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Jackson’s mayor and a majority of the City Council gave their support Monday to a proposal advancing at the Capitol that would put long-term control of the city’s water and sewer systems under a separate utility authority. Residents, though, offered concerns during a crowded town hall meeting that included tense confrontation between officials.

House Bill 1677 would create a “Metro Jackson Water Authority” led by a nine-member board who would appoint a president to run daily operations. The bill passed the House last week and awaits action in the Senate. The Jackson City Council called a meeting Monday to hear residents’ thoughts on the idea.

Several Jacksonians also backed the bill, arguing this was as good a deal the city would get. In previous legislative sessions, lawmakers have only introduced bills that would give a majority of the board appointments to state officials.

“From my perspective, we’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” said John Byrd, vice president of the Association of South Jackson Neighborhoods. “It’s problematic we’re in this situation, but we’ve got to get out of this situation. This is a way to ease out of the burden and hopefully get back onto sound ground.”

Jeffrey Taylor, a resident who used to work for the Jackson Fire Department, called the proposed authority “the lesser of other evils.”

HB 1677 would give the city input on a majority of the nine seats. Those positions would include: Jackson’s mayor; two at-large appointees selected by the mayor; one recommendation each from Byram’s and Ridgeland’s respective mayors, who would then need approval from Jackson’s city council; and the president of the Greater Jackson Chamber of Commerce. The governor would have two at-large appointees and the lieutenant governor would have one.

The new authority would kick in once a federal judge releases third-party utility JXN Water from control of the water and sewer systems. JXN Water manager Ted Henifin has projected that to happen by 2027, although U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate has the final say.

While five of the nine seats would go through elected Jackson officials, residents on Monday said they were worried that having unelected people run the water and sewer systems would dilute the democratic process.

“ When authority to manage a public utility is moved from elected officials and entrusted to an appointed board, the public loses its direct avenue for accountability at the ballot box,” said Nsombi Lambright-Haynes, representing the Jackson NAACP.

Lambright-Haynes and others also said the bill should include a process for the water and sewer systems to come back under the city’s direct control once they’ve been stabilized.

The city council voted 4-2 for a resolution backing the House proposal, while also advocating for the water authority to have a fair billing dispute process. Ward 5 Council Member Vernon Hartley and Ward 2 Council Member Tina Clay voted against the bill. Ward 3 Council Member Kenneth Stokes was absent.

Hartley panned lawmakers for not having public forums to discuss the bill earlier in the process.

“I do have a message for our politicians out there: How dare you bring something to us without going to the public?” he said. “They’re the ones paying the bills.”

Hartley also said it felt like lawmakers were pressuring the city to rush into a decision when there could be other options.

Rep. Justis Gibbs, a Democrat from Jackson, was in attendance. While agreeing with residents’ concerns with the bill, Gibbs said the Democratic-led city would likely not get a better offer from the majority-Republican Mississippi Legislature.

“ We really have to manage our wishes and our expectations with the amount of votes that we can influence in the state Legislature,” he said.

Ward 7 Council Member Kevin Parkinson pushed back on suggestions that the city would have less control under the proposed authority.

“We now have 0% control of the system,” Parkinson said.

Tensions ran high earlier in the meeting, when Parkinson repeated to Henifin a common sentiment locals have expressed about JXN Water: While the utility has made major infrastructure improvements, it hasn’t done as well with its billing and customer service. Henifin took exception to the remark.

“I take offense,” Henifin said. “Everyone likes to say, ‘Oh you’ve done a great job with the infrastructure.’ We’re doing a great job with the billing system. It’s just painful. People don’t want to pay their bill. There’s been a culture here of folks …”

Groans from the crowd immediately drowned out his voice, to which Henifin responded, “Whatever, I’ll take the heat.”

Mayor John Horhn, a former state senator, said forming a water authority would help the city manage its $197 million in debt associated with its water and sewer systems. If the bill passed, the debt would transfer from the city to the authority. Horhn said the move would make lenders more willing to restructure the debt payments. A water authority would also be able to borrow more money, which JXN Water currently can’t do.

While the city would be involved with a majority of the board appointees, some potential actions under HB 1677 would require more than just a majority vote. Rate increases or expenditures over $5 million would require agreement from three-fourths of the board, which is more than the five seats the city would have direct control over.

During the town hall, Byram Alderwoman Roschelle Gibson said the bill wouldn’t give her city fair representation on the board because the Jackson City Council could reject their nominees. JXN Water serves about 4,200 customers in Byram.

