What To Expect: Republicans Fighting the Unarmed Union Army

This is Part 4 of a series this week of what to expect from the Mississippi Legislature this session.

Republican leadership in Mississippi and the rest of the country has a deep fear of unions. Leaders in our state have been doing everything they can to prevent them from forming (i.e. the Nissan plant in Canton), and around the country, they’ve been taking every opportunity to destroy and destabilize unions. It’s not that they fear some sort of criminal element developing from unions – what they fear is their friends not making every possible cent off the backs of hard working Mississippians. 

But an interesting article in the Washington Post in December highlighted the not only the day-to-day issues families in low-wage manufacturing jobs are facing, but the clearly laid out tactic of corporations to capitalize on the unskilled and poorly educated workforce in the South. 

These companies go to rural areas with staggeringly high unemployment rates and make promises of pay and good fortune. Of course, the state has to offer insane incentive packages that clearly benefit the company and not the state or workers.

And what happens when these promises and pay don’t materialize, and people working 40 hours a week at a manufacturing job have to live on welfare or lose their job if they become injured or are really never hired by the company because they’ve been employed through a temp agency for a full-time job? 

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

We’ve seen it for years at the Nissan plant in Canton, and the Washington Post article highlights the issues facing other rural areas. But, people are taking a stand. They want to be paid a good wage to earn their two cars and a boat. I’m sure Republicans will do everything they can to prevent it, but when the National Labor Relations Board calls you out for violations, your company is not on the right path. 

What may prove to be even more interesting in these labor and wage issues, as well as development of new jobs, is how it ties in to all these promised tax breaks to businesses, which Republican leadership swears we can 1) afford, 2) will produce more jobs and better pay for Mississippians. But, I wonder what Wal-Mart will do with it’s newly saved inventory tax dollars – will they hire more workers, pay them better, or offer everyone health insurance? Or, will they pocket it and continue raking in the profits?

What To Expect: Mississippi Roads and Bridges Falling Through the Cracks and Potholes

This is Part 3 of a series this week highlighting what to expect from the Mississippi Legislature this session.

For the past few years, legislative leaders and business leaders have been sounding the alarm at the deteriorating condition of Mississippi’s infrastructure. Article after article has highlighted the problems with our extensive network of state highways and bridges. It’s so bad that PEER is recommending an official chain of command to alert bus drivers and school districts of faulty bridges.

Last year seemed to be the year – this was it – the Mississippi Economic Council pounded the war drum and called on their legislative friends to make this happen. But, when Republicans realized they were going to have to raise the gas tax… gasp… during an election year… plans were curtailed to letting MEC has a study committee.

While many study committees become a place where ideas go to die, MEC has in fact “studied” the issue, and they are looking at the legislature to make it happen this year. Their plan includes making people who use the roads pay for the roads – in other words – a regressive increase in the gas tax. 

If this all comes to fruition through a gas tax increase (or some other tax or fee because there just isn’t money lying around to fix all the infrastructure needs), Republicans will have to vote for it. There will be no way to politically manipulate the situation as in year’s past and force the Democrats and safe Republicans to vote for it and then assault them in mail pieces come election time. 

In the meantime, safe driving. Watch for other cars, watch for animals, and watch for falling bridges.

What To Expect: A New Year, Same Tired Republican Excuses

This is Part 2 of a series this week highlighting what to expect from the Mississippi Legislature this session.

If the very calculated and well-funded defeat of Initiative 42 did not clearly spell out that the Republicans are not for the funding of a public education system, there is not much else we could say on this blog to prove this fact to you. 

The problem is, our education system needs an infusion of money. We can go round and round about where the money should come from, how it should be spent on kids and not administration, and on and on and on. But the fact remains, quality people and facilities cost money. Money that our schools do not have, as repeated over and over again during the Initiative 42 battle. Money that is needed – money to pay for teachers, money to pay for walls and roofs, money to pay for textbooks and working computers.

With all those big businesses and lobbyists and associations backing the anti-Initiative 42 on behalf of Gov. Bryant, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, and Speaker Gunn, all three are now beholden to them and their wish list of tax breaks and incentives for companies and businesses. 

Republicans have announced that they plan to fund K-12 at current levels. Which means, underfund K-12 for another year. Instead of coming up with a plan to generate revenue, or not cut more corporate taxes, Republicans are developing a plan to move the goal posts and change the MAEP formula so the same or less amount of money will magically fully-fund education. 

