Mississippi Today
Recriminations fly as Reeves, Presley accuse each other of lies in fiery Mississippi gubernatorial debate
Mississippi voters who tuned in Wednesday night were treated to the most heated gubernatorial debate in recent history, as Republican Tate Reeves and Democrat Brandon Presley accused each other of lying, corruption, lying, offering up bad policies and lying.
The two frequently talked over each other and the moderators — and loudly when their mics were shut off. Recriminations flew.
“When he qualified to run for governor he couldn’t make it an entire hour without lying to the people of Mississippi,” incumbent Reeves said early in the hour-long scrum. “And on this debate stage he couldn’t make it one full minute without lying to the people of Mississippi.”
Presley quipped: “I told somebody recently that asked me about negative ads, ‘If he’d quit lying on me, I’d quit telling the truth on him.’”
Post-debate, each camp and their party leaders claimed victory. Both candidates landed blows, dodged and parried. Neither appeared to offer any major new policy, platform planks or accusation against the other likely to sway undecided voters. Perhaps not surprising given their only debate happened just six days out from Tuesday’s election, the candidates mostly used talking points from their stump speeches and recent barrage of millions of dollars worth of ads attacking each other.
WAPT moderators Megan West and Troy Johnson, at times growing a little flustered, tried to keep the sparring politicians on topic with questions mostly sent in by the public, including a few video-recorded questions from Mississippians.
WATCH: Full debate between Gov. Tate Reeves and Brandon Presley
Mississippi’s health care and hospitals crisis, and Medicaid expansion as a possible solution
Reeves said that Medicaid expansion is “probably the topic that my team and I have worked on more than any other.” This might surprise some advocates, as Reeves has long been a major opponent of Mississippi accepting federal money to expand Medicaid coverage to working poor people as 40 other states have, and he’s appeared to eschew it out-of-hand with little discussion.
“At the end of the day, it does not make sense for the people of Mississippi,” Reeves said. “If you add 300,000 people, 100,000 would currently be on private insurance, so putting them on the government rolls doesn’t make any sense.”
Reeves said a plan he recently proposed to tax hospitals more and enable them to draw down more federal Medicaid reimbursement dollars is a better solution for hospitals. He has also repeatedly said he’ll focus on creating better jobs that offer insurance.
READ MORE: Gov. Reeves announces 11th hour plan for hospital crisis. Opponents pan it as ‘too little, too Tate’
Presley has made Medicaid expansion a focus of his campaign. He said Mississippi receiving the $1 billion a year in federal dollars would help the large number of uninsured working Mississippians, help save struggling hospitals and create an estimated 16,000 new jobs.
“It’s past time to do it,” Presley said. “… The truth of the matter is, Tate, there’s a majority in the House and Senate of Democrats and Republicans right now that want to expand Medicaid, and you’re standing in the way of 230,000 working people that have jobs that you’re too good to do yourself that would benefit if we expanded Medicaid … A majority of Republican support expanding Medicaid. A majority of Mississippians support it … We have 34 hospitals on the brink of closure, and Tate Reeves didn’t open his mouth in this campaign about trying to help those hospitals until he got in a tight race and you saw the polls tightening, and then he came up with a scheme that’s going to actually tax our hospitals.”
Presley has in the past vowed to expand Medicaid, day one, if elected. Reeves said, “He doesn’t have the authority to do anything on the first day in office. But like everything else he proposes, he simply is lying to the people of Mississippi.”
“There are unintended consequences of expanding Medicaid to 300,000 Mississippians,” Reeves said. “The unintended consequence is moving individuals off of private insurance. And, by the way, that’s bad for rural hospitals as well because the fact is when you move them from private insurance, the reimbursement rates for those 100,000 people are actually lower when they go on Medicaid.” Reeves said Louisiana and Arkansas have both expanded Medicaid, and they also have rural hospitals facing closure.
Presley said that as governor, he could ask federal Medicaid for a waiver that would allow him to start Medicaid expansion. “I don’t know if the governor knows the authority of his job or not … Tate Reeves’ own state economist says that this program will pay for itself. Well, if he doesn’t believe his own state economist, he ought to fire him.”
READ MORE: Brandon Presley again vows to expand Medicaid as Gov. Tate Reeves reiterates opposition
Corruption, particularly Mississippi’s massive welfare scandal, attack ads and the influence of campaign donors
Presley pulled out the only prop of the night — paper copies of text messages — and said Reeves “has been ensnarled in the largest public corruption scandal in Mississippi history.”