Weeks after the death of his school choice bill in the Senate, House Speaker Jason White told a crowd in downtown Jackson on Monday that a special session to push the issue forward is “certainly not off the table.”

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has the sole authority to call a special session, and has vocally supported the House school choice proposal. But Reeves has not indicated he plans to call such a session, and White has stopped short of directly calling on him to do so. White’s bill barely passed the House even with the speaker pushing for it, and a substantial number of his Republican caucus voted against it.

School choice, policies aimed at giving parents more say over their children’s schooling that often divert state funds toward private schools, has been White’s signature issue this legislative session. The Senate Education Committee killed House Bill 2, the House’s omnibus education bill that included its school choice proposals, earlier this month.

A special session “would finally maybe drive this conversation a little bit more,” White told attendees on Monday at the Stennis Capitol Press Forum. “So certainly that would be an option. We’re not afraid of that option.”

A special session, which would suspend legislative deadlines and put more pressure on lawmakers, might be the simplest path forward for White with his school choice proposal. His bill received a lukewarm welcome in his own chamber and an even colder reception in the Senate, where it was killed after less than 90 seconds of deliberation.

White now only has a few options. He could try to insert his school choice proposal — education savings accounts, or ESAs, which give parents state dollars to spend on their child’s education however they wish — in a similar bill. 

READ MORE: The House’s education bill is dead, but school choice isn’t. What happens now?

But he admitted on Monday that not many viable options remain. 

“We’re currently evaluating vehicles that are available in the House that have come from the Senate that might be amendable, if you will, and not violate any of our rules and keep this conversation alive,” he said. “A quick look doesn’t show that many are available on that issue.” 

White spent the bulk of his time at the podium, nearly an hour, talking about his school choice agenda and disappointment in the media’s coverage and Senate’s stance on the issue. He said that he was surprised that the two chambers, elected by the same Mississippians, were so far apart on school choice and chalked it up to “leadership.”

Senate leaders, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, have made clear that they’re not interested in a program like education savings accounts that would allow public dollars to go toward private school tuition.

“We are disappointed that the Senate did not engage in real meaningful discussion and debate on the issues in House Bill 2 and instead opted for what can only be described as a theatrical committee performance to kill the bill a full month before the committee deadline,” White said. “There’s no reason for that … You have to read into some meaning there.”

He said the Senate Education Committee’s lack of discussion at the meeting about House Bill 2 was a “disservice to taxpayers, to parents, to students and future generations of Mississippi.” 

“We never said House Bill 2 was perfect,” he said. “We begged for the back-and-forth conversation and dialogue on the issue. But it does take two to dance or tango or whatever you want to say. The Senate had every opportunity to make that bill better.”

Many of the other initiatives in House Bill 2 have been proposed by the Senate in individual bills, such as a bill that would loosen regulations for students to transfer from one public school district to another. Referred to as portability or open enrollment, it’s a form of school choice. 

But White said Monday those Senate bills, including portability, were largely due to pressure from the House and a “reaction” to its education proposals. 

“Whatever gets them there, we’ll see where that gets us … but that doesn’t fix it,” he said. “The lieutenant governor, he’s made no bones about where he is on school choice. Again, that’s his business. He’ll face his voters, I guess, now he’s running for governor on that issue.”

Reeves’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the likelihood of the governor calling a special session over school choice. Hosemann has indicated he is considering a run for governor, but has not announced such a decision.

National school choice advocates descended on Jackson last week, encouraging the governor to call a special session, but Reeves has only called lawmakers into special session to deal with economic development projects and to pass a budget.

At surface glance, people seem more connected than ever in the information age, from social media networks to the myriad pathways for instant communication. But, those threads look barer than ever deeper down on a human-to-human level, where it really counts. Where it could really help.

New Stage Theatre’s newest production, “Primary Trust,” opening Tuesday for a two-week run through March 1, taps the core of the country’s epidemic of loneliness in a simple, elegantly touching way.

Playwright Eboni Booth was awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “Primary Trust,” the intimate story of a man whose isolated, small-town life, cemented in routine for nearly two decades, is suddenly disrupted by change. The courage that Kenneth, 38, musters to reach out, and the big impact that even small steps and kind gestures make in his world, resonate in a moving work that vividly illustrates the power in human connection.

“‘Primary Trust’ is the second-most produced play in the country right now, so this is the play for such a time as this,” Director Sharon Miles said. “This play specifically addresses the idea of building a life that is secluded and isolated and being comfortable in that. And then, there’s a shift that happens in his world, and it’s shaken up. What do you do? How do you pivot? How do you respond?

