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A federal court has ordered the City of Jackson to never again act on its own to restrict the right to openly carry a firearm.  

The Order was issued as a Consent Decree after the Mississippi Justice Institute (“MJI”), a non-profit constitutional litigation center and the legal arm of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, filed a lawsuit against the city and Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba on behalf of State Rep. Dana Criswell. The lawsuit challenged the legality of an executive order from Lumumba attempting to temporarily ban the open carry of firearms because of the coronavirus pandemic.  

Lumumba allowed his open carry ban to expire on April 30, 2020, three days after the lawsuit was filed. The court’s Order prevents such bans in the future and was agreed to by the parties involved in the lawsuit.  

“We are very happy with the outcome of this case,” said MJI director Aaron Rice. “No mayor or other elected official in Jackson will ever again be able to act on their own to take away the right to openly carry a firearm in the city of Jackson, for any reason. We hope city officials can find a way to effectively address violent crime in Jackson, but they must do so in a way that respects the right of individuals to protect themselves.”

Under the Consent Decree, the city cannot take any action that would directly or indirectly prohibit, restrict, or inhibit the open carry of firearms in the city unless Mississippi’s statutes and constitutional law are first changed to allow for that.

“I am very glad to know that this will never happen again in the future,” said Criswell. “Mississippians should be able to protect themselves no matter what city they are in.” 

“I am pleased at the result in this case,” said MJI volunteer attorney Sterling Kidd. “I greatly appreciate the opportunity to serve as co-counsel in protecting and vindicating this fundamental right.”  

The Consent Decree was issued by Chief U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan, III in U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Mississippi on June 12, 2020. It went into effect immediately. 

A copy of the Consent Decree can be found here.

The Life Equality Act, House Bill 1295, passed out of Senate Committee Judiciary B last week. If signed into law, it will prohibit abortions from taking place in Mississippi on the basis of race, sex, or genetic abnormality except in medical emergencies. 

It might come as a surprise to Mississippians that this discrimination takes place at the earliest stages of life. Diagnoses of genetic abnormalities like Down Syndrome and Cystic Fibrosis lead to termination of the child more often than not. Even in non-fatal cases, as many as 67 percent of babies with Down syndrome are aborted in the United States. Recent evidence suggests that as many as 95 percent of parents receiving a prenatal diagnosis of cystic fibrosis elect to terminate the child. On the basis of race and sex, a family’s preference for a male or a non-bi-racial child must absolutely come to an end in Mississippi. The pressure many women receive to have a particular kind of child is unacceptable in our diverse society. 

The Senate committee was the most recent checkpoint for The Life Equality Act on its way to being added to state law. Led by Sen. Brice Wiggins (R-Pascagoula), the Judiciary B Committee Chairman, an affirmative voice vote sent this law to the Senate floor for consideration.

A proponent of the bill and member of the considering committee, Sen. Jeremy England (R- Ocean Springs), spoke out on social media with his support, “I believe it is of the utmost importance that our laws are applied equally and that they provide equal protection of our God-given rights. This of course includes the right to life.” 

Presenting the bill to the committee was Sen. Joey Fillingane (R-Sumrall), who answered questions from the committee members on Tuesday. A voice vote for the bill was then carried out which offered an overwhelming affirmation. 

The bill was introduced in the House by Representative by Rep. Carolyn Crawford (R- Pass Christian) and the Senate version of the bill was introduced this year by Sen. Jenifer Branning (R-Philadelphia) – two women dedicated to the protection of life in Mississippi. 

The bill got a boost from the support of Mississippi’s Catholic Bishops, Joseph Kopacz and Louis Kihneman III, of Jackson and Biloxi respectively. The two Catholic leaders sent a powerful joint letter in support of the legislation.

If this law is passed, it pushes against the narrative and legal precedent that states do not have an interest in protecting life before the viability of an unborn child. In fact, race, sex, and genetic abnormalities can all be determined before the stage of viability. Eugenic practices and discrimination are certainly interests of the state-level government. 

It is critical that our state stand against discrimination in the womb. Mississippians affirm that life has value- regardless of race, sex, or ability. With conversations surrounding discrimination at the forefront in our society at the moment, it is critical that we seek to defend the voiceless as well. Those innocents in the womb are unable to defend themselves but are worth defending nonetheless. 

