"This is not the jobs plan Republicans promised us"

The following is from the Mississippi House Democratic Caucus this morning:

Jackson, MS- As House lawmakers near completion of the third week of the 2012 legislative session, Rep. Earle Banks (D-Jackson) has offered a bleak assessment of Republican leadership to date. While committees are yet to consider the first general bill of the session, the Management Committee last week hired an aide to Speaker Philip Gunn for $110,000 a year.

Banks said, “Instead of working on bills to put Mississippians back to work, Republicans have spent $110,000 of taxpayer money on a political operative.” Banks added, “This is not the jobs plan that Republicans promised us during last year’s elections.”

Banks noted, “For the amount of taxpayer money Republicans have spent hiring an ad man, we could have hired three new teachers, paid for a year of tuition for nineteen college students or added at least two new highway patrolmen.”

Nathan Wells, a current partner at Winning Edge Communications and former employee of the Mississippi Republican Party, will be paid $110,000 per year as an aide to the Speaker. During 2011, Mr. Wells played an integral role in the distribution of negative and misleading attack ads on behalf of Republican House candidates.

According to his company’s website:

“Nathan Wells has been directly involved in well over 50 political campaigns. He has adapted his experiences from politics in to successful campaign strategy for all kinds of clients. He has worked with national organizations, financial firms, and restaurants to develop the image and strategy they need to be successful.

Nathan developed his public communication skills as Political Director of the Mississippi Republican Party and later as a statewide campaign manager. His approach is hands on, and he believes that teamwork and clear communication is the key to any successful program.

Nathan is best known for combining old-fashioned grassroots organization and modern campaign communications to any client’s needs, whether political or business.”

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PRESS NOTES:

A Forward PAC campaign expenditure to Winning Edge Communictations may be viewed at the following:
http://www.sos.ms.gov/CampaignFinanceWebScans/Forward%20Mississippi%20PAC%20(October%2010%202011%20Periodic%20Report)%20October%2011%202011.pdf


Philip Gunn campaign expenditure to Nathan Wells may be viewed at the following:
http://www.sos.ms.gov/CampaignFinanceWebScans/Phillip%20Gunn%20(2010%20Annual%20Report)%20January%2031%202011.pdf

Rep. Charles Busby expenditures to Winning Edge Communications may be viewed at the following:
http://www.sos.ms.gov/CampaignFinanceWebScans/Charles%20H.%20Busby%20(November%201%202011%20PreElection%20Report)%20November%201%202011.pdf

Republican candidate Dorothy Wilcox expenditures to Winning Edge Communications may be viewed at the following:
http://www.sos.ms.gov/CampaignFinanceWebScans/Friends%20of%20Dorothy%20Wilcox%20(November%201%202011%20PreElection%20Report)%20October%2031%202011.pdf

Winning Edge homepage: http://winningedgellc.com/

House committee assignments expected tomorrow

All signs point to Speaker Philip Gunn (R-Clinton) announcing his committee chairmanship selections tomorrow morning around 9:00 a.m. In addition, Gunn will assign each of the 122 members to the various committees. These choices will be the most important of Gunn's career in the House thus far. With these appointments, Gunn will have an opportunity to live up to the cooperative tone he set in his acceptance speech. I believe he will do just that.

Here's why:

The most frequent complaint from Republicans over the last 4 years was that Speaker Billy McCoy (D-Rienzi) didn't appoint any Republicans as committee chairs. If Gunn follows McCoy's lead and doesn't appoint any members of the opposing party to committee chairmanships, then he'll appear hypocritical. An appearance of hypocrisy isn't something Gunn can afford right now, as Mississippians are dealing with the fallout from Barbour's Pardongate. (Barbour's pardon record doesn't exactly match the Republican "tough on crime" line.)

There's another dynamic at play here as well, and it has to do with institutional knowledge. Most of it resides over on the Democratic side of the aisle, and that will be important when it comes time to handle intricate health, education, and budget matters. Having Democrats with experience in those areas willing to play ball is going to be vital to doing the work of the House in a timely fashion.

All of the above, coupled with Lt. Gov. Reeves' decision to appoint Democrats to chair important committees, lead me to believe that we will see a fairly even distribution of power at the committee level. Guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Speaker Gunn hires political operative as assistant...at a taxpayer cost of $110,000

Granting a 30 year-old political ad man with a salary commensurate with a circuit court judge, Speaker Gunn, through his Management Committee, has hired an assistant.  This $110,000 a year hire comes at a time when the State budget is in dire straits, and drastic cuts are expected to be made to all state programs, from education to health care to transportation.

But hey, at least Speaker Gunn will have someone in a nice suit to write his press releases.  For what it's worth, there was no such aide for Speaker McCoy.

The party of small government, indeed.

Legislative Republicans say they'll protect PERS and the 13th check; don't be fooled

The PERS support group Honor Your Promise released an email today in response to the Republican statement yesterday that they'll protect the 13th check. In short, the Republicans pledge that they won't make any changes to the yearly PERS cost of living adjustment, commonly referred to as "the 13th check." Well, here's the problem. A bunch of those same Republicans have already voted against protecting PERS.