“But it also is a play that reminds us that we need connection, we need community, because we all want to be seen,” Miles added. “We all need human connection. That’s really what the heart of the play is.”

Kenneth is a bit odd, but functions well enough in his quiet and simple, highly circumscribed life. He works at a bookstore and frequents his favorite restaurant, Wally’s Tiki Bar, for mai tais with his best friend. “Primary Trust” is his own story of a job loss and brave steps that open up his world to friendship and new possibilities. The story is handled gently, with heartbreaking revelations but also humor and glimmers of hope for the richer life within his grasp. 

A small, tight cast of five (two, playing multiple characters) bring the story to life onstage. Chicago actor Kevin Aoussou, who plays Kenneth, recalled his tears when he read the script for a Chicago audition last year, and in the theater when he went to see it.

“Then when we do it here, those same exact moments, I’m crying again and again,” Aoussou said, shaking his head with a chuckle. Kenneth’s words about his mother, about how she is his everything, echo deeply with him. “That is the thing that pulls on my heart every single time I do this play. … That’s the thing that draws me to him.”

Herman J.R. Johnson of Terry, portraying Kenneth’s best friend, Bert, finds compelling resonance in the careful life Kenneth builds. “For someone who is struggling in life and still manages to grasp onto people that are patient with him and mean well, and let him be himself – I think that means a lot.”

The “Primary Trust” cast also includes: Alicia Thomas of New York, playfully dubbed “shape shifter” by Miles for her versatility as Corinna and 28 others, including multiple members of Wally’s waitstaff; New Stage veteran John Howell in several roles, including Kenneth’s bookstore boss, Sam; and Jackson musician Andrew Dillon as the Musician.

Howell finds the play a good fit for this theater, and others now. People need comfort and connection as various crises and other forces threaten to pull us apart, he said. “This is a good play to get us grounded.”  

Dillon dons a Hawaiian shirt as the piano player at Wally’s Tiki Bar, and he also supplies original music throughout to set the tone and express Kenneth’s experience. “I’m kind of like his emotional support musician,” Dillon said.

They inhabit a set resembling a tiny neighborhood, where characters loom larger than the buildings in their midst. “Mister Rogers Neighborhood” sprang to mind when Miles read the play.

“‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ makes it all of our neighborhood,” she said. “It makes it all of our hometown. All of the things he goes through, and how he deals with them, with loss and love and friendship, it just makes it more universal.”

New Stage Theatre partners with NAMI Mississippi (National Alliance on Mental Illness) during the show’s run, with resources in the lobby for more information on the grassroots organization and on mental health. NAMI Mississippi Program Director Savanah Hicks saw parallels in their “Hearts and Minds” presentation, which touches on social interaction. 

“Humans are wired for that connection. We need it,” Hicks said. “And then, once we get that connection, it also gives us something else essential, which is a different perspective. … We need that different perspective, for us to be able to see things clearly.”

New Stage will also host Tiki Bar Bingo during the run of “Primary Trust.” The activity starts a half-hour prior to each performance, sparking interactions with fun questions and a prize of 2026-27 season tickets at stake.

“The whole point is, interact with another human, meet a friend, be brave,” Miles said. “That’s Kenneth’s story. That’s our story. I feel like that’s what this play is asking. Also what this moment is asking. Meet someone. See someone. Build your community.

“It just feels like the moment to do this play is now.”

“Primary Trust“ performance times are 7 p.m. Feb. 17-21, 24 and 26-28, and 2 p.m. Feb. 22 and March 1. For tickets, $35 adults and $30 seniors/students/military, visit newstagetheatre.com or call 601-948-3533 ext. 223.

At the midpoint of the three-month legislative session, two leading lawmakers say they are working to ensure tens of millions of state opioid settlement dollars are spent to address addiction.

House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, and Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford, have both sponsored bills that would change the state’s opioid settlement laws. Now that the bills have each passed one chamber, Creekmore said he plans to meet with Boyd to figure out what new provisions would lead to more responsible local spending of the settlement money. 

Since 2022, 147 towns, cities and counties throughout Mississippi have been receiving money from national opioid lawsuits, cases that charged about a dozen companies with contributing to over 10,000 Mississippi overdose deaths. When first arguing these cases, lawyers for Mississippi said money was needed to address the public health epidemic the companies created.

