A graduate student at Ole Miss is trying to pursue the American Dream. Then the state shut her down.

The Mississippi State Board of Cosmetology requires eyebrow threaders to spend hundreds of hours learning cosmetology methods that threaders do not use or need.

In response to these requirements, the Mississippi Justice Institute, the legal arm of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Dipa Bhattarai in a federal district court. The lawsuit was filed against Attorney General Jim Hood, who helps enforce the licensing requirements, and the Cosmetology Board. 

Eyebrow threading is a safe and simple technique that uses just a single strand of cotton thread to remove unwanted hair. It does not involve skin-to-skin contact between the threading artist and customer, does not reuse the same tools on different customers, and does not involve the use of sharp implements, harsh chemicals, or heat.

Yet, Mississippi law requires eyebrow threaders to obtain an esthetician’s license to practice. But before they can do that, they must complete 600 hours of instructions over a minimum of 15 weeks and pass two exams. Not one hour of the classes covers eyebrow threading.

>> Read more about the case in depth

By comparison, emergency medical technicians, who literally holds lives in their hands, are only required to complete 165 hours of training in Mississippi. 

”Our client is just trying to pursue the American Dream, by putting her own skills and work ethic to use in a safe and worthwhile trade,” said Aaron Rice, the Director of the Mississippi Justice Institute. “Unnecessary laws and regulations are preventing her from doing that.  We want to help people like her fight back against this kind of job-killing red tape.” 

Plaintiff Dipa Bhattarai ran a successful threading business before she was fined and shut down by the state Board of Cosmetology. 

Bhattarai grew up in Nepal, where threading is a way of life, and learned how to thread at a young age from her family. She came to Mississippi after receiving a scholarship to attend Mississippi University for Women, where she saw an opening in the market for eyebrow threading. 

”My friends loved it when I threaded their eyebrows for them, and kept telling me I should open a business,” said Bhattarai, who is now a graduate student at the University of Mississippi. “I knew it was a great opportunity to bring together my passion for threading and my dream of owning a business.”  

Dipa hopes to re-open her business so she can continue to thread, while training and employing other threaders in Mississippi.

Everett White, an attorney with the law firm Sones & White, PLLC, is also serving as co-counsel to Ms. Bhattarai, and is not charging for his legal services.  

“I was really moved by Dipa’s story, said White. “She came here legally from Nepal to attend college and started an eyebrow threading business to support herself. Then the government shut it down based on irrational and unconstitutional regulations drafted by potential competitors. It’s ridiculous.” 

The lawsuit argues that Mississippi’s licensing scheme violates the due process and equal protection rights of unlicensed eyebrow threaders, because it is not rationally related to any legitimate governmental purpose. 

A similar Texas law was struck down by the Texas Supreme Court in 2015. Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arizona all repealed their licensing requirements for eyebrow threading after lawsuits were filed in those states.

“Mississippi’s ban on unlicensed eyebrow threading has nothing to do with public health and safety,” said Rice. “It is an unconstitutional giveaway to special interest groups who want to eliminate their competition. Laws like these hurt workers of modest means and young people like our client who are just trying to get their start in life.”  

Attorney General Jim Hood and the Board of Cosmetology will have 21 days from service of the lawsuit to respond.

The Office of the State Auditor uncovered a raft of issues with the Hinds County School District during a routine audit, according to a release by the office on Monday.

Some of those issues included $50,000 of improper expenses by the district’s finance officer Earl Burke, $54,000 in adjustments that needed to be made to reconcile the district’s bank statements, some credit card statements that weren’t reviewed by the district and $2 million worth of purchases of iPads and Apple laptops that didn’t use a competitive bidding process.

The release also said that auditors found that some spending records had been destroyed before they were reviewed.

Burke, according to audit, was responsible for $50,000 in unauthorized expenses that included:

• A personal car allowance that added up to $33,000 and was never approved by the district’s board.
• Used district funds to make personal purchases such as an in-air internet subscription, a stay in a luxury hotel suite and other unapproved expenses that totaled nearly $10,000.

