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'You're not in line': Family battles politics, indifference, and suspected fraud in federal health care program

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‘You’re not in line’: Family battles politics, indifference, and suspected fraud in federal health care program

Natalie Gunnells had finally secured some assistance from Mississippi’s political class for her 23-year-old son Patrick, who has severe autism.

No sooner had she started receiving relief from the state’s Medicaid agency than her local lawmaker accused her of supporting his political opponent, delivering an ominous warning.

“You’re not in line, you’re not in sync to help you and your family,” said the local senator.

Patrick is one of 2,750 Mississippians on a special Medicaid program that is supposed to provide outpatient services to people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, known as the IDD waiver. The purpose of the waiver — a roughly $125 million-a-year program funded mostly by the federal government but administered by state agencies — is to allow this vulnerable population to live in the community as opposed to an inpatient facility.

But even though he receives the waiver, Patrick has for years lacked a caregiver or specialist.

“I’m telling you this waiver is designed to fail. You don’t fail this many people year, after year, after year if it is not designed to fail,” Natalie Gunnells said at a community meeting in February.

Without the specialized behavioral therapy that he is eligible to receive, Patrick’s potential is unknown. Patrick is nonverbal and cannot perform normal tasks, like using the bathroom on his own. When he was a child, his parents fought for him to receive the special education he was entitled to at the public school. These days, Patrick rarely agrees to leave the family’s Tupelo home, and he’s almost always wearing his large black headphones due to noise sensitivity.

Yet, the Gunnells recently found out that Medicaid has been dishing out thousands for therapy they say Patrick is not receiving under what they believe is a fraud scheme. Documents suggest the alleged abuse was made possible by years of loose oversight at the Department of Mental Health. The state attorney general’s office is currently investigating, according to AG communication obtained by Mississippi Today, though no one has been charged with a crime.

READ MORE: Attorney General investigating provider fraud in Medicaid waiver

Patrick Gunnells, 23, watches videos on his iPad in the living room of his family’s Tupelo home on Mar. 9, 2023. Gunnells, who has severe autism, spends almost all of his time at home due to sensory sensitivities.

Adding insult to injury, when the federal government decided during the pandemic to temporarily allow parents to get paid to deliver care to their disabled adult children, Mississippi chose not to adopt the policy.

Natalie Gunnells and her husband Jamie Gunnells knew they’d have to involve Sen. Chad McMahan, R-Guntown, their local lawmaker, if they wanted a shot at the new benefit.

It was the same way when Patrick got on the waiver, known for its years-long waitlist, more than a decade ago.

“You have to know somebody to get off the waiting list,” said Jamie Gunnells, who owns and runs an independent pharmacy in Tupelo. “It’s pitiful.”

In roughly the last year, Mississippi Division of Medicaid Director Drew Snyder asked one of his division directors to follow up on requests from at least eight sitting lawmakers, all white Republican men, according to text messages obtained by Mississippi Today. The politicians seemed to urge the agency to remove roadblocks for specific beneficiaries who were attempting to access Medicaid.

In each case, Tracy Buchanan, Medicaid’s director of long term services and supports, responded that she was on it.

READ MORE: Texts show lawmaker influence over Mississippi’s Medicaid rolls

McMahan has become particularly known for keenly navigating government red tape to help Mississippians get the public assistance they need. “I am relentless about contacting these agencies on my own,” McMahan told Mississippi Today. “I personally call and take an interest in every one of these cases to help people.”

As part of his stated commitment to help his constituents, McMahan convened a meeting for the Gunnells with Medicaid officials in May of 2022. After it ended, the couple alleged that McMahan casually propositioned them.

“He says, ‘Well, that ought to be worth a $25,000 campaign donation, don’t you think?’” Jamie Gunnells said.

While the Gunnells, who have publicly shared support for various Mississippi politicians, had made contributions to McMahan’s past campaigns, they said they were put off by the request and have not donated to McMahan since.

McMahan adamantly denied making the ask for a campaign donation. “No, I didn’t say anything like that,” he said. “… That’s a terrible thing to say.”

In Mississippi, it’s not uncommon for the state’s Republican leaders, who otherwise revile public assistance programs, to use the system for the benefit of themselves and their political supporters — no better illustrated than within Mississippi’s still-unfolding welfare scandal. One former grant recipient and defendant in the case, Christi Webb, even accused McMahan of delivering a threat on behalf of former Gov. Phil Bryant to withhold grant funding to the nonprofit she ran, Family Resource Center of North Mississippi, because she had supported and hired the wife of a Democratic candidate for governor. McMahan denied the allegation.

McMahan had also been jockeying for funding from Mississippi Department of Human Services, which administers the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) block grant, to go to the Autism Center of North Mississippi. For a short time years ago, Patrick received services from the autism center, and his parents praised the quality of the program.

Auditors found that the autism center improperly received a $75,000 grant from the welfare agency, as well as more than $300,000 in grants from Family Resource Center.

MDHS employees had expressed hesitation about whether anti-poverty funds could be used to support services for well-to-do families at the autism center, but after a meeting between McMahan, Bryant and the welfare director, grant money flowed to the center anyway.

