Gunn, Reeves Hiding Emails

Reports out in recent days are shining light on the backroom deals Republican leaders are making in order to continue their attacks on public education while adding more evidence to the argument that Mississippi is cited as one of the most corrupt states in America. The problem involves Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn (R-Clinton) refusing to release emails over their involvement in crafting budget language that puts a blemish on public education funding.

While the Republican Party claims there are scandals over irregularities in Hillary Clinton's emails, the silence from Mississippi's Republican officials over this issue is deafening. It takes a certain amount of arrogance, hypocrisy, or both to suggest that Clinton's emails are fair game while theirs deserve to be concealed. Just another example of Mississippi's Republican leadership saying, "What's good for the goose is bad for the gander."

Even Marshall Ramsey gets in on the controversy.

Reeves had Sen. Giles Ward (R-Louisville) run interference for him by throwing up an ALL CAPS wall saying that Reeves's emails are not public records. It is likely that Speaker Philip Gunn (R-Clinton) will have House Management Committee Chairman Greg Snowden (R-Meridian) pull a similar move at their next committee meeting in two weeks. Snowden, mind you, has been the primary legislative advocate for ballot language that was intentionally meant to confuse voters when they head to the polls in November.

Opponents of public education have admitted that they are asserting their influence over non-partisan budget staff to frame funding public education in a negative light. In fact, the state's budget director said so herself that she is being contacted by anti-public education legislators.

“The Legislative Budget Office works for the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. As I do with all major decisions, I consulted with the leaders of the committee in crafting the language.”

Only weeks ago, it was Tate Reeves who championed transparency with respect to state agencies submitting budget requests online to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. Yet, when it comes to Reeves's office, he's off limits.

Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves said the update to the website also reinforces legislative leaders' commitment to transparency for how tax dollars are spent. He said the proposal was met with some opposition throughout state government but that "told me it was more important that we get it done."

"If you post it for all to see, it will make agencies and agency directors think twice about spending taxpayers' money in an irresponsible manner," Reeves said in an interview. "No agency director or politician wants to be called out for irresponsible spending habits."

This obstruction of transparency should be alarming for the public because it highlights the legislative branch is holding itself to a different standard. This refusal by the Republicans to disclose their government emails cloaks any communication that could have occurred between the Republican legislature and anti-public education forces like Empower Mississippi while they passed policies to cripple public education.

What Gunn and Reeves expect is for voters to believe that they followed protocol by having their respective oversight bodies make the judgement on whether to release government emails from Gunn, Reeves, and their staff. Don't be fooled by this facade.

Rather than admit whether they had or had not sent emails on government servers and through government email accounts, Gunn and Reeves are choosing to hide their attacks on public education from public view, and the Republican drumbeat against public education gets louder.

Announcing the Bomgar Caucus

With the dust clearing from Tuesday's primary elections, we know one of the biggest losers of the night was public education.

Empower PAC, a group promoting charter schools and for-profit education spent tens of thousands of dollars against incumbent legislators - and they won. Big time. Empower was able to defeat DeSoto County Republicans Forrest Hamilton, Wanda Jennings, Pat Nelson, and Gene Alday. They also went after Republican Rep. Ray Rogers of Rankin County but were unsuccessful.

While Empower was sending checks to its anti-public education candidates, House Speaker Philip Gunn (R-Clinton) sat idly by while members of his own Republican caucus took hit after hit only to fall last night. Since Gunn is doing Empower's bidding, it seems that good riddance is the best Gunn will offer his soon-to-depart colleagues from DeSoto County.

Dan Eubanks, the candidate who defeated Gene Alday, produced the video below with his brother, Dave. Dave Eubanks challenged incumbent Republican Sen. Chris Massey of DeSoto County but was unsuccessful.

Empower, which claims to seek better schooling options for marginalized children, funded the Eubanks campaign to the tune of about $21,000. Those funds must have assisted in Eubanks's widely-circulated song about "Mississippi values" featuring a disgusting racist caricature around the 1:27 mark. Then again, maybe the racist video was part of a calculated political strategy cooked up by Empower's out-of-state benefactors in order to peel GOP primary voters away from incumbent Gene Alday, who infamously said, "... all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call 'welfare crazy checks.'"

Joel Bomgar, the financial muscle behind this plot to defeat public education supporters, won a solid victory in his race for House District 58 in Madison County. Using his personal fortune, Bomgar spent what it took in order to capture this seat.

With Bomgar and his Empower-bought supporters heading to the Capitol in January, Mississippi's public education supporters should be terrified. There are now five more Republicans who will join a caucus already doing their best to undermine public education across Mississippi. With the Bomgar Caucus ready to fight public education, the statement still stands: You can either support public education or be a Republican, but you cannot do both.