Two days before the June 17 deadline for floor action on legislation from the other chamber, both the House and Senate are moving forward with key bills that will expand liberty, remove barriers, and make it easier to work and earn a living in Mississippi. 

While there are other bills still alive that run counter to the ideals of liberty and freedom, here is a rundown of many of the good bills that have already moved:

HB 838: This will allow individuals leaving state prisons to use MDOC documents as qualifying papers to obtain a driver’s license. For ex-offenders to land gainful employment, they generally need a driver’s license. Something that has been a hinderance. This will make that process easier by allowing MDOC documents in lieu of a birth certificate or social security card. The bill has a reverse repealer, meaning the bill will now go to conference. 

HB 1024: This will make various reforms to Mississippi’s “three strikes” habitual offender law for nonviolent drug offenses. It prevents offenses from more than 15 years ago counting toward the enhancement and prevents nonviolent offenses from triggering a life sentence. The bill has a reverse repealer, meaning the bill will now go to conference.

HB 1104: This will give the Occupational Licensing Review Commission the ability to do a review of an existing regulation to determine whether it increases economic opportunities for citizens by promoting competition and uses the least restrictive regulation to protect consumers. Right now, the OLRC, which is comprised of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state, is limited to review only new regulations. It was amended in the Senate and will return to the House for concurrence. 

HB 1136: The Learn to Earn Act will provide new apprenticeship opportunities for Mississippi students. It was amended in the Senate and will return to the House for concurrence. 

SB 2117: This will provide universal recognition of occupational licenses for military families. In committee, the House took the language of House Bill 1510, a similar bill, and inserted it before it passed the House. It now returns to the Senate for concurrence. 

SB 2123: This will allow the Parole Board to consider individuals after they have served 25 percent of their sentence for a nonviolent offense and 50 percent for a violent offense. The bill has a reverse repealer, meaning the bill will now go to conference.  

SB 2552: This will remove the prohibition on how much alcohol a brewery can sell on its premises. It has been sent to the governor.  

SB 2594: This extends the Special Needs Education Scholarship Account program, which was needed, or it would expire at the end of June. While this is still a good program with great potential, the legislature has chosen to keep the program tiny and even made changes that hurt the program. It is now on to the governor.

SB 2725: This will legalize the cultivation of hemp in Mississippi. It was amended in the House and will return to the Senate for concurrence.

SB 2830: This will expand the current list of eligible patients in the state’s Right to Try law to an individual with a traumatic injury and would also allow adult stem cells as a treatment option. It is now on to the governor.

Bills that would allow the Occupational Licensing Review Commission to review existing regulations are moving in both chambers. 

Mississippi’s Occupational Licensing Review Commission, adopted in 2016, is a positive step toward scaling back the regulatory arm of the state, but is limited to new regulations only. This would give the Commission – which is made up of the governor, attorney general, and secretary of state – the ability to review existing regulations and to act upon it if it does not:

Today, Mississippi has more than 117,000 regulations, which numerous empirical studies show to have a detrimental effect on economic growth. Mississippi also licenses 66 low-and-middle income occupations. According to a recent report from the Institute for Justice, Mississippi has lost 13,000 jobs because of occupational licensing and the state has suffered an economic value loss of $37 million.

Senate Bill 2790, authored by Sen. John Polk, would give the OLRC the ability to review the substance of any regulation cleared the Senate and is on the calendar in the House. A similar bill, House Bill 1104, authored by Rep. Jerry Turner, has now passed the Senate, after clearing the House earlier in the session. That bill originally only gave the OLRC the ability to look at regulations adopted since 2012, but the Senate changed the language to allow the Commission to review any regulations.

It will be returned to the House for concurrence or conference, where the two chambers would hash out differences before agreeing to a final bill.

This is a good step, but more needs to be done to rein in Mississippi's regulatory burden. This includes:

We don’t know what K-12 education will look like this fall, just that things will be different.

What does that mean, what should it mean, and how can parents be empowered to make the best decision for their children and their family?

