Mississippi Center for Public Policy recently signed on to a national letter urging the United States Department of Education to rescind a “Dear Colleague” letter from the Obama administration regarding school discipline.

This letter warned school districts that received federal funding against disparate outcomes in the implementation of their school discipline policies.

“As attorneys in the conservative movement, we believe that the suspension ‘Dear Colleague’ letter is not only poor public policy – studies have shown it has a negative impact on academic performance – but also an illegal exercise of federal administrative power and an unjustified intrusion into state and local matters," the letter said.

You can read the full letter below. 

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The Mississippi Justice Institute (MJI) won its second Open Meetings Act case in two years in Lauderdale County Chancery court on Friday. The case was filed on behalf of Tommy Williams, a Lauderdale County resident, who challenged the Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors for violating open meetings laws. The Lauderdale Supervisors dropped their appeal on Friday, meaning the ruling that they held illegal, closed-door meetings to make decisions about borrowing money through bonds is final.

“This is an important win that should send a message around Mississippi: don’t violate the ethics and open government laws, or responsible citizens and the Mississippi Justice Institute will stand up for their rights and challenge you,” said MJI Director Shadrack White.

Meridian attorney Stephen Wilson and White represented Williams in the case, Thomas E. Williams v. Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors. Williams blew the whistle when Lauderdale Supervisors purposefully met in small groups to avoid creating a quorum. By not creating a quorum at any one meeting, Supervisors believed they could avoid the requirements in the Open Meetings Act that said those meetings had to be open to the public.

“Mississippians deserve transparent government. Citizens have the right to see, in flesh and blood, how their leaders make decisions,” said White. “This case reaffirms that principle.”

“MJI was successful in this case thanks to Tommy’s courage and thanks to a strong precedent set in a previous MJI case on the Open Meetings Act,” added White. Last year, MJI won an Open Meetings Act case involving the City of Columbus at the Mississippi Supreme Court. The case set a critical precedent that politicians cannot hold small meetings for the purpose of sidestepping open meetings laws.

“Meridian attorney Stephen Wilson is a brilliant lawyer and also deserves a great deal of credit for driving this case to completion,” said White.

The Open Meetings Act states that all official public meetings of a government body where a quorum is present should be open to the public, with only a few exceptions. Now courts have bolstered the law with two rulings that say politicians may not pre-arrange smaller meetings with the intent to avoid the requirements of the Open Meetings Act.

The Lauderdale Chancery Court’s ruling upholds an initial ruling by the Mississippi Ethics Commission in this case. “The Ethics Commission should be commended as well here,” said White. “They did excellent work uncovering the facts of this case and upholding transparent government.”

In its two year history, MJI has built a track record of success, particularly in transparency and ethics laws cases. MJI has also sued Jackson over its onerous regulations on new taxi businesses, has successfully defended the rights of Mississippi charter school parents in a landmark constitutional case, and has filed a complaint challenging Natchez’s violation of transparency laws.

Every nine seconds a student in America drops out of school, often rendering that young adult unemployable and relegating him or her to a life with few opportunities and necessary skills. This has a real cost not just for one individual, but for his or her family and every taxpayer in the country.

Consider this: High school dropouts are nearly three times more likely to be unemployed than college graduates. Additionally, among those who are employed, they will earn, on average, about $8,000 a year less than high school graduates and $26,500 less than college graduates.

Additionally, two-thirds of the prison population in state, local, and federal prisons are made up of high school dropouts. The nation could save as much as $18.5 billion in annual crime-related costs if the high school male graduation rate increased by just five percent. If the number of dropouts was cut in half, the nation could save $7.3 billion annually in Medicaid savings, $12 billion in heart disease-related savings, $11.9 billion in obesity-related savings, $6.4 billion in alcoholism-related savings, and $8.9 billion in smoking-related savings.

On the other hand, increasing the graduation rate to 90 percent for one year would create more than 65,000 new jobs and boost the economy by nearly $11 billion. And the graduation rate has been increasing over the past several years. Both Mississippi and the United States saw record high four-year graduation rates for the 2014-2015 school year of 78 and 83 percent, respectively.