But when those local governments signed on to the lawsuits, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch told them they could spend their shares on any public purpose without reporting how those dollars were used. Those shares are expected to total over $60 million by 2040, but Fitch’s arrangement wasn’t widely publicized until September, when Mississippi Today published results of its months-long investigation into spending. 

The Mississippi Today investigation found that local government officials had received over $15.5 million in opioid settlements but spent less than $1 million on ways to prevent more overdoses. Cities and counties had spent around $5.4 million on other expenses, mostly to supplement their general budgets.

Jane Clair Tyner, a Pine Belt resident whose son died while struggling with opioid addiction, said it wasn’t until speaking with Mississippi Today last year that she learned cities and counties could spend their money on purchases unrelated to addiction.

“It was a literal punch in my gut when I read that,” Tyner said. “It was a desecration to every grave that every parent in this state has mourned over, of their lost child to this epidemic.” 

When asked why Fitch made this decision, her office has said the opioid epidemic cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars, and the lawsuits allowed for some settlement money to repay governments for past expenses. A spokesperson for her office didn’t respond to an email asking for Fitch’s thoughts on new legislative efforts.

A few weeks after the investigation was published, Creekmore said he wanted to address the problem. On Mississippi Today’s “The Other Side” podcast, he said he would look to pass legislation that would change how local governments could spend their opioid settlement shares. 

On Wednesday, Creekmore restated his commitment to creating requirements for local governments to address addiction. He said he doesn’t want the legislation to be too cumbersome for small cities and counties with few resources. 

New laws, he said, should include examples of organizations doing overdose prevention work that local officials can send settlement money to — such as community mental health centers. He’s also looking for ways to bring in a third party to oversee how cities and counties spend their funds.

“They’re concerned how they spend the money, and they’re looking for guidance,” he said. “Even some of the larger cities.”

Boyd said she and the other senators plan to follow Creekmore and the House’s lead on reforming opioid settlement laws. 

When Mississippi Today told Tyner about Creekmore’s plan to eliminate using local opioid settlement dollars on general expenses, she said she felt hopeful. But she’s seen guidelines intended to ensure this money gets spent on addressing addiction leave room for loopholes in other states, and she hopes future laws will ensure money gets spent on addressing addiction beyond giving unrestricted money to mental health centers.

While Tyner appreciates legislators’ avoiding the creation of cumbersome requirements for small town officials, she said preventing overdoses takes nuanced approaches. 

“It is a complex issue,” she said. “So the manner in which we approach it to fix it cannot be simple.” 

Copiah County Administrator David Engel said he’s hopeful that legislators provide clear pathways to spending this money responsibly. He and the Board of Supervisors used about $74,000 in April to help fund the local drug court, but he said Copiah County has about $76,000 of additional settlement money that officials don’t want to spend until they hear how it could be used to prevent more overdoses. 

Engel said if the state provided more examples of how this funding should be used, he would be willing to do extra work to track and publicize how Copiah County spends the money. 

“I don’t mind jumping through the hoops as long as I get a little clarity,” he said. 

But Engel also knows that the state is in its fourth year of receiving funds. Over 1,700 Mississippians have died of overdoses since the state received its first settlement check, and he believes this money could have saved some of those lives had cities and counties known how to use it effectively.

“I don’t think there’s any question as to that.”

To be clear, many Mississippi lawmakers believe millions of dollars of special-interest, dark money flowing in to influence an election here is terrible, and they won’t stand for it.

That is, it’s terrible if its flowing into an election for something voters put directly on a ballot, sidestepping the Legislature.

But millions of dollars of such money flowing practically unchecked into politicians’ campaigns and, according to federal prosecutors, pockets – well, apparently that’s not so bad.

The Senate last week killed a measure to reinstate voters’ right to put something directly on a ballot. Opponents’ main reason voiced for killing it was that special interests with deep pockets could too easily influence Mississippi voters on such issues.

But both the Senate and House – with a rare show of bipartisanship – also killed measures aimed at regulating and reporting to the public the flow of special-interest and dark money into Mississippi campaigns for political office.

It appears the state is on track to continue to have some of the weakest, least enforced campaign finance laws and disclosure. It’s also on track to not reinstate voters’ right to put issues on a ballot that they had until five years ago when a court invalidated it over technical issues.

Some highlights from a busy week that included a deadline for floor passage of bills:

• A bill to force more Mississippi governments and law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities drew fierce debate before passing the House on a mostly party-line vote.

• The House passed two major alcohol-related bills. One would allow direct shipment of liquor to Mississippians’ homes, and another that would allow local governments to pass ordinances allowing the sale of alcohol on Sundays.

