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President Donald Trump’s push to redraw the nation’s U.S. House districts received mixed results Tuesday as South Carolina senators defied his desires but Missouri’s top court upheld a new map that could help Republicans win an additional seat in the November midterm elections.

Rather than waning, a national redistricting battle that began 10 months ago has intensified — inflamed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act and provided grounds for states to try to eliminate voting districts with large minority populations.

Republican lawmakers in Louisiana are wrestling with how politically aggressive to be when redrawing House districts after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a majority-Black district as an illegal racial gerrymander.

The ripples of the Louisiana ruling already have led to new U.S. House districts in Tennessee and have extended to Alabama, where Republican Gov. Kay Ivey announced an Aug. 11 special primary for four of the state’s seven congressional districts. That came after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned an order mandating use of a map with two largely Black districts. The state plans to switch to a map passed in 2023 that has only one majority-Black district, giving Republicans a chance to win an additional seat.

Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from new House maps enacted so far in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee. Democrats, meanwhile, think they could gain six seats from new maps in California and Utah. The Virginia Supreme Court last week struck down a redistricting effort that could have yielded four more winnable seats for Democrats.

Missouri court upholds split of Kansas City

Missouri was the second Republican state, after Texas, to redraw its congressional districts at Trump’s urging last year.

Tuesday’s two unanimous state Supreme Court decisions, delivered just hours after arguments, “are a complete victory for Missouri and for the people’s elected representatives,” Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said in a statement.

Attorneys for voters challenging Missouri’s new map had focused on changes to a Kansas City-based district long represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who previously was the city’s first Black mayor.

The new map takes a compact urban district that covered 20 miles (32 kilometers) and two counties and stretches it 200 miles (322 kilometers) over 15 counties, distorting it “into a sprawling behemoth that cuts clear across the state to unite territories that share nothing in common,” said Abha Khanna, a partner in the Elias Law Group, a Democratic firm.

But the Supreme Court upheld a March decision by a lower court, which found the map as a whole satisfied the compactness requirement even though the Kansas City district may look less compact. No Missouri court has ever struck down a congressional map for not being compact, said attorney John Gore, who defended the districts on behalf of the Republican Party.

A second case heard by the high court centered on whether the new map took effect in December, as asserted by Hanaway and Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, or whether it should have been suspended when referendum signatures were submitted.

To suspend the map before validating the signatures would let activists temporarily undercut laws by submitting boxes of fraudulent signatures, Missouri Solicitor General Lou Capozzi argued.

But to not immediately suspend the map “would dilute the referendum right, if not destroy it altogether,” said attorney Jonathan Hawley, arguing for voters who sued.

The Supreme Court agreed with Republican officials, who contend that the new districts can be suspended only after Hoskins determines the petition meets constitutional requirements and has enough valid signatures. Hoskins has until Aug. 4, the day of Missouri’s primary elections, to make that determination.

South Carolina senator sees risk in redistricting

Trump urged South Carolina to redraw its congressional districts ahead of the November elections in an attempt to help Republicans win another seat. The state House voted in favor of letting lawmakers return after the regular session ends to consider redistricting, and proposed a new map that could eliminate the state’s only Democratic-held seat.

But the Senate had to give permission to take up redistricting, too. The 29-17 vote failed, coming just two votes short of the two-thirds needed, as five Republicans joined all Democrats in opposition. The Senate could try again before its regular work session ends Thursday

Trump had said on social media that he was closely watching the redistricting vote, urging South Carolina senators to “be bold and courageous” and to delay the June 9 House primaries so new districts can be drawn.

Although Republicans have a supermajority in the chamber, some GOP senators weren’t sure the proposed map would guarantee the party could unseat longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn. They also said it could push enough Democrats into other districts to backfire, resulting in a 5-2 or even a 4-3 Republican split.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey acknowledged the pressure from Trump, but said he doesn’t like being asked to bend to someone’s will instead of doing what’s best for his state.

“I got too much Southern in my blood,” Massey said. “I’ve got too much resistance in my heritage.”

Louisiana hearing leads to death threats

Louisiana state Sen. Jay Morris, a Republican who drafted redistricting bills that would eliminate one or both of the state’s majority Black districts, told lawmakers Monday that he received death threats after Friday’s contentious hearing in which he told members of the public to “shut up.”

Morris acknowledged the outburst but denied the Louisiana Democratic Party’s assertion — blasted across social media and in a press release — that he also used the derogatory term “boy” toward its executive director, Dadrius Lanus, who is Black.