When looking at what’s going on around the country in terms of charter schools, it’s hard not to get cynical about the next four years for public education. Republicans have basically been setting up unrealistic goals for public schools or defunding schools to the point where they cannot meet basic standards (or a combination) in order to convert schools to “charter schools.” But don’t think of these schools as the ones fought over a few years back – these are for-profit institutions using state money to run schools. ALEC and their friends in Indiana have already developed model legislation that will surely make its way to Mississippi.

What to expect: Republicans Love Low Wages

As we enter the 2016 legislative session, Cottonmouth will be sharing a series of posts on what to expect. This is the first time the Republicans have held both chambers and the executive branch. We'll be focusing on a few issues early on, and we'll be watching as the session progresses. 

Mississippi workers don’t get paid very much. For the most part, the pay is less than less than very much. Most agencies have been decrying the problem for years, along with college leaders who are training Mississippians to go work in other states. Our Republican leadership has pretty much ignored the problem for the past 12 years, but there are two things that might bring it to the forefront in the next year.

First, prominent Republican-appointees are taking the issue to the media. MDOC head Marshall Fisher has been complaining about the poor pay rate and high turnover rate of correction officers since before his first day on the job. In interviews last week with the newly appointed foster-care head, Justice David Chandler criticized how social workers are paid less than teachers. While the legislature did find a way to raise teacher pay a few years ago, Mississippi teachers are still some of the lowest paid in the country. And yes, social workers are paid less than teachers – a lot less.

Second, the complete lack of income growth across the country (and, of course in our own state) will be a presidential issue next year. There is no avoiding the topic, as much as Republicans may want to. So far, no elected officials are making better pay their issue. For starters, in every agency, most of the pay rates for each job are so much lower than even our southern counterparts, it’s hard to even know where or how much to begin with – it’s really that bad. It’s easy for politicians and the state to get away with paying people less when they promote the retirement and healthcare benefits. However, the actual take home pay for most people, especially starting out is not anywhere equal to the dream of “two cars and a boat,” that Governor Bryant is touting with workforce training. Plus, most of these jobs (social workers, teachers) require a four-year college degree. So, not only are people taking home $1515/month*, but they also are probably paying off some sort of student loan.

Republicans might offer incremental raises to the lowest paid workers, or to MDOC officers and DHS workers, or some combination, but it’s doubtful they’ll be able to raise the pay to 1) attract quality candidates who will stay or 2) compete with other states’ pay rates. Perhaps, this will wait until 2019.

*Where this math came from: Entry level DHS job posting in Hinds County has a pay rate of $23,643. When entered into an online take-home pay calculator, without taking anything for retirement or additional medical insurance payments, and factoring this at the single and no dependents rate, take home pay was approximately $1515/month.

Teacher pay raise rally at the Capitol at 2:00 pm today

A teacher pay raise rally will be held at 2:00 p.m. today.  WLBT has a story about it, and there are efforts underway to provide shuttling from the Fairgrounds.  You can get the latest information here: https://www.facebook.com/teacherpayraise.

Mississippi House Democrats to release legislative agenda tomorrow

From the House Democratic Caucus just now:

House Democrats Press Conference Scheduled for January 15

Mississippi House Democratic Caucus Press

Contact:          Rep. Bobby Moak, (601) 668-4194

January 14, 2014

Jackson, MS- Members of the Mississippi House Democratic Caucus will hold a press conference on the 2^nd floor of the Capitol at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 15.  The purpose of this conference is to announce the Mississippi Achievement Plan, the Democratic legislative agenda for the 2014 session.

###

Update: Uninsured driving costs at Hancock hospital

Last month, we reported on the financials woes at the Hancock Medical Center. Yesterday, they announced a new partnership with Oschner Health System based in Louisiana.

The new partnership will help Hancock Medical Center address the $11 million in uncompensated care that has caused major financial issues. And how will Oschner help with this? Primary care and assisting in Medicaid enrollment for eligible patients.

Of course, Medicaid expansion in Mississippi would assist with allowing people to have more access to primary care and compensate hospitals for services provided. As the the tea-party legislature beat the anti-expansion drum during the budget hearings this week, you have to wonder how many more stories of hospital financial ruin (such as the one posted yesterday) will occur before they'll get on board.

Some brief thoughts on the Newtown massacre, and how it relates to Mississippi

There have been many people saying many touching, eloquent things about a tragedy from which our nation will recover, but never quite heal.  The Newtown massacre is an event horrible beyond description.

