Mississippi Today
Is abortion legal in Mississippi? Voters could decide
by Bobby Harrison, Mississippi Today
Sun, 27 Nov 2022 12:00:00 +0000
Is abortion legal in Mississippi? Voters could decide
Since the United States Supreme Court in a Mississippi case stripped away a national right to an abortion, citizens in six states, including five earlier this month, have voted to either preserve or expand abortion rights.
In no state have voters opted to restrict or to take away abortion rights since the Mississippi case – Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization – was decided in late June by the nation's highest court.
An argument can be made that Mississippians, like voters in conservative states such as Kansas and Kentucky and liberal states like California and Vermont, should be allowed to vote on whether they support or oppose restricting abortion rights.
After all, Mississippi is an unmitigated mess when it comes to the issue of abortion even though it is the state that successfully brought the lawsuit that led to the overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that guaranteed a national right to an abortion. It is true that there are no abortion clinics in Mississippi, but it reasonably could be argued that abortion is indeed legal in the Magnolia State.
The state has two abortion laws on the books. They are:
- A ban on all abortion except in the case of rape or to preserve the life of the mother.
- A six-week ban except in cases of medical emergency.
But the Mississippi Supreme Court – in Pro Choice Mississippi v. Fordice – ruled in 1998 that the state constitution provides a right to an abortion.
“We find that the state constitutional right to privacy includes an implied right to choose whether or not to have an abortion,” the late Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Michael Sullivan wrote for the majority.
That ruling has never been overturned.
In the normal judicial process, the laws passed by the Legislature imposing the abortion bans would not trump the ruling of the Supreme Court. What appears to have occurred is that the Supreme Court ruling has been rendered moot since the only abortion provider moved out of the state – fearing its employees could face punishment (possible prison time) in conservative Mississippi even though the state's highest court said that a right to an abortion exists. In other words, there is no abortion provider in the state to challenge the constitutionality of the two laws banning abortion.
Recognizing the state's conundrum, the conservative Mississippi Justice Institute, which is the legal arm of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, recently filed a lawsuit, hoping to get the state Supreme Court to overturn its 1998 ruling.
At the very least, the issue of abortion is still murky in Mississippi. The Mississippi Justice Institute recognizes this.
“In the Dobbs case, Mississippi secured a major victory for human rights and the rule of law,” said Aaron Rice, director of the Mississippi Justice Institute “Now it's time to finish the job and protect the right to life in the state that took Roe down.”
The lawsuit filed by the Mississippi Justice Institute is asking the Supreme Court to reverse the 1998 ruling in Fordice v. Planned Parenthood just as the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision.
The Justice Institute filed the lawsuit on behalf of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. According to the lawsuit, the Michigan-based group has more than 6,000 members nationwide, including 35 in Mississippi. The lawsuit said its members are being placed in legal jeopardy because abortion has been banned under the two aforementioned laws. But based on the 1998 state Supreme Court ruling, doctors could be placed in legal jeopardy if they refuse to refer a woman to an abortion provider, the lawsuit alleges.
Whether that circuitous argument is enough to give the Michigan group “standing” to pursue such a case in Mississippi remains to be seen. The lawsuit is filed in Hinds County Chancery Court.
No doubt, abortion providers would have “standing” to bring the case and in fact did this past summer. But the Jackson Women's Health Organization, which originally filed a lawsuit, opted to move out of state and drop the case when the state Supreme Court refused to hear the issue in an expedited manner. The decision not to pursue the case meant the Supreme Court was never given a chance to reverse its 1998 ruling. It is likely the current justices would reverse the ruling if given the opportunity.
Thus far no abortion provider has sought to intervene in the case brought by the anti-abortion group.
The Mississippi Legislature could settle this complex issue easily by voting early in the 2023 session to place on the ballot as soon as possible a proposal to reverse the state Supreme Court decision granting the right to an abortion.
Then the citizens could decide just as they have in six other states.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
Senate confirms Gov. Tate Reeves’ economic development chief despite report of toxic workplace, claims of harassment
The Mississippi Senate on Wednesday unanimously confirmed Bill Cork as Gov. Tate Reeves' pick for a permanent chief economic development officer, despite a background report provided to senators that he “created a toxic workplace” and had faced complaints including sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment.
In a hearing before his Senate confirmation, Cork said he did nothing wrong, has a winning economic development record, has overhauled MDA.
“… If that takes a little hostility to get that done, that's what's going to happen,” Cork said in the hearing on Tuesday.
Cork is now the first permanent director of the state's economic development agency since 2021, when former agency director John Rounsaville resigned after sexual misconduct allegations.
Cork is credited with recently helping the state land record-setting large economic developments, including Amazon Web Services' commitment to spend $10 billion to construct two “hyperscale data centers” in Madison County.
A background report provided to the Senate Finance Committee before members voted to confirm him said that Cork, who has worked at MDA since September of 2020, was investigated by the Mississippi Personnel Board in 2021. The investigation followed a claim against Cork of sexual harassment, age discrimination and creating a hostile work environment while he was serving as chief economic development officer at MDA.