But what does this mean? More people are graduating from high school, but is the United States lowering the bar rather than improving academic performance? The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development recently reported that American students ranked 25th out of 72 countries when tested on topics in science. A Pew Research study found that American students ranked 38th out of 71 countries when tested in math, reading, and science.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, which bills itself as the nation’s report card, found that only 40 percent of fourth-graders, 33 percent of eighth-graders, and 25 percent of 12th-graders are “proficient” or “advanced” in math.

Mississippi has seen some recent progress as it was the only state in the nation to show significant increases in both 4th grade math and reading in 2015 on the NAEP, which arguably offers the best apples-to-apples comparison for student performance across the country. However, Mississippi still generally falls among the bottom five states in all measures as the state performed significantly lower than the National public average in 4th and 8th grade math and science.

In fact, Education Week’s Quality Counts report rated Mississippi as having the worst education system in the country, ranking it 51st in educational quality in 2014; even putting Washington, D.C. ahead of the Magnolia State. It is clear that something is not working and dramatic improvements need to be made. Indeed, the United States has much work to do to catch up with the rest of the world, and Mississippi has much work to do to catch up with the United States.

Is Money The Issue?

When the debate about education woes arises, a large contingent is guaranteed to make one, popular argument: District schools need more money. Many claim that lack of funding is the root of all problems and if schools had more money the results would follow. Yet Mississippi and the United States have been throwing more money at the problem for more than four decades.

In Mississippi, more than 50 cents for every dollar collected in the state’s general fund is spent on public education. In 2015, the state spent over $9,700 per student when including state, local, and federal dollars. This is an uptick from around $8,000 just a few years prior and is part of a larger trend. Adjusted for inflation, spending on education in Mississippi has increased by 54 percent since 1992. This large increase occurred while student enrollment decreased by 3 percent and teacher salaries increased by only 2 percent.

Similar increases have occurred nationwide. Going back to 1970, inflation-adjusted spending on education has increased by 192 percent. However, the scores for 17-year-olds on the Long-Term Trend NAEP Assessments have remained flat. A 2016 report from the United States Department of Education showed that a School Improvement Grants (SIG) program over the past decade pumped $7 billion into education with zero impact on student achievement.

Designed to help failing schools, the SIG provided no academic gains for the students it was intended to help, and failing schools that received multi-year grants ended with results that were no better than similar schools that did not participate in the program. Only the federal government can spend $7 billion with nothing to show for their effort. The country is spending considerably more while showing little in the way of academic progress.

Mississippi Center for Public Policy President & CEO Jon Pritchett announced today that Brett Kittredge has been named the new Director of Marketing & Communications for MCPP.

In this new position, Kittredge will oversee all media relations and marketing and communications needs for the office.

“We’re building not only a powerful policy and justice organization here, but also a media content shop where the leveraging of digital and traditional media is essential,” Jon said. “Brett has demonstrated that he has the strategic understanding and the tactical skills to allow us to communicate and market our ideas across the state and nation. We’re delighted to add another smart, dedicated conservative to our team.”

Kittredge previously served as Director of Communications for Empower Mississippi. Prior to that, he served in similar roles for the Mississippi Republican Party and the Office of the State Auditor.

“I am excited for this opportunity,” Brett said. “MCPP has a proud history of advancing the ideals of liberty and freedom in Mississippi, and I am ready to build on that legacy and take our communications platforms to the next level and spread our message of real conservative ideas with policy makers, the media, and the public.”

Kittredge received his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Mississippi and his Master’s Degree from Abilene Christian University.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff in an important First Amendment case, Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky. Mississippi Justice Institute Director Shadrack White partnered with other organizations from around the country to file an amicus brief in the case in favor of the plaintiff.

“This is an important victory for freedom of speech today,” said White. “Conservatives and libertarians should be ecstatic over the recent rulings coming out of our Supreme Court. It was a privilege to be able to file an argument in this case supporting the winning side.”

The Mansky case challenged a Minnesota law that barred apparel that had ideological messages on it in polling places. MJI and other organizations argued that the Minnesota law violated the First Amendment.