State Sen. Gary Carter, one of three Black Democrats serving alongside six white Republicans on the Senate committee overseeing redistricting, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he had withdrawn from the committee “to help restore the decorum and focus that this moment demands” after shouting at Republicans during last Friday’s hearing. Carter publicly apologized on Monday to Morris and his Senate colleagues for having “lost my temper” and for any remarks that were taken as “personal attacks.”

Carter is the nephew of U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat who represents New Orleans and is at risk of losing his seat in the redistricting process. Gary Carter is being replaced on the committee with state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat representing New Orleans.

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Brook reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Chandler from Montgomery, Alabama; Collins from Columbia, South Carolina; and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri.

OXFORD — Mississippi quarterback Trinidad Chambliss is ready to “disappear” for a while.

Having spent the previous eight months under college football’s media microscope, the sixth-year senior smiled when reporters asked about his summer plans once spring practice wrapped up.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said.

For Chambliss, the spring session finished with a weekend meet-and-greet fan function before a weeklong session of spring drills that were closed to reporters.

Chambliss planned to return with family to his childhood hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he was expected to make personal appearances and speeches at school functions. Chambliss regularly touts his hometown roots, his experience at Division II Ferris State and an opportunity to “give back and tell (schoolchildren) if I can make it, you can make it.”

Coach Pete Golding said he encouraged all Ole Miss players to give themselves a break from football following spring football and exams.

“I told them I didn’t want to see them for a few weeks,” said Golding, who is heading into his first regular season as a head coach after going 2-1 in the College Football Playoff last season as current LSU coach Lane Kiffin’s successor.

“I do think it’s really important for them to get away from it,” Golding said. “They need a reset.”

Perhaps no player could appreciate a break more than Chambliss, who’d won a Division II national title in 2024 but remained relatively unknown before Ole Miss QB Austin Simmons was sidelined by an ankle injury. Elevated into a starting role, Chambliss debuted by leading the Rebels to a 41-35 home win over Arkansas.

By the time the season ended in a last-second, CFP semifinal loss to Miami, the dual-threat Chambliss had totaled more than 3,900 yards and accounted for 30 touchdowns.

The Rebels finished 13-2 and ranked No. 4 in the final Associated Press Top 25. Along the way were a handful of victories over ranked teams, including Tulane and Georgia in the CFP. Chambliss routinely produced explosive, clutch plays, overcoming his less-than-ideal size (6-foot-1, 200 pounds) and emerging from a relative obscurity in ways that captured fans’ imagination.

NIL endorsements, estimated at $1.5 million by On3, followed. AT&T, for example, traded off Chambliss’ transfer story, stylish demeanor and puckish smile.

Another big win for Chambliss came off the field after a three-month legal challenge that resulted in an additional year of eligibility. The ruling became a big win for Ole Miss when Chambliss opted to stay in Oxford.

“It was very stressful,” Chambliss said shortly after the Mississippi Supreme Court denied the final appeal by the NCAA in March. “I knew I was going to play football somewhere, either the NFL or here (Ole Miss), but not knowing was tough. I knew whatever happened was in God’s hands, but it was still tough.”

The decision to remain at Ole Miss was less difficult.

“You know, when I visited Oxford from Ferris State, I really liked it here and wasn’t promised anything about being the quarterback,” Chambliss said. “The thing that helped was my parents really liked it here, too, on the visit. We’ve been treated great and once Ole Miss decided to go with PG (Pete Golding), we wanted to stay.”

While Chambliss takes his hiatus from Oxford, the Ole Miss media department intends to organize a Heisman Trophy campaign. Chambliss finished eighth in last year’s voting and has been listed with preseason front-runners Arch Manning of Texas and C.J. Carr of Notre Dame.

Ole Miss has a solid track record with quarterbacks in the Heisman Trophy race, with five – Charlie Conerly, Jake Gibbs, Archie Manning (twice) and Eli Manning — finishing in the top five.

The Rebels also have produced other prominent NFL quarterbacks, including 2025 first-round pick Jaxson Dart of the New York Giants.

The nation’s highest court bought itself more time on Monday to decide whether to restrict the mailing and telehealth prescription of mifepristone, one of two main forms of abortion medication. Mifepristone will continue to be fully accessible through Thursday. 

The case before the Supreme Court originates from a lawsuit Louisiana filed last year, claiming that the accessibility of abortion medication via telehealth subverts the state’s abortion ban. The lawsuit does not name misoprostol, the other form of abortion medication. Experts say doctors will likely shift to prescribing misoprostol-only regimens for abortions and miscarriage management, but that it is not the gold standard of care. The lawsuit opens the door to banning telehealth prescriptions of misoprostol, as well.

Justices have until Thursday to push the deadline back again or make a substantive decision that would affect hundreds of Mississippians who rely on telehealth to access these drugs each month. 