• With some constituents still without power three weeks after Winter Storm Fern, some lawmakers blasted the state’s response to the disaster during debate over a measure to create a disaster recovery loan program.

Quote of the Week

“Gentleman, I’m not chasing, I’m not going down that rabbit hole with you and we’re not going to hop around that. You’re dancing, but you ain’t got a dance partner.” – Rep. Joey Hood of Ackerman, responding to Rep. Jeffery Harness of Fayette, who asked Hood, “What kind of coward walks around with a mask on and makes arrests?” Hood was presenting a bill to prevent any Mississippi government or law enforcement agency from interfering with federal ICE agents.

In Brief

Closed primaries amendment thwarted

Sen. Kathy Chism, a Republican from New Albany, has for several years unsuccessfully pushed legislation to have closed party primaries in Mississippi, with her measures typically dying without a committee vote.

Last week, Chism attempted to force a vote on the issue with an amendment to another elections bill. But Sen. Derrick Simmons, a Democrat from Greenville, successfully challenged the amendment as not germane to the bill. Some states have closed primaries, where only people registered with a political party can vote for its nominees. There has been debate over closing Mississippi primaries for years.

“Closed primaries are not only wanted, but needed in Mississippi,” Chism said. “With closed primaries, each party would control its choice of candidate without interference from the other party in the primary election.” – Geoff Pender

Lawmakers: Proposed public records exemptions overly broad

Lawmakers realized a House bill that could allow more information to be withheld from public records requests is “overly broad,” said Rep. Daryl Porter, a Democrat and Vice Chairman of the House Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency committee.

Porter amended House Bill 1468 on the floor to require more scrutiny of the bill before it could be passed into law and said lawmakers plan to change it.

The bill from Republican Rep. Brent Anderson of Bay St. Louis adds broad definitions of “personally identifiable” and “protected” information to the Mississippi Public Records Act. The bill covers any information that could identify an individual alone or when combined with other information and explicitly requires government agencies to conduct a case-by-case assessment on records requests. – Michael Goldberg

Chambers pass apprenticeship bills

The House and Senate passed two nearly identical bills that would give the state direct oversight of workforce apprenticeship programs.

Under the measures, the state would create its own Office of Apprenticeship within the Mississippi Department of Employment Security. The office would take over approval and oversight of registered apprenticeship programs. Currently, the U.S. Department of Labor is responsible.

The framework of the bills is very similar, although there are slight differences, including, the number of people on an advisory board and the deadline for registering the state office with the federal government. Gov. Tate Reeves proposed this transition in his 2027 executive budget recommendations. He wrote that this change would, “reduce federal bureaucracy and improve employer and stakeholder engagement.” – Katherine Lin

Education measures die with deadline

A number of education bills died with a Thursday deadline, including legislation that would have impacted teachers and school board members. 

One House bill authored by Rep. Jansen Owen, a Republican from Poplarville, would have prohibited teachers who have sex with students from resigning, instead requiring their termination. 

Another bill would have removed appointed school board member positions. All school board members, under the bill, would be elected. Owen said the legislation aimed to address parent sentiment that school boards are not held accountable. 

A Senate bill that died would have also kept a closer eye on school board members. Senate Bill 2306 would have tasked a commission with governing the conduct of school board members and created a framework for sanctioning school members found to be in violation. 

Most charter school teachers would have no longer been exempt from the state’s educational qualification requirements under another Senate bill that didn’t make it off the floor. Some senators have been publicly critical of the state’s charter schools, most of which are rated “D” or “F.” – Devna Bose

Bills address unused school buildings

A couple of bills passed by both chambers could make it easier for districts to get rid of unused school buildings. 

It’s a problem particularly pronounced in Democratic Sen. David Blount’s district, which includes Jackson. 

Jackson Public Schools has closed a handful of school buildings in recent years due to declining enrollment. However, state law has made it difficult to sell them, Blount said, because if the building is used for a purpose other than a school, ownership reverts back to the school district. 

Senate Bill 2515 allows for alternative use of the buildings and establishes a timeline for charter schools to make a decision about building purchases.

“I’m not a fan of charter schools, but if you have a closed school building, it makes sense to look at it first as a school,” Blount said. “Current law does not have an end date on when that right may be exercised. This simply puts a termination date on that right of refusal.”

A similar bill, House Bill 1395, has also passed that chamber.  – Devna Bose

Proposal would take casino winnings for child support

Mississippi lawmakers are considering taking casino jackpots from parents who owe child support.

