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Raphael Warnock knows something about winning a Senate seat in the Deep South, and he says Mississippi’s race looks awfully familiar to his Georgia election five years ago.

That’s what he said at a meeting with faith leaders and to an electrified crowd in Jackson on Wednesday, urging voters to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and replicate his successful Georgia election that sent a Black Democrat to the Senate from a Southern state and delivered a Democratic majority to the U.S. Senate. 

“I’m here because I’m tired of the South being overlooked or diminished in terms of its electoral importance,” Warnock told reporters. “We ignore the South at our own peril. Democrats are investing here. I would like to see more, for the sake of the country.”

Warnock shares similarities with Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Mississippi. Both faced steep electoral odds and several national Democratic figures believed victory in a reliably red state impossible. 

Mississippi has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since the 1980s, and the electorate has consistently aligned itself with the national Republican Party. 

But Warnock said Mississippi, the state with the highest concentration of Black voters in the nation, is ripe for the Democratic Party to flip the Senate seat if only they’ll consistently spend money in the Deep South state and keep working to register voters. 

“We lose elections by the margins of our disengagement,” Warnock said. “Mississippi is a blue state. It just doesn’t know it yet.”  

Warnock said he spent years working to register and mobilize voters across his state alongside Stacey Abrams, who was raised in Gulfport before moving to Georgia, where she would later run for governor. 

Abrams lost both of her gubernatorial bids, but many leading Democrats believe she built the organizing infrastructure that Warnock and fellow Georgia U.S. Senator Sen. Jon Ossoff ultimately used to flip what had been a deep-red state. 

He said Colom is capable of replicating his success in Mississippi, which will require amping up Democratic voter turnout. In Mississippi and across the Deep South, churches have long been an engine of political organizing for Black voters and the Democratic Party.

Warnock, who was elected to the Senate after serving as the senior pastor of Atlanta’s famed Ebenezer Baptist Church, and Colom met with faith leaders for a discussion about how pastors can use their pulpits to connect their congregations to the polls. 

The Rev. Jerry Young, senior pastor at New Hope Baptist Church in Jackson and former president of the National Baptist Convention, spoke about how he believes America is currently at a moral crossroads because the government is allowing the affluent to become richer while cutting benefits for the poor. 

“There is an attitude in this country, I think, that is antithetical to everything that the barefoot boy from Nazareth preached and talked about,” Young said. “And I just think it’s not Black or white or Republican or Democratic. It’s what is right versus wrong.”  

Pastor Stephen Cook of Anderson United Methodist Church in Jackson said his congregants were coming for guidance on how to deal with everyday struggles such as the rising cost of healthcare and groceries. 

“Every pastor, every faith leader in this room knows someone who is struggling to afford medication, worried about losing a hospital or working hard and still falling behind,” Cook said. “How do we help our congregation connect those everyday struggles to the decisions being made in Washington?” 

Colom said Hyde-Smith’s failure to address those issues puts her at odds with Christian teachings. 

“She has forgotten about the working people of Mississippi,” Colom said. “She’s forgotten about the teachings of Jesus Christ. And she’s not living the values that actually make our country great.” 

Warnock’s visit is the latest in a string of appearances by national Democrats as the race enters its homestretch. Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Cory Booker of New Jersey have already campaigned in Mississippi for Colom, the Democratic nominee.

Former President Barack Obama recorded an ad for Colom that began running this week. “Mississippi, it’s time for a change,” Obama says in the ad.

More are coming. Former Vice President Kamala Harris will campaign with Colom in Columbus on Oct. 22, and former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will visit cities along the Gulf Coast on Oct. 27 before the Nov. 3 election.

Hyde-Smith has criticized Colom for his ties to the national party and for using national Democratic surrogates.

Her campaign manager, Jake Monssen, said in a statement that Colom “will suffer the same fate as the last two candidates President Obama endorsed in Mississippi,” referring to Obama’s endorsements of Mike Espy in the 2020 Senate race against Hyde-Smith and Jim Hood in the 2019 governor’s race.

President Donald Trump has again endorsed Hyde-Smith.

Colom has countered that Hyde-Smith is out of touch with average Mississippians and afraid to face voters in town halls or debate him. He has said he is focused on lowering costs for Mississippi families, raising the minimum wage and protecting health care and rural hospitals.

Colom and Hyde-Smith are also competing against independent candidate Ty Pinkins.

Earlier on Wednesday, Warnock said he visited the Jackson home of the late Medgar Evers, the civil rights legend who was assassinated in his driveway after he spent years registering Black voters. 