Natalie Gunnells plays with her 23-year-old son Patrick Gunnells, who has severe autism, at their Tupelo home on Mar. 9, 2023.

At the Gunnells’ urging, the Mississippi Division of Medicaid eventually adopted the federal policy allowing parents of severely disabled adults to temporarily become paid caregivers.

Natalie Gunnells, who has a master’s degree in counseling and gave up a promising career in education to care for her son, took courses to become certified through a local personal care provider last year.

Still, Mississippi had chosen the more stringent version of the policy that said legal guardians could not participate. So Natalie Gunnells had to relinquish her guardianship of Patrick — at a price of $2,300 to her attorney — to serve as her son’s taxpayer-funded caregiver. She began receiving the $12-an-hour wage for her work in November. This temporary policy, called Appendix K, only lasts until the end of the public health emergency, currently planned for next month.

In early January, Natalie Gunnells shared what she thought was an innocuous Facebook post from Lauren Smith, a local lab tech consultant and growing social media personality. Smith promotes conservative politics through her Facebook group “P.R.I.M.E” (Patriots for Rights Integrity Morals and Ethics), often taking aim at establishment GOP leaders. She was gearing up to run against McMahan for his Senate seat.

“If you want to know what’s really going on in politics in our great State, then you need to listen to Lauren Smith!” Natalie Gunnells wrote. “Ya’ll, this girl…her passion, knowledge, expertise…JUST LISTEN!”

Then her phone rang.

On the other line, McMahan explained to the Gunnells that “someone in Washington” had alerted him to Natalie Gunnell’s Facebook post, and they weren’t happy.

“There’s some of us out here that are doing everything we can to help your family, and it’s just, it’s just a slap in our face,” McMahan said, according to a recording of the call obtained by Mississippi Today. “… I just want you to know that I may be the face of trying to help you, but there’s a lot of people behind me that’s tried to help you, and y’all are making it difficult for your own cause.”

“We’re making it difficult by liking a post?” Jamie Gunnells said.

“Yes,” McMahan said. “Yes.”

“I don’t understand that,” Jamie said.

“Well, I guess you’ll just have to trust me. I don’t know the pharmaceutical industry, but I know politics. And I guess you’ll just have to trust me,” the lawmaker said, according to the recording.

To the Gunnells, McMahan’s call came off as a veiled threat to withhold help to Patrick.

“That’s terrible. If that’s the impression I left, I’m really, I’m deeply sorry about that,” McMahan told Mississippi Today. “I thought they would deceive my sincerity about how hard I had worked on their behalf, and they know I did.”

But on the call, McMahan also accused his opponent of wanting to end Medicaid — the program that provides not only Patrick’s waiver, but his health insurance. “She (Smith) is against every type of program,” McMahan told the Gunnells. “She would take literally the bread out of your family’s mouth to end any type of government assistance, and you’re supporting her.”

After the interaction, Natalie Gunnells said she felt that the solution they had reached with Medicaid was in jeopardy. She deleted her Facebook post.

“Senator McMahan was referring to a quid pro quo: he was helping us and if we wanted to continue to rely on him and everyone he stated behind him helping, we better not promote Lauren Smith at all,” Natalie Gunnells wrote to Mississippi Today.

McMahan explained his response to the situation, telling Mississippi Today, “It’s a normal reaction when you help somebody and then they’re out there supporting other individuals that are completely opposed to their own need.”

“It is human nature. I mean, come on,” he told Mississippi Today. “You give somebody just hours and hours of help in trying to help their family, and then they’re out there supporting individuals, not just my opponent, but other individuals in general that are against any type of Medicaid enhancements. And it’s just odd.”

Parents of six, Natalie and Jamie Gunnells watch their 23-year-old son Patrick Gunnells at their Tupelo home on Mar. 9, 2023.

The Gunnells are ardent conservatives, backing far-right candidates such as Sen. Chris McDaniel, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor and tea party populist who’s tried to fracture Mississippi’s establishment GOP since at least his U.S. Senate race in 2014. These candidates are particularly hostile to taxpayer spending on government assistance programs.

But the Gunnells said they don’t believe Smith or any other public servant would genuinely want to eliminate Medicaid.

“I can’t imagine a politician saying that today,” Jamie Gunnells said. “Yeah, they and I would love to see more people working and supporting themselves, but we’re the poorest state in the union, we’re going to have people on Medicaid. And that’s just the fact.”

Smith told Mississippi Today that McMahan, who also filed an unsuccessful residency challenge against Smith, is desperate to hold onto his senate seat, “and he’ll say whatever it takes to do that, no matter if it’s true or a lie.”

“Do I think it (Medicaid) needs reforming? Absolutely. Do I think it is a very, very broken system? Absolutely. And it does need a lot of work. But to do away with it? No, absolutely not,” Smith said. “It’s there for a reason, and that’s to take care of the ones who truly need it.”

Smith also said she is against the extension of postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to one year, which Gov. Tate Reeves recently signed into law.

“Why is that a Mississippi taxpayer’s problem to have to pay for that?” Smith said. “… Whenever I had my son, I had to go back to work.”