“Minnesota tried to argue that this case was about protecting voters in the voting booth, but Minnesota’s law was being enforced in a way that favored some ideologies over others. For example, Minnesota admitted that they would ban shirts from a polling place that had the words ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ or the text of the Second Amendment or ‘All Lives Matter,’ but they would allow shirts with a rainbow flag or shirts that said ‘Parkland Strong.’

“That sort of inconsistent enforcement is exactly why we have the First Amendment: to protect the right of a person to speak even if the government happens to disagree with you or when someone says they’re offended by it,” said White. “You should not be punished for wearing a conservative or libertarian message. Americans should be thankful that this Court takes freedom of speech seriously.”

Click here to read the amicus brief from MJI and its sister organizations.

The Tupelo city council is considering regulating food trucks in the city but not for reasons you may suspect.

It is not because the food trucks are unclean. It is not because they are unsafe. There hasn’t been any report of a massive wave of citizens becoming ill after enjoying a meal from a local food truck.

And the food trucks aren’t operating illegally. They still go through the same health and safety regulations of a traditional restaurant.

According to a recent article in The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, city leaders are looking to regulate food trucks as part of an effort to protect brick-and-mortar restaurants within the city limits.

Picking winners and losers

The food trucks are simply competition, and apparently the city of Tupelo is interested in favoring one type of industry over another.

We all agree that there are general standards than any business that is serving food must meet. That is already being done in Tupelo. No cities, however, should be in the business of saying you must be located a certain distance from an established restaurant. Or you can only have food trucks for certain special events or weekends.

City leaders should encourage food trucks. They should be proud that food trucks want to be in their city. A look around any growing or dynamic city across the country will show an emerging food truck sector. That should be celebrated, not overregulated.

This is about more than food trucks

We should be encouraging people to become entrepreneurs. To follow their passion. This extends beyond just food trucks and touches every area of our economy.

Too often government leaders just think about what already exists or what is already providing a tax revenue. And then we feel threatened if competition rises up. As anyone who has ever been part of the private sector will tell you, competition is a good thing. Businesses grow (or fail). And consumers win.

The reason taxis have fought Uber or Lyft is not because you or I can’t drive people to where they want to go. Picking someone up at the airport and driving them to a hotel is not some proprietary work that an untrained professional cannot do. Rather, it is monopoly one sector of an industry had. They lost that monopoly because, like all monopolies, innovation, risk taking, and customer service was absent from the taxi industry.

Rather than get better or more competitive, monopolies reach out to the government to protect them. We saw this when the ridesharing economy was born and expanded. We have seen it with the homesharing economy. We see it with food trucks. And I am certain we will see it in other areas of our economy in the future.

Unfortunately, as we have witnessed in almost every case, the government mindset has been to overregulate and protect what it is already there. To choose winners and losers.

That should not be the job of government. That should be the job of the individual citizens. Because if they don’t like what food trucks in Tupelo are providing, the market will decide who the winners and losers are. We don’t go to government websites to choose which restaurant or hotel we will visit. We go to peer review sites or apps.

Encouraging entrepreneurship and letting the market decide is the answer that Tupelo’s city council should be choosing. It works in cities all across America. And it will work in Tupelo if government leaders will just let the citizens decide for themselves.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court issued perhaps its most important opinion of this term in a case called Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The ruling struck a blow for tolerance in America.

That last sentence will come as a surprise to my liberal friends.

A little background if you haven’t heard of the case: In Masterpiece, the plaintiff was Jack Phillips, an expert cake baker and devout Christian. For years Jack ran his store, Masterpiece Cakeshop, and made elaborate, beautiful cakes for weddings and other special occasions. His cakes are works of art. If you don’t believe me, visit his website, masterpiececakes.com, to see for yourself.

In 2012, two gay customers entered Jack’s store and asked Jack to design and bake a cake for their same-sex wedding. Jack said he would gladly bake a cake for the two of them for any other reason, but his religious convictions prevented him from baking a cake for a gay wedding. The couple then filed a discrimination complaint against Jack, claiming he violated a Colorado law which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. Jack showed that he had happily served gay customers before, and that he did not refuse to serve people based on their sexual orientation, but instead simply refused to participate in a ceremony that conflicted with his faith.