The Democratic senator spoke about the central role that Mississippi civil rights heroes such as James Meredith and Fannie Lou Hamer played in reshaping American politics by fighting for the right to vote. 

Warnock said the political stakes are always higher in the South, where “bloodstained ballots” mark the sacrifices made by legends such as Evers, James Meredith and Fannie Lou Hamer. 

“This is our moment,” Warnock said. “It is a moral moment. Don’t count out the South because as goes the South, so goes the rest of the nation.” 

A once prominent youth gymnastics coach was sentenced to 90 years in prison Wednesday for secretly recording his young female students undressing and using the bathroom at a Mississippi gym, in a case that rocked the sport.

Sean Gardner, 39, received the maximum sentence possible. U.S. District Judge Kristi Johnson ordered that he serve 30 years in prison for each of the three federal child pornography production charges to which he pleaded guilty. The sentence likely amounts to life in prison for Gardner.

READ MORE: Ex-Mississippi gymnastics coach plans guilty plea in child pornography case

Gardner’s arrest last summer by the FBI, first reported by The Associated Press, renewed questions about whether U.S. gymnastics authorities had done enough to protect athletes from sexual abuse at the hands of an influential coach.

Gardner pleaded guilty to placing a hidden camera in a bathroom at a gymnastics studio in Purvis, Mississippi, between December 2017 and April 2018 to record his students. Investigators say he created videos showing close-up images of at least 10 minors naked or undressing, which they recovered from his computers years later while investigating claims that he sexually abused gymnasts in Iowa.

Several of his former students at Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, Iowa, have alleged to police and in civil lawsuits that he used his position to prey on them. The institute was founded by prominent coach Liang “Chow” Qiao, who is known for producing Olympic champions. Gardner coached several youth prospects and served as director of an annual winter meet that drew hundreds of gymnasts to Iowa.

Gardner has not been charged in connection with any of the Iowa allegations, and police have said they would wait to determine how to proceed after the federal case concludes.

The lawsuits have also alleged the sport’s oversight bodies, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Center for SafeSport, were told about inappropriate behavior by Gardner in 2017 but failed to take action to remove him from the sport for years. SafeSport temporarily suspended Gardner in 2022 after a Chow’s gymnast alleged sexual abuse, and Chow’s fired him then.

SafeSport has said it learned during its investigation that Chow and other coaches had been aware of allegations of sexual misconduct against Gardner but failed to report them to the center as required by its policy.

Mississippi’s workforce development agency is seeking more state money to add staff as it launches and expands job training programs. The request comes as the state prepares for thousands of jobs to open in the next decade. 

AccelerateMS is requesting a $7.1 million operating budget for fiscal year 2028, which begins July 1. That is about $2.5 million more than its current appropriation, according to information that agency officials recently presented to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. The increase would go toward hiring staff to help manage new programs, including UPSKILL (Upgrading Priority Skills for Key Industry Learning and Labor), which launched this summer, and the new Workforce Pell Grant program, said Courtney Taylor, executive director of AccelerateMS. 

The State Workforce Investment Board estimated in 2025 that Mississippi will face a shortage of 19,000 workers in priority fields such as manufacturing, construction and healthcare through 2035. Taylor said closing the gap will require the state to train more workers and students and to connect them to high-demand jobs. 

“The investment is crucial for our state and to meet the economy where it’s going,” Taylor said. 

AccelerateMS currently has 28 employees, Taylor said, and wants to hire an additional eight. 

One of those positions is a full-time Workforce Pell manager, Taylor said. The  Workforce Pell Grant program launched in July will allow eligible students to use federal Pell Grants for certain short-term job training programs. 

The expansion of the Pell Grant program, which traditionally helped low-income students pay for college, will allow students to pay for workforce programs lasting as little as eight to 15 weeks. 

Having a dedicated employee to review applications from the state’s universities, community and technical colleges seeking approval for eligible programs to qualify for Workforce Pell would help, she said. For now, an employee who oversees other federal initiatives, including the opioid-settlement workforce training program, reviews Workforce Pell applications. 

In September, Mississippi secured $8.5 million in federal funding to help launch Workforce Pell across all 15 community colleges.

Northwest Mississippi Community College will lead the effort, but AccelerateMS will help to coordinate and set up the program statewide, Taylor said. 

