This is my area now,” she said. “This has become my family, my life. This is where I want my child to grow up. This is where I want to make my life because this is my life.”
Additionally, Sloan is taking other steps to readjust to life after prison: getting her driver’s license for the first time in over a decade, checking in monthly with her parole officer and paying court-ordered fines and restitution.
In December 2023, Sloan went to court in Columbus for an old drug possession charge from when she was still using drugs.
Sloan thought the judge would see how much she had turned her life around through Crossroads Ministries, a nonprofit women’s reentry center she entered in 2021, and Musee. Her boss Leisha Pickering who drove her to court and spoke as a witness on Sloan’s behalf, thought the judge would order house arrest or time served.
Instead, Circuit Judge James Kitchens sentenced her to eight years with four years suspended and probation.
He seemed doubtful about her transformation, saying she didn’t have a “contrite heart.” By choosing to sell drugs, Kitchens said she was “(making) other people addicts,” according to a transcript of the Dec. 4, 2023, hearing.
“I felt like my life literally crumbled before my eyes,” Sloan said about her return to prison. “Everything I had worked so hard for, it felt like it had been snatched from me.”
She was taken from the courtroom to the Lowndes County Detention Center, where she spent two months before her transfer to the women’s prison in Rankin County.
Sloan found the county jail more difficult because there was no separation between everyone there. But the prison had its own challenges, such as violence between inmates and access to drugs, which would have threatened her sobriety.
She kept busy by taking classes, which helped her set a goal to take college courses one day with a focus on business. Visits, phone calls and letters from family members and staff from Musee and Crossroads were her lifeline.
“I did not let prison break me, I rose above it, and I got to help restore other ladies,” Sloan said.
She also helped several women in the prison get to Crossroads – the same program that helped her and others at Musee.
Sloan credits a long-term commitment to Crossroads and Musee for turning her life around – the places where she said someone believed in her and took a chance on her.
Pickering, Musee’s CEO, said in the three years she’s known Sloan, she’s watched her grow and become a light for others.
The bath and lifestyle company has employed over 300 formerly incarcerated women in the past dozen years, but Pickering said not everyone has had the same support, advocacy and transformation as Sloan. Regardless, Pickering believes each person is worth fighting for.
When Sloan isn’t traveling for work to craft markets with Pickering, she shares an office with her Musee colleague Julie Crutcher, who is also formerly incarcerated and a graduate of Crossroads’ programs. She also considers Crutcher a close friend and mentor.
Sloan has traveled to Columbus to see her mother and daughter whom she spent Thanksgiving with. She will see them again for Christmas and celebrate her daughter’s 12th birthday the day after.
Her involvement with the criminal justice system has made Sloan want to advocate for prison reform to help others and be an inspiration to others.
“I never knew what I was capable of,” Sloan said. “I never knew how much people truly, genuinely love me and love being around me. I never knew how much I could have and how much I could offer the world.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1946
Dec. 23, 1946
University of Tennessee refused to play a basketball game with Duquesne University, because they had a Black player, Chuck Cooper. Despite their refusal, the all-American player and U.S. Navy veteran went on to become the first Black player to participate in a college basketball game south of the Mason-Dixon line. Cooper became the first Black player ever drafted in the NBA — drafted by the Boston Celtics. He went on to be admitted to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Podcast: Ray Higgins: PERS needs both extra cash and benefit changes for future employees
Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison talks with Ray Higgins, executive director of the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System, about proposed changes in pension benefits for future employees and what is needed to protect the system for current employees and retirees. Higgins also stresses the importance of the massive system to the Mississippi economy.
READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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