“We found out (Reeves’) brother, we’ve got text messages for his brother,” Presley said as he pulled papers from his suit coat. “He was text messaging with Brett Favre about how to be a PR agent.
“Seventy-seven million dollars was diverted for things like Brett Favre on a volleyball court, for Tate Reeves’ personal trainer, $1.3 million dollars,” Presley said. “And what did Tate do? He fired the independent investigator. He delayed depositions 13 times indefinitely. He is at the center of the state’s largest public corruption scandal. And so what do crooked politicians do when they’ve been caught in a scandal like this? They try to throw some sort of accusations at somebody else.”
Reeves denied any involvement in the welfare scandal and, as he has done in campaign ads, accused Presley — who’s serving as a state Public Service commissioner — of accepting illegal campaign contributions from solar companies.
READ MORE: Solar company’s donations to Brandon Presley appear legal. But should he have accepted them?
“You would have to believe in time travel to believe I was involved in the TANF scandal,” Reeves said. “It all happened before I was governor … He’ll lie about my family, lie about me, lie about what he believes or doesn’t believe because he doesn’t have any of his own beliefs.”
“Three public service commissioners have gone to jail in the last 30 years for doing the same thing Brandon Presley did,” Reeves said. “… He’s taken money from his solar panel buddies. He’s approved their ability to produce energy. That’s illegal in Mississippi (for a PSC commissioner to take donations from a regulated utility). The law is clear and Brandon Presley knowingly broke the law.”
Presley said Reeves’ claim is “a bald-faced lie.”
“And I’ll tell you why he knows it’s a lie,” Presley said. “The minute that the company involved threatened his campaign with a lawsuit for defamation, guess what he did. He changed the ad … These solar companies are not public utilities, and Tate Reeves knows that.”
Presley has made ethics reform and fighting corruption a major plank in his platform, and early in his campaign presented a detailed plan for reforms. On Thursday he accused Reeves of being “the biggest cheerleader for corruption, with pom-poms on … and if you think Tate Reeves will take on corruption, I’ve got some beachfront property in Nettleton to sell you.”
Each candidate accused the other of being bought and paid for by big-money campaign donors. Reeves said Presley has sold out to the national Democratic Party. Presley said Reeves has been bought off by big donors who get large state contracts in exchange.
READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves’ top political donors received $1.4 billion in state contracts from his agencies
“Eighty percent of the money that he is spending in this campaign has come from California, New York, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.,” Reeves said. “And if you’re keeping score at home, that’s over $10 million in far-left radicals funding his campaign.”
Presley said to Reeves onstage: “The truth is, you’re a bought-and-paid-for politician, and you know it, and the people of Mississippi know it … He is the poster child of this broken, corrupt system … There’s a report out just yesterday about Tate Reeves’ pay to play scheme … his contributors benefitted over a billion dollars in state contracts. One guy gave him $25,000, and then about 48 hours later he became a gaming commissioner.”
The candidates’ jabs at each other on alleged corruption got so heated and drawn out a moderator urged, “Gentlemen, we need to move on. We have to move on.”
Tax cuts: eliminating the state income tax or tax on groceries
Both candidates have vowed to cut taxes, but each has a different focus. Reeves vows to continue a push to eliminate the state income tax. Presley vows to eliminate the state’s sales tax on groceries. They were asked how they plan to get this done and to replace lost revenue. Neither directly answered those questions.
“I’ve been a tax cutter as governor,” Reeves said. “I was a tax cutter as lieutenant governor. In fact, in 2016 we passed the larges tax cut in Mississippi history. In 2021 we passed an even bigger tax cut. Combined, we’ve cut taxes over $1.2 billion for the people of this state. I do believe that eliminating the income tax is the best public policy for the state.”
Presley said: “Look, I want to cut the sales tax on groceries. We have the highest sales tax on food of any state in the United States. If you go out tonight and buy feed for a hog or feed for a cow, you pay zero sales tax. But if you want to feed your baby or you want to feed your family, you pay the highest sales tax in America.”
READ MORE: Tate Reeves, Brandon Presley pitch different tax cuts to voters. Who, exactly, would benefit?
Presley said Reeves has had 12 years to get income tax elimination done and that he “talks so tough but does so little.”