But the event does force us to deal with something we have avoided; something we have been too lazy or disinterested to handle before.  And like any matter we avoid in our individual lives, our society's problems don't go away simply because we pretend they don't exist.  You probably think I'm talking about gun control, but I'm not.  Our society as a whole, and our state in particular, has a problem with mental health.

Liza Long has a compelling piece on The Huffington Post entitled "'I Am Adam Lanza's Mother': A Mom's Perspective On The Mental Illness Conversation In America."  In a touching, frightening, and important read, Long describes the difficulties she has obtaining adequate mental health treatment for her teenage son.  While he is intelligent and at most times loving, her child suffers from mental health issues that can make him a danger to himself and others.  Her son's mental health issues are not being adequately treated, and honestly, won't be.  The only entity with the resources to handle the mental health issues Long's son faces is the State of Idaho, where they live.  But the only way the state will be interested is if her son is charged with a crime.

I wish I could say things are different here in Mississippi.  The Mississippi Department of Mental health was one of former Gov. Haley Barbour's frequent budget-cutting targets.  (The Mississippi Economic Policy Center has a look at what's happened to the Department of Mental Health's budget over the last few years.)  In fact, our mental health system is so poorly run, the U.S. Department of Justice has found that we are actually operating in violation of federal law.  (Here's a letter with their findings from December last year.)

In Mississippi, most folks think that our mentally ill go to the State Hospital at Whitfield.  Those of us who spend our careers in the criminal justice system know better, though.  The mentally ill in this state actually go to our jails. Instead of getting the treatment they need in facilities established to help them be productive citizens, they suffer from their diseases and wind up committing crimes.  Crimes certainly (and thankfully) on a smaller scale than what we saw in Newtown last week, but real crimes nonetheless, with real victims.

I know this because these people with mental illnesses, our fellow Mississippians, have been my clients.  In some cases, I have seen with my own eyes the pictures of their bloodied, lifeless victims; I have held in my hands the gun, the knife, or the hammer that did the damage.  In others, I have witnessed the recorded statements of the grandmother kidnapped and robbed, of the child beaten and burned. And nearly every time, my client had a mental illness that was going untreated.

There's always a lot of talk in Mississippi about being "tough on crime", as if harshly punishing the criminal somehow makes the victim whole again.  It doesn't.  Ask anyone who has ever lost a loved one to crime.  Ask the parents of those children in Newtown if they would rather have their child back or have been able to kill Adam Lanza themselves.

You want to know how to really be tough on crime?  You want to know how to really be on the side of victims?  Support our state's mental health system so that they don't become victims in the first place.

The Legislature is getting ready to go back into session next month.  Will they pass legislation to give teachers guns?  Or will they do something that actually matters and prevents crime?

***BREAKING - NAACP SEEKS TO HAVE 2011 LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS SET ASIDE***

Just in case you thought the 2011 legislative redistricting issue was dead... NAACP Motion to Set Aside 2011 Legislative Elections

RIP Rick Lambert, attorney and former legislative champion for public education

Former Hattiesburg representative Rick Lambert left this life Monday.  Lambert was an attorney and served as a Democrat in the Mississippi Senate from 1980-1992, where he left a record of dedication to public education.  His obituary may be found here.

I wish his family well as they mourn the loss of this great Mississippian.

Jack Elliot, Jr. provides the numbers behind running the Legislature

Jack Elliot, Jr.'s opinion piece in the Clarion-Ledger gives us some interesting numbers concerning the cost of the Legislature.  Some excerpts:

From April 12, 2011 to May 3 of this year, it took $22,056 of coffee and $13,406 of bottled water to wet the whistles of legislators, staff members and just about any member of the public who wandered through the Capitol.
...
Overall, it cost taxpayers $20.6 million to run the Legislature for the 13-month period ending May 3, according to the annual report released by the state auditor's office. The previous 13 months, it was $18.5 million.

It's a good read, and I recommend it.  It's always a good thing to be informed about the cost of the government. 

Johnson & Johnson becomes the latest major corporation to leave radical ALEC group

In what has become a trend, another large American corporation is leaving the radical conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, an outfit known for pushing the legislation behind Florida's "stand your ground" law and numerous voter disenfranchisement laws.  Today, Johnson & Johnson announced that it would no longer be affiliated with the group that has been exposed of late as a front group for corporations looking to influence state legislation.  Some of the legislation ALEC has supported has been legislation that sought to disenfranchise minority voters.