At least 40% of private sector jobs in Mississippi do not come with employer-sponsored health benefits, according to Kaiser Family Foundation.

Regardless of the state’s philosophy around Medicaid, its administration of the IDD waiver has been a disaster, according to several parents who spoke at a public hearing in February. This is largely because of a shortage of quality direct care workers and shoddy oversight.

Medicaid is responsible for submitting a renewal application to the federal government every five years to keep the waiver in operation. It held a hearing to gather feedback from clients in February and sent the new waiver application at the end of March.

The purpose of the waiver is to allow people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live in the community, as opposed to an inpatient facility. This follows the 1999 U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Olmstead v.s L.C., which gives Americans with disabilities the right to live in the “least restrictive setting” possible for their condition and requires the government to provide the necessary supports.

While there are about 2,750 people on the waiver at any given time, there are almost the same number of people on the waiting list who qualify but do not get the benefit. The state estimates there are a total of between 52,000 to 53,000 Mississippians with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

“People are being institutionalized, I firmly believe, because they can’t get on the waiver,” said Polly Tribble, director of Disability Rights Mississippi.

Around 700 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities live in the state’s six regional facilities. This is down from roughly 1,300 residents in 2012. The IDD waiver has grown in that time from about 1,800 to more than 2,700.

Tribble’s largest concern within the waiver is how few people it serves. She told the story of a mother who had to put her daughter in an institution because she couldn’t afford to give up her job to stay home.

“She was separated from her daughter for years until we found out about it and got her some help,” Tribble said. “There’s stories like that all across the state. We don’t know what the potential is and you’re talking about somebody’s quality of life. And possibly somebody’s life.”

But the waiver doesn’t necessarily ensure a person will receive the services they need.

“If you think this is going to be a golden ticket, it’s not,” Natalie Gunnells said.

Natalie Gunnells reviews documents at her Tupelo home on Mar. 9, 2023. Gunnells has fought the government for years to provide the services required by law to her 23-year-old son Patrick Gunnells, who has severe autism. She filed her first successful complaint against the Tupelo Public School District in 2017.

Every morning, the Gunnells trade off who is responsible for getting Patrick up, bathing him, getting him dressed, and feeding him breakfast. After that, Natalie Gunnells is almost always at home tending to Patrick, helping him go to the bathroom and bringing him meals.

The highlight of Patrick’s day is when his 16-year-old brother Stephen gets back from school. The rest of their four siblings, ages 21 to 27, no longer live at home.

In addition to a primary diagnosis of autism, Patrick also has a genetic disorder called Cri-du-chat. But while his capabilities are limited, Patrick is smart; he can read books on at least a 9th grade level and communicate through a speech-generating device.

Patrick qualifies for 180 hours per month of in-home respite care, which is designed to relieve a primary caregiver of their otherwise round-the-clock work. For six of the last seven years, his mom said Patrick has been without a respite caregiver.

Not every person on the IDD waiver may need in-home respite, though all would qualify for it. Out of the 2,747 people on the waiver in fiscal year 2022, less than 20%, or 534, received respite care, according to documents from Medicaid. Just 32%, 873, received a similar service called home and community supports.

Patrick can’t participate in community-based services in centers, often referred to as day hab, because DMH doesn’t fund the one-on-one support he would need to acclimate in that environment.

Patrick also qualifies for 30 hours of behavioral therapy each month. Natalie Gunnells said that a local behavior support consultant, Vargas Clark from Mississippi Behavioral Services, did come to the Gunnells’ home to work with Patrick here and there in 2018, only for around 30 minutes a session. But they say Clark hasn’t had much of a presence in their lives since, and while a different therapist from the Behavioral Services came sporadically in 2021, the Gunnells haven’t seen anyone from the organization in over a year.

According to Medicaid’s billing department, the IDD waiver costs about $125 million annually, with the agency reimbursing about $45,000 worth of services on average for each person on the waiver – though clients like Patrick aren’t receiving nearly that amount.

Some parents who spoke to Mississippi Today are skeptical, considering the worker shortage, that such a large amount of care or therapy is actually being delivered under the waiver.

“They’re receiving funding, but the services are not being delivered as they are designed to be,” Deb Giles, a parent of a son with Down syndrome, said at a recent hearing.

If Natalie Gunnells were paid to provide Patrick’s full allotment of in-home care, it would cost roughly $25,000 each year. To compare, the cost of placing Patrick in one of DMH’s regional centers would be anywhere from $90,000 to $170,000 a year depending on the level of care he qualified for.

The waiver is funded by Medicaid but the administration and oversight, which primarily consists of support coordinators employed by the regional IDD centers, is operated by the Mississippi Department of Mental Health. DMH told Mississippi Today that like private direct care providers, the agency has similarly struggled to hire and retain enough support coordinators.

The support coordinators work with the IDD waiver clients and their parents or guardians to develop what’s called a Plan of Services and Supports. The plan, the state’s primary source of information about how a patient is faring, is a crude worksheet with blank spaces for the support coordinator to fill out. Some of the headers include, “Things People Need to Know to Support Patrick and Keep Patrick Safe,” “Patrick’s Strengths,” “Patrick’s Dreams,” “Things to Figure Out,” “Good Day,” and “Bad Day.”