Workforce Pell requires a lot of management, including tracking data required by the federal government for students’ graduation rates, job placement and wage outcomes, said Iris Palmer, director of community college initiatives at New America, a national public policy think tank. 

The requirements for Workforce Pell “are very complicated,” and the process of getting these types of programs set up at colleges can be difficult, she said.  

Lawmakers will consider AccelerateMS’s request during their three-month session that begins in January, as they finalize the state budget for the next fiscal year. 

Senate Appropriations Chairman Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, said it is too early to know whether AccelerateMS will receive its full request. Lawmakers are reviewing agencies’ budget requests and the state’s major spending needs, including Medicaid, he said. Hopson said lawmakers will consider how much money the state has available and determine where it can be spent when developing the final budget. 

The Mississippi State Department of Health is updating its blueprint for improving healthcare and public health systems. 

The new Comprehensive State Health Plan will establish priorities and strategies for enhancing access to care, addressing workforce and system challenges and supporting the sustainability of the state’s public health systems, said State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney at a Board of Health meeting Wednesday. 

“Instead of just monitoring, we’re trying to shape the healthcare needs of the state and push resources to those gaps,” Edney said. 

The state published its last health plan in 2023. This plan, designed as a regulatory document, focused on healthcare provider planning law, Edney said, but the new state health plan will expand its scope to analyze data and help the agency set priorities and plan its programs.

“The goal is not simply to produce another planning document,” agency officials wrote in a memo. “The goal is to develop an informed, actionable statewide framework grounded in current data and the real-world experiences of the people and organizations serving Mississippians.” 

Premier Healthcare Solutions Inc., a Charlotte, North Carolina-based healthcare consultant company, was awarded a 15-month contract worth roughly $567,000 in July to help the agency craft the plan, including executing a data-driven assessment of Mississippi’s health system, engaging stakeholders and drafting the final document. 

The company has begun seeking feedback from stakeholders, hosting invitation-only town halls this week in Greenville, Hattiesburg and Jackson, and will hold meetings in future weeks in Southaven and Oxford. 

Roughly 350 healthcare professionals have signed up for the events, and the company will conduct additional surveys and stakeholder interviews in coming months, said Laura Goodson, the health department’s chief of staff. 

Efforts to craft the new plan are funded by the federal Rural Health Transformation Program, a five-year, $50 billion federal investment in rural healthcare. Mississippi received nearly $206 million as a part of the first year of the program. Gov. Tate Reeves’ office oversaw the development of Mississippi’s plan and made a statewide rural health assessment one of the state’s six main initiatives. 

Mississippi consistently ranks at or near the bottom nationally in healthcare outcomes and access. Mississippi has the highest rate of premature death, or deaths that could be prevented with timely and effective healthcare, in the nation.

State health plans can help guide a state’s priorities for improving health outcomes, said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, former Maryland health secretary and a public health professor at Johns Hopkins University. Identifying measurable outcomes and delegating tasks to specific agencies or partners can strengthen the documents. 

“It’s good to have actions that people are committed to taking, rather than just goals,” he said.

ISOLA – Bobbie Miller doesn’t see why she should agree to let a company bury a gas pipeline on her family’s land in Isola.

“It doesn’t have to be this way, so why settle for it?” she asked a reporter in late September. 

The family purchased the land in the 1940s as part of a federal government program, said Miller, who was mayor of the town of less than a thousand people from 2013 to 2017. 

“Come to find out, the government that sold it to you, they decided they want to come up with something else,” she said, discussing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s recent approval of a new 42-inch-wide natural gas pipeline that would run through the property. 

With FERC’s approval of the “Mississippi Crossing” project, the pipeline company, Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co., has the power of eminent domain and can dig up the land without Miller’s or her family’s consent. 

Only her 110-year-old mother lives at Miller’s childhood home today, although Miller lives nearby and helps take care of the property. 

She remembered her family making the most of its farmland, such as when they’d make sorghum molasses. A young Miller would watch as juices burst from the sugar cane grinder, its gears turning as the mule it was tied to circled the machine. 

She’s now facing a legal battle to keep Mississippi Crossing’s pipeline off that very land. As of early October, the pipeline company had initiated 141 condemnation cases against Miller’s family and other Mississippi property owners. Meanwhile, the project faces legal challenges from groups arguing that the new gas transportation is unnecessary.   

Kinder Morgan, a gas transporting giant and Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co.’s parent company, started planning the 208-mile pipeline extension years ago, the company told Mississippi Today. Mississippi Crossing stretches nearly the full width of the state, from Greenville into Alabama, and is part of a large project that extends into Georgia. It would also include three new compressor stations in Lauderdale, Attala and Humphreys counties.