The iPad and Apple laptop purchases went against state procurement laws, which require competitive bidding for most large purchases.

“This uncontrolled and unlawful administrative spending is not acceptable,” Auditor Shad White said. “It shortchanges teachers and students. It’s not fair for taxpayers. They all have a right to be angry about this kind of administrative spending.

“It results in money going outside the classroom and it violates our spending laws. I expect the district to take swift action to make sure this stops.”

In 2018, the Hinds County School District received more than $63 million in operating revenue, mainly from property taxes ($26.5 million) and state and federal funds ($26.2 million). The district went over its budget by $4.46 million in 2018. 

The district spent 44.7 percent of its budget on instruction, with 39.7 percent spent on support services and non-instructional expenses.

According to numbers released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Mississippi Department of Human Services has the fourth lowest payment error rate nationally with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The low numbers could be a mirage, overshadowed by the state’s use of a consultant whose practices have gotten other states in trouble with the U.S. Department of Justice, which has settled with three states to repay $17 million in unearned bonuses for low error rates. DHS hired the consultant to improve error rates with the SNAP program and the firm earned $424,629 from taxpayers in contracts from 2011 to 2017.

Mississippi’s payment error rate was 2.43 percent on overpayments and 0.49 percent for a total error rate of 2.92. South Dakota was first with a total error rate of 1.04 percent, Idaho was second (2.13 percent) and Louisiana (2.7 percent) was third. The national error rate average was 6.3 percent and only 23 states equaled or were less than the national average.

The error rate in 2017 was 3.29, up from 2014 when the error rate was 1.16 (the USDA didn’t release complete error rate data for all state and territories in 2015 and 2016). States can receive monetary bonuses for low error rates and penalties for higher ones.

Mississippi received nearly $6 million in bonuses while utilizing advice from Julie Osnes Consulting from 2011 until 2017 and could have to pay the money back. The DHS paid her firm $246,270 for their final contract. Osnes agreed on June 18 to pay the U.S. $751,571 to resolve allegations of violations of the False Claims Act by causing states to submit false quality control data.

The way the errors are calculated is a multi-step process. State agencies first randomly select a sample of households that participate in the SNAP program, which adds up to about 50,000 nationally. The state agency staff interview participants and conducted a detailed review of the household’s eligibility. The states then calculate the number of errors. 

The USDA does a check of about 25,000 of the reviewed SNAP cases to assure that the state agency followed proper policy. The state agency then corrects the errors and the USDA analyzes the data to arrive at the national and state payment error rates.

According to the USDA, 60 percent of the errors are with a state agency. These errors can include errors in data entry or application processing or failure to do matching for citizenship, work status or other criteria for eligibility. Forty percent of the errors, according to the USDA, derive from recipients failing to report earnings, assets or expenses.

Taxpayers spent more than $728 million in Mississippi for SNAP for fiscal year 2019. 

Mississippi wouldn’t be the first state to run afoul with the DOJ for using Osnes as a consultant. Three states — Alaska, Virginia and Wisconsin — that employed Osnes as a consultant reached settlements with the DOJ in 2018. Virginia and Wisconsin paid $7 million apiece, while Alaska had to pay back $2.5 million. 

An investigation by the Department of Justice found that Osnes — who was paid by the state of Wisconsin to consult on their SNAP program — used "several improper and biased quality control practices" to lower its error rate and qualify for bonuses to which it hadn't earned. 

According to an archive of Osnes' now-shuttered website, Mississippi received $1.18 million in bonuses for fiscal 2013 for having the lowest payment error rate and $2.7 million in fiscal 2012 for lowest case and procedural error rates. 

Mississippi's first contract with Osnes was a two-year pact that began on October 1, 2011. She received $62,307 for her services in fiscal 2012. In fiscal 2013, her contract netted her consultancy firm $17,900. 

The state and Osnes reached an agreement on a new contract that started on February 2, 2014 and the firm received $53,152 for its work.

DHS continued the deal despite the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General releasing a report on September 2015 that decried the use of consultants such as Osnes to help with quality control over household eligibility.