The personnel board said it conducted the investigation at Gov. Reeves' request. It submitted a report to Reeves after the investigation that said Cork had been uncooperative with the investigation, and that while no legal violations were found, “Cork's management style has created a toxic workplace.” Personnel recommended Cork receive a written reprimand and that he complete at least 12 hours of training on workforce harassment, which he completed.
Cork was traveling Thursday, his office said, and could not be reached for comment. In a Senate Finance confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Cork addressed the report after Sen. Bradford Blackmon asked about it.
Cork said he helped lead “reorganizing and reforming” MDA, resulting in two-thirds of the project management and international teams leaving the agency, and “we had a small cadre of employees that didn't like what was happening.”
“At the end of the day, the state Personnel Board found I hadn't done anything illegal, but that I was a tough boss,” Cork said. “Some people find that level of tough and directedness to be a little hostile. None of it was directed at anyone, but when you're trying to put together a winning team, you just don't settle for second-place.
“… I don't apologize for anything I've done because I didn't do anything wrong,” Cork said. “I didn't cooperate with the investigation because I didn't do anything wrong, and that's exactly what that investigation found.”
State Personnel Director Kelly Hardwick said: “Regretfully, (Cork) didn't cooperate with the investigation, which might have changed our determination. Because he didn't, we were left with only the testimony of the accusations.”
Hardwick declined to provide details of the allegations against Cork, and his office would not release its report to Mississippi Today, citing public records exemptions for personnel records.
Hardwick said Cork did successfully complete the state workplace harassment training and implemented some of the practices recommended in the training.
“He's been shown to be successful and there have been no other complaints on him since,” Hardwick said. “From our standpoint he successfully did what we recommended to the governor.”
Both the Senate Finance Committee and full Senate voted unanimously for Cork's confirmation.
Senate Finance Chairman Josh Harkins noted the report said personnel board found no legal violations, and that Cork openly addressed the allegations in committee. He said he received recommendation letters for Cork from across the state and country and, “It's hard to argue with the product MDA has put out in the last few months.”
A spokesman for Reeves praised Cork, said the “old” personnel complaint is not credible and criticized Mississippi Today.
“Bill Cork has gotten better results for the people of Mississippi than almost any other employee of state government in decades,” Reeves Deputy Chief of Staff Cory Custer said in a statement. “… (Cork) opted to make the results of the investigation known, addressed it in detail in his confirmation hearing yesterday, and was then unanimously confirmed. It would not be a surprise to see a biased article that hypes up discredited nonsense, but it would be a disservice to a great, hard-working man.”
Cork has previously served as deputy director and chief economic development officer at MDA. He formerly led the Hancock County Port and Harbor Commission and before that was the CEO of an industrial complex in New Boston, Texas. He is a Marine Corps veteran and received a master of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Reeves on Aug. 13, 2021, announced Cork's predecessor, Rounsaville, would be “stepping down” at the end of that month as MDA director to spend more time with his family and less time traveling. Reeves thanked him for his service and wished him well.
But Mississippi Today reported that sexual misconduct allegations had led to Rounsaville's resignation, and that Reeves had in July received a personnel investigation report and recommendation Rounsaville be fired. After that report, Reeves said Rounsaville had been put on administrative leave and removed from day-to-day operations at MDA and that his resignation had been tendered Aug. 13 after an investigation into his conduct.
An allegedly intoxicated Rounsaville allegedly made sexual advances toward three subordinate female MDA employees at a bar in Biloxi while attending a business conference.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Her grandfather helped bring Medicaid to Mississippi 55 years ago. Today, she’s pushing for expansion.
Supporters of Medicaid expansion would argue that it is wholly appropriate that Leah Hendrix has recently been a featured speaker in rallies at the state Capitol in favor of providing health care coverage for primarily working poor Mississippians.
No doubt, her activism brings symmetry.
Hendrix, a Jackson mother of four and the wife of a physician, is the granddaughter of Alton Cobb, the state's former longtime state health officer who played a pivotal role in Mississippi opting into the original Medicaid program 55 years ago.
In more recent times, her father, Tim Alford, a Kosciusko physician, was beating the drums in favor of Medicaid expansion longer than almost any other Mississippi health care provider.
“He said he was leaving that to me because no one had listened to him,” she joked in an interview with Mississippi Today this week after one of the Capitol rallies.
Medicaid expansion has become the major focus of a contentious 2024 legislative session, with hundreds of Mississippians, top state business leaders, health officials and even religious leaders publicly advocating at the Capitol for full Medicaid expansion that stands to significantly help the poorest, unhealthiest state in the nation.
For the first time, state lawmakers are earnestly debating expansion. Hendrix has been on the front lines of the fight to get it across the finish line.
“It seems we have been talking about this for more than 13 years,” she said, referring to the fact that the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010 with the provision allowing Medicaid expansion to cover those earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level or about $20,000 annually for an individual. “But it really has been going on much longer than that. When did Al work on that?”