Southern Natural Gas Co., a partner in the project, is half-owned by  Southern Company, the parent of Mississippi Power and one of the companies slated to buy natural gas through the added capacity of this project. 

In the companies’ 2025 application to FERC, which has to approve gas pipelines that cross statelines, they argued utilities in the Southeast will need new capacity to serve a rising energy demand. 

That demand, the company forecasted, will come from “growing economic activity” from industries including electric vehicles, heating electrification and data centers.  

But advocates in Mississippi – as well as in Alabama and Georgia where another phase of the pipeline would cross – are challenging FERC’s approval, calling the project “unnecessary, redundant and costly” and arguing it would “harm communities and landscapes” across those three states.

The advocacy groups, which include the Mississippi Rising Coalition and the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, cite research that suggests the pipeline’s application inflates its forecasted energy demand to justify the project. 

“FERC is choosing to ignore its statutory obligation to protect the public interest by rubber stamping a reckless plan that will pollute Southern communities and risk raising families’ power bills,” Megan Gibson, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing the project’s opposition, said in a lawsuit filed on Oct. 1. “The only true beneficiaries of these pipelines are the pipeline companies and their monopoly utility affiliates—not the public.”

In a June report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, the research firm says Kinder Morgan’s forecast “hinges on an overblown, excessive forecast of data center electricity needs, coupled with the assumption that much of this need would be met by natural gas power generation.”

Another study, done by consultant London Economics International and commissioned by the SELC, found that Kinder Morgan’s projected energy transportation need was more than four times the actual need indicated in public utility records. 

In an interview with Mississippi Today, the pipeline company disagreed with those characterizations. 

“We don’t overbuild,” Allen Fore, Kinder Morgan’s vice president of public affairs, said, adding that FERC verifies the company’s assessment of needed pipeline growth. “ We scope projects for our customers need. It’s not a process of, ‘if you build it, will they come?’”

The SELC also pointed to the high cost of the project, which would present a burden to ratepayers if the projected demand for the pipeline isn’t realized. Kinder Morgan estimated it will cost $5.2 billion to build the project.

Recognizing she’s facing an uphill battle against the power of eminent domain, Miller stubbornly hopes to shield her family’s land from any risk a new pipeline might bring. Besides, her motto in life, she said, is “You reach for the stars and you’ll fall somewhere in between.”

While natural gas pipelines are central to the country’s energy delivery system – about 3 million miles of them snake throughout the United States – they come with a range of environmental and safety concerns, advocates point out. 

From 2021 to 2025, pipeline incidents caused 48 fatalities and 151 injuries, according to federal data, although the number of injuries dropped significantly compared to prior years. 

‘Can’t miss what you never had‘

Air and noise pollution also are concerns. Compressor stations, used to put pressure into pipeline systems, are loud and emit volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, into the air.

Then there’s the long-term climate impact. While carbon emissions are more often associated with climate change, methane – what natural gas is mostly made of – is more than 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere. In terms of the negative impacts from climate change, a 2024 Stanford University study estimated that methane emissions from the U.S.’s oil and gas industries cost the country $10 billion in damages per year. 

Because of the public service gas pipelines provide, Congress gave pipeline companies the power of eminent domain in the 1940s. Eminent domain laws require landowners be paid fair compensation for the use of their property, and property owners can negotiate terms such as where the pipeline runs across their land. 

But once FERC greenlights a pipeline project, a company seeking access to private land faces few obstacles. If a landowner doesn’t reach an agreement with the company, the pipeline operator can take the matter to court and forcibly gain access to the property through eminent domain. 

Since getting approval in July, Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co has filed 141 lawsuits against Mississippi property owners who have yet to reach an agreement with the pipeline operators. As of Oct. 13, the company had settled 36, or just about a quarter, of those cases.

Last month, a lumber company with about 27 acres in Attala and Holmes counties countersued Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. for offering “grossly inadequate” payment and for rushing negotiations before filing its lawsuit.   

Fore, with Kinder Morgan, said the company asks for a 50-foot easement on the property to insert the pipeline segment. But once it’s buried, most landowners will never see the pipeline again, and “you can use the property as you did before,” he said. As of Oct. 7, the company had reached agreements with 80% of the Mississippi properties the pipeline would go through, Fore added. 