The lawsuit is “the biggest upset since the Dobbs decision,” said Rachel Jones, principal research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research and policy organization. In 2022, the Dobbs decision overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. Since then, the number of abortions performed in the U.S. has paradoxically increased. Experts say that’s largely due to the expansion of telemedicine, which allows patients in states with abortion bans to access abortion medications through the mail. 

Now, the potential federal restriction on mail-order mifepristone could lower the number of abortions in a way that the Dobbs decision, and other state laws — such as one recently passed in Mississippi — have not. 

“This would be the silver bullet that the Mississippi Legislature has been looking for in terms of shutting down access to abortion,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor and abortion historian at the University of California Davis. 

On April 8, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill that will criminalize abortion-inducing drugs in Mississippi, starting July 1. Experts say that on its own, Mississippi’s law likely will not do much to stop the flow of abortion medication coming in from other states. They say the most profound effect of the state’s law will likely take place in doctors’ offices, where providers may become hesitant to prescribe the medications for their non-abortion uses, such as in the case of miscarriages, postpartum hemorrhaging and labor induction, out of fear of their actions being misinterpreted by law enforcement. 

However, despite the profound effect on healthcare, the state’s new law would do little to cut down on the number of abortions happening in the state. That’s because under abortion shield laws, which protect abortion providers, patients and helpers from out-of-state investigations, Mississippians could likely continue to access mail-order abortion medications without consequence, Ziegler said.

In 2023, 65% of abortions in the U.S. were medication abortions. Each month in Mississippi, there are anywhere from 200 to more than 600 medication abortions. 

But the federal case before the Supreme Court could change that. 

“If Mississippi wants to go after doctors in other states,” Ziegler said, “shield laws won’t protect those doctors if the federal law no longer allows them to operate via telehealth.”

The timeline of Louisiana v. FDA

How the case started

• In October 2025, Louisiana sued the Food and Drug Administration, arguing that Louisianans’ ability to receive out-of-state abortion medication in the mail undermines the state’s abortion ban. 
• In December 2025, Louisiana requested an injunction to stop the telehealth prescribing and mailing of mifepristone until the full case was heard in court. 
• In April, Judge David C. Joseph, a federal judge in Louisiana’s Western District, declined that request and ordered a pause on case proceedings until the FDA finished a review of mifepristone. 

This month

• On May 1, a federal appeals court granted Louisiana’s request and rolled back telemedicine access to mifepristone.
• On May 4, the Supreme Court put the appeals court ruling on hold for one week, allowing telemedicine prescriptions of mifepristone to continue. 
• On Monday, the Supreme Court temporarily extended full access to mifepristone through at least Thursday. 

When the lower court restricted access to mifepristone on May 1, nearly two dozen states signed an amicus brief opposing the ruling. They argued the court was prioritizing the policy preferences of states with abortion bans over the policy preferences of states that promote access to abortion care.

Why mifepristone?

Unlike misoprostol, which is FDA approved for several non-abortion conditions, mifepristone is only FDA approved for medication abortions and to treat high blood sugar in adults with Cushing’s syndrome, a rare disease caused by high cortisol levels. 

Because there are fewer approved uses of mifepristone, it is the more obvious target for anti-abortionists, said Dr. Kristin Lyerly, a Wisconsin-based OB-GYN who successfully fought to reinstate legal abortion in her home state. Lyerly said she believes the stigma is part of the reason the drug doesn’t have more approved uses.  

If politics didn’t interfere with science and healthcare, Lyerly said she believes there would be far more approved uses for mifepristone. 

“It’s just been hard to study, it’s been hard to access and it continues to be controversial,” she said.

One of mifepristone’s off-label uses is to aid in miscarriages. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends using a combination of misoprostol and mifepristone, when available. The addition of mifepristone “may significantly improve treatment efficacy,” according to ACOG’s practice bulletin. 

It’s important to note, Lyerly said, that misoprostol-only regimens are safe and highly effective for miscarriage management and abortion care. But they are suboptimal, she said, because of the risk of having to repeat the dosage or undergo another procedure, increased side effects and time away from work. 

If the Supreme Court ultimately rules in favor of Louisiana, Lyerly worries misoprostol and countless other drugs could be banned next. 

“Can you just now wave a magic wand and say that this medication that’s been known to be safe and effective for over 25 years — not just by scientific studies but experience — can you just say that it’s not safe anymore?”

Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share their ideas about our state’s past, present and future. Opinions expressed in guest essays are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Mississippi Today. You can read more about the section here.   

Some of my youngest memories are from the playground at Head Start. I remember the routine, the feeling of safety and the sense of belonging that came with having a place to go each day where adults provided me with quality care.