The State of Colorado found Jack in violation of the statute. During the hearing on the matter, Colorado officials compared Jack’s arguments to arguments for slavery and the Holocaust. The government ruled Jack had to reverse his store’s policy, and store employees had to undergo reeducation about the harm they had allegedly caused.

Jack decided he would not be steamrolled, though. He took the matter to court, arguing that Colorado had taken away his First Amendment rights. He endured years of public criticism for standing up for himself and his store. His case eventually wound its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in Jack’s favor, 7 to 2.

The Court said Colorado acted in a hostile way during Jack’s hearing. They said Colorado was inconsistent, too. Colorado allowed gay cake bakers, for instance, to deny service to customers who wanted a message on a cake that was hostile to same-sex marriage. But when it came to Jack, Colorado insisted that he make cakes for gay weddings.

The Court made the right call when it ruled in Jack’s favor. The Court prevented a world where a black wedding photographer could be forced to take photos at the wedding of a white supremacist, or a Jewish cake baker could be forced to work for an anti-Semite. Artists shouldn’t be forced to speak messages that conflict with their views.

The case has a long list of other consequences, too, and some of them are local. Mississippi passed a bill not long ago called HB 1523, which protects the religious liberty rights of Mississippians who oppose same-sex marriage. HB 1523 already led to one lawsuit, which was thrown out, and I predict it will generate more litigation. While the Court in Masterpiece did not speak directly to a statute like ours, its statement that “religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views” could help the state defend HB 1523.

The far more important consequence, though, is the signal this ruling sends to society. To be sure, Masterpiece involves an emotional issue for many. America is still a nation divided on the question of gay marriage. I have many close friends and even family who disagree with my views on the matter. Those disagreements have taken on an ugly form in the last few years. People of faith who have a particular understanding of marriage are called bigots and publicly shamed.

This volatile disagreement is just as much a product of a cultural divide as it is an ideological one. People feel that entertainers, media personalities, giant corporations (Bud Light even tells me to believe in gay marriage now), and others located in a few, elite zip codes enforce a code of beliefs, and if you violate the code on this issue, you may as well be a defender of Jim Crow. In short, people feel bulldozed over what they believe.

It can be hard to be a person of faith in such an environment. We must show others that a person can believe in traditional marriage and also believe all human beings have dignity and worth. But if you cannot convince them of that, you have to be willing to fight for your views.

For those of us willing to fight, we found help from an unexpected source this week: nine lawyers in robes in Washington, DC.

This column appeared in the Clarion Ledger on June 12, 2018. 

While everyone has a general idea of what economists mean by the term ‘capitalism’ it is important that we now define it more precisely. Fundamentally, capitalism is an economic system founded on the private ownership of the productive assets within an economy. These include land, labor (including your person), and all other tangible property (e.g., cars, houses, factories, etc.) as well as intangible property (e.g., radio waves, intellectual property, etc.). Individuals are free to make decisions regarding the use of their property, with the sole constraint that they do not infringe upon the property rights of others.

The freedom of action given to private owners under a system of capitalism is why the index that ranks states and countries is called the ‘economic freedom’ index. Economic freedom is synonymous with capitalism. More specifically, the key ingredients of economic freedom and capitalism are:

• personal choice and accountability for damages to others,
• voluntary exchange, with unregulated prices negotiated by buyers and sellers,
• freedom to become an entrepreneur and compete with existing businesses, and
• protection of persons and property from physical aggression, theft, lawsuits, or confiscation by others, including the government.

The concept of capitalism is deeply rooted in the notions of individual liberty and freedom that underlie our country’s founding and are reflected in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. Economic freedoms are based in the same philosophies that support political and civil liberties (like the freedom of speech and the freedom to elect representatives). Individuals have a right to decide how they will use their assets and talents. On the other hand, they do not have a right to the time, talents, and resources of others.