Here is some of what we know

Schools in Mississippi closed after spring break, which was the middle of March, and every student completed the year “virtually.” Though what exactly that meant varied by the school you attended. To say the transition to distance learning has been hit or miss depending on where you live would be an understatement. (Though that’s certainly true of government education in general.) 

But it’s a tough thing to pull off overnight, and we certainly paid the price for never recognizing online learning in Mississippi to this point. 

Contrast that with higher education, which has two plus decades of experience, depending on the institution, with online learning. In this case, the transition was relatively smooth. Obviously higher education has long had a vested interest in adopting the online model, it showed, and it paid off.

We also know there will be some investment in expanding internet access. We hear about disparities in high-speed internet on a daily basis. Our Congressional delegation trips over themselves to get money to Mississippi. And whenever the legislature starts spending any of the remaining $900+ million from the federal government, high-speed internet and computers will obviously be a key component. Or it should be. But that will all take time. 

Here’s some of the scary

National data shows us that the death rate for those under 18 is essentially zero. In Mississippi, it’s literally zero. So, after months of data, we can report that children have no chance of dying from coronavirus. They’ve also been a tiny percentage of positive cases. Side note: Two children in Mississippi have died from influenza this year. Just to put everything into perspective. 

Yet, new federal guidelines would essentially turn government schools into prisons if enacted. In this graphic that has been banned from Facebook, the CDC has laid out various guidelines.

Basically, things that made school fun and can be categorized as positive are now prohibited. Again, these are guidelines, and this is a simplified rundown, but guidelines from CDC carry weight. After all, they’re supposed to be the experts. 

Already, the Tupelo school district has said they are not going to use the cafeteria and students will eat in their classroom. I can’t imagine they’ll be the only district implementing that change. The Mississippi Department of Education has offered similar guidelines, encouraging a certain distancing between students.  

Parents aren’t sure about next year

Currently, somewhere between 2 and 3 percent of students are homeschooled. Obviously, that increased to essentially every student in the country with the shutdowns, but the idea is that will be temporary.

Still, poll after poll tells us parents aren’t so sure about sending their children back to school. Favorability of homeschooling has skyrocketed, and we see somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of parents saying they are leaning toward that option. 

While even the most ardent proponents of homeschooling such as myself know numbers won’t be that large when all is said and done, we also know that just 5 or 10 percent of families leaving government school would be significant. Consider this: If 5 percent of government school students in Mississippi decided to homeschool, that would represent between 20,000-25,000 new homeschoolers. That would double the number of homeschoolers in the state overnight. Imagine it was 10 percent. That’s close to 50,000 kids leaving government schools, probably the number of kids in private school in the state today. 

This has naturally led to the attacks on homeschooling we have seen, for a couple reasons. One, every student that leaves government school in Mississippi takes $10,000 with him or her. Obviously, the family doesn’t keep that money for their education, but neither does the government school. Therefore, funding would decrease as the students that are being educated decreases. 

The other attack comes from those who believe government, not the parent, should control children. This is partially driven by a dislike for those who are religious. There is a certain belief from the elites that they are smarter than anyone who is religious, along with a general belief that it is the government’s responsibility to raise your child.  

One positive of this growing competition is schools are transitioning and offering new options to families. MDE is outlining various reopening models, including hybrid virtual learning and a full-time online program. In Tupelo, students will have the opportunity to do a full distance learning program. Will other schools follow? Probably. 

What does the future hold?

The easiest answer for the future of education is we don’t know what it will look like, just that it will be different. And that’s a good thing. Because just maybe this experience of being homeschoolers by necessity has shown us how we can do education differently. 

Because when a child is receiving an individualized education, a couple things happen. If a student is excelling at a subject, you can move forward as fast you would like. If you need more material, you can access it. YouTube might be a place for funny videos, but it is an immense library of knowledge if used properly. If there is something your child is interested in, chances are you can find something online to supplement their learning needs. 

Similarly, if your child is struggling you can take a step back. Go slower. Maybe take a break on that subject for a couple weeks. It’s not unusual for homeschoolers to be, for example, doing one subject at a 5th grade level and another at a 2nd or 3rd grade level. In fact, the more you do this, the more you’ll learn that numbers and grades don’t really matter. Just learning.