Reeves said: “If you earn income, if you make a living in this state, we’ve cut your taxes. You have more money in your pocket because of conservative leadership in the Legislature and the governor’s office. And if we turn Mississippi blue, we would never see another tax cut in the state of Mississippi.”
Public education, funding for schools and teacher pay
Reeves, as he has done many times on the campaign trail, touted public education achievements made over the last decade, teacher pay raises and increased spending for schools.
“The Mississippi miracle — that’s what the New York Times called it, and the New York Times is very rarely nice or generous to Mississippi,” Reeves said. “… We passed conservative reforms in 2013 and 2014 that laid the groundwork for the best educational achievement levels in the history of Mississippi.”
Reeves noted marked improvements in fourth-grade reading and math, and higher high school graduations rates, and “the largest teacher pay raise in state history … $6,100 more per year.”
Presley said he’s being supported by teacher groups including the Mississippi Association of Educators. He said he would push for full funding of the state’s adequate education formula, “that we have not fully funded education but two times in the entire existence of our school funding formula.”
“It’s evident who educators in this race support and know will really have their back,” Presley said. “… They looked at Tate Reeves’ record. They looked at my record and looked at my platform and they chose to endorse me over him … He brags about teacher pay raises. I think we’re measuring wrong on teacher pay … Instead of bragging about getting to the Southeastern average, we ought to bet teacher pay to the national average.”
Reeves said the educators supporting Presley are from teacher unions, with ties to national liberals “who led the effort to shut down our schools during COVID-19.”
READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves supported fully funding public education before he was against it
Presley provided an anecdote of a teacher he talked with last week in north Mississippi, who told him “she netted out about $23 a month” from the teacher pay raise Reeves touted. Some teachers have recently reported their take-home from raises ended up shrinking because of increased insurance and other costs.
Reeves responded to Presley: “There is no possible way that a teacher netted $23 a month on a $6,100 a year pay raise. Brandon Presley can’t do math. He lies really well, but he can’t do math.”
READ MORE: Lawmakers pass largest teacher pay raise in Mississippi history
The candidates accused each other of being out of step with rank-and-file Mississippians.
“He wants to talk about California and New York,” Presley said. “Let me tell you this, governor, how about you talk about Caledonia and New Hebron? You’re obsessed with California and New York. I ain’t been to California — I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
Reeves said: “Can I just say something about Caledonia?”
Presley, who has visited all 82 counties in his campaign, said: “Have you been there?”
Reeves said: “Yes. I went to breakfast in Caledonia last Monday morning and I’m gonna tell you something, Brandon, you’re gonna get more votes in California than you get in Caledonia.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
The Mississippi Supreme Court has set the execution of a man who kidnapped and murdered a 20-year-old community college student in north Mississippi 30 years ago.
Charles Ray Crawford, 59, is set to be executed Oct. 15 at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, after multiple requests by the attorney general’s office.
Eight justices joined the majority opinion to set the execution, concluding that Crawford has exhausted all state and federal legal remedies. Mississippi Supreme Court Justice T. Kenneth Griffis Jr. wrote the Friday opinion. Justice David Sullivan did not participate.
However, Kristy Noble with the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel released a statement saying it will file another appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.
“”Mr. Crawford’s inexperienced trial counsel conceded his guilt to the jury — against Mr.
Crawford’s timely and repeated objections,” Noble said in the statement. “Mr. Crawford told his counsel to pursue a not guilty verdict. Counsel did just the opposite, which is precisely what the U.S. Supreme Court says counsel cannot do,” Noble said in the statement.
“A trial like Mr. Crawford’s – one where counsel concedes guilt over his client’s express wishes – is essentially no trial at all.”
Last fall, Crawford’s attorneys asked the court not to set an execution date because he hadn’t exhausted appeal efforts in federal court to challenge a rape conviction that is not tied to his death sentence. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up Crawford’s case.
A similar delay occurred a decade ago, when the AG’s office asked the court to reset Crawford’s execution date, but that was denied because efforts to appeal his unrelated rape conviction were still pending.
After each unsuccessful filing, the attorney general’s office asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to set Crawford’s execution date.
On Friday, the court also denied Crawford’s third petition for post-conviction relief and a request for oral argument. It accepted the state’s motion to dismiss the petition. Seven justices concurred and Justice Leslie King concurred in result only. Again, Justice Sullivan did not participate.