At least in Patrick’s case, the plan operates as more of a wishlist than a realistic picture of his participation in the program. In some cases, it seems to the Gunnells that DMH is simply checking boxes, even if that means jotting down inaccuracies. The Gunnells’ support coordinator, Clay Ketchings at North Mississippi Regional Center, repeatedly writes in the plan that Patrick likes to go on car rides, despite the fact that currently, his parents say Patrick is almost entirely homebound.

Ideally, the Gunnells would find a consistent direct care worker and use the behavior support consultant to train the worker on how to best socialize and respond to Patrick’s specific needs. Patrick’s waiver plan explains that he is stubborn to following directions, sometimes falling on the ground and refusing to move. The Gunnells wonder what Patrick would be capable of if he had access to an autism specialist, especially considering the promising progress he made during the short stint he received services from the autism center under Dr. Sheila Williamson, who’s no longer there.

“She would have probably already had him potty trained,” Natalie Gunnells said. “… So we don’t ever really know what his potential is.”

In Mississippi, there are almost two direct care worker job openings for every person working as a direct care worker, according to national policy institute PHI, which ranks Mississippi second to last for its direct care workforce.

Betty Pinion, director of the IDD program for the Department of Mental Health, acknowledged the care shortage in an interview with Mississippi Today. But she also said that in some cases, individuals on the waiver are not receiving the services included in their plan not because the services aren’t available, but because the family refuses to work with the available providers. Some of these agencies are paying direct care workers as low as $8-an-hour.

“There are some (clients) that doesn’t seem to be satisfied with any person that we send,” Pinion said.

Since the Gunnells haven’t found a direct care worker to train, they haven’t been receiving the behavioral support either.

They and many other parents have raised the issue of lack of services to their support coordinator, who is tasked with addressing any client concerns, but they say it doesn’t yield any results. Mississippi Today observed one family’s Plan of Services and Supports meeting in March. The parents repeatedly complained that they could not find an agency with available workers; the support coordinator explained that she didn’t have any control over the workforce.

In an interview with Mississippi Today, officials from the Department of Mental Health said it is not tracking how many people on the waiver are receiving each service versus the number of people eligible for each service.

This could show the number of people missing out on the benefits to which they’re entitled.

It also does not compile the total number of hours per service people on the waiver are eligible to receive or the total number of hours of services delivered, which might even better quantify the care shortage. Mississippi Today requested this data from the department, but since it is not already compiled in a report, it is not a public record, and the department said the report would require too many hours for the agency to conduct.

“To compile the requested information, each individual’s file (more than 2,700) would have to be reviewed to determine the eligible number of hours and then compiled into a consolidated report,” the agency said in response to the request. “… DMH is considering ways this data can be collected in the future.”

Medicaid declined to answer Mississippi Today’s questions about the waiver and its renewal, but an attorney with the agency Cody Smith told Natalie Gunnells in an email that the agency shared her concerns about the care shortage. He said that Medicaid is working with DMH to “lower barriers on workers entering the industry” and that it has commissioned a workforce study. Medicaid spokesperson Matt Westerfield said the agency is proposing an average reimbursement rate increase of 18%, which affects the hourly wage of the care workers.

Medicaid is currently submitting its paperwork to the federal government to renew the IDD waiver, a process that happens once every five years. Both Medicaid and DMH hosted a public hearing in February to accept suggestions from the public about what changes to make in its renewal.

After Mississippi Today’s inquiry to Medicaid about the IDD waiver, Snyder texted his deputy administrator for policy Wil Ervin, who recently left the agency, asking him to watch a recording of the public hearing to see if there was anything they needed to “watch out for.”

“We are likely going to have an issue from the hearing,” Ervin responded the next day.

Medicaid spokesperson Matt Westerfield said in an email that Ervin was referring to complaints, such as from Natalie Gunnells, about the policy that legal guardians cannot be paid caregivers under the waiver. Westerfield said last month that the agency was still considering whether to revise this policy in its permanent plan.

But when it came time to submit the waiver application at the end of March, Medicaid moved to include an even more restrictive version of the policy. It added the caveat that people could not be paid to care for their relatives if the service they are providing is “a function that a relative or housemate was providing for the participant without payment prior to waiver enrollment,” which seems to apply to Natalie Gunnells and most parents in her position.

After all her efforts, Natalie Gunnells will likely be back at square one when the public health emergency ends.

Patrick Gunnells, who has severe autism, plays on his iPad at his family’s Tupelo home on Mar. 9, 2023.

In early January of 2022, frustrated by the absence of services for her son, Natalie Gunnells began requesting what are called “utilization reports” from the Department of Mental Health.

The reports contain which services, and the number of hours, that providers are billing to Medicaid under the waiver. The support coordinators are supposed to review the documents with the parent or guardian every month to ensure the client is receiving the services that Medicaid is paying for, but in Natalie Gunnells’s case, she said this hadn’t happened for three years.