I'm sure that these Republicans will go against the recommendations of Governor Barbour's Study Commission. I'm absolutely positive. After all, they never do what Gov. Barbour tells them to do, ever. Enough sarcasm. Here's the Honor Your Promise email with the names of the Republicans who voted against protecting PERS once already:

Yesterday several state legislators issued a joint press release pledging not to eliminate the 13th check. However, nineteen of the lawmakers taking the “pledge” actually voted against the PERS system in 2009. A Constitutional Amendment to protect PERS from political influence (HR 31) passed the House of Representatives despite opposition from these lawmakers. The following legislators should explain their flip flop to retirees and PERS members and their families. 

House Republican Leader Rep. Mark Baker (R-Brandon)
Republican Conference Chair Rep. Philip Gunn (R-Clinton)
Republican Floor Leader Rep. Bill Denny (R-Jackson)
Rep. Sid Bondurant (R-Grenada)
Rep. Gary Chism (R-Columbus)
Rep. Ted Mayhall (R-Southaven)
Rep. Scott Bounds (R-Philadelphia)
Rep. Bobby Howell (R-Kilmichael)
Rep. Alex Monsour (R-Vicksburg)
Rep. Rita Martinson (R-Madison)
Rep. Jim Ellington (R-Raymond)
Rep. Greg Snowden (R-Meridian)
Rep. Bobby Shows (R-Ellisville)
Rep. Becky Currie (R-Brookhaven)
Rep. Sam Mims (R-McComb)
Rep. Harvey Fillingane (R-Sumrall)
Rep. Larry Byrd (R-Petal)
Rep. Herb Frierson (R-Poplarville)
Rep. Frank Hamilton (R-Hurley)

 You want to know what's worse?  Rep. Mark Baker, Rep. Philip Gunn, and Rep. Sid Bondurant all have aspirations (Gunn may even have a PAC, more on that to come) to become Speaker of the House should Republicans gain the majority of seats in the House next month.  A House Speaker that's already voted against protecting PERS?  That's not a scare tactic...that's just plain scary.

Republicans are hiding the truth on immigration reform efforts

In Sunday's Clarion-Ledger, the leader of a group called "MFIRE" (Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement) had a letter to the editor that tried to blame immigration issues on House Democrats, specifically Rep. Bobby Moak of Bogue Chitto. Specifically, the letter says:

An effort was made this past legislative session to strengthen SB 2988 in Mississippi's "Arizona Style" enforcement bill by "requiring" the attorney general to enforce our E-Verify law. Unfortunately, House Democrats who have routinely worked against enforcement changed the sanctions against employers to monetary fines - specifically prohibited by federal statute. This amendment was handled by Rep. Bobby Moak, D-Bogue Chitto, one of Speaker Billy McCoy's lieutenants. Either they didn't know the law or this unlawful fine was the Democrat leadership's way to kill the bill.

The letter, of course, doesn't reveal what legislation Rep. Moak amended, presumably because that would lead to someone doing a little research on the issue.

What the letter is referring to is SB 2179, which was the god-awful legislation that would have put monetary fines on law enforcement officials, mayors, supervisors, and aldermen who didn't "effectively" enforce anti-immigrant laws. This was a hot topic during the legislative session, and is covered in depth here, here, here, and here. In short, Rep. Moak's amendment took the fines against local officials and put them on the businesses who employ illegal immigrants in the first place. And guess what? House Republicans agreed. Republicans voted almost uniformly for Moak's amendment. Which, I guess, makes it a bipartisan amendment.

The letter goes on to say:

Don't let your incumbent Democrat come home and tell you how conservative they are when their first vote will be to elect a speaker like Rep. Moak who has been a part of the coalition that has stopped significant legislation.

To be accurate, I guess the letter should be rewritten to say:

Don't let your incumbent Democrat legislator come home and tell you how conservative they are when their first vote will be to elect a speaker like Rep. Moak, Rep. Jeff Smith (R-Columbus), Rep. Phillip Gunn (R-Clinton), Rep. Sid Bondurant (R-Grenada), or Rep. Mark Baker (R-Brandon), who has have been a part of the coalition that has stopped significant wrongheaded legislation.

Profile in Redistricting "Courage" #2

Our second Profile in Redistricting "Courage" is Rep. Phillip Gunn (R-Clinton):

The Butcher of Clinton

Gunn's new district splits almost every precinct in my hometown of Clinton.  Clinton only has one unsplit precinct as a result.  Gunn was aware of this before the plan was unveiled, and he liked it. The fact that Gunn enjoyed the carving of Clinton so much is rather odd when you read this quote from the February 28, 2011 edition of the Clarion-Ledger:

Rep. Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, said from what he's hearing, the proposed House map makes "vast improvement" in the splits over the current map, though he has not seen it in its entirety.

Why, you may ask, would Gunn revel in carving up Clinton?  Well, let's look at the numbers:

The BVAP numbers for the City of Clinton as a whole:

Clinton 1: 20.50%
Clinton 2: 17.64%
Clinton 3: 26.08%
Clinton 4: 24.83%
Clinton 5: 13.12%
Clinton 6: 31.47%

Now let's look at the BVAP as Gunn likes it:

Clinton 1 (split): 11.62% (difference of -8.88%)
Clinton 2 (split): 12.48% (difference of -5.16%)
Clinton 3 (split): 14.94% (difference of -11.14%)
Clinton 4 (split): 12.28% (difference of -12.55%)
Clinton 5: 13.12% (whole precinct)
Clinton 6 (split): Gunn's share of this precinct has no population.

Now, we don't know exactly how much of the map he saw, but he certainly saw his own part.  Hypocrisy at its best...