Crawford was convicted and sentenced to death in Lafayette County for the 1993 rape and murder of North Mississippi Community College student Kristy Ray.
Days before he was set to go to trial on separate aggravated assault and rape charges, he kidnapped Ray from her parents’ Tippah County home, leaving ransom notes. Crawford took Ray to an abandoned barn where he stabbed her, and his DNA was found on her, indicating he sexually assaulted her, according to court records.
Crawford told police he had blackouts and only remembered parts of the crime, but not killing Ray. Later he admitted “he must of killed her” and led police to Ray’s body, according to court records.
At his 1994 trial he presented an insanity defense, including that he suffered from psychogenic amnesia – periods of time lapse without memory. Medical experts who provided rebuttal testimony said Crawford didn’t have psychogenic amnesia and didn’t show evidence of bipolar illness.
The last person executed in Mississippi was Richard Jordan in June, previously the state’s oldest and longest serving person on death row.
There are 36 people on death row, according to records from the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
Update 9/15/25: This story has been updated to include a response from the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Mississippi prepares for another execution appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
The article presents a factual and balanced account of the legal proceedings surrounding a scheduled execution in Mississippi. It includes perspectives from both the state’s attorney general’s office and the defense counsel, without using emotionally charged language or advocating for a particular political stance. The focus on legal details and court decisions reflects a neutral, informative approach typical of centrist reporting.
Mississippi Today
Presidents are taking longer to declare major natural disasters. For some, the wait is agonizing
TYLERTOWN — As an ominous storm approached Buddy Anthony’s one-story brick home, he took shelter in his new Ford F-250 pickup parked under a nearby carport.
Seconds later, a tornado tore apart Anthony’s home and damaged the truck while lifting it partly in the air. Anthony emerged unhurt. But he had to replace his vehicle with a used truck that became his home while waiting for President Donald Trump to issue a major disaster declaration so that federal money would be freed for individuals reeling from loss. That took weeks.
“You wake up in the truck and look out the windshield and see nothing. That’s hard. That’s hard to swallow,” Anthony said.
Disaster survivors are having to wait longer to get aid from the federal government, according to a new Associated Press analysis of decades of data. On average, it took less than two weeks for a governor’s request for a presidential disaster declaration to be granted in the 1990s and early 2000s. That rose to about three weeks during the past decade under presidents from both major parties. It’s taking more than a month, on average, during Trump’s current term, the AP found.
The delays mean individuals must wait to receive federal aid for daily living expenses, temporary lodging and home repairs. Delays in disaster declarations also can hamper recovery efforts by local officials uncertain whether they will receive federal reimbursement for cleaning up debris and rebuilding infrastructure. The AP collaborated with Mississippi Today and Mississippi Free Press on the effects of these delays for this report.
“The message that I get in the delay, particularly for the individual assistance, is that the federal government has turned its back on its own people,” said Bob Griffin, dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany in New York. “It’s a fundamental shift in the position of this country.”
The wait for disaster aid has grown as Trump remakes government
The Federal Emergency Management Agency often consults immediately with communities to coordinate their initial disaster response. But direct payments to individuals, nonprofits and local governments must wait for a major disaster declaration from the president, who first must receive a request from a state, territory or tribe. Major disaster declarations are intended only for the most damaging events that are beyond the resources of states and local governments.
Trump has approved more than two dozen major disaster declarations since taking office in January, with an average wait of almost 34 days after a request. That ranged from a one-day turnaround after July’s deadly flash flooding in Texas to a 67-day wait after a request for aid because of a Michigan ice storm. The average wait is up from a 24-day delay during his first term and is nearly four times as long as the average for former Republican President George H.W. Bush, whose term from 1989-1993 coincided with the implementation of a new federal law setting parameters for disaster determinations.
The delays have grown over time, regardless of the party in power. Former Democratic President Joe Biden, in his last year in office, averaged 26 days to declare major disasters — longer than any year under former Democratic President Barack Obama.
FEMA did not respond to the AP’s questions about what factors are contributing to the trend.
Others familiar with FEMA noted that its process for assessing and documenting natural disasters has become more complex over time. Disasters have also become more frequent and intense because of climate change, which is mostly caused by the burning of fuels such as gas, coal and oil.