“They were so negligent that any agency billing Medicaid that wanted to commit fraud could without detection,” Natalie Gunnells wrote in her own timeline of the alleged fraud.

Once she got the documents, she said she realized that for at least two years, Mississippi Behavioral Services, owned by Vargas Clark in Southaven, had been charging Medicaid for services she says Patrick wasn’t receiving. In some months when Patrick may have received an hour of support, billing records show the company charged for the full 30 hours. Natalie Gunnells estimates Medicaid reimbursed Mississippi Behavioral Services for at least $42,000 for services not rendered.

Clark, who has not been charged with a crime, told Mississippi Today Monday that he was unaware of an investigation into his company. After agreeing to examine his records in order to discuss the alleged billing discrepancies, he did not return several follow up calls or texts.

Natalie Gunnells reported her findings to Medicaid’s fraud division, but she said they never responded. She then took the information to the Attorney General’s Office, which launched an investigation, in September. The Gunnells submitted an affidavit in October. The AG did not respond to several requests for comment for this story. DMH confirmed that it conducted its own internal investigation and referred the matter to Medicaid. DMH Director Wendy Bailey also said the agency recently provided more training to support coordinators to ensure they’re following procedures.

Providers are supposed to submit quarterly review reports describing the patient’s progress, but the Gunnells’ support coordinator hadn’t been collecting them from Mississippi Behavioral Services.

Eventually, Natalie Gunnells got the records from the investigator. According to a review by Mississippi Today, many of the reports are identical from quarter to quarter, seemingly copy-pasted with only the date at the top changing. The investigator also shared invoices and billing records from Medicaid, some of which include signatures for Natalie Gunnells that she said aren’t hers and indistinguishable scribbles for the others.

The reviews include charts, lines zigzagging across the page, that pretend to reflect the frequency of Patrick’s “target behaviors,” such as noncompliance and physical aggression. As far as Natalie Gunnells is concerned, the data is made up.

“Patrick has shown a positive response to behavior treatment,” one report says, referencing a three-month period in which the Gunnells say no therapist ever came to see Patrick.

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

Mississippi Today

Feuding GOP lawmakers prepare to leave Jackson without a budget, let governor force them back

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-01 19:23:00

After months of bitter Republican political infighting, the Legislature appears likely to end its session Wednesday without passing a $7 billion budget to fund state agencies, potentially threatening a government shutdown if they don’t come back and adopt one by June 30. 

After the House adjourned Tuesday night, Speaker Jason White said he had presented the Senate with a final offer to extend the session, which would give the two chambers more time to negotiate a budget. As for now, the 100 or so bills that make up the state budget are dead.

The Senate leadership was expected to meet and consider the offer Tuesday evening, White said. But numerous senators both Republican and Democrat said they would oppose such a parliamentary resolution, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has also said it’s unlikely and that the governor will have to force lawmakers back into special session.

White said he believes, if the Senate would agree to extend the session and restart negotiations, lawmakers could pass a budget and end the 2025 session by Sunday, only a few days later than planned.

But if the Senate chooses not to pass a resolution extending the session, White said the House would end the session on Wednesday.

It would take a two-thirds vote of support in both chambers to suspend the rules and extend the session. The Senate opposition appears to be enough to prevent that. 

Still, the speaker said he believes Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Senate leaders are considering the proposal. But he said if he doesn’t hear a positive response by Wednesday, the House will adjourn and wait for Gov. Tate Reeves to call a special session at a later date. 

“We are open to (extending the session), but we will not stay here until Sunday waiting around to see if they might do it,” White said.  

White said leaving the Capitol without a budget and punting the issue to a special session might not cool tensions between the chambers, as some lawmakers hope. 

“I think when you leave here and you end up in a special session, some folks say, ‘Well everybody that’s upset will cool down by then.’ They may, or it may get worse. It may shine a different and specific light on some of the things in this budget and the differences in the House and Senate,” White said. “Whereas, I think everybody now is in the legislative mode, and we might get there.”

The Mississippi Constitution does not grant the governor much power, but if Gov. Tate Reeves calls lawmakers into a special session, he gets to set the specific legislative agenda — not lawmakers. 

White said the governor could potentially use his executive authority to direct lawmakers to take up other bills, such as those related to education, before getting to the budget. 

“When we leave here without a budget, it is entirely the governor’s prerogative to when he (sets a special session) and how he does that.”

While the future of the state’s budget hangs in the balance, lawmakers have spent the remaining days of their regular session trying to pass the few remaining bills that remained alive on their calendars. 

House approves DEI ban, Senate could follow suit on Wednesday 

The House on Tuesday passed a proposal to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs from public schools, and both chambers approved a measure to establish a form of early voting. 

The House approved a conference report compromise to ban DEI programs and a list of “divisive concepts” from K-12 schools, community colleges and universities. If the Senate follows suit, Mississippi would join a number of other Republican-controlled states and President Donald Trump, who has made rooting DEI out of the federal government one of his top priorities. 

The agreement between the Republican-dominated chambers follows hours of heated debate in which Democrats, all almost of whom are Black, excoriated the legislation as a setback in the long struggle to make Mississippi a fairer place for minorities. Legislative Republicans argued the legislation will elevate merit in education and remove from school settings “divisive concepts” that exacerbate divisions among different identity groups. 