Harvard Study: Jackson among most corrupt state capitals

A study by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government lays out what many of us living in the Magnolia State know well: Jackson is home to one of the most corrupt state governments in the country. The study (see below) focuses on the relationship between state government corruption and the relative isolation of the state capital from the majority of the state's population. At first, naming Jackson as a leader in corruption would seem to undermine the theory of the study, which is that corruption grows the further the state capital is from major population centers. After all, Jackson is the largest city in Mississippi by far, and sits at the center of the state's largest metropolitan area.

Reading a bit more of the study, you'll see that in actuality, the study is a condemnation of our state's media over the period from 1979-2002. (That's the era from which data was collected for the study.) I have no reason to believe it's improved since then, especially considering that Mississippi's only statewide newspaper, the Clarion-Ledger, appears to be dwindling away before our very eyes. Thanks, Gannett!

Facts like these are what animate many citizens, from Tea Party members to good-government Democrats. With the demise of the stalwarts of old media, hopefully new media can do a better job over the next generation informing the populous of what goes on underneath the dome at the corner of Mississippi and Congress in Downtown Jackson.

Of course, they'll have to actually care about what's going on, which is a whole other matter altogether. (The authors of the study appear to think that state capital isolation is what breeds lower education spending, while I can't help but wonder if the two are related at all, and if they are, whether or not that's a chicken and egg problem.)

Here's a link to an L.A. Times article on the study which gives a synopsis, and here's the actual Harvard study itself:

Harvard Study on State Government Corruption

David Baria's new ad

Here's David Baria's new TV spot:

But wait, THERE'S MORE! The newly uncovered legal brief also wants to shift PERS management to private hands

I mean, really.  Who saw this coming?

Yesterday, I said that the Republican attack on PERS is nothing more than a political payback scheme designed at a national level to shift management of state pensions to private hands.  So, guess what's in that legal brief from the Mississippi Center for Public Policy?  One of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy's recommended solutions reads as follows:

New employees and all persons hired after July 1, 2007 who have not accrued eight years of time in service can be switched to a defined-contribution plan. (Savings to the State multiply: When each employee manages his own fund, PERS won’t need to employ so many investment managers. PERS added 12 managers over the past ten years to the 17 that were on staff in 2000. Switching to the defined-contribution plan would allow most of the 29 investment managers to leave PERS and find work in the private sector – perhaps advising state employees seeking to invest the funds in their retirement accounts. The State would stop paying the high salaries of several public investment managers and would stop contributing to those investment managers’ retirements.) - Page 6 (Emphasis added)

So, there you go.  Republicans would have public employees, on their low wages, hire investment analysts to tell them how to invest their money.  Honestly, haven't we done enough to bail out Wall Street?

Would a Republican-controlled House finish off our justice system?

Philip Thomas has an excellent post up about the possible effects of a Republican-controlled Mississippi House of Representatives on Mississippi's justice system. Most readers of this blog know how dramatically the legal market in Mississippi nosedived after tort reform in the early 2000's. Now Republican Gubernatorial nominee Phil Bryant has designs on taking it even further, into a "loser pays" system.

I'm sure a good number of folks in the defense bar will no doubt support Republican candidates for the House, and their staff will as well, no matter how detrimental such support may be to their own interests. Why is it detrimental? Well, a "loser pays" system would all but shut the courthouse doors to people without enormous sums of money. That means dramatically fewer lawsuits, and therefore, less work for defense attorneys. Less work for defense attorneys means less defense firms, less demand for paralegals, clerical jobs, and office real estate. The spiral is plainly evident, and we even have recent history as a guide. Philip's done a great job laying all of this out at his blog, and I strongly suggest you head over there to read his work.

Dorsey Carson to hold fundraiser tomorrow night

Dorsey Carson, a Jackson attorney, is running against Rep. Bill Denny (R-Jackson) for House District 64. A longtime resident of the district, the younger, energetic Carson should be a tough out for Rep. Denny, who is getting up there in years. Carson is holding a fundraiser Tuesday night at Hal & Mal's in Jackson, and the host list isn't too shabby. Here's a copy of the invite:

Carson Invitation

Kent Alexander for America

Our research team ran across this in a survey of the interwebs:

Mr. Alexander, an insurance salesman from Saucier, is planning to qualify as a Republican candidate for House District 93, a seat that has been occupied for 14 years by Representative Dirk Dedeaux (D-Perkinston), the Chairman of the House Medicaid Committee.

To this, we say, why wait? As the poll below captured from The Right Side Online shows, the road to the Republican nomination for 2012 is wide open and interestingly led by Senator Chris McDaniels of Laurel.