The wait for disaster declarations has spiked as Trump’s administration undertakes an ambitious makeover of the federal government that has shed thousands of workers and reexamined the role of FEMA. A recently published letter from current and former FEMA employees warned the cuts could become debilitating if faced with a large-enough disaster. The letter also lamented that the Trump administration has stopped maintaining or removed long-term planning tools focused on extreme weather and disasters.
Shortly after taking office, Trump floated the idea of “getting rid” of FEMA, asserting: “It’s very bureaucratic, and it’s very slow.”
FEMA’s acting chief suggested more recently that states should shoulder more responsibility for disaster recovery, though FEMA thus far has continued to cover three-fourths of the costs of public assistance to local governments, as required under federal law. FEMA pays the full cost of its individual assistance.
Former FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor, who served during Trump’s first term, said the delay in issuing major disaster declarations likely is related to a renewed focus on making sure the federal government isn’t paying for things state and local governments could handle.
“I think they’re probably giving those requests more scrutiny,” Gaynor said. “And I think it’s probably the right thing to do, because I think the (disaster) declaration process has become the ‘easy button’ for states.”
The Associated Press on Monday received a statement from White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson in response to a question about why it is taking longer to issue major natural disaster declarations:
“President Trump provides a more thorough review of disaster declaration requests than any Administration has before him. Gone are the days of rubber stamping FEMA recommendations – that’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Under prior Administrations, FEMA’s outsized role created a bloated bureaucracy that disincentivized state investment in their own resilience. President Trump is committed to right-sizing the Federal government while empowering state and local governments by enabling them to better understand, plan for, and ultimately address the needs of their citizens. The Trump Administration has expeditiously provided assistance to disasters while ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely to supplement state actions, not replace them.”
In Mississippi, frustration festered during wait for aid
The tornado that struck Anthony’s home in rural Tylertown on March 15 packed winds up to 140 mph. It was part of a powerful system that wrecked homes, businesses and lives across multiple states.
Mississippi’s governor requested a federal disaster declaration on April 1. Trump granted that request 50 days later, on May 21, while approving aid for both individuals and public entities.
On that same day, Trump also approved eight other major disaster declarations for storms, floods or fires in seven other states. In most cases, more than a month had passed since the request and about two months since the date of those disasters.
If a presidential declaration and federal money had come sooner, Anthony said he wouldn’t have needed to spend weeks sleeping in a truck before he could afford to rent the trailer where he is now living. His house was uninsured, Anthony said, and FEMA eventually gave him $30,000.
In nearby Jayess in Lawrence County, Dana Grimes had insurance but not enough to cover the full value of her damaged home. After the eventual federal declaration, Grimes said FEMA provided about $750 for emergency expenses, but she is now waiting for the agency to determine whether she can receive more.
“We couldn’t figure out why the president took so long to help people in this country,” Grimes said. “I just want to tie up strings and move on. But FEMA — I’m still fooling with FEMA.”
Jonathan Young said he gave up on applying for FEMA aid after the Tylertown tornado killed his 7-year-old son and destroyed their home. The process seemed too difficult, and federal officials wanted paperwork he didn’t have, Young said. He made ends meet by working for those cleaning up from the storm.
“It’s a therapy for me,” Young said, “to pick up the debris that took my son away from me.”
Historically, presidential disaster declarations containing individual assistance have been approved more quickly than those providing assistance only to public entities, according to the AP’s analysis. That remains the case under Trump, though declarations for both types are taking longer.
About half the major disaster declarations approved by Trump this year have included individual assistance.
Some people whose homes are damaged turn to shelters hosted by churches or local nonprofit organizations in the initial chaotic days after a disaster. Others stay with friends or family or go to a hotel, if they can afford it.
But some insist on staying in damaged homes, even if they are unsafe, said Chris Smith, who administered FEMA’s individual assistance division under three presidents from 2015-2022. If homes aren’t repaired properly, mold can grow, compounding the recovery challenges.
That’s why it’s critical for FEMA’s individual assistance to get approved quickly — ideally, within two weeks of a disaster, said Smith, who’s now a disaster consultant for governments and companies.
“You want to keep the people where they are living. You want to ensure those communities are going to continue to be viable and recover,” Smith said. “And the earlier that individual assistance can be delivered … the earlier recovery can start.”
In the periods waiting for declarations, the pressure falls on local officials and volunteers to care for victims and distribute supplies.