The state and Osnes entered another contract starting April 1, 2015 and ended on February 1, 2016, with Osnes paid $45,000 for her services. The department and Osnes reached terms on an extension that started when the first expired. The last payment of $29,541 was made on June 1, 2017 and no more subsequent payments were made, according to an examination of state records.

Nike doesn’t need state incentives to locate a new logistics facility in north Mississippi, but a medical supply business does to relocate to the same area.

Nike announced that it will add to its workforce of 3,200 at four Memphis-area facilities across the state line in Marshall County, just below the Tennessee city of Collierville and conveniently located on Interstate 269. The new facility is expected to open in spring 2020 and create 250 jobs related to logistics and supply chain.

According to Mississippi Development Authority spokesperson Tammy Craft, Nike will receive no subsidies from state taxpayers.

Medline Industries will bring 450 jobs to Southaven in DeSoto County and will receive $3.8 million from state taxpayers, with a $100,000 grant to relocate equipment and a $3.7 million grant for infrastructure, according to Craft.

The distribution hub will cost the company $46 million and the state said in the news release that some of the jobs will be existing positions filled by employees at its Memphis location, but that a large number will be created for Mississippi residents. That adds up to $8,444 per job.

Medline plans to begin operations in Southaven in early 2021.

"Medline's investment in the Southaven community and the creation of hundreds of new jobs marks the beginning of a long-lasting business partnership with the state of Mississippi and a long-term commitment to the people of DeSoto County," Gov. Phil Bryant said in a news release.

Earlier in February, DeSoto County received another heavily subsidized economic development project. German agricultural implement company Krone will receive a $7.3 million in property and inventory tax breaks, in addition to a $250,000 grant to relocate its equipment.

The company is moving its headquarters and 45 jobs across the state line from Memphis to Olive Branch.

Krone could also receive incentives that rebate some income taxes for its employees to the company, provided the workers are paid at least $37,521 annually. That could add up to $675,000 annually over the next decade.

From 2012 to 2017, taxpayers have spent $678 million in just MDA grants alone from 2012 to 2017, or about $19,765 per job.

Medicaid expansion remains deeply unpopular with Mississippi voters, as recently released polling from Mason-Dixon finds and as Tuesday’s Republican primary results certainly did not dispel. 

This is perhaps surprising, given that many people don’t know much about Medicaid. This lack of knowledge has allowed politicians and others to try to sell Medicaid expansion as a cure all for many of Mississippi’s problems. To set the record straight, Medicaid is not a very good parachute for rural hospitals. It’s also not a very good way to boost the state’s economy. Medicaid is not even going to improve health care outcomes for the working poor. Medicaid expansion is going to be far more expensive than anyone predicts. It is also going to squeeze out funding for other priorities, like K-12 education and roads.

In order to understand what Medicaid is, we need to understand who benefits from it. One would think Medicaid most benefits the patients enrolled in it. The academic research indicates otherwise. To understand why, we have to acknowledge that merely holding a Medicaid insurance card does not guarantee health care. Medicaid is not health care; it is a government-subsidized health insurance plan. Compared to private insurance, however, Medicaid insurance is not very good. To begin with, it’s expensive: not for the people on Medicaid, but for the taxpayers who subsidize it. Second, many doctors don’t accept Medicaid because it pays less than private insurance and, sometimes, less than self-paying patients. 

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) made a very expensive bet that one group, in particular, would benefit from expanding Medicaid. As it turns out, this bet was wrong. It’s instructive to realize who the ACA did not expand Medicaid coverage to. Not low-income children, who are already covered under a program called CHIP. Not disabled people, many of whom are languishing on home and community based Medicaid waiting lists. Not the elderly, who are already eligible for Medicare. Rather, the ACA expanded Medicaid to able-bodied, working-age adults earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

Every one of these people already have access to health care, thanks to a federal law called EMTALA, which requires hospitals to treat anyone who enters an emergency room, regardless of ability to pay. Substituting Medicaid coverage for EMTALA coverage will not change the quality of care for most of these patients. Thus, researchers have found that Medicaid expansion “increased the use of health-care services,” but “had no statistically significant effect on physical health outcomes.” In turn, the same team of Ivy League researchers concluded that the primary beneficiaries of Medicaid expansion are hospitals. 

