Mississippi
Democrats: Ignore ‘blue slip’ custom to get federal vacancies filled in Republican states like Mississippi
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and different Democrats in Washington are urging President Joe Biden to ship federal appointments for the U.S. Senate’s approval, no matter prior consent from senators within the nominees’ respective states.
Biden must ignore a longstanding custom known as “blue slips” – varieties that senators undergo the Senate Judiciary Committee to affirm they’ll vote to approve the president’s candidates for vacancies of their dwelling state.
This issues most in states with a number of Republican senators who’re withholding their blue slips, stalling Biden’s nominations from transferring by means of affirmation.
“It’s a customized fairly than something that’s in regulation. So it’s actually a grey space. And on this occasion, individuals who help Democrats are getting penalized on this course of,” Thompson, the one Democrat within the state’s congressional delegation, informed Mississippi At present on Tuesday.
Mississippi has 5 federal vacancies. Within the fall, Biden made nominations for 4 of the positions – federal choose for the Northern District, U.S. legal professional for the Southern District and two U.S. marshals – however Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith didn’t return blue slips for any of them. Biden needed to just lately reissue the nominations, together with dozens extra in different states, to the present Congress on Jan. 23. Biden has not made a nomination for the U.S. legal professional within the Northern District.
Biden’s nominations embody Scott Colom, a district legal professional in north Mississippi, for the U.S. district choose within the Northern District; Todd Gee, deputy chief of the Public Integrity Part of the U.S. Division of Justice, for U.S. legal professional within the Southern District; Dale Bell for U.S. marshal within the Southern District; and Michael Purnell for U.S. marshal within the Northern District.
Gee, a Vicksburg native, would oversee the workplace at the moment prosecuting the Mississippi welfare fraud case involving the misspending or theft of at the very least $77 million in federal funds supposed to serve the poor.
Colom, a Columbus resident, has been the district legal professional for the sixteenth Judicial District, which consists of Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Noxubee and Clay counties, since 2016. He beforehand labored for the Mississippi Heart for Justice and was a municipal court docket choose.
Wicker has voiced his help for Colom, however that doesn’t seem to have hastened the affirmation course of for the district legal professional.
“Rapidly, individuals who construct a profession, do what’s proper locally, exhibit management traits that different folks can determine with, and get a possibility to be elevated to the next stage primarily based on the laborious work that they’ve carried out over their careers, and politics denies them of that chance,” Thompson stated. “And we’re a greater nation than that.”
A spokesperson for Wicker wouldn’t say whether or not the senator supported Biden’s nominations, directing Mississippi At present’s inquiries to the White Home and Senate Judiciary Committee. Hyde-Smith’s workplace didn’t return Mississippi At present’s e-mail Tuesday.
The White Home didn’t reply to an e-mail Wednesday.
There isn’t any official rule or process in Congress requiring the usage of blue slips, Thompson stated.
And there’s some precedent for rejecting the customized. President Donald Trump did away with blue slips for his judicial appointments to circuit courts of appeals, the second highest courts behind the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.
“My private view is that the blue slip, with regard to circuit court docket appointments, ought to easily be a notification of the way you’re going to vote, not the chance to blackball,” then-Senate Majority Chief Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., stated in a 2017 interview with The New York Instances.
In remarks on the Senate ground Tuesday, Minority Chief McConnell ridiculed Biden’s judicial nominees.
Some Democrats are arguing that the president’s social gathering shouldn’t use the failure of Republican senators to return blue slips as a cause to develop into complacent about unfilled vacancies.
“I believe they (Democrats) have mainly allowed the customized to get in the way in which of fantastic folks having the ability to serve in these prestigious positions,” Thompson stated. “I believe they’re acquiescing to an arcane customized that, on this occasion, has no foundation in regulation to begin with.”
Nationally, dialogue round stalled federal appointments has centered on judicial vacancies, contemplating the ability that these lifetime appointments maintain in shaping authorized precedent and influencing public coverage. At the moment there are 88 whole choose vacancies and 41 pending nominations.
However the U.S. legal professional and U.S. marshal vacancies are consequential in their very own proper.
Thompson backs the nomination of Gee, who beforehand served as lead counsel on the Home Homeland Safety Committee that Thompson chaired.