You’ll also learn that as opposed to this idea that you can’t socialize, there are as many groups and extracurricular activities as you would like. Just as long as we’re not all quarantined. 

For those who are looking for glimmers of hope through the tragedy that came with the pandemic, perhaps a new approach to education away from the industrial model will be something that remains. 

House Bill 1212, sponsored by state Rep. Jason White, would prohibit a real estate broker from hiring salespersons until they have had their license for 36 months.

Right now, a real estate salesperson needs 12 months of experience working under a broker to earn their broker’s license. Under HB 1212, they could still do that, but would not be able to hire any salespersons for three years.

This isn’t the first time that this bill has made an appearance in the Mississippi legislature. In 2018, HB 1246 was passed by the legislature, but vetoed by then-Gov. Phil Bryant.

In his veto message, Bryant said the bill would be an over-burdensome law and a barrier to entry for potential brokers. He also said two more years of experience will not necessarily guarantee that a real estate salesperson will be better prepared to become a broker.

On both counts, Bryant is correct. Passage of this bill would make it harder to become a broker, which eliminates competition for existing licensees. Two more years of experience also won’t guarantee that a broker is more knowledgeable.

There isn’t some need for this. This is simply an attempt by current license holders to use the government to fend off new competition. 

MCPP has reviewed this legislation and finds that it violates our principles and therefore should be opposed. 

Read HB 1212.

Track the status of this and all bills in our legislative tracker.

The legislature hit their most recent deadline yesterday as committees had to report on bills that originated in the opposite chamber. Everything that did not clear a committee yesterday is dead for the year. 

It was a mix of a day, but a number of liberty bills remain alive in some form or fashion.

While a bill that would begin a small regulatory reduction appears dead in the Senate, a new report shows Mississippi is the most regulated state in the South. 

This is according to a new brief authored by James Broughel and Kofi Ampaabeng from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. On a population-adjusted basis, Mississippi has a regulatory rate of 0.039, meaning regulations per person. Louisiana has the second most at 0.035, followed by Kentucky with 0.029. 

Louisiana isn’t that surprising. In terms of the total number of regulations, they have the second most in the South with 163,000. Florida has the most at 171,000, yet adjusted for population, that dips to 0.008. A fraction of Mississippi’s regulatory burden. 

Why is this helpful? It paints a better picture of Mississippi’s regulatory burden (though not actually better). One could argue that in terms of raw number of regulations, we’re middle of the pack nationwide – or not that bad. But as the brief outlines, there are reasons that more populous states might tend to have more regulations than less populous states.

“For example, more populous states might have more industries, so some forms of regulation may not be necessary in less populous states,” the authors note. “It is also possible that more populous states have denser population than less populated states, and when more people are congregated in smaller areas, certain externalities or other market failures could be more prevalent, thereby necessitating more regulation. 

“Finally, some scholars have posited that there are fixed costs associated with regulating and that larger populations will be able to absorb these fixed costs more easily by spreading them across a greater number of people. Therefore, more populous states could be expected to have more regulation because it is relatively cheaper for them to impose regulation than less populous states.”

What does this matter? Regulatory growth has a detrimental effect on economic growth.

Regulatory growth has a detrimental effect on economic growth. We now have a history of empirical data on the relationship between regulations and economic growth. A 2013 study in the Journal of Economic Growth estimates that federal regulations have slowed the U.S. growth rate by 2 percentage points a year, going back to 1949. A recent study by the Mercatus Center estimates that federal regulations have slowed growth by 0.8 percent since 1980. If we had imposed a cap on regulations in 1980, the economy would be $4 trillion larger, or about $13,000 per person. Real numbers, and real money, indeed. 

On the international side, researchers at the World Bank have estimated that countries with a lighter regulatory touch grow 2.3 percentage points faster than countries with the most burdensome regulations. And yet another study, this published by the Quarterly Journal of Economics, found that heavy regulation leads to more corruption, larger unofficial economies, and less competition, with no improvement in public or private goods. 