Basically, Medicaid expansion is a backdoor mechanism Mississippi hospitals hope to tap into to pay for the unfunded mandate that is EMTALA. The trick for the hospitals is that Medicaid does not pay very well. Thus, their goal is to steer Medicaid patients toward lower-cost services that will provide a larger profit margin. For some hospitals, this will work. For others, it won’t. The hospitals are willing to roll the dice on Medicaid expansion, but Mississippi voters are not.   

Recent polling by Mason-Dixon found that 55 percent of Mississippi Republican primary voters are less likely to support a candidate who votes for Medicaid expansion. This number soars to 70 percent when voters realize that Medicaid expansion will compete for funding with other priorities, like K-12 education, roads and bridges, and the state retirement system. I believe these voters intuit that Medicaid expansion is a bad bet – not because they don’t care about low-income adults or rural hospitals or poor children (who, again, are already covered by SCHIP!).

Mississippi voters care about all these issues, they just think there are more targeted ways to help each of these groups. Consider that the best way to help the working poor is to encourage them to obtain a good job. Yet, nationwide, more than half of Obamacare Medicaid recipients are not working.

Is it any surprise, then, that Medicaid expansion has been far more expensive than expected in the states that have tried it? According to analysis by Jonathan Ingram and Nicholas Horton, “States have consistently and grossly missed their expansion enrollment projections, already signing up more than twice as many able-bodied adults than they anticipated would sign up at any point in the future.” As a result, Medicaid is squeezing out other state budget priorities, consuming “one out of every three dollars in state budgets.” This includes Indiana, whose 2.0 “reform” cost more in year one than a traditional expansion would have cost and is forcing lawmakers to find new sources of revenue via tax and fee increases. It also includes Arkansas, whose Medicaid expansion cost almost twice as much as predicted, far more than traditional expansion, and whose attempts to rein in costs with a work requirement have been nullified in court.

If state lawmakers want to help rural hospitals, they should craft a credible plan to do so. Likewise, there are many ideas – ranging from deregulating charity care to encouraging nonprofit hospitals to do their fair share – that could increase health care access for low-income, able-bodied adults. Throwing Medicaid money at these problems would be a lazy, foolish, and expensive gamble. Mississippi voters know better.

This column appeared in the Clarion Ledger on August 11, 2019. 

The Reeves/ Waller and Fitch/ Taggart battles aren’t the only runoffs for Republican nominations on August 27. There are a number of runoffs in legislative races, many including incumbents who are hoping to be back for another term.

Here is a look at the runoffs for incumbents:

Senate District 1: Sen. Chris Massey of Nesbit received the most votes with 45 percent. He will face Hernando alderman Michael McLendon, who finished second with 30 percent, in the runoff.

House District 88: Rep. Gary Staples of Laurel finished second, winning 34 percent of the vote. Ramona Blackledge, the longtime Tax Assessor/ Collector in Jones County, led the field with 47 percent. 

House District 95: Rep. Patricia Willis of Diamondhead received 31 percent of the vote. Jay McKnight, a small businessman, led with 38 percent.

House District 105: Rep. Roun McNeal of Leakesville finished second with 37 percent of the vote. He trailed Dale Goodin, a longtime public school teacher and administrator, who received 42 percent of the vote.

House District 106: Rep. John Corley of Lumberton received 31 percent of the vote. Jansen Owen of Poplarville, an attorney, led the pack with 41 percent. 

House District 114: Rep. Jeffrey Guice received the most votes at 43 percent. Kenneth Fountain, the Chairman of the Jackson County School District Board, finished second with 35 percent.

Three Republican incumbents have already been defeated in the House: Reps. Greg Snowden, who is also the Speaker Pro Temp, Jeff Smith, who is the Ways & Means chairman, and William Shirley.  