If confirmed, Gee will inherit Mississippi’s blockbuster welfare scandal, wherein two key defendants have pleaded responsible and flipped to assist the prosecution.
However for the reason that preliminary arrests in 2020, federal authorities haven’t criminally charged any extra folks. Sources near the probe have questioned whether or not the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace is prone to take the step of charging new figures within the case earlier than gaining a everlasting chief.
And but, when requested concerning the welfare investigation, Wicker informed WLOX in August, “It’s not one thing I can have any impact on in Washington.”
“It is a state matter,” Wicker stated within the WLOX report, which was following Mississippi At present’s reporting about Gov. Tate Reeves’ connections to welfare purchases focused in ongoing civil litigation. “It’s simply not one thing that I’m actually certified to speak about.”
Final 12 months, Thompson wrote a letter to the U.S. Division of Justice, following the revelations in Mississippi At present’s sequence “The Backchannel,” urging federal authorities to analyze former Gov. Phil Bryant’s function in welfare misspending.
“The Backchannel” revealed for the primary time that welfare funds made to former NFL quarterback Brett Favre’s pharmaceutical firm Prevacus – the Florida firm on the heart of the preliminary prison indictment – had been made in plain sight of Bryant, and that Bryant even agreed to just accept inventory within the firm after leaving workplace.
Whereas the 2020 prices by Hinds County District Lawyer Jody Owens described criminal activity relating to investments into the drug firm, officers hid details about Bryant’s involvement from the general public till Mississippi At present printed non-public textual content messages between Bryant, Favre and the founding father of Prevacus final April.
“The truth that 100% of the TANF monies concerned had been federal monies signifies that the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace ought to have been aggressively prosecuting these people. And that has not been the case,” Thompson stated. “They’ve really deferred to the state workplace to deal with federal prosecutions. And there’s a query as as to if or not Hinds County has the assets to pursue the entire areas crucial in that swimsuit. I’m satisfied that the funding of these TANF monies that went into the Florida drug firm actually must be pursued. However you’ve received to have the workers on board or the attain, like a U.S. legal professional’s workplace in Florida, to cross it off with the FBI and others to analyze it and convey it again. I’m simply not sure {that a} native district legal professional’s workplace has the attain or the funds … to provide it what it wants.”
Whereas the native district legal professional’s workplace continues to be a associate within the ongoing investigation, the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace within the Southern District is the lead prosecutor. It’s the workplace that almost all just lately secured a responsible plea on new federal prices in opposition to the previous welfare director, John Davis, in September.
However greater than two years into Biden’s administration, the workplace nonetheless lacks a everlasting chief at its helm.
“It signifies that the only largest prison motion that occurred in our state is being haphazardly pursued in a way that every one the people who find themselves responsible and concerned, doubtlessly, won’t ever get delivered to trial, due to that lack of management within the Southern District workplace,” Thompson stated.
“Look, if we will prosecute single girls in Mississippi for meals stamp fraud, certainly we will prosecute everyone concerned in a multimillion greenback rip-off of federal funds,” he added.
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STARKVILLE — Mississippi State football is preparing to play a team that, at least through one game, looks vastly improved from last season.
Coach Jeff Lebby admitted on Monday, and Bulldog players have noticed it too after Arizona State (1-0) thumped Wyoming 48-7 in its opener.
MSU (1-0) must also factor in the late kickoff that is scheduled Saturday (9:30 p.m. CT, ESPN) at Mountain America Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. Mississippi is hot, but so is Arizona — a different kind of hot, too.
Modifications and remedies are being made, such as the team leaving Starkville on Thursday instead of how it normally would on a Friday for a Saturday game.
“For our guys, just knowing exactly what we are getting into,” Lebby said. “We continue to talk about that through yesterday and this morning and (are) having those conversations to understand what it’s going to look like late in the week. We got to do a great job from a preparation standpoint of how we are hydrating, how we are eating and how we are resting to give us the ability to go on the road on this flight and be able to be at our best Saturday night.”