Similar bills from the House and Senate would have casinos withhold winnings from deadbeat parents — Senate Bill 2369 and House Bill 520. The proposals would require casinos to check a state database of people in arears on child support before paying out jackpots. – Mississippi Today

By the Numbers

$50 million

Amount lawmakers said they plan to request to fund a disaster recovery emergency loan program to aid Mississippi counties included in the recent federal disaster declaration from Winter Storm Fern.

More Legislative Coverage

Prison health care reform measures clear the House

The Mississippi House passed several bills this week aimed at improving the quality of medical care in Mississippi prisons and developing stronger oversight of health care delivery. Read the story.

School consolidation bill dies without a vote in Mississippi Senate

Senate Bill 2486 would’ve tasked a committee within the Mississippi Department of Education with recommending school district consolidations and established a framework for future mergers. Read the story.

Pro tem Kirby says ‘We couldn’t find anybody who supported it’ when school choice bill got to Senate

Senate President Pro tem Dean Kirby, a Republican from Pearl, gives an update on school choice, state support for areas devastated by the winter storm, and serving in the position known as “the senators’ senator.” Listen to the podcast.

Mississippians will not have access to a system to place statewide issues on a ballot, at least for another year. But they might soon be able to more easily see who funds politicians’ campaigns. 

Thursday was the deadline for the Mississippi Legislature to pass some bills in the full Senate or House. Those that were not approved by one chamber or another died, although lawmakers can sometimes revive measures by amending bills that lived. 

Elections and voting issues are some of the hottest debated policy items at the Capitol. For the fifth straight year, lawmakers failed to agree on a way to restore Mississippi’s ballot initiative. Each year in recent years, lawmakers push to reform Mississippi’s election laws and notorious lax campaign finance laws. But these efforts over the last several years, including this current session, have mostly sputtered.  

Here is a list of where election-related bills stand during so far in the 2026 legislative session: 

Strengthening campaign finance laws

Lawmakers advanced Senate Bill 2558 from the Senate Elections Committee, but it did not have enough support to pass the full chamber. 

Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England, a Republican from Vancleave, told Mississippi Today on Thursday that many senators thought the legislation was changing too many parts of campaign finance laws too quickly. 

The measure would have clarified that the secretary of state’s office has the power to investigate campaign finance violations and the attorney general would prosecute them. 

It would also have required candidates to have a bank account for their campaign money and clarified that out-of-state corporations are subject to a $1,000 a year donation limit. 

The House Elections Committee previously killed a similar House bill earlier in the session. 

The Robert Clarke Jr. Voting Rights Act

Several Democratic lawmakers pushed legislative leaders to pass a state version of the federal Voting Rights Act, but the measures died in both the House and Senate. 

Supporters said the proposal was designed to safeguard minority voting rights, as the U.S. Supreme Court has indicated it will reconsider provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act and has already overturned some.

The state legislation would have prohibited dilution of minority voters, established a Mississippi Voting Rights Commission, and required some jurisdictions to obtain preclearance approval from the commission for changes to voting regulations.  

The bills were named in honor of Robert G. Clark Jr., who in 1967 became the first Black Mississippian elected to the state Legislature in the modern era.

Proof of citizenship to vote 

The House and Senate have passed bills that could make it more onerous for people without a driver’s license to register to vote, a proposal legislative leaders have said would allow local elections officials to verify a person’s citizenship.

The Safeguard Honest Integrity in Elections for Lasting Democracy, or SHIELD, Act would require county registrars to conduct extra checks on people who try to register to vote without a driver’s license number. 

Under the bill, if someone tried to register and could not produce a license number, the clerk would have to verify whether the person appears in a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services database called SAVE. Government agencies use the federal database to verify an applicant’s immigration status or citizenship.

The bill would also require election officials to notify applicants flagged as non-citizens and require them to prove citizenship.

Mandatory online filing for campaign finance 

Although substantive campaign finance reform did not gain traction, the Senate passed a bill that would require every candidate in the state to file a campaign finance report online, as is required in most states. 

Secretary of State Michael Watson’s office plans to unveil a new system on its website that will allow people to view campaign finance reports more easily, similar to the Federal Election Commission’s website for congressional and presidential candidates and systems in most other states. 

Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England said the aim of the bill is to pair with Watson’s new online system. 

Currently, candidates can submit handwritten campaign finance reports, some of which are illegible and hard to decipher and the system is not easily searchable or sortable. 

