JACKSON — Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann is running for lieutenant governor, he announced Wednesday morning.
“Hi, it’s Delbert, ma’am,” Hosemann said, looking directly at the camera in a campaign video published to Facebook shortly after 9 a.m. “When you hired me, I promised you I’d make it easier to run and start a business in Mississippi.”
On the Gallo Show on SuperTalk radio, Hosemann said he was proud of his work on business law, his acquisition last year of 18,000 acres in the Delta for public use, an insurance reform bill that required insurers to cover autism treatment, and for working to implement a “fair and constitutional voter ID” law. He also touted the 2016 acquisition of more of Cat Island, which was reacquired more than 200 years after Mississippi relinquished it.
“I just had my seventh grandchild four days ago, and to hold that little baby and … I thought where is little Howard going to grow up?” Hosemann said on the radio show. “How is his state going to be? Is he going to have the same things he had?”
The Republican leader said he plans to make his campaign stops in Columbus, Tupelo and parts of DeSoto County today. He will travel to Meridian, Hattiesburg and the Gulf Coast on Thursday, and to the Delta and Southwest Mississippi Friday.
Broad Powers for Mississippi Lieutenant Governors
Hosemann, who has been secretary of state since 2008, announced that he would not run for secretary of state again at the Neshoba County Fair last August. Gallo asked why he chose to run for lieutenant governor instead of governor.
In some states, the lieutenant governor is sometimes jokingly referred to as a “spare tire,” and the position is mostly ceremonial. Not so in Mississippi.
“You have to look at the rules of the game here,” Hosemann told Gallo. “In Mississippi, to be frank about it, the lieutenant governor is in the legislative and the executive branch. And they control the budget along with the speaker of the House.”
As lieutenant governor, Hosemann said he would have more leverage to move forward an agenda to make Mississippi more business-friendly with a more educated workforce. He said he disagreed with the Legislature’s decision to pass a lottery bill last year that did not devote a portion of the funds to education.
Hosemann Talks Medicaid Expansion, Immigration
Hosemann suggested to Gallo that he might be open to supporting a version of Medicaid expansion in Mississippi. He referred to expansions in Indiana and Arkansas, where he said leaders were “negotiating out some of the onerous things that were put on by Obamacare to look and see if there’s a middle ground that would be economic.” Medicaid expansion in Indiana requires that poor people contribute to savings accounts; in Arkansas, it includes work requirements.
The Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2010, would have used federal funds to pay for 100 percent of the cost of expanding Medicaid in Mississippi in the first few years, and 90 percent in years after.
Since 2013, Gov. Phil Bryant has refused federal funds to expand the program that would bring coverage to 300,000 Mississippians who make too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid but not enough to buy their own insurance.
Hosemann also told Gallo he disagrees with counting undocumented immigrants in the federal Census, because it could shift congressional districts away from states like Mississippi and towards states like Texas or California. Congressional districts are based on population size.
“You could turn this into a third-world country, but at least the people on top, as far as the Democrats go, are in power,” Gallo suggested.
“Well I don’t know about all that, that gets too complicated,” Hosemann said. “But I will say this: They would get more members of Congress than they would ordinarily. I’ll put it that way.”
In the social-media video, Hosemann talks about some of the issues he plans to campaign on.
“We have challenges in Mississippi in jobs, education, healthcare and infrastructure, and our next lieutenant governor will have a significant impact on those,” he says. “And I’m here to apply for the job. I’m a conservative. And I care about leaving a better-educated, healthier, and more prosperous Mississippi for our children and our grandchildren.”