In Walthall County, where Tylertown is, insurance agent Les Lampton remembered watching the weather news as the first tornado missed his house by just an eighth of a mile. Lampton, who moonlights as a volunteer firefighter, navigated the collapsed trees in his yard and jumped into action. About 45 minutes later, the second tornado hit just a mile away.
“It was just chaos from there on out,” Lampton said.
Walthall County, with a population of about 14,000, hasn’t had a working tornado siren in about 30 years, Lampton said. He added there isn’t a public safe room in the area, although a lot of residents have ones in their home.
Rural areas with limited resources are hit hard by delays in receiving funds through FEMA’s public assistance program, which, unlike individual assistance, only reimburses local entities after their bills are paid. Long waits can stoke uncertainty and lead cost-conscious local officials to pause or scale-back their recovery efforts.
In Walthall County, officials initially spent about $700,000 cleaning up debris, then suspended the cleanup for more than a month because they couldn’t afford to spend more without assurance they would receive federal reimbursement, said county emergency manager Royce McKee. Meanwhile, rubble from splintered trees and shattered homes remained piled along the roadside, creating unsafe obstacles for motorists and habitat for snakes and rodents.
When it received the federal declaration, Walthall County took out a multimillion-dollar loan to pay contractors to resume the cleanup.
“We’re going to pay interest and pay that money back until FEMA pays us,” said Byran Martin, an elected county supervisor. “We’re hopeful that we’ll get some money by the first of the year, but people are telling us that it could be [longer].”
Lampton, who took after his father when he joined the volunteer firefighters 40 years ago, lauded the support of outside groups such as Cajun Navy, Eight Days of Hope, Samaritan’s Purse and others. That’s not to mention the neighbors who brought their own skid steers and power saws to help clear trees and other debris, he added.
“That’s the only thing that got us through this storm, neighbors helping neighbors,” Lampton said. “If we waited on the government, we were going to be in bad shape.”
Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri, and Wildeman from Hartford, Connecticut.
Update 98/25: This story has been updated to include a White House statement released after publication.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Presidents are taking longer to declare major natural disasters. For some, the wait is agonizing appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This article presents a critical view of the Trump administration’s handling of disaster declarations, highlighting delays and their negative impacts on affected individuals and communities. It emphasizes concerns about government downsizing and reduced federal support, themes often associated with center-left perspectives that favor robust government intervention and social safety nets. However, it also includes statements from Trump administration officials defending their approach, providing some balance. Overall, the tone and framing lean slightly left of center without being overtly partisan.
Mississippi Today
Northeast Mississippi speaker and worm farmer played key role in Coast recovery after Hurricane Katrina
The 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina slamming the Mississippi Gulf Coast has come and gone, rightfully garnering considerable media attention.
But still undercovered in the 20th anniversary saga of the storm that made landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and caused unprecedented destruction is the role that a worm farmer from northeast Mississippi played in helping to revitalize the Coast.
House Speaker Billy McCoy, who died in 2019, was a worm farmer from the Prentiss, not Alcorn County, side of Rienzi — about as far away from the Gulf Coast as one could be in Mississippi.
McCoy grew other crops, but a staple of his operations was worm farming.
Early after the storm, the House speaker made a point of touring the Coast and visiting as many of the House members who lived on the Coast as he could to check on them.
But it was his action in the forum he loved the most — the Mississippi House — that is credited with being key to the Coast’s recovery.
Gov. Haley Barbour had called a special session about a month after the storm to take up multiple issues related to Katrina and the Gulf Coast’s survival and revitalization. The issue that received the most attention was Barbour’s proposal to remove the requirement that the casinos on the Coast be floating in the Mississippi Sound.
Katrina wreaked havoc on the floating casinos, and many operators said they would not rebuild if their casinos had to be in the Gulf waters. That was a crucial issue since the casinos were a major economic engine on the Coast, employing an estimated 30,000 in direct and indirect jobs.
It is difficult to fathom now the controversy surrounding Barbour’s proposal to allow the casinos to locate on land next to the water. Mississippi’s casino industry that was birthed with the early 1990s legislation was still new and controversial.
Various religious groups and others had continued to fight and oppose the casino industry and had made opposition to the expansion of gambling a priority.
