Political Emails to State Employees Only Legal for Republicans

What better way to remind our public school employees that they are underpaid than to receive constant email reminders from Mississippi Republicans?

Governor Phil Bryant, a native of Rankin County, and the Mississippi Republican Party have quite possibly violated state law by sending emails to public employees through a school district email server in Rankin County.

Mississippi Code Section 23-15-871 clearly states that

It shall be unlawful for any employer, or employee having the authority to employ or discharge other employees, to make any statement public or private, or to give out or circulate any report or statement, calculated to intimidate or coerce or otherwise influence any employee as to his vote, and when any such statement has obtained circulation, it shall be the duty of such employer to publicly repudiate it, in the absence of which repudiation the employer shall be deemed by way of ratification to have made it himself...

The prohibitions of this section shall apply to all state, state district, county and county district officers, and to any board or commission and the members thereof by whatever name designated and whether elective or appointive, and to each and every one of those employed by them or any of them. And no state, state district, county or county district officer, or any employee of any of them who directly or indirectly has the control, or in any way the power of control, or who asserts or pretends that he has such power, over the expenditure of any public funds in this state, whatever the purpose or object of said expenditure may be, shall state, suggest or intimate, publicly or privately, or in any manner or form, that any such expenditure shall in any wise depend upon or be influenced by the vote of any person, group of persons, or community or group of communities, whether for or against any candidate or group of candidates at any election.

To add insult to injury, Republicans have the nerve to ask for money from these hard working women and men even though Mississippi's public school employees are among the worst-paid in the country.

Interestingly, it was House Education Committee Chairman and Rankin County Republican John Moore who authored House Bill 449 this year which would have created criminal penalties for teachers and school personnel who engage in political activity while at work.

Republican Party Endorses Inadequate and Inefficient Public Education

It was bound to happen. For years, Mississippi Republicans have worked tirelessly to undermine public education in the state. Now, they have finally put their party's stamp of approval on it.

Early today, the Mississippi Republican Party Central Committee - not to be confused with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China - voted unanimously to endorse the Mississippi Republican Party's opposition to public education. Some familiar faces are on this committee: Governor Phil Bryant, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, House Speaker Philip Gunn (R-Clinton), and House Speaker Pro Tempore Greg Snowden (R-Meridian).

If you recall during this year's legislative session, Gunn and Reeves rushed alternative ballot language through the legislature without any hearings or public input while threatening their rank-and-file Republicans to vote for it. Their goal: confuse the voters. During this session, Gov. Bryant pushed his private school voucher bill which will pull resources away from public schools. At the same time, Speaker Gunn has been at the beck and call of the Bomgar Caucus, an association of deep-pocketed interests that spent tens of thousands of dollars to defeat pro-public education Republican legislators in the August primaries. Just last week, Bryant and Hosemann voted to put their political talking points on the November ballot by putting misleading language before the voters. This intentionally-confusing language, mind you, was pushed by Reeves and Snowden through the Legislative Budget Office. The public has been refused access to the communication between these offices because they chose to not be transparent. Let's not forget that time Rep. Herb Frierson (R-Poplarville) threw out his scare tactics of frightening state agencies that if the state fully support public education, their agencies would see massive budget cuts - possibly leading to huge layoffs.

All these political players and all these moves have been a part of the Republicans' masterful strategy of deliberately weakening Mississippi's public education system.

Republicans can talk about how proud they are about continuing to not fully support public education and that Mississippi still pays its public school teachers less than their counterparts across the South. The truth remains that you can either be a Republican or support public education, but you cannot do both. The Republican Party's vote today proves it.

Who is (601) 324-5142?

An interesting development this weekend comes from some tips to Kudzu, suggesting that more than one community has received anonymous calls from a local number push-polling false narratives. Reports are that these calls relate to Democratic candidates across the state, unchecked by Delbert Hosemann, who apparently has things to do other than his job.

The caller does not identify themselves as a particular person or organization (a legal no-no).

The anonymous caller, whose voicemail sounds to be a young man in his 20's with no additional information about his whereabouts, seems to have perturbed a number of Mississippians in recent months. A quick google search shows that this Google Voice number has been active since at least 2014, and pesters folks a good bit.  Here are a few comments from 800Notes.com:

Caller ID shows it's from McComb, MS. Called 6 times today between noon & 3pm. Tried to call it back once & reached a male's voice message that didn't identify himself (or company); just said "Thank you for calling, please leave your name & number...", so I just hung up.

- April 9, 2014

I have received 6 calls in 3 days. Political survey. I told them on first call I was not interested and wished them a good day. Did not respond to call again until the fourth call and explained I had received 4 calls and she immediately became rude and said I had to be mistaken.  I assured her I was  DEFINITELY not mistaken as I was staring at my 4 mistakes on caller ID.  She loudly explained that wasn't possible and rudely hung up on me. Guess she has no sense of humor.

- July 18, 2015

 Had 16 calls from it hanging up within 5 minutes today. No one there when I call back

- September 4, 2015

In July, Secretary Hosemann called anonymous mailers directed at Mayor Mary Hawkins-Butler "gutless."

We here at Cottonmouth are holding our breaths in regards to whether that applies to attacks on Democrats.

Any additional information or other tips to Cottonmouth/Kudzu can be emailed kudzu@cottonmouthblog.com.