FOCUS: 2022 Elections • Housing & Evictions • #MSWelfare Scandal • Jackson Water • Abortion • Race & Racism • Policing • Incarceration
Mississippi Free Press’ attorney Rob McDuff said in a May 2022 statement that the Mississippi Open Meetings Act requires that other meetings of legislators, like the Republican Caucus, be open to the public when they constitute a quorum and are discussing public business.”
As in past years, no Medicaid expansion bill survived the legislative deadline for lawmakers to pass one out of committee. Within 24 hours of Reeves’ address, multiple Medicaid-expansion bills died, including Democratic and Republican-sponsored bills that would have allowed residents to vote on the issue in a referendum.
Mississippi House Rep. Alyce G. Clarke, D-Jackson, announced her retirement this afternoon on the floor of the House. In a 1985 special election, she became the first Black woman elected to either chamber of the Mississippi Legislature.
In his State of the State address on Monday, Jan. 30, 2023, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves called on lawmakers to pass a “Parents Bill of Rights” that would allow parents to inspect school curriculums and opt their children out of certain educational materials.
In a press release after McDaniel’s announcement, Hosemann Senior Advisor Casey Phillips said that “after being rejected by Mississippians in three failed statewide campaigns, the least effective politician in the state with the largest ego is running again, this time for Lt. Governor.”
Mississippi House Rep. Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, is sponsoring a bill to establish a court system with unelected judges and prosecutors to oversee Jackson’s Capitol district.
“While I believe Mississippi would be more prosperous with better leadership at the top, leadership that fostered teamwork as opposed to micromanagement, leadership that cared more for Mississippi than politics, I’m not at peace leaving the work we’ve started here at the Secretary of State’s office because there’s a lot more to be done,” Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said.
Beverly Pool worries about her brother, Marvin Pernell, who was in the Oktibbeha County jail in Starkville, Miss., from July 2021 until January 2023 and is now at the Mississippi State Hospital, a state-funded psychiatric hospital in Whitfield, Miss. Now 48, Pernell is a military veteran who served in the U.S. Marines from 1994 to 1998.
D’Monterrio Gibson filed a federal civil lawsuit on Friday, Jan. 20, against FedEx; the City of Brookhaven; Brookhaven Police Chief Kenny Collins; and Brandon and Gregory Case, the father-son duo who he said chased and shot at him on Jan. 24, 2022, in Brookhaven’s Junior Trail neighborhood.
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The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).