Opposition to casinos and expansion of casinos was believed to be especially strong in rural areas, like those found in McCoy’s beloved northeast Mississippi. It was many of those rural areas that were the homes to rural white Democrats — now all but extinct in the Legislature but at the time still a force in the House.
So, voting in favor of casino expansion had the potential of being costly for what was McCoy’s base of power: the rural white Democrats.
Couple that with the fact that the Democratic-controlled House had been at odds with the Republican Barbour on multiple issues ranging from education funding to health care since Barbour was inaugurated in January 2004.
Barbour set records for the number of special sessions called by the governor. Those special sessions often were called to try to force the Democratic-controlled House to pass legislation it killed during the regular session.
The September 2005 special session was Barbour’s fifth of the year. For context, current Gov. Tate Reeves has called four in his nearly six years as governor.
There was little reason to expect McCoy to do Barbour’s bidding and lead the effort in the Legislature to pass his most controversial proposal: expanding casino gambling.
But when Barbour ally Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, who presided over the Senate, refused to take up the controversial bill, Barbour was forced to turn to McCoy.
The former governor wrote about the circumstances in an essay he penned on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina for Mississippi Today Ideas.
“The Senate leadership, all Republicans, did not want to go first in passing the onshore casino law,” Barbour wrote. “So, I had to ask Speaker McCoy to allow it to come to the House floor and pass. He realized he should put the Coast and the state’s interests first. He did so, and the bill passed 61-53, with McCoy voting no.
“I will always admire Speaker McCoy, often my nemesis, for his integrity in putting the state first.”
Incidentally, former Rep. Bill Miles of Fulton, also in northeast Mississippi, was tasked by McCoy with counting, not whipping votes, to see if there was enough support in the House to pass the proposal. Not soon before the key vote, Miles said years later, he went to McCoy and told him there were more than enough votes to pass the legislation so he was voting no and broached the idea of the speaker also voting no.
It is likely that McCoy would have voted for the bill if his vote was needed.
Despite his no vote, the Biloxi Sun Herald newspaper ran a large photo of McCoy and hailed the Rienzi worm farmer as a hero for the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Northeast Mississippi speaker and worm farmer played key role in Coast recovery after Hurricane Katrina appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
The article presents a factual and balanced account of the political dynamics surrounding Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts in Mississippi, focusing on bipartisan cooperation between Democratic and Republican leaders. It highlights the complexities of legislative decisions without overtly favoring one party or ideology, reflecting a neutral and informative tone typical of centrist reporting.
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FDA takes aim at Hims and other telehealth services in drug advertising blitz
Harrison County approves budget with no tax increase
Suspect in Charlie Kirk killing is charged with murder as prosecutor says DNA found on rifle trigger
A Sanctuary in Goodman: The Magic of the Public Library
Statewide literacy meetings aim to boost reading skills and family engagement
Rep. Bennie Thompson calling on federal investigation into Delta State student’s death
15-minute parking spots added in downtown Gulfport to ease congestion during renovations
The Sound of the South: Mississippi’s Songbook
Local Eats – One Thirty One Lameuse, Downtown Biloxi
Morning ‘Sip: Red Carpet Bowl
15-minute parking spots added in downtown Gulfport to ease congestion during renovations
Family of Delta State student found hanging seeks answers
Statewide literacy meetings aim to boost reading skills and family engagement
Pet of the Week: Destiny is looking for a forever home!
Saints Report: Saints lose another close game this time in week two against the San Francisco 49ers
Harrison County approves budget with no tax increase
‘Little quiet light’: Family remembers Delta State University student found dead on campus
The Mustard Seed
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SuperTalk FM6 days agoHyde-Smith, Warnock team up to recognize Gold Star Families Remembrance Week
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Mississippi News Video7 days ago
‘Little quiet light’: Family remembers Delta State University student found dead on campus
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Local News6 days ago
FDA takes aim at Hims and other telehealth services in drug advertising blitz
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Mississippi News6 days ago
Suspect in Charlie Kirk killing is charged with murder as prosecutor says DNA found on rifle trigger
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Our Mississippi Home6 days ago
A Sanctuary in Goodman: The Magic of the Public Library
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Local News Video6 days ago
Harrison County approves budget with no tax increase
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Local News Video5 days ago
Statewide literacy meetings aim to boost reading skills and family engagement
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SuperTalk FM6 days agoRep. Bennie Thompson calling on federal investigation into Delta State student’s death
