Mississippi’s government isn’t exactly known for transparency.
More than a quarter of a century into the new millennium, for example, there still is no requirement for towns and municipalities to stream city hall meetings or even post the agendas and minutes online—leaving the many locals who can’t attend meetings during their workdays out of the process.
The Mississippi House majority holds caucus meetings where they make key legislative decisions behind closed doors. The Mississippi Free Press challenged those secret meetings before the Mississippi Ethics Commission, citing the state’s Open Meetings Act, but the commission and, later, a judge ruled that the Legislature is not a “public body” and thus not subject to the law.
Voters still can’t reliably search to see how much a donor has given to a candidate’s campaign coffers over the years without downloading PDF files of every campaign finance report that candidate ever filed—and manually browsing through it. Secretary of State Michael Watson’s effort to change that died in the Mississippi House of Representatives earlier this month, with one lawmaker declaring that “I don’t want to do (it) online … And I’m not going to vote for something I’m not going to do.”
During this year’s legislative session, some lawmakers even attempted to exempt public records, like inspection reports that evaluate potentially dangerous bridges and roads, from the State’s Public Records Act; that bill died in committee this month. And while the Mississippi Senate has streamed its committee meetings so that the public can watch senators deliberate over bills for years now—not just crowds that often consist mostly of lobbyists and a few reporters—the Mississippi House still does not.
Accountability is hard in Mississippi. Too many elected officials and bureaucrats in this state “run from the sun like Dracula,” to quote Tame Impala’s psychedelic electropop track.
That’s why Mississippi Free Press work is so vital. Every dollar you give can help us hire more reporters to snoop through campaign-finance reports, pay for public-records requests to ensure buried information sees the light of day, sift through and piece together often fragmented data, and investigate the roots of systemic issues residents face so that communities can find solutions.
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This MFP Voices opinion essay reflects the personal opinion of its author(s). The column does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources for fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.