READ MORE: Top Mississippi business leaders endorse full Medicaid expansion
The story of Alton Cobb and Mississippi's reluctant decision to opt into Medicaid in 1969 is one of an unlikely alliance and political courage by a governor who eschewed his political philosophy to do what he believed was right for the people of Mississippi.
That governor was John Bell Williams. And Cobb, an employee at the state Department of Health who was initially reluctant to take a key position on Williams' staff, helped the governor reach that decision.
“I didn't vote for him,” Cobb told Mississippi Today in 2019, recalling when he was approached to work for Williams. “I think he probably knew that.”
But former U.S. Rep. David Bowen, who had joined Williams' staff, was a friend of Cobb and convinced him of the potential of Williams' health advisory board.
“I wanted to be part of that,” Cobb said.
READ MORE: Is history repeating itself on Medicaid expansion in Mississippi?
The panel held hearings across the state, listening to health care providers and others. Cobb said Williams attended the meetings, though he seldom spoke. He primarily listened.
At the end of the process, Williams informed his staff he was calling a special session to take up the issue of opting into the Medicaid program. That special session lasted from July 22, 1969, until Oct. 10. In the midst of the long and extraordinary session, Hurricane Camille ravaged the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
But by the end, Mississippi opted into the Medicaid program as most other states had already done.
The Williams-backed move was a shock to many political observers. As a U.S. House member prior to being elected governor, Williams had voted against the legislation to create the Medicaid program and had campaigned for governor railing against the excesses of the federal government.
But in a joint session of the Legislature on the first day of the special session, he told members, “In fairness, I must point out that my philosophical reasons for resisting the program as a member of the United States Congress is neither relevant nor applicable to the present issue before us. The program is a reality. It is available to our state and now devolves wholly into a question of whether you, in your wisdom, should determine our participation will be in the best interests of our state and people.”
Back in 1969, Williams' argument for opting into the original Medicaid program sounded much like the one made today for Medicaid expansion. He said the program would provide health care for a segment of the population that needed it, it would help the state's health care providers, and it would benefit the whole state by pumping more funds into the economy.
“Al used to love to tell about becoming John Bell Williams' chief ambassador for starting Medicaid in Mississippi,” Hendrix said. “… After having several meetings, a light came on for Williams.
“… Two opposites politically flew around the state (on the state plane) selling Medicaid,” Hendrix continued. “Al did not like to fly.”
But she added it was “a good example of a politician who did a 180 because it just made economic sense.”
Hendrix said her grandfather, who died in 2021, wanted his support for Medicaid expansion to be included in his obituary.
Hendrix is hopeful that current Mississippi politicians will do as Williams did back in 1969 and set aside their previous political beliefs and do what is right for the people of Mississippi.
“Despite the stereotypes, Medicaid does so much good,” she said. “This is the insurance that helps children who have no other choice. Where are the Beatitudes when our neighbors need them? I will never understand why Mississippi politicians of late have decided we should not expand — turning down millions of federal dollars our state so desperately needs because of politics while we're all still paying into a system that's funding states that did expand.”
Perhaps today's politicians need someone like Alton Cobb to help them reach that decision. Maybe that person is already part of the debate and is advocating for it at the Capitol every day — if only those Mississippi politicians would do like John Bell Williams did in 1969 and listen.
READ MORE: Medicaid expansion negotiators still far apart after first public meeting
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Jackson officials settle lawsuit over George Robinson’s death
The family of a Jackson man who died in 2019 days after an interaction with police officers will receive nearly $18,000 in a wrongful death lawsuit settlement.
That $17,786.25 settlement, according to city council documents, “does not constitute an admission of liability” by the city of Jackson and the three former Jackson police officers who the family say pulled 62-year-old George Robinson from his car and beat him in the Washington Addition neighborhood.
Robinson died days later on Jan. 15, 2019, and the state medical examiners said his death was a homicide from three blunt head injuries.
One of the officers, former detective Anthony Fox, was convicted of culpable-negligence manslaughter in 2022, receiving a 20-year sentence with 15 years suspended. Charges against the other two officers, Desmond Barney and Lincoln Lampley, were dismissed in 2021.
Fox's conviction stood for about two years, until January when the Mississippi Court of Appeals reversed the conviction and issued an acquittal. In a majority opinion, the judges agreed the evidence was insufficient for the verdict and that Robinson's medical history made it difficult to tell whether his injuries from Fox was the sole contributor to his death.
The Hinds County district attorney did not support challenging the conviction, while Attorney General Lynn Fitch asked for it to be reversed.
Fox left prison in February and went back to work for the Clinton Police Department, where he was employed up until his conviction after leaving the Jackson Police Department.
Bettersen Wade, Robinson's sister who was a plaintiff in the wrongful death lawsuit, is also the mother of 37-year-old Dexter Wade, the Jackson man who died last year and was buried in the Hinds County pauper's grave, despite having identification and his family calling the coroner's office and Jackson police.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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