For my family, Head Start meant stability, and that stability gave me a foundation that helped shape my life and my love for early childhood education.

When I was not at Head Start, I was cared for by a neighbor who provided childcare for families throughout our community. Parents trusted her, children felt comfortable in her home and families relied on her care to make work possible.

That kind of care existed long before formal systems or federal funding streams. Today, it is often referred to as Family, Friend and Neighbor care, or Family Child Care. At the time, it was simply how families supported each other.

That care existed before the federal Child Care and Development Fund was established in 1990. It existed before subsidies, reimbursement systems, applications and eligibility requirements. It has always been part of the childcare system’s backbone, particularly in rural communities and areas with fewer childcare options.

Decades later, it feels like a full-circle moment as I now support and advocate for the same care that helped raise me. I have spent years supporting early childhood education and workforce development while building early educator apprenticeship pathways and working alongside family childcare educators who open their homes each day to care for children. Through this work, I have seen what happens when we invest intentionally in children and the adults who care for them, and I have also seen the consequences when that investment is withdrawn.

Mississippi is now experiencing the latter.

In 2025, cuts to the Child Care Payment Program, combined with the decision to pause applications, pushed the childcare assistance system into crisis.

Providers who were already operating on thin margins have been forced to reduce services or consider closing. Families who depend on childcare to maintain employment are losing access, often with little notice and few alternatives. These impacts are rippling through communities across the state, particularly in rural areas.

A recent report documents what childcare providers across Mississippi have been experiencing for months. Funding shortages have caused significant harm to programs and the families they serve, and since the data was collected, conditions have continued to worsen. More providers are reporting instability, and more families are being left without reliable care.

Family childcare educators are central to this conversation because of their unique role in meeting families’ needs. These programs offer flexible hours, mixed-age care and long-standing relationships with families that cannot be replaced overnight. In many communities, particularly rural and low-access areas, family childcare is the primary option available. When these programs are destabilized or forced to close, families often have few, if any, alternatives.

None of this was unpredictable. Childcare does not operate on margins that can absorb sudden cuts or prolonged uncertainty. Early childhood educators still have rent to pay, food to purchase, utilities to cover and staff to compensate, regardless of whether payments are delayed or assistance is paused. 

Programs like Head Start were created with the recognition that supporting children early strengthens families and communities over time. Childcare plays a similar role. It is essential infrastructure that allows parents to work, businesses to function and children to grow in stable environments.

The solutions before us are practical and achievable. Childcare providers need predictable, uninterrupted funding to plan, staff and keep their doors open. Families need consistent access to assistance so they can work without fear of losing care.

Mississippi must treat childcare as essential infrastructure for its workforce and economy, with stable funding and timely payments rather than temporary fixes or pauses. 

As a native Mississippian, a product of Head Start, and someone who has spent a career building early childhood systems, I know what is at stake. When we fail to invest in childcare, we have gravely missed the mark as a society. 

Mississippi once invested in me, and that investment made a lasting difference. Every child in this state deserves the same opportunity, and the responsibility now rests with our leaders to ensure that opportunity is not out of reach.

Eboni Delaney is the director of Policy and Movement Building at the National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC), and a Public Voices Fellow of the OpEd Project in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute.

Doug Hutton of Clinton and Mississippi State was surely one of the most gifted and versatile athletes in Mississippi history. What you need to know about that is this: You never would have learned about Hutton’s remarkable athletic exploits from Doug, who died Saturday at the age of 84. He was as humble as he was versatile.

Without question, Hutton enjoyed the greatest day in the history of the Mississippi High School Basketball Tournament with two performances that more than 66 years later still boggle the mind. This was before there was a Mississippi Coliseum, before there was a 3-point line, and, yes, before integration. It was also before ESPN and SportsCenter, which is a shame, because if it happened today, the whole sports world would know know about it.

This was back when the State Tournament championship was held at old City Auditorium in Jackson. The semifinals were played in the afternoon, the finals the same night. On March 5, 1960, William Douglas Hutton performed a basketball feat for the ages.

That afternoon, Hutton scored a state tournament-record 47 points to lead Clinton to a 95-79 victory over Philadelphia. Six hours later, before a standing-room-only crowd of nearly 3,000, Hutton broke his own record, scoring 54 points in Clinton’s  81-72 victory over Florence.

That’s right, Hutton, who stood all of 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighed all of 150 pounds, scored 101 points in one memorable day of basketball. In two games, Hutton made 38 of 71 field goal attempts and 25 of 31 free throws.

“To me, it’s still unbelievable,” Hutton told me years ago. “I had no idea I had scored that many points. I was so involved in the game, I didn’t realize what was going on. If you had asked me after the games how many points I had scored, I would have said, maybe, 30.”