Additional legislative runoffs in the Republican primary for open seats:

State Sen. Michael Watson accomplished something on Tuesday that many members of the legislature try, but seldom accomplish: win the Republican nomination for a statewide office.

Watson defeated Public Service Commissioner Sam Britton, who represents about one-third of the state in that regulatory position, by a 54-46 margin. He now faces former Hattiesburg mayor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Johnny DuPree in the general election, where he is the odds-on favorite. 

While Watson was successful, three other members of the legislature were hoping to ascend to statewide office. State Sen. Buck Clarke, the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee for the past eight years, was running for treasurer. State Rep. Mark Baker ran for attorney general and State Rep. Robert Foster ran for governor. 

Some, like Foster, were underdogs from beginning. But still, they all lost. The story wasn’t much different in years prior.

In 2011, three members of the legislature were hoping to make the jump. State Sen. Billy Hewes was challenging then-Treasurer Tate Reeves for the open lieutenant governor’s office, State Sen. Lee Yancey was running for treasurer, and State Rep. Dannie Reed was running for agriculture commissioner. Each of these candidates, some more serious than others, lost.

But a state legislator did win that year. Then-State Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith was elected agriculture commissioner.

And then back in 2007, as the Republican Party was officially solidifying their statewide dominance, two members of the legislature were successful in a Republican primary. Then-State Sen. Mike Chaney won the Republican primary for insurance commissioner, though he had little opposition. And then-State Sen. Stacey Pickering won the Republican nomination for state auditor, though he had no opposition on the GOP side.

But that same year, State Sen. Charlie Ross was defeated by then-Auditor Phil Bryant for the open lieutenant governor’s office. And State Rep. Mike Lott ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state. 

Even in 2003, at a time when Republicans held two statewide offices (thanks to Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck switching parties before qualifying), legislators still had trouble. This was Tate Reeves’ first entrance into politics, and before he could become treasurer, he defeated, among others, State Rep. Andrew Ketchings in the primary.  

Part of the problem today is that the Republican bench of statewide officials has more-or-less rewarded “moving up” offices. And any statewide official certainly has a name, and likely, money, advantage over a legislator. But we’ve also seen candidates do better with no political background – such as David McRae in the treasurer’s office this year. 

A lot of members of the legislature have wanted to become statewide officials. Few have been successful. But as Watson showed, it's not impossible.

Since the story was originally published, updates have been made to include Cindy Hyde-Smith and Stacey Pickering.

Only devout progressives could be foolish enough to order the destruction of a gigantic work of art that was actually critical to the establishment’s history of George Washington and our nation’s founding and not see the irony.

In the rush to take any measure to prevent students from the unbearable experience of contemplating complex and thorny issues, the art must go. The statues of Confederates must come down. The annual birthday celebration of the founding father and architect of the University of Virginia must end. 

According to these dilettantes, modern education is no longer about developing the intellectual muscles; it is about preventing any encounter with resistance. It’s like trying to get in shape without breaking a sweat, trying to sharpen a blade without removing metal, or trying to prune a tree without cutting the dying wood.

The result of such protectionist idiocy is that we are producing students with weaker constitutions and duller minds – unable to grow into robust adults. By giving into a belief that students are unable to confront opposing thoughts, ideas, or history, and thus must be protected from such challenges, we are preventing them from becoming fully formed citizens. And we do so at our own peril.

As Jefferson wrote, “an enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic.” What the founder, formerly known as Thomas Jefferson, was writing about is critical to our future. The nation’s future requires citizens who thirst for knowledge, possess discernment, and can courageously articulate an idea.

Whether at the University of North Carolina, the San Francisco Board of Education, or in Charlottesville, it is the progressive edutocracy, in lock step with postmodernists, who are failing the republic and setting us on a dangerous path.

If our student citizens are unable to go out into the nation and contend with diverse opinions, whether they be in the form of a monument, a mural, or a speaker, how then do we expect them to contend with a malignant threat to the West and the nation one day?