The concepts that will be rooted out from curricula include the idea that gender identity can be a “subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality.” The move reflects another effort to align with the Trump administration, which has declared via executive order that there are only two sexes.

The House and Senate disagreed on how to enforce the act, but ultimately settled on an agreement that would empower students, faculty members and contractors to sue schools for violating the law, but only after they go through an internal campus review process that would give schools time to make changes. The legislation could also withhold state funds from schools that don’t comply. 

Legislature sends ‘early voting lite’ bill to governor 

The Legislature also overwhelmingly passed a proposal to establish a watered down version of early voting, though the legislation is titled “in-person excused voting,” and not early voting.

The proposal establishes 22 days of in-person voting before Election Day that requires voters to go to the circuit clerk’s office or another location county officials have designated as a secure early voting facility, such as a courtroom or a board of supervisors meeting room. 

To cast an early vote, someone must present a valid form of photo ID and list one of about 15 legal excuses to vote before Election Day. The excuses, however, are broad and would, in theory, allow many people to cast early ballots. 

Examples of valid excuses are voters expecting to work on Election Day, being at least 65 years old, being currently enrolled in college or potentially travelling outside of their county on Election Day. 

Since most eligible voters either work, go to college or are older than 65 years of age, these excuses would apply to almost everyone. 

“Even though this isn’t early voting as we saw originally, it makes this more convenient for hard working Mississippians to go by their clerks’ office and vote in person after showing an ID 22 days prior to an election,” Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England said. 

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves opposes early voting, so it’s unclear if he would sign the measure into law or veto it. 

Both chambers are expected to gavel at 10 a.m. on Wednesday to debate the final items on their agenda. 

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

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Mississippi Today

‘A lot of us are confused’: Lacking info, some Jacksonians go to wrong polling place

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mississippitoday.org – @mintamolly – 2025-04-01 18:43:00

Johnny Byrd knew that when his south Jackson neighborhood Carriage Hills changed wards during redistricting last year, his neighbors would have trouble finding their correct polling place on Election Day.

So he bought a poster board and inscribed it with their new voting location – Christ Tabernacle Church.

“I made a sign and placed it in front of the entrance to our neighborhood that told them exactly where to go so there would be no confusion,” said Byrd, vice president of the Association of South Jackson Neighborhoods.

Still, on April 1, a car full of voters from a senior living facility who should have gone to Christ Tabernacle were driven to their old polling place. 

“I thought it was unfortunate they had to get there and find out rather than knowing in advance that their polling location was different,” said Sen. Sollie Norwood, a Democrat from Jackson who was on the ground Tuesday helping constituents with voting.

One of those elderly women became frustrated and said she no longer wanted to vote, Norwood said, though her companions tried to convince her otherwise. By midday Tuesday, 300 people had voted at Christ Tabernacle, one of the city’s largest precincts currently in terms of registered voters, but among the lowest in turnout historically.

Voting rights advocates and candidates vying for municipal office in Jackson are keeping an eye on issues facing voters at the polls, though without official results, it remains to be seen if that will dampen turnout this election with the hotly contested Democratic primary.

“I still believed it was gonna be low,” Monica McInnis, a program manager for the nonprofit OneVoice, said of turnout. “I was expecting it would be a little higher because of what is on the ballot and how many people are running in all of the wards as well as the mayor’s race.”

A daughter helps her mother casts her votes as mayoral candidate John Horhn chats with voter at Christ Tabernacle Church in south Jackson, Tuesday, April 1, 2025.

The situation is evolving as the day goes on, but the main issues are twofold. One, thousands of Jackson voters have new precinct locations after redistricting last year put them into a new city council ward. 

Two, some voters didn’t realize their polling place for the municipal elections may differ from where they voted in last year’s national elections, which are run by the counties. 

In Mississippi, voters are assigned two precincts that are often but not always the same: A municipal location for city elections and a county location for senate, gubernatorial and presidential elections 

“People in Mississippi, we go to the same polling location for three years, and that fourth year, it changes,” said Jada Barnes, an organizer with the Jackson-based nonprofit MS Votes. “A lot of us are confused. When people are going to the polling place today, they’re seeing it is closed, so they’re just going back home which is making turnout go even lower.” 

Barnes said she’s hearing this primarily from a few Jackson voters who called a hotline that MS Votes is manning. Lack of awareness around polling locations is a big deterrent, she said, because most people are trying to squeeze their vote in between work, school or family responsibilities. 

“Maybe you’re on your lunch break, you only got 30 minutes to go vote, you learn that your polling location has changed and now you have to go back to work,” she said. 

Norwood said he heard from a group of students assigned to vote at Christ Tabernacle who had attempted to vote at the wrong precinct and were told their names weren’t on the rolls. They didn’t know they had been moved from Ward 4 to Ward 6, Norwood said, meaning they expected to vote in a different council race until reaching the polls Tuesday.

Though voters have a duty to be informed of their polling location, Barnes said city and circuit clerks and local election commissioners are ultimately responsible for making sure voters know where to go on Election Day. 

