JXN // politics
Road to a Gentleman’s Surrender
Gov. Tate Reeves Strikes Hard, Then Bows to Legislature
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‘More About Power Than People’ Across the street, Gov. Tate Reeves was fulminating about the insurrection by leaders of his own party. He railed against the Legislature with a sound and fury rarely seen in his public addresses. “Tying the hands of these two great human beings,” Reeves said, referring to Mississippi Emergency Management Agency Director Greg Michel and State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, “who have worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week simply because you’re interested in who is in control, because you care more about power than people, is wrong.” To hear it from Reeves, the Legislature fiddled while Mississippi burned, gambling with the lives and livelihoods of its people through unnecessary legalistic dissembling. “They want us to guess how much money we need for emergency supplies,
and budget based on that guess,” Reeves said, disgust in his voice. “Best-case scenario, they overestimate and send a whole lot of money back to the federal government when it goes unused. Worst-case scenario, they underestimate, and people die because we can’t get them what they need.” As the governor raged, the Legislature voted. Two senators—Chris McDaniel, R-Ellisville, and Melanie Sojourner, RNatchez—stood with Reeves. Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, voted present. Every other lawmaker who voted, across both parties and houses, stood with Hosemann and Gunn—a hyper-majority that made a grim prospect of the governor’s veto power. For the next week, as the bill steeped
ber. I guess I’m happy to see that—I just pray they remain strict constructionists for the remainder of their term.” Rare Moment of Unity The showdown was long in the making. The political daylight between Hosemann and Reeves was the subject of much discussion during last year’s election. Policy differences, including conflicting opinions on Medicaid expansion, provided the possibility for a party schism. At an event in 2019, Hosemann spoke glowingly of the days when “we worked across the aisle, back when Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, and Republicans controlled the other side.” courtesy state of Mississippi
rom the gallery above the Mississippi House of Representatives, Speaker Philip Gunn cut a lonely figure as he gaveled in the Legislature on May 1, an empty hall ahead of him. The Capitol soaked in a frenetic quiet, with crowds of legislators dispersed through the building, traveling one by one to the House floor to speak over a live stream, a 21st-century concession to a 20th-century catastrophe. Lawmakers discussed only one bill, 45 days after the Legislature had last met, and an amendment at that. Senate Bill 2772 was a two-page escalation to a sudden, furious battle over who in Mississippi would control the state’s coffers in an emergency like COVID-19. The prize was authority, formal control over the process of doling out $1.15 billion in federal relief funds from the Congressional CARES Act. Hours before, in the Capitol rotunda, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Gunn stood shoulder to shoulder—with 6 feet interceding—laying out their case for their right to take command of the funds. Gunn, a Republican from Clinton, quoted a Mississippi Supreme Court decision from 1905: “Indeed, it is the supreme legislative prerogative, indispensable to the independence and integrity of the legislature, and not to be surrendered or abridged, save by the Constitution itself, without disturbing the balance of the system and endangering the liberties of the people.”
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann (right) and House Speaker Philip Gunn (left) have triumphed, for now, in their battle for appropriations authority over Gov. Tate Reeves (center), coming together on May 7 to announce a “pause” in the Legislature’s favor.
on the governor’s desk, Reeves jabbed the legislative branch from his daily press briefings. The following Monday, Reeves floated the idea of “stabilization payments” for barbers and salon owners, their businesses still closed by executive fiat. But there was a catch: “Plans such as that are threatened by the reckless action of the Mississippi Legislature in a hastily called meeting late on Friday afternoon,” Reeves said. McDaniel, who emerged as one of the governor’s only vocal defenders in the Senate debate, could scarcely contain his sarcasm in an interview. “The entire body was hiding behind constitutionality,” McDaniel said. “I was a bit shocked that, all of a sudden, we found all these strict constructionists in the cham-
And so it came to pass. The struggle with the governor brought a rare moment of unity to the Capitol. Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, joined Hosemann and Gunn, representing the Democratic wedge lobbying for their own seat at the table. “I think it’s bipartisan that the $1.25 billion coming to the state of Mississippi should be managed by the Legislature,” Simmons told the Jackson Free Press. Marty Wiseman, director emeritus of the John C. Stennis Institute at Mississippi State University, was one of many political observers unsurprised by Hosemann fielding a broad coalition against Reeves. “I consider Delbert Hosemann very much a pragmatist, in that he can bracket the whole
partisan argument between Republicans and Democrats in order to accomplish a goal,” Wiseman said in an interview. At the day’s end, Simmons filtered out of the Capitol with the rest of the lawmakers, not to return until the following Thursday when the Legislature came back to finish the session and appropriate the money it had claimed. His face was half obscured by the pastel blue of a surgical mask, but it couldn’t hide his smile. What the Democratic delegates will receive in exchange for their assistance prying the CARES money out of the hands of Reeves, his Restart Mississippi board and the still-undetermined “third party administrator” he intended as oversight remains to be seen. “I’m very optimistic,” Simmons said in an interview on May 11. “I’m hopeful that those who otherwise would not have an opportunity to be heard or represented are at the table.” On May 7, the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus requested $457 million of the relief funds for the “Black Empowerment RESET Initiative,” a percentage of the total roughly proportional to Mississippi’s black population. The funds will go to grants to minority-owned businesses, funding for federally qualified health centers critical to rural health-care access, and other policies. The first bill intended to formally appropriate the CARES Act funds is the “2020 COVID-19 Mississippi Business Assistance Act.” The Act, in its nascent form in the Senate Appropriations Committee, would task the Mississippi Development Authority with doling out grants between $1,000 and $25,000 to small businesses in Mississippi with fewer than 50 employees, worth less than $500,000 and that do not derive income from passive investments. Of the $100 million set aside from the new act, the administrator must spend $15 million on minority-owned businesses. Here the Legislature faces its first great hurdle in doling out the money Reeves insisted only his gubernatorial council and oversight body could properly disburse. “You’ve got good hard-working folks that may have a crew of five, six, seven people working for them, and they keep basic records out of a shoebox so that they can pay income tax and Social Security for their employees,” Wiseman said. “But now they more GENTLEMAN’S SURRENDER, p 10
May 13 - 26, 2020 • boomjackson.com
// by Nick Judin
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