Just this week, Phoenix broke a record with its 100th straight day of 100-degree temperatures. According to AccuWeather, the high on Saturday in Tempe will be 107 degrees with a low of 86. The temperature should dip to around 91 near kickoff with a humidity of 24%.
“Coach Lebby has already been harping on that,” tight end Justin Ball said. “We’ve already been hydrating and making sure we are getting rest every single day. We leave on Thursday, so we already talked about the plan to make sure we are hydrating the entire plane ride there, making sure when we get there we get acclimated as quickly as you can and just staying together. Making sure we’re focused, make sure we keep the goal first and then execute the game plan.”
MORE: Jeff Lebby says Mississippi State football didn’t put on a good enough show. Here’s how he’s wrong
Mississippi State played well the last time it played in Arizona
The Bulldogs played Arizona in Tucson two seasons ago. They squandered a pedestrian Wildcats team 39-17. Kickoff for that game was at 8 p.m. PST though the temperature was 84 degrees at game time.
Not many players remain on Mississippi State’s roster from that 2022 season. But the ones who are, like linebacker Nic Mitchell, can benefit from the experience and also share it with teammates.
“We know it’s going to be a long flight, so we know we got to be hydrated,” Mitchell said. “It gives people experience that have done it before and they can tell the young guys how it’s going to be in the flight, how you got to hydrate and stuff like that.”
Sam Sklar is the Mississippi State beat reporter for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at ssklar@gannett.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.
Arizona State forces 3 turnovers in win over Wyoming to start 2024
All offseason, coach Kenny Dillingham preached getting turnovers. Forty seconds into the season’s first game, the defense produced its first one.
Sophomore running back Kyson Brown is one of the faster players on the Arizona State football team. But Brown seems to have a little more pep in his step this week. Why? Well, the Sun Devils (1-0) are set to take on Mississippi State (1-0) at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday at Mountain America Stadium.
Sure an SEC opponent is enough to get any athlete fired up. But the 6-foot, 200-pounder hails from Tupelo, Mississippi, which is where he got his nickname, Sipp. Tupelo is 67 miles north of the Mississippi State campus in Starkville that Sipp has visited a handful of times.
“I have family, growing up they were all Mississipp State fans and some Ole Miss fans,” he said. “Some of my family are debating whether they want to cheer for me or not. It’s going to be good. A lot of hometown friends. Got a couple guys I went to high school with there. It’s going to be good seeing those guys and hopefully, we compete at a good level and get the W.”
Brown, a mechanical engineering major, is enrolled in ASU’s Barret honors program, He emerged as one of the team’s most improved players. He saw some time on special teams as a true freshman in 2023 and has set himself up for a bigger role, although the ASU backfield has a lot of depth.
In the last week’s 48-7 win over Wyoming, Brown pitched in with six rushing attempts for 25 yards and two receptions for 73 yards. His 68-yard touchdown reception was the longest play from scrimmage that ASU had on the night.
“It felt amazing just to get back in the end zone again,” Brown said. “You come out of high school, you know I’m used to being in the end zone every game, all the time. That play, I knew — once I made the first guy miss — I knew I wasn’t going to let anybody catch me.”
Brown lived in Mississippi until moving to Lancaster, Texas, outside of Dallas, after his sophomore year of high school. He sat out junior year after the transfer. As a senior he averaged 9.5 yards per carry, finishing with 707 yards and 11 touchdowns on 74 carries while adding 14 receptions for 168 yards and two touchdowns.
Sitting out his junior year hurt his recruiting, but he still had notable offers from Purdue, Missouri and Houston. The balance of his options were lower-profile schools. Mississippi State didn’t offer.
He is happy with the end result. A place on the ASU football roster. In the offseason, he worked on his agility, flexibility and catching the ball, which was evident in his recent scoring play.
“We all have the big-play potential,” he said of his fellow running backs. “I feel my role is to make plays, wherever they put me be able to perform.”
Mississippi
Report shows Mississippi Legislature retirement reforms this year aren’t effective. See why
Lawmakers, PERS director agree they must work together in the future
How to plan for retirement using an online calculator
Retirement calculators can give you an idea of when you’ll financially be able to retire.
Problem Solved
State lawmakers will need to readdress concerns about the Public Employment Retirement System of Mississippi in 2025 if it is to remain viable long term, according to a July study.