Angela Harris, the Jackson municipal clerk, said her office worked to inform voters by mailing out thousands of letters to Jacksonians whose precincts changed, including the roughly 6,000 whose wards changed during the 2024 redistricting. 

“I am over-swamped,” she said yesterday. 

Despite her efforts, at least one voter said he never got a letter. Stephen Brown learned through Facebook, not an official notice, that he was moved from Ward 1 to Ward 2. 

Stephen Brown, a resident of Briarwood Heights in northeast Jackson, ran into difficulty voting April 1.

A resident of the Briarwood Heights neighborhood in northeast Jackson, Brown’s efforts to vote Tuesday have been complicated by mixed messages and a lack of communication. He has yet to vote, even though he showed up at the polls at 7:10 this morning. 

His odyssey took him to two wrong locations, where the poll managers instructed Brown to call his ward’s election commissioner, who did not answer multiple calls, Brown said. Brown finally learned through a Facebook comment that he could look up his new precinct on the Mississippi Secretary of State’s website — if he scrolled down the page past his county precinct information.

This afternoon, Brown has a series of meetings planned, so now he’s hoping for a 30-minute window to try voting one more time, even though he’s skeptical it will make a difference. 

“I’m a very disenchanted voter, because I’ve been let down so much,” he said. “I vote because it’s the thing that I’m supposed to do and because of the sacrifices of my ancestors, but not because I truly believe in it, you know?” 

Brown’s not alone in facing turbulence. Back at Christ Tabernacle, one Jackson voter, who declined to give her name, said she’s frustrated from having to drive to three polling locations in one day.

“I’m dissatisfied with the fact that I had to drive from one end of this street and all of the back to come over here when I usually vote over here on Highway 18,” she said. “This was a great inconvenience, gas wise and time wise.”

The same thing happened to Rodney Miller. He called the confusion some voters are facing in this election “unnecessary.” 

“That ain’t the way we should be handling business,” he said. “We should be looking out for one another better than that, you know? It’s already enough getting people out to vote, and when you confuse them when they try? Come on now. That’s discouraging.”

Christ Tabernacle is the second largest precinct in the city in terms of registered voters, with 3,330 assigned to vote there as of 2024, according to documents retrieved from the municipal election committee. But it had one of the lowest voter turnout rates – 10% in the 2021 primary election before redistricting and before it became so large.

Byrd mentioned the much higher turnout in places like Ward 1 in northeast Jackson, compared to where he lives in south Jackson. Why does Byrd think this is?

“Civics,” Byrd said. “They took civics out of school. If you ask the average person what is the role and responsibility of any elected official, they can’t tell you.”

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

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New Stage’s ‘Little Women’ musical opens aptly in Women’s History Month

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mississippitoday.org – Sherry Lucas – 2025-03-25 14:34:00

The March family at the center of “Little Women, The Broadway Musical” at New Stage Theatre includes (clockwise from left) Michaela Lin as Meg, Jennifer Smith as the mother Marmee, Kristina Swearingen as Jo (top), Sarah Pigott as Amy and Frannie Dean as Beth (front).

Ties that bind, not lines that divide, at the heart of “Little Women” are what make Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel such an enduring classic. More than a century and a half since its 1868 publication, the March sisters’ coming-of-age tale continues to resonate in fresh approaches, say cast and crew in a musical version opening this week at New Stage Theatre in Jackson, Mississippi.

“Little Women, The Broadway Musical” adds songs to Alcott’s story of the four distinct March sisters — traditional, lovely Meg, spirited tomboy and writer Jo, quiet and gentle Beth, and artistic, pampered Amy. They are growing into young women under the watchful eye of mother Marmee as their father serves as an Army chaplain in the Civil War. “Little Women, The Broadway Musical” performances run March 25 through April 6 at New Stage Theatre.

In a serendipitous move, the production coincides with Women’s History Month in March, and has a female director at the helm — Malaika Quarterman, in her New Stage Theatre directing debut. Logistics and scheduling preferences landed the musical in March, to catch school matinees with the American classic.

The novel has inspired myriad adaptations in film, TV, stage and opera, plus literary retellings by other authors. This musical version debuted on Broadway in 2005, with music by Jason Howland, lyrics by Mindi Dickstein and book (script) by Allan Knee. 

“The music in this show brings out the heart of the characters in a way that a movie or a straight play, or even the book, can’t do,” said Cameron Vipperman, whose play-within-a-play role helps illustrate the writer Jo’s growth in the story. She read the book at age 10, and now embraces how the musical dramatizes, speeds up and reconstructs the timeline for more interest and engagement.

“What a great way to introduce kids that haven’t read the book,” director Quarterman said, hitting the highlights and sending them to the pages for a deeper dive on characters they fell in love with over the two-and-a-half-hour run time.

Sisters share a joyous moment in “Little Women, The Broadway Musical.” Cast members are, from left, Kristina Swearingen (Jo March), Michaela Lin (Meg), Sarah Pigott (Amy), Frannie Dean (Beth) and Alex Burnette (Laurie Laurence).