Knowing they have little power and wanting to avoid the drama of going to court, landowners often settle for whatever compensation companies first offer. By doing so, they often leave thousands of dollars on the table, landowner advocates say. 

“What the pipeline companies pay landowners, it’s seldom just,” said Rebekah Sale, executive director of the Property Rights and Pipeline Center, a group that pairs landowners with eminent domain lawyers to negotiate better payments. 

Hiring a lawyer can greatly increase what pipeline companies pay landowners, a vast majority of whom take the first offer they receive, Sale said. Others, she added, don’t even fully read what they’re signing. 

“It’s a terrible idea,” Sale said. “The easement can be permanent. There can be restrictions as to how you can use your own property, and you can even be held liable for damage to their pipe. And by the way, you’re still paying the property taxes on this property.” 

Recently, though, Sale said there are a lack of attorneys who have been able to help landowners impacted by the Mississippi Crossing project. 

In Isola, Miller said her family hasn’t received a court notice from Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co, although court records show a summons was sent to the family’s address in August. The company first reached out to the family in 2024 and has made three different offers for access to the land, Miller told Mississippi Today. 

She said many in Humphreys County, where Isola is located and where the median household income is below $34,000, were happy just to get any compensation for access to their land. 

“ Nobody really thought nothing about it,” she said. “It’s like (the pipeline companies) go fishing, put the right bait on, and the fish come. And when you get caught, you don’t know what you got caught in.”

Miller and her mother haven’t accepted an offer from the company and don’t plan to budge. When asked if there was an amount that would change her mind, she just shook her head. 

“You can’t miss what you never had,” she said.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Mississippi to campaign for Scott Colom, Mississippi’s Democratic Senate nominee, in Columbus on Oct. 22, a campaign spokesperson told Mississippi Today.

Harris’s stop in east Mississippi will mark the second day of her final fall campaign blitz on behalf of other Democrats ahead of the midterms. The former vice president is the latest in a string of national Democratic figures to campaign for Colom, or announce that they will, as the Nov. 3 election nears.

Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has blasted Colom for his ties to the national party and use of national Democratic surrogates in his campaign in what has become a negative race in the home stretch before Nov. 3. Colom has countered Hyde-Smith is out of touch with average Mississippians and afraid to face her constituents at-large in town halls or to debate him.

“I am honored to have Vice President Harris join me on the campaign trail as we fight to lower costs for Mississippi families, raise the minimum wage, and save healthcare and our rural hospitals,” Colom said in a statement.

More details about where the campaign event would take place in Columbus were not yet available on Wednesday.

Colom, competing against Hyde-Smith and independent candidate Ty Pinkins, has in recent weeks seen a flurry of support from national Democratic leaders. Former President Barack Obama endorsed Colom in an ad that started running this week, and former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced plans to campaign in Mississippi along the Gulf Coast on Oct. 27.

Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia will host a fundraiser, conduct a conversation with faith leaders and headline a campaign rally on behalf of Colom in Jackson on Wednesday.

Those who have already visited Mississippi for Colom include Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Harris’s trip marks her second visit to Mississippi in the past year. She came to Jackson in January for her book tour and spoke before a packed crowd at the newly reopened Thalia Mara Hall.

Harris has said in multiple recent interviews that she’s focused on helping Democrats win in November. But she’s not ruled out another presidential campaign after losing the 2024 general election to Donald Trump.

A former University of Mississippi employee argues in a new court filing that Chancellor Glenn Boyce bowed to public pressure when he fired her because of backlash from a social media post about the killing of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. 

In a brief filed with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week, Lauren Stokes, former executive assistant in the university’s development office, challenged Boyce’s claims that her post – or the resulting public outcry over it – disrupted the university operations, including a fundraising event and its social media channels.  

Instead, she said, Boyce and the university gave in to what she called a “heckler’s veto.” That’s when a speaker is drowned out by hecklers. Stokes asserts that the university, when it fired her, did the bidding of Kirk’s supporters who wanted her silenced.

The latest court filing is part of an appeal Stokes filed in July, after a U.S. district court judge dismissed her initial lawsuit claiming that she was wrongly terminated. The judge ruled that Boyce, as chancellor of the university, was entitled to qualified immunity and did not violate her First Amendment rights. 

At the root of the dispute is a post she shared on her private Instagram account following Kirk’s assasination. The post criticized Kirk views on guns, abortion and race and described those like him as “yt supremacist and reimagined Klan members” who had “wreaked havoc on our communities, condemning children and the populace at large to mass death for the sake of keeping their automatic guns,” the online statement said. Stokes later deleted the post and apologized. 