Because private property rights, and their protection, are critical to economic progress, it is worthwhile to be more specific about private property rights. Private property rights entail three economic aspects: (1) control rights – the right to do with your property as you wish, even to exclude others from using it, so long as you do not use your property to infringe on the property rights of someone else; (2) cash flow rights – the right to the income earned from the property or its use (i.e. being the ‘residual claimant,’ which is also critical for enabling the property to be used as collateral for loans); and, (3) transferability rights – the right to sell or divest of your property under the terms and conditions you see fit.

A government policy that weakens any one of these components of property rights weakens property rights in general. Taxes, for example, restrict the cash flow rights associated with property and so weaken private property rights on that dimension. Regulations, on the other hand, restrict how owners may use their property, infringing on control rights, and weakening private property rights on that dimension. Outright takings, or other forms of outright expropriation, by removing the property from an owner’s possession (such as eminent domain, especially when allowing the state to remove the property from an owner’s possession and transfer it to another private owner) actually weaken property rights on all of the dimensions considered above, making property a ‘contingent right’ (contingent on the state’s arbitrary will) rather than an ‘absolute right’ guaranteed and protected by law.

In order to nurture capitalism, government must do some things but refrain from doing others. Governments promote capitalism by establishing a legal structure that provides for the even-handed enforcement of contracts and the protection of individuals and their property from aggressors seeking to use violence, coercion, and fraud to seize things that do not belong to them. However, governments must refrain from actions that weaken private property rights or interfere with personal choice, voluntary exchange, and the freedom of individuals and businesses to compete. When these government actions are substituted for personal choice, economic freedom is reduced. When government protects people and their property, enforces contracts in an unbiased manner, and provides a limited set of ‘public goods’ like roads, flood control, and other major public works projects, but leaves the rest to the private market, they support the institutions of capitalism and the resultant prosperity it creates.

This is an excerpt from The Sources of Economic Growth by Russell S. Sobel and J. Brandon Bolen. It was published in Promoting Prosperity in Mississippi.

Like individual rights, the family as an institution preceded the institution of government.  History has shown that the type of family that is most beneficial to society—and to children—is the two-parent family that begins with marriage between a man and a woman.  An indispensable component of ordered societies, the family is where children are best taught character, honor, the importance of hard work, virtue, citizenship, and respect for authority. As the fundamental building block of society, the family’s prosperity is essential to the development, advancement, and continuation of society. When families are healthy, communities are healthy; when families deteriorate, communities deteriorate.  

All levels of government should protect this foundational unit.

Welfare programs initiated in the 1960s had the unintended consequence of devaluing the contribution of a father to the family—resulting in a sharp increase in female headed single-parent households. (For more on this, see Principle #6.) Those programs still favor unmarried couples over married ones. Another example of harmful policy is the “marriage penalty” in the federal tax code, which causes married couples to pay more in federal taxes than they would if they were single. (Fortunately, Mississippi no longer has a marriage penalty in our state’s tax code; exemptions and deductions for married couples are double those for singles. Still, married couples in Mississippi are affected by the federal penalty.)

Marriage is a relationship unlike any other between humans. Far more than a mere "contractual" arrangement, marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman. Because of its unique position, and because the stability of society is so indissolubly bonded to the stability of the institution of marriage, government does have a responsibility to protect it.

When it comes to raising children, government should not substitute its judgment on what constitutes the “best interest” of a child. Parents know their children best and can best understand what their family needs.  How can a bureaucrat or politician judge better than parents?  Only in unambiguous cases of habitual abuse or neglect should government step in. In cases that are so dangerous that a child must be removed from the home, the child should not be returned unless there is clear evidence the parents have radically changed their behavior.

Perhaps the most consistent way government interferes with the decisions of parents—especially in low and middle-income families—is by taking so much of their money that both parents are forced to work, even if they believe their children would be better served by having one parent at home. Ironically, the money taken by government is justified many times as being spent "for the children."

It is imperative that the type of family to be esteemed and taught as the ideal is the one based on traditional marriage. Government officials must carefully consider the long-term impact policies will have on the family and should do nothing that undermines or harms the traditional, marriage-based, two-parent family. When government officials understand this role, they will govern with humility and restraint.

This is an excerpt from Governing By Principle, MCPP's ten principles to guide public policy.