While the final chapter is far from being written, it appears that the primary focus of the 2026 Mississippi legislative session will be teacher pay instead of school choice.

Nearly all of the talk before the three-month session began in early January was centered on the plans of House Speaker Jason White and Gov. Tate Reeves to greatly expand programs providing public funds to private schools. But support for the proposal has been lukewarm in White’s House and it appears to be practically non-existent in the Senate.

On the other hand, the Senate has passed a proposal to provide a $2,000 per year pay raise for kindergarten through 12th grade teachers and faculty at the community college and university level. The House has proposed an annual $5,000 pay raise for K-12 teachers.

No House or Senate member has voted against the teacher pay proposals. The two Republican-controlled chambers have to agree on a single plan to send to the governor. If the final number agreed to by legislators is closer to the speaker’s House plan, it would be one of the larger teacher pay increases in the state’s history.

Legislative leaders, especially Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, have been out front on the issue. Before the session began, Hosemann was advocating for a pay raise for Mississippi teachers, who are perennially at or near the bottom nationally when compared to teacher pay in other states.

On the other hand, Gov. Reeves has been quiet on the issue of a teacher pay raise.

Governors spell out their legislative priorities in their annual budget proposal, but in his document released before the 2026 session began, Reeves said nary a word about a teacher pay raise.

In terms of education, he focused on expanding school choice and charter schools and providing additional work force training.

Based on his public comments, Reeves has not been an advocate for what is potentially the biggest issue of the session.

Perhaps the governor, seeing the interest in a teacher pay raise in the Legislature, intended to talk about and even endorse the issue in his annual State of the State address. But thus far, his speech to a joint session of the Legislature has not come to fruition. It was scheduled for Feb. 4, but postponed after a massive ice storm pummeled the Delta and north Mississippi.

Whether the speech will be rescheduled remains to be seen. If not, it would mark the first time in modern memory for a Mississippi governor to eschew the State of the State.

This is not the first time Reeves has neglected the issue of a teacher pay raise.

In the 2019 campaign for governor, then-Lt. Gov. Reeves and the Democratic nominee, then-Attorney General Jim Hood, both proposed major pay raises for teachers.

But in his first budget proposal after becoming governor, Reeves did not include a teacher pay raise as a legislative priority, though he said it was important after reporters asked his office about it.

Despite Reeves leaving a pay raise out of his budget proposal for the 2020 session, the Legislature passed a $1,000 teacher pay raise for the fiscal year that began July 1 of that year. Reeves posted about the pay raise on social media as he signed it into law.

The next year, the state had unprecedented revenue reserves thanks in large part to federal COVID-19 spending, allowing the Legislature to pass a much larger pay raise of about $5,100. Reeves advocated for a smaller pay bump that year, but bragged as he signed the bill into law that the raise exceeded the $4,000 per year increase he promised on the 2019 campaign trail.

No doubt, Reeves will sign any teacher pay raise likely to be passed by the Legislature this session. And it is likely he will do so with a lot of pomp and circumstance, even though he has been quiet on the issue thus far.

WASHINGTON — Billions of American chestnut trees once covered the eastern United States. They soared in height, producing so many nuts that sellers moved them by train car. Every Christmas, they’re called to mind by the holiday lyric “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.”

But by the 1950s, this venerable tree went functionally extinct, culled by a deadly airborne fungal blight and lethal root rot. A new study published Thursday in the journal Science provides hope for its revitalization, finding that the genetic testing of individual trees can reveal which are most likely to resist disease and grow tall, thus shortening how long it takes to plant the next, more robust, generation.

A smaller gap between generations means a faster path to lots of disease-resistant trees that will once again be able to compete for space in Eastern forests. The authors hope that can occur in the coming decades.

“What’s new here is the engine that we’re creating for restoration,” said Jared Westbrook, lead author and director of science at The American Chestnut Foundation, which wants to return the tree to its native range that once stretched from Maine to Mississippi.

The American chestnut, sometimes called the “redwood of the East,” can grow quickly and reach more than 100 feet, produce prodigious amounts of nutritious chestnuts and supply lumber favored for its straight grain and durability.

But it had little defense against foreign-introduced blight and root rot. Another type of chestnut, however, had evolved alongside those diseases. The Chinese chestnut had been introduced for its valuable nuts and it could resist diseases. But it isn’t as tall or competitive in U.S. forests, nor has it served the same critical role supporting other species.

So, the authors want a tree with the characteristics of the American chestnut and the disease resistance of the Chinese chestnut.

That goal is not new — scientists have been reaching for it for decades and made some progress.