Even a cursory review of history informs us that evil and malevolent ideas will gain momentum and challenge our way of life at some point. If the 20^thCentury proved nothing else, it proved that. According to R. J. Rummel’s book Death by Government, roughly 110 million people were killed by communist democide from 1900 to 1987. 

Rather than possessing faith in strong ideas and having the courage to oppose their government, citizens in these nations turned on friends and families and allowed evil, false, deadly regimes to bring hell to earth. In short, the citizens chose a naïve approach to these genocidal nightmares.

They chose temporary safety – unable to understand that they were sewing the long-term seeds of their own destruction. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, a painfully detailed account of the Russian forced labor camp system, is now available in an abridged version. If you want to understand the potential depths to which a nation and its citizen can fall, read it or listen to an audio version.

Whether a George Washington mural painted by the Russian artist Victor Arnatauff or a nameless Confederate soldier statue standing on the campus in Chapel Hill, many on the left have determined the next generation is not able to contend with it. Therefore, progressives are now marching swiftly with their majoritarian mobs to dutifully purge public spaces of symbols they find offensive. This sort of mob censorship of historic symbols is a not-too-distant relative of censoring speech and burning books.

At UNC, students and activists tore down the Confederate statue known as Silent Sam, which had stood on the north end of campus for a century. The administration and board at the school have yet to decide the appropriate next step.

Perhaps there is hope here in Mississippi? This past March, the University of Mississippi student government voted unanimously to remove the Confederate statue from its current location atop the center circle of campus and relocate it to a cemetery on school grounds. To their credit, the students have not engaged in the destruction of property in their quest to remove the statue, which has stood since its erection in 1906.

Instead, the students have engaged in a public and democratic process and taken the time to offer a proposed solution. While I may disagree with the solution they propose, they should be commended for engaging in the debate and for not cowering in the corner out of the imagined oppression by an ancient statue. It remains to be seen how this plays out in Oxford. The IHL is searching for the next leader at Ole Miss. You can bet this is one of the interview questions.

The message of the progressive movement in other places in our nation is clear, however. If you are not on board with immediately removing such symbols, you will be accused of racial animus or xenophobia.

The hard left leaves no room for complexity, context, or individual opinion. We are in a new world where the individual must, through definitions ascribed by the progressives, belong to a group.

When the collective's viewpoint must be given preference over the individual’s perspective, we have lost what it means to have individual liberty and agency. In such a world, it is easy to see how woke progressives could be so foolish as to convince themselves to spend over $600,000 to paint over a mural of George Washington.

Such is the result of groupthink. Unfortunately, our students are the ones who suffer from such arrested development.

This column appeared in the Clarion Ledger on August 8, 2019.

New polling shows that Republican voters in Mississippi oppose expanding Medicaid and are less likely to vote for candidates for office who support expansion.

The poll, conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy, found that 55 percent of Republican voters would be less likely to vote for a candidate who supports Medicaid expansion. Just 26 percent would be more likely. 

“Republican voters are not buying the lie that Mississippi needs to expand Medicaid to able-bodied adults,” said Jameson Taylor, Vice President for Policy at Mississippi Center for Public Policy. “Even the lipstick-on-a-pig Medicaid expansions in Indiana and Arkansas are costing far more than expected, leading to tax and fee increases. Medicaid is a budget buster that will radically reduce available funding for K-12 education and roads and bridges.”

When voters were then told that Medicaid expansion has generally cost millions more than expected, which has resulted in tax or fee increases, along with increased competition for general fund priorities like education or infrastructure, opposition to expansion increased even further.

Republican voters, by a 70-13 margin, said they would be less likely to support a candidate who favored Medicaid expansion. 

“Medicaid is the worst form of welfare there is,” Taylor added. “Unlike other forms of welfare, like Food Stamps, the courts won’t let states require that able-bodied Medicaid recipients work or volunteer. There are also no time limits. 

“Medicaid expansion is a welfare trap, which is why more than half of expansion enrollees are not working. Medicaid expansion would deny these people of the American dream, the promise that with hard work and grit anyone can be a success in America.”

The full poll results can be found here.