Empowering Bipartisan Opponents of Public Education

Last week, we discussed Empower Mississippi and their efforts to destabilize Mississippi's public education system. This group's out-of-state money has already poured tens of thousands of dollars into Republican legislative campaigns across the state to defeat supporters of public education.

While Empower has focused most of its energy at defeating Republicans who support public education, they have also given money to a Democratic legislator who has helped push along their anti-public school agenda.

Rep. Deborah Dixon 

Meet Rep. Deborah Dixon (D-Raymond). This first-term member has the distinction as being the only co-sponsor to the 2013 charter school bill that was signed by Governor Bryant. Dixon has been an ally of Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn, as he passes bills to hurt public education. For instance, Dixon supported the Republicans' bill to slash funding to public education earlier this year. 

To reward Dixon for her assistance, Empower and its anti-public school funds donated $2,500 to Dixon's campaign while giving her a grade of A for her votes against public education. According to Dixon's finance report, she accepted their anti-public school money.

You can be a Republican (or Deborah Dixon) or you can support public education, but you cannot do both.

Empowering Opponents of Public Education

In the Haley Barbour years, Mississippi Republicans at least voiced some support for public education. Even then-Lt. Governor Phil Bryant campaigned on the promise that he would always fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP.) As anyone who has observed the Republicans' shameless tactics to undermine Initiative 42 can tell you, Republican support for public schools has come completely unraveled over the past several years. What's changed?

Many Republicans have probably just started showing their true colors. For years, they would voice support for MAEP while voting to under-fund it. There were a few who really did support public education - mainly from districts with strong public schools, such as Lafayette, DeSoto, Madison, and Rankin counties. Their reversal seems to have been dictated by outside pressure rather than personal philosophy or the interests of their constituents.

Thanks to financial disclosures posted on the Secretary of State's website, we can start to get a picture of who is applying that pressure. A campaign finance report for an anti-public education political action committee, Empower PAC, shows some disturbing information about our elected officials' stances on public education. We already know that Republicans are not supporters of public education, and the information in this report further backs that up.

Between January 1 to April 30, 2015, this PAC received nearly $365,000 in donations from anti-public education forces such as state House candidate Joel Bomgaars of Madison and the Mississippi Federation for Children PAC, an ALEC-aligned organization, which is oddly based in Virginia. Who is the Federation for Children, you might ask?

The national organization is chaired by former Michigan Republican Party Chair Betsy DeVos. Her husband, Richard, unsuccessfully ran for governor of Michigan in 2006, as a Republican, while spending $35 million of his own money on the race. For Mississippi's purposes, the Chairman of the Mississippi Federation for Children PAC is Greg Brock, a person who is listed with a Washington, DC, address. To give you a sense of his feelings on public education, he led an unsuccessful school voucher initiative in 2000. The DeVos family, as well as billionaires Alice and Jim Walton of Walmart, have poured a tremendous amount of money into anti-public education efforts in recent years. That money is now seeping into Mississippi politics.

Republican candidates for statewide and legislative offices are indirect recipients of the DeVos and Walton money to undermine Mississippi's public education system. If you recall from this year's legislative session, state Rep. Forrest Hamilton spoke from the House Well claiming that he was to be the target of forces who want to hurt public education while Speaker Gunn demanded to know the source of this speculation. Hamilton was right. Hamilton's Republican primary opponent, Dana Criswell, has received at least $11,000 from Empower PAC. Steve Hopkins, who is challenging fellow DeSoto County Republican Rep. Wanda Jennings, has received at least $11,000. Mind you that Hamilton and Jennings both oppose legislation advocating vouchers and charter schools. Longtime Republican Rep. Ray Rogers of Rankin County voted against charter schools in 2013, and now he is a target of Empower. Rogers's opponent, Randall Stephens, has received over $11,000 to take on this race.

Not all incumbents are targets, however.

• Lafayette County Republicans like Senate Education Committee Chairman Gray Tollison and House Education Committee member Brad Mayo both received $2,500 from Empower PAC.
• House Education Committee Chairman John Moore received $2,000.
• Republican Rep. Carolyn Crawford (who serves on the House Education Committee) received $5,000.
• Republican Rep. Joey Hood received $2,000.
• Republican Rep. Randy Boyd (who serves on the House Education Committee) received $2,500.
• Republican Rep. Charles Busby (who serves on the House Education Committee and was the floor manager of the charter school bill) received $2,500.
• Republican Lt. Governor Tate Reeves (who is a product of the Rankin County school system) received $5,000.

The evidence is abundantly clear that Republicans do not care about public education; it's been said before and will be said again. You can be a Republican or you can support public education, but you cannot do both.