In the stands watching that afternoon and night was Babe McCarthy, the Mississippi State basketball coach. State was Hutton’s dream school. He had grown up rooting for the Bulldogs, who, under McCarthy, had begun to challenge Kentucky for SEC basketball supremacy.

McCarthy had held out on offering Hutton a scholarship, probably because of Doug’s height and slight build. Hutton thought he would probably wind up playing at Mississippi College. But how could you ignore 101 points in one day? McCarthy could not. He signed Hutton the very next day and he had his future point guard. Back then, freshmen could not play varsity basketball, but Hutton was a three-year starter and and a key player on back-to-back SEC championship teams.

But that’s not all. He also pitched for State’s Diamond Dogs and made All-SEC in baseball. In 1963, he achieved a perfect 5-0 record and a 2.15 earned run average. In ’64, he won his first three decisions before hurting his arm.

And that’s not all. In track and field, competing at the same season as he was playing baseball, Hutton ran on the SEC Championship 4×100 relay team and also long-jumped over 24 feet.

And, still, that’s not all. Later, he became a coach, including freshman basketball coach at State the year after he graduated. Later, he coached high school teams at Hazlehurst, Florence and in his hometown of Clinton. Besides being in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, he also is a member of the Mississippi Association of Coaches Hall of Fame. His 1990 Clinton Arrows won the state baseball championship.

That’s not all either: Trust me on this, if you were playing golf with Doug Hutton, you wanted to be on his team. That way, you could win. See the photo above. That’s Doug on the left and Willie Richardson, the Jackson State and NFL football great, on the right. A dozen years ago, I had the opportunity to play with the two of them in a tournament that honors Mississippi State and NFL football great Kent Hull. Hutton and Richardson rode together and, trust me on this, seldom has one golf cart carried so much athletic talent at once.

We came to the last hole where an award was given for the longest drive of the day, and we were the last group to play it. Doug, who was 72 years young, hit first and drove the ball 275 yards right down the middle of the fairway, the long drive of the day. Willie, who was 74, hit next and drove it precisely one inch past Doug. And, oh, my gosh, did they – and I — get a kick out of that!

Later that day, I documented the occasion, snapping the photo of two of Mississippi’s greatest athletes, both as humble as they were gifted. 

Mississippi’s youth court proceedings could grind to a halt and federal child welfare funding could be jeopardized come July if the Legislature does not revive one of the state laws dealing with the confidentiality of records involving children, state officials are warning Gov. Tate Reeves.

In Mississippi, records involving juvenile delinquency or child abuse and neglect allegations are confidential. This law is not in jeopardy.

However, the state has another law that permits those records to be shared between the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services, youth courts, parents of the child, a child’s legal representative, law enforcement and other parties providing care and resources to children. This law needs to be renewed every few years – and if legislators don’t do that by July 1 of this year, this law will disappear.

The law set to repeal provides the crucial exemptions to confidentiality that allow parties involved in these sensitive cases to communicate the facts and make decisions involving a child’s placement and care. 

A bill introduced in the Legislature this year would have reduced youth court confidentiality altogether as part of a proposal of sweeping reforms that led to intense debate among lawmakers. The bill died, leaving the confidentiality in place but allowing the law containing the exemptions to lapse.

CPS Commissioner Andrea Sanders asked Reeves in a letter April 30 to call a special legislative session to prevent the law’s repeal. 

She explained that if the exemption disappears, chancery court judges hearing custody cases may not be able to see any youth court or Department of Child Protection Services records that would inform their decisions. Parents with children before a youth court would not have access to court orders that spell out what action they must take, such as requirements they must meet to retrieve their children from CPS custody. CPS could not disclose records involving its investigations to the court, the letter warned. The judge holds the sole power to decide when to remove a child from their home and when to return them.

“Essentially, all legal proceedings involving children under MDCPS’s supervision and care would grind to a halt,” she wrote.

CPS would also be prevented from sharing information with Medicaid, children’s advocacy centers, hospitals, doctors, mental health providers, schools, foster parents and relatives offering support. 

Sanders expressed concerns in the letter that the agency’s inability to disclose information could impact the state’s ability to demonstrate compliance with federal regulations in order to draw down federal foster care funding. The law’s repeal would have significant and detrimental consequences, she wrote.

Reeves has already called a special session for legislators to conduct judicial district redistricting later this month following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which many believe will make it easier to change electoral boundaries that were drawn to ensure Black representation. Reeves would need to add the youth court matter to a special session’s agenda for lawmakers to consider it.