Joy, familial warmth, love, courage, loss, grief and resilience are all threads in a story that has captivated generations and continues to find new audiences and fresh acclaim (the 2019 film adaptation by Greta Gerwig earned six Academy Award nominations). 

In current contentious times, when diversity, equity and inclusion programs are being ripped out or rolled back, the poignant, women-centered narrative maintains a power to reach deep and unite. 

“Stories where females support each other, instead of rip each other apart to get to the finish line — which would be the goal of getting the man or something — are very few and far between sometimes,” Quarterman said. “It’s so special because it was written so long ago, with the writer being such a strong dreamer, and dreaming big for women.

“For us to actualize it, where a female artistic producer chooses this show and believes in a brand new female director and then this person gets to empower these great, local, awesome artists — It’s just really been special to see this story and its impact ripple through generations of dreamers.” For Quarterman, a 14-year drama teacher with Jackson Public Schools active in community theater and professional regional theater, “To be able to tell this story here, for New Stage, is pretty epic for me.”

Alcott’s story is often a touchstone for young girls, and this cast of grown women finds much in the source material that they still hold dear, and that resonates in new ways.

Kristina Swearingen plays Jo March, the aspiring writer at the center of the story in “Little Women, The Broadway Musical” at New Stage Theatre.

“I relate to Jo more than any other fictional character that exists,” Kristina Swearingen said of her character, the central figure Jo March. “At different parts of my life, I have related to her in different parts of hers.” 

The Alabama native, more recently of New York, recalled her “energetic, crazy, running-around-having-a-grand-old-time” youth in high school and college, then a career-driven purpose that led her, like Jo, to move to New York. 

Swearingen first did this show in college, before the loss of grandparents and a major move. Now, “I know what it’s like to grieve the loss of a loved one, and to live so far away from home, and wanting to go home and be with your family but also wanting to be in a place where your career can take off. .. It hits a lot closer to home.”

As one of four sisters in real life, Frannie Dean of Flora draws on a wealth of memories in playing Beth — including her own family position as next to the youngest of the girls. She and siblings read the story together in their homeschooled childhood, assigning each other roles. 

Kristina Swearingen (left) and Frannie Dean, as March sisters Jo and Beth, share a sweet moment in “Little Women, The Broadway Musical” at New Stage Theatre.

“Omigosh, this is my life,” she said, chuckling. “We would play pretend all day. … ‘Little Women’ is really sweet in that aspect, to really be able to carry my own experience with my family and bring it into the show. … It’s timeless in its nature, its warmth and what it brings to people.”

Jennifer Smith of Clinton, as March family matriarch Marmee, found her way in through a song. First introduced to Marmee’s song “Here Alone” a decade ago when starting voice lessons as an adult, she made it her own. “It became an audition piece for me. It became a dream role for me. It’s been pivotal in opening up doors for me.” 

She relishes aging into this role, countering a common fear of women in the entertainment field that they may “age out” of desirable parts. “It’s just a full-circle moment for me, and I’m grateful for it.”

Malaika Quarterman is the director of “Little Women, The Broadway Musical,” now showing through April 6 at New Stage Theatre.

Quarterman fell in love with the 1969 film version she watched with her sister when they were little, adoring the family’s playfulness and stability. Amid teenage angst, she identified with the inevitable growth and change that came with siblings growing up and moving on. Being a mom brings a whole different lens. 

“Seeing these little people in your life just growing up, being their own unique versions, all going through their own arc — it’s just fun, and I think that’s why you can stay connected” to the story at any life juncture, she said.

Cast member Slade Haney pointed out the rarity of a story set on a Northeastern homestead during the Civil War. 

“You’re getting to see what it was like for the women whose husbands were away at war — how moms struggled, how sisters struggled. You had to make your own means. … I think both men and women can see themselves in these characters, in wanting to be independent like Jo, or like Amy wanting to have something of value that belongs to you and not just just feel like you’re passed over all the time, and Meg, to be valuable to someone else, and in Beth, for everyone to be happy and content and love each other,” Haney said.

New Stage Theatre Artistic Director Francine Reynolds drew attention, too, to the rarity of an American classic for the stage offering an abundance of women’s roles that can showcase Jackson metro’s talent pool. “We just always have so many great women,” she said, and classics — “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Death of a Salesman,” for instance — often offer fewer parts for them, though contemporary dramas are more balanced.

Reynolds sees value in the musical’s timing and storyline. “Of course, we need to celebrate the contributions of women. This was a woman who was trying to be a writer in 1865, ’66, ’67. That’s, to me, a real trailblazing thing.

“It is important to show, this was a real person — Louisa May Alcott, personified as Jo. It’s important to hold these people up as role models for other young girls, to show that you can do this, too. You can dream your dream. You can strive to break boundaries.” 

It is a key reminder of advancements that may be threatened. “We’ve made such strides,” Reynolds said, “and had so many great programs to open doors for people, that I feel like those doors are going to start closing, just because of things you are allowed to say and things you aren’t allowed.”

For tickets, $50 (discounts for seniors, students, military), visit www.newstagetheatre.com or the New Stage Theatre box office, or call 601-948-3533.

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

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