Legislative actions in the 2024 Session to reduce public employer contribution rate hikes and increase state funding are not enough to address billions in unfunded future benefits to retirees, according to a report released by the Legislature’s third-party watchdog group, the Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Committee.
Projections show the state’s retirement plan being less than 50% fully funded by 2047 and having $25 billion in liabilities. According to several municipal leaders who spoke to the Clarion Ledger earlier this year, the legislative move from lawmakers in the past session should save public employers from cutting positions and raising taxes to keep and hire more public employees.
“Change in approach for increasing the employer contribution rate, in addition to the one-time funds transfer, reduces the plan’s projected future funded ratio from 65.5% to 49.9%,” the report reads. “…The PERS plan is currently expected to be at a lower-funded level in the future than it currently is today.”
PERS Executive Director Ray Higgins told the Clarion Ledger he wasn’t surprised by the report’s findings.
“The PEER analysis seems to be an accurate report and generally reconciles with our information,” Higgins said. “Also, the legislative action from last session appears to be a short-term solution.”
While the report does not list out any specific recommendations for lawmakers this coming year, it says continued work will be necessary to fix the retirement system that has 118,000 retirees receiving benefits and 147,000 active members paying into the system.
In 2023, the PERS governing board, made up of mostly elected members, as advised by financial actuaries who watch over the state’s retirement plan, passed a rate increase on public employers, such as cities, counties and school districts from 17.40% to 19.90% that was to take effect July 1. The rate would have continued to increase to 22.4% by 2027.
In the 2024 Session, the Legislature passed two bills. Senate 3231, prohibits the PERS Board’s plan to gradually increase the employer contribution rate and replaces it with a plan to increase to 19.90% over the next five years in 0.5% annual increases. SB 3231 also takes the board’s only regulatory power to increase rates and puts it in the hands of the Legislature.
SB 2468 enacts a one-time transfer of $110 million of capital expense funds into the PERS trust.
More on PERS bill MS Legislature passes bill restricting state retirement board’s authority
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann’s Deputy Chief of Staff Leah Rupp Smith told the Clarion Ledger efforts Hosemann helped push forward that resulted in those bills’ passage led to a potentially more stable retirement system.
“To avoid this calamity while developing a future solution, the Legislature adopted a less-aggressive employer increase,” Smith wrote via email. “We are now informed the plan has a projected future funding ratio of 65.5% as of 2047, as compared to 48.6% projected one year ago.”
Republican House Speaker Jason White’s Communications Director Taylor Spillman did not reply to several emails requesting White’s comments on the report.
What are the big problems?
Higgins previously said the ratio of retirees to active members has seen a reverse trend since 2013, when there were 93,000 retirees and 162,000 active members. This increases the unfunded liability of the system as fewer people take jobs in government, reducing active members and more people retire, increasing the funding obligation of PERS.
The other issue lies with projections for the retirement plan’s future if state lawmakers decide not to take action in the years to come.
“While the ($110 million) funding for the first year is comparable, each year in the future could potentially see a greater deviation in expected employer contribution revenues for the PERS plan,” the report reads. “This deviation does not immediately constitute a problem for the PERS plan; however, careful evaluation of the plan’s future liabilities and funding needs will be necessary to ensure the sustainability of the PERS plan.”
Are there any solutions?
Higgins and Smith both said future work on PERS is still a top priority.
Higgins specifically mentioned a new retirement benefits package that could be offered to new public sector employees, which the PERS board has called tier 5.
“The Board has previously recommended a tier 5 for new employees to help better sustain PERS in the future and is currently considering what may be included or resubmitted in next year’s legislative package,” Higgins said.
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Earlier this year, Hosemann told the Clarion Ledger he wanted to see evidence that a new tier of benefits could help maintain the retirement system long term. Smith did not confirm whether Hosemann’s office is currently studying that idea in the legislative off season, but she did say the Legislature is looking at several ideas.
“The Legislature is exploring any option for a more viable plan,” Smith said. “The Lt. Governor continues to be committed to fulfilling current employee and retiree benefits, including the cost-of-living adjustment for these individuals.”
Grant McLaughlin covers state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.
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