State Public Defender André de Gruy also asked Reeves for a special session, saying the repeal of the law would harm his office’s ability to represent children in juvenile delinquency cases and parents in child welfare matters.

“It really defeats the whole purpose of youth court, which is to provide services to help children and families,” said Jennifer Morgan, the parent defense program manager for the public defender’s office. “The inability of CPS to connect children and families with services leaves families stuck.”

Four other laws are set to repeal July 1 as a result of the reform bill’s death, which could create additional issues for youth court operations, according to consultants working with the Mississippi Administrative Office of Courts. 

Among the laws going away are requirements that youth court case details be entered into the state’s case management system, a prohibition on sex offenders accessing information through that database, state funding requirements for local youth courts, and the ability for parents, such as those in the military, to grant temporary power of attorney.

Reeves’ office did not respond to emails requesting comment for this story.

Attorney Ty Pinkins is an independent candidate for U.S. Senate this year, facing incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic candidate Scott Colom. Pinkins says partisan politics and big-money influence are causing government to fail Mississippians and the system has become ‘a self-licking ice cream.’

A perception exists that Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann is often outflanked and defeated in policy disputes at the Mississippi Capitol.

But is that perception a reality? And will it matter should Hosemann, who cannot seek a third consecutive term as the Senate’s presiding officer, opt to run for governor in 2027?

In 2002 Gov. Ronnie Musgrove’s vetoes of dozens of bills funding state government were summarily overridden by the Mississippi Legislature. It was a striking defeat for Musgrove within the ornate House and Senate chambers of the Mississippi Capitol.

“You don’t want to lose too often in this building,” veteran state Rep. Billy McCoy, a Rienzi Democrat, said when asked at the time how the veto overrides might impact Musgrove’s political career.

On that fateful day, Musgrove lost – lost a lot. Were those defeats the reason that Musgrove would lose in his reelection bid to Republican Haley Barbour the following year?

Those veto overrides were not the only reason for his defeat. But it is reasonable to assume that they were part of a narrative – a negative narrative for the incumbent governor.

Events that have fueled a perception

A few weeks ago on a day set aside for legislators to return to the Capitol if they wanted to try to override any of Gov. Tate Reeves’ last minute vetoes of the 2026 session, the perception did not look too good for Hosemann.

As it turned out, Hosemann called the Senate back but would not allow his chamber to vote on the main bill that many believed legislators were returning to Jackson to take up. The ill-fated bill would have given the Legislature a modicum of oversight of federal rural healthcare funds that the governor had commandeered.

After Hosemann refused to allow a vote to override the veto of that bill, angry Senate Democrats refused to help his efforts to override other bills vetoed by the governor.

In other words, Hosemann called the senators back to the Capitol for a day where they accomplished nothing. It was not a good look for the lieutenant governor and arguably fueled that negative perception.

That perception also was enhanced in the 2025 session when Hosemann’s attempt to limit the efforts of House Speaker Jason White and the governor to phase out the income tax (roughly one-third of state general fund revenue) was unsuccessful. And it did not help that perception when a typo in the bill the Senate sent to the House appeared to enhance the probability that the income tax would be phased out.

And let’s be honest. Hosemann’s perception was not aided by a health scare when he passed out momentarily while presiding over the Senate. Hosemann, an avid runner, said medical providers attributed the episode to dehydration.

Hosemann has victories that counter the perception

It is fair to say Hosemann is dealing with some perception issues. But sometimes perception is not reality.

It also is fair to say Hosemann has had his share of legislative victories – and on some of the most high-profile issues facing the state.

Despite the powerful tag teaming of the governor and the speaker, thus far Hosemann has blocked the enactment of a widespread voucher program that would send public funds to private schools. While vouchers are viewed as popular with some Republican primary participants, in a crowded field Hosemann’s position on the combustible issue might be supported by enough voters to boost his chances should he run for governor.

And while many will not admit it, Hosemann also won on his effort to block the rewrite of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. The MAEP formula provided funding for the basic needs of the local school districts.

Again the powerful duo of White and Reeves were working against Hosemann. They wanted to scrap the program. Many Republicans had long opposed the Adequate Education Program because they said it provided too much money to the local school districts.

But Hosemann prevailed on his position that any new program should include an objective formula to determine how much money the school districts would receive. In the end, the new formula that legislators adopted in 2024, called the Mississippi Student Funding Formula, is much like the old formula, but White and Reeves can at least say they got rid of the name, “Adequate Education Program.” 

But much more than half of the money going to the schools still is determined by the objective formula just as it was under the MAEP.

That was a huge victory for public schools provided by Hosemann’s dogged persistence.

Should he run for governor, the trick for Hosemann will be whether he can shape the way voters perceive him.