For those hoping for reform, House Bill 1422, which passed the House, would have created a pilot program for regulatory reduction. The way the bill works is the Mississippi Departments of Health, Transportation, Agriculture and Commerce, and Information Technology Services would have review its existing regulations, accept written comments from the public for 60 days following the review and conduct at least two public hearings for citizens and businesses to identify any rule or regulation that is burdensome.

The review would have to be conducted within 120 days of HB 1422 becoming law. Each of the agencies covered in the pilot program would have to reduce their regulations by:

This bill needs to clear Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency committee in the Senate today or it’s dead. 

The leaders of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson and Biloxi, Bishops Joseph R. Kopacz and Louis F. Kihneman III respectively, have stated their support for currently pending legislation that would further protect the sanctity of life.

House Bill 1295, known as the Life Equality Act, would ban abortions that are performed due to the race, sex, or genetic abnormality of the child unless it is a medical emergency. This critical anti-discrimination legislation is a major step forward in the fight against the discrimination of unborn children.

Physicians would be required to keep certain records related to abortion that would be reported to the Mississippi Department of Health. The bill would also put a criminal penalty and professional sanctions on doctors who do not abide the law. For greater detail about the bill, check out this piece by Anja Baker.

In a public letter, the bishops stated that the “Church’s steadfast stance on the protection of unborn human lives has biblical support, e.g., the words of Psalm 139, declaring that each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made, knit in our mothers’ wombs. But even if one does not acknowledge the Bible, the truth that the womb of a pregnant woman contains a unique human life cannot be denied. This truth ought to be reflected by our Mississippi legal system without prejudice.”

The letter went on to state: “We believe in the legal protection of these classes as they are equal in the eyes of our Creator. We seek to live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ by caring for the most vulnerable among us.”

The letter concludes by referencing the 25th Anniversary of Evangelism Vitae, “Gospel of Life,” Saint John Paul II’s powerful defense of life and its inherent value.

Rep. Carolyn Crawford (R-Pass Christian) and Sen. Jenifer Branning (R-Philadelphia) have stepped up by introducing the Life Equality Act and have shown their deep commitment to equality before the law and the defense of unborn lives no matter their race, gender, or personal ability.

While some continue to defend sex-selective abortions, clearly seen in this Guardian opinion piece, this choice overly destroys the lives of unborn girls due to existing biases for a variety of reasons. In 2011, it was estimated that 160 million women were missing from this earth directly due to sex-selective abortions.

Furthermore, abortion already has a larger impact on certain races than others. In Mississippi, 79 percent of abortions are obtained by black women. It is worth noting as well that 79 percent of Planned Parenthood’s clinics around the nation are in minority neighborhoods. Whatever one’s thoughts on the practice, these statistics should horrify us. This bill would take the important step of stopping those who seek to abort an unborn child solely because of his or her race, and thus suppressing one of the small ways that abortion devalues life based on race.

This bill becomes all the more critically important as the debate surrounding the abortion of certain children, such as those with down syndrome has raised a serious debate. Recently, certain news outlets praised the nation of Iceland for effectively eliminating down syndrome in the country. However, it was quickly revealed that the method of eradication was actually a horrendous degree of abortion selectivity applied to unborn children who were found to have down syndrome.

In a recent debate in England, activists have pleaded for the public to change the laws that allow abortion until birth when the child has down syndrome. For reference, England has a standard 24 week limit for abortion for all other children. Heidi Crowter, a young adult with down syndrome, gave this powerful and moving testament in defense of the value of her own life.

Jesse Jackson, once pro-life, powerfully said in 1977 that: “Psychiatrists, social workers and doctors often argue for abortion on the basis that the child will grow up mentally and emotionally scarred. But who of us is complete? If incompleteness were the criteri(on) for taking life, we would all be dead. If you can justify abortion on the basis of emotional incompleteness, then your logic could also lead you to killing for other forms of incompleteness — blindness, crippleness, old age.”

Unfortunately, this statement turned out to be all too prescient. Our society has increasingly devalued life and systematically sought to expand the taking of life for a variety of insufficient reasons. As the Catholic Bishops stated, all life is equal before the eyes of the Lord. I hope our legislators, many of whom often claim the title of pro-life with pride around election season, can hear these cries of injustice and can move swiftly in support of this legislation.

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