But it has been difficult because the American chestnut’s desirable traits are scattered across multiple spots along its genome, the DNA string that tells the tree how to develop and function.

“It’s a very complex trait, and in that case, you can’t just select on one thing because you’ll select on linked things that are negative,” said John Lovell, senior author and researcher at the HudsonAlpha Genome Sequencing Center.

Breed for disease resistance alone and the trees get shorter, less competitive.

To deal with this, the authors sequenced the genome of multiple types of chestnuts and found the many places that correlated with the desired traits. They can then use that information to breed trees that are more likely to have desirable traits while maintaining high amounts of American chestnut DNA — roughly 70% to 85%.

And genetic testing allows the process to move faster, revealing the best offspring years before their traits would be demonstrated by natural growth and encountering disease. The closer the gap between generations, the faster gains accumulate.

Steven Strauss, a professor of forest biotechnology at Oregon State University who wasn’t involved in the study, said the paper identified some promising genes. He wants scientists to be able to edit the genes themselves, a possibly faster, more precise path to a better tree. In an accompanying commentary piece in Science, he says regulations can bog down these ideas for years.

“People just won’t consider biotech because it is on the other side of this social, legal barrier” and that’s shortsighted, he said.

For people who have closely studied the American chestnut, the work begs an almost existential question: How much can the American chestnut be changed and still be an American chestnut?

“The American chestnut has a unique evolutionary history, it has a specific place in the North American ecosystem,” said Donald Edward Davis, author of the American chestnut, an environmental history. “Having that tree and no other trees would be sort of the gold standard.”

He said the tree was a keystone species, useful to humans and vital to bigger populations of squirrels, chipmunks and black bears — hybrids might not be as majestic or effective. He was pleased that the authors included some surviving American chestnuts in their proposal, but favored an approach that relied on them more heavily.

“Not that the hybrid approach is itself bad, it is just that why not try to get the wild American trees back in the forest, back in the ecosystem, and exhaust all possibilities from doing that before we move on to some of these other methods?” he said.

Lovells said resurrecting the species requires introducing genetic diversity from outside the traditional pool of American chestnut trees. The study authors’ goal is tall, resilient trees and they are optimistic.

“I think if we only select American chestnut (tree genes), period, there’s going to be too small of a pool and we’re going to end up with a genetic bottleneck that will lead to extinction in the future,” said Lovell.

The Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice are threatening to sue Elon Musk’s xAI on behalf of the NAACP, claiming the company’s power generation in Southaven violates the federal Clean Air Act.

In a letter on Friday, the center argues that xAI’s operation of “mobile-temporary” turbines in Southaven without air permits are polluting the air in Southaven and the greater Memphis area. 

“xAI is running a de facto power plant without an air permit, without necessary pollution controls, and without regard for families living as close as a half mile away,” said Laura Thoms, enforcement director for Earthjustice in a statement.

xAI, an artificial intelligence company valued at $250 billion, began building its first data center in Memphis in 2024. Since then it has started to build another center in Memphis, bought a power plant in Mississippi and recently announced that it had purchased a warehouse in Southaven to build another data center. According to county records, the company purchased additional property this month.

The company began operating the temporary turbines at the former Duke Energy power plant in Southaven as early as mid-August to power its data centers.

While Mississippians have expressed concern over noise and potential air pollution from the turbines, the number of turbines have increased. The company started with 18 but is now operating 27 at the site. 

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality has said the turbines fall under an exemption that allows temporary turbines to operate without a permit, as long as they do so for less than a year. MDEQ has said the turbines have “air pollution control devices.”

xAI is in the process of applying for air permits to operate 41 permanent turbines in Mississippi. MDEQ is holding a public hearing on Tuesday in Southaven where members of the public can comment on the proposal.

In January, Gov. Tate Reeves announced that xAI would be building another data center, in Mississippi. “This is the largest economic development project in Mississippi’s history,” Reeves said in a statement. 

There are five data center projects in Mississippi, including xAI. Such data centers are popping up all over the South, driven by the artificial intelligence boom.

Proponents say these projects are creating jobs, driving demand for Mississippi construction companies, paying for upgrades to the electric grid and adding tens of millions in taxes to local governments.

But critics say the centers create relatively few permanent jobs, demand large amounts of energy that could drive up customers’ rates and that they receive overly generous tax abatements from the state. Despite recent concerns over an AI bubble, economic development leaders across the state have said that companies continue to be interested in building data centers in the state and that more may be coming.