The post received immediate backlash from conservative activists and state leaders, including Mississippi State Auditor Shad White, a vocal critic of what he calls “woke” initiatives in higher education. He shared a screenshot of Stokes’ post on X, formerly known as Twitter, and tagged the university.

Alysson Mills, Stokes’ attorney, declined to comment. Jacob Batte, a spokesperson for the university, said its position is laid out in court filings. Cal Mayo Jr., an attorney for Boyce, did not respond immediately to a request for comment. 

Cyberattacks on government entities are increasing, the speed of attacks is accelerating and the impact could be far reaching thanks largely to artificial intelligence. 

February’s cyberattack on the University of Mississippi Medical Center demonstrated the damage that hackers can inflict. UMMC was without Wifi or phones and it’s regular computer system was down for more than a week. It canceled appointments and elective surgeries, and medical staff had to use paper charts to care for patients. 

On Tuesday, the Senate Cybersecurity Committee met with experts to learn about what the state should do to protect citizens and assets. 

READ MORE: UMMC revenue tumbled after February cyberattack

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann created the committee in August to study the security of state and local government information systems and laws and penalties. The committee will develop recommendations for the Legislature’s 2027 session. 

Hosemann has said the state is “woefully inadequate” in cybersecurity.

In 2025, $77 billion in losses in the U.S. from cyber crimes were reported to the FBI. Hosemann said that due to underreporting, the actual cost could be in the hundreds of billions.

Speakers at the hearing on Tuesday emphasized the need for a collaborative, coordinated and centralized system for combatting cyber threats in state and local governments. 

According to Bobby Freeman, the director of the Cybersecurity Unit within the Department of Public Safety’s Office of Homeland Security, said that many cyberattacks are coming from outside of the U.S., requiring state agencies and local governments to work with federal agencies. 

To prepare for potential attacks, various agencies and local governments in Mississippi need to have a plan to work together. This could include common definitions, clear governance and crisis communications plans. 

“Coordination is key to all of this,” said Kevin Chin, a cybersecurity expert with Microsoft. 

Currently, cybersecurity and enforcement are dispersed. At the state level the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services, the Cybersecurity Unit and the attorney general’s office are each responsible for different aspects of cybersecurity from providing services to state agencies to prosecuting crimes, and some departments have their own policies. Local governments are usually responsible for their own security resulting in a patchwork system that can make coordination and communication difficult. 

Doug Robinson, executive director of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, told the committee he has seen a “march toward more consolidated and centralized models” across states.

Multiple speakers said that having a single centralized state cybersecurity resource would make collaboration and communication easier. A single system would also provide opportunities to eliminate duplicated work, share knowledge and save money. But speakers had different ideas about who the central agency or person should be.

A single system could also help the state respond quickly to cyberattacks. 

Cyberattacks are moving faster than ever thanks to AI and a rapid response is key to minimizing damage. Jon Tidwell, a government strategic services leader with Google, said that AI is making cyberattacks increasingly sophisticated and hackers are able to precisely time attacks to target a system. 

Some experts said that to be successful, the state needs more timely visibility into attacks on local governments. One proposal is to pass a law requiring local governments to report when they have data breaches within 24 hours. State agencies are already required to report incidents to state Information Technology Services

“You can’t protect what you don’t know about,” said Mark Butscher, a security specialist with Google. 

Cybersecurity tools and professionals are not cheap. Additionally, state and local governments are competing for these highly specialized personnel with private industry and the federal government, which often pay more. Suggestions included working with community colleges and universities to develop a pipeline and funding cybersecurity as a recurring expense in the state budget.

“Cybersecurity is no longer a back-office expense, it is a foundational requirement for public service continuity,” said Tidwell. 

The committee said it would first focus on policies around state agencies. This could include consolidation, increasing visibility of attacks and making sure state agencies are following policies. However, disparate and numerous city and county governments present a hard challenge. 

Legislators are also interested in how to enforce cybersecurity laws and punish crimes, although some speakers urged the committee to focus less on criminal laws and more on the organization and coordination of various groups.

Sen. Tyler McCaughn, a Republican from Newton and one of the committee’s chairmen, said he had more questions, including procurement, reporting and enforcement.

“I’m going to give you a heads up. We’re not done,” McCaughn said, “We’re not done with this year. We’re not done with these hearings. Because I feel really confident that an enforcement piece will be our next discussion.”