To boost that perception, he probably doesn’t need to lose many more legislative battles in the Mississippi Capitol during his final days as lieutenant governor.

A Trump administration panel tasked with reviewing the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s portfolio has unveiled its full plan to shift the brunt of the responsibility for disaster response to state and local governments.

In its plan, the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council called for a major overhaul of disaster response: making it more difficult for states to qualify for federal aid, consolidating federal assistance for individuals into one payment program, and emphasizing that state and local authorities should be taking the lead role after natural disasters. Several of the changes it calls for would require Congress to act.

The FEMA Review Council’s final report comes after months of delay: It was initially expected to release its report in December before the council’s meeting was abruptly canceled.

The public’s instinct during a national disaster is to “rely on or expect the federal government to complete a whole-of-government national response,” the report reads, calling this a “misconception.”

Instead, the report calls for creating a national standard for state disaster response and transforming FEMA to “reinvigorate a national system to ensure” state, local, and private and nonprofit entities can work together.

One of the council’s recommendations to hold states more accountable is to make the threshold higher for states to receive federal funding. The report says that the current process “does not adequately account” for local governments’ ability to respond to a disaster and “disincentivizes” local disaster-preparedness efforts.

The report also criticizes the red tape involved in FEMA’s current Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, saying it “is hampered by administrative burdens that delay funding distribution until well after rebuilding begins.” To fix this, the agency recommends a state-led system in which “project priorities are nationally set and environmental reviews are handled locally.”

And to help with the agency’s “confusing” and “inefficient” individual assistance program, the council recommends making temporary emergency shelters the responsibility of states.

“Number one, return leadership of emergency response and recovery to the states and to the tribes and to the territories,” former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, a member of the council, said in a meeting Thursday morning with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. “I’ve said that several times, but nothing can be more important than empowering the states to take on this responsibility.”

Michael Coen, a former FEMA chief of staff in the Biden administration, doesn’t think these changes will be easily implemented.

“The final meeting illuminates the significant risks the nation faces and the necessity of emergency management,” Coen said in a statement to NOTUS. “The next step should be collaboration between the Executive branch and Congress. The goals of these recommendations can’t fully be implemented without legislative statutory changes.”

“FEMA has been changing and improving since 1979 and the work continues,” he said. “As a nation we should be judged by how we support communities and disaster survivors during challenging times.”

In addition to giving states more responsibility, the report recommends that FEMA review the number of employees it has working in the field versus at headquarters every two to three years, in an effort to reduce “the agency’s bureaucratic bloat.”

Ahead of the meeting, disaster advocates were skeptical that the council’s findings would reflect the issues at the agency. The disaster-recovery advocacy group Sabotaging Our Safety gave FEMA failing grades for its leadership, hurricane preparedness and workforce in its own report card ahead of the meeting.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — For 21 years, Steve Fowler and Sam Wilson have performed together in a band on Memphis’ renowned Beale Street. And for the past decade, the men have been neighbors on a quiet, leafy avenue.

But as of Thursday, they will no longer cast the same ballot despite living across the street from each other.

That’s because Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature redrew the congressional district of Memphis, which has long enjoyed its own Democratic-leaning U.S. House seat. Now, the city is split into three Republican-leaning districts, its majority-Black population sliced up and bound to mostly white, rural and conservative communities along lines that branch away from Fowler and Wilson’s East Memphis neighborhood.

A line runs down the middle of the street, placing Fowler in the 8th Congressional District, which runs hundreds of miles to central Tennessee across a dozen counties. Wilson is zoned for the 9th District, which extends across most of the state’s southern border before curving up to encompass the largely white and affluent Nashville suburbs.

“I think it’s horrible,” said Fowler, who is white. “This isn’t just going to be bad for Black folks in Memphis, but poor whites in these new districts also aren’t going to get services. How are any of these congressmen going to serve all these different counties?”

Part of a national redistricting competition

The redraw was sparked by a ruling from the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court that may be a death knell for congressional representation of majority-Black Southern communities such as Memphis.

For 60 years, a provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act required mapmakers to prove they were not discriminating against racial minorities in how they drew districts, often leading to political boundaries that allowed some minority communities to vote for their preferred representative rather than having their vote diluted by white majorities surrounding them.

The rule had the greatest effect in Southern states, where neighboring Black and white communities remain highly polarized in partisan politics.

On April 29, the justices court severely weakened that requirement, ruling that the way courts had handled it improperly injected racial matters into redistricting in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Republicans across the South immediately leaped at the chance to redraw their maps before the November elections to eliminate as many Democratic-held, majority-minority congressional seats as possible.

Tennessee’s legislature was the first in a GOP-controlled state to finalize a new map. But it is one of several Southern states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina among them — engaged in a broader partisan redistricting competition sweeping the country.

Republicans have long complained that the Voting Rights Act prevented them from doing to Democratic, majority-Black districts what Democrats in states they control do to conservative-leaning, white and rural areas — scatter their voters for partisan gain. That is what Tennessee Republicans did in their initial congressional map in 2021 to the state’s other large reservoir of Democrats in Nashville, where they did not have to step gingerly because that city is majority white.

“Tennessee is a conservative state and our congressional delegation should reflect that,” said Republican state Sen. John Stevens, who shepherded the bill for a new map that made all nine congressional districts solidly Republican.

A ‘central place’ in pursuit of racial justice

Wilson, the Memphis musician who is Black, was less distraught by the carving up of his neighborhood for partisan purposes. He saw the move as just another trial facing the city after a surge of federal agents sent by President Donald Trump to combat crime and amid narratives about Memphis’ safety from neighboring suburbs and Republican state lawmakers.

“It’s a hustling community. We’re going to make ends meet for our families,” Wilson said. “The legacy of Memphis is music and our civil rights history,” he said, adding the two were intertwined. “Hard times mean you’re going to try and find your gift. That’s what we do here; music in Memphis is a way of life.”

The Memphis district predates the Voting Rights Act. For at least a century, well before Congress acted to protect minority voting rights, Tennessee has believed it made sense for its metropolis on the Mississippi River to have its own U.S. House district. But since that law was passed in 1965, anyone who tried to split up the district for partisan gain could be sued and have the maps thrown out. Now, legal experts say that is not much of a risk.

Nonetheless, Democrats and civil rights groups are suing to block the map. The symbolism is especially sharp as the city is home to the National Civil Rights Museum, built around the motel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. When the legislature passed the new maps, Democrats and protesters shouted “hands off Memphis!” and waved signs accusing Republicans of bringing back Jim Crow.

“Memphis is not just any city; it holds a central place in the national story of our quest for racial justice in this country and how, over time, we have increasingly achieved civil, voting, and economic rights for all Americans,” said Eric Holder, a former U.S. attorney general who chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “Black citizens protested, marched and died there for the right to vote.”

Contentious relations with the rest of Tennessee

Memphis has faced dual stories in recent years. Billions of dollars in private investment and federal dollars have flooded into the area in recent years, but many local businesses still express concerns about a lagging regional economy.

Residents who spoke with The Associated Press expressed concerns about safety and public services but bristled at stereotypes about rampant crime. The twin stories are often on display in the river city, where pothole-filled streets run from empty storefronts to ornate mansion-filled neighborhoods and leafy college campuses only blocks away.

The city has long had a contentious relationship with the rest of the state, which voted for Trump in 2024 by a roughly 2-1 margin.

The conservative legislature in Nashville has clashed repeatedly with Memphis and accused its leaders of broad mismanagement. The legislature passed a law blocking many police overhaul efforts in Memphis that were put in place after the death of Tyre Nichols, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of city officers in 2023. It passed another measure seizing control of Memphis’ airport board and those of other cities across the state, and gave the state attorney general, also a Republican, the power to remove Memphis’ elected district attorney.

“The state legislature is trying to take it over,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, the white Democrat who still represents the city in Congress until the new lines kick in after the midterms. “And that’s absurd. It was all partially because it’s a majority Black city.”

Black Tennesseans deprived of fair representation, expert says

Thomas Goodman, a politics and law professor at Rhodes College in Memphis, notes that the new congressional districts may lead to greater friction over who receives attention — and funding — from lawmakers. Memphis residents will soon share districts with Republican towns with starkly different economies, geographies and demographics. Whoever holds those congressional seats will have an incentive to pay attention to those voters and not to Memphis’ population.

“It would not only deprive Black Tennesseans of proper representation,” Goodman said. “These changes also break up the city of Memphis as an entity into multiple districts, thereby removing a dedicated agent in government who knows the people, who understands their concerns and can speak for them and deliver on behalf of their interests and desires.”

Chris Wiley’s house sits in what was, before this week, a quiet street in Midtown Memphis dotted with duplexes, tidy lawns and sports fields. Now his neighborhood is carved apart at the intersection of three congressional districts. That is not surprising, he said, because “Tennessee is all about the dollar” rather than residents.

“Memphis is majority Black, so if you mess with that, what’s the point of even voting in Tennessee?” said Wiley, a 29-year-old sports stadium worker who is Black. “Whatever the congressional numbers, whatever that is, we don’t count on the scale as high, anyway.”

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Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and AP videojournalist Sophie Bates contributed to this report.