Civil forfeiture cases in Mississippi were up in 2019, but the average dollar value of each forfeiture was down. 

There were 353 seizures in 2019, according to an analysis of records by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. That is up from 315 in 2018. The average value in 2019 was $6,073.63, down from last year’s average of $8,708.37.

One reason was the lack of large busts. Only one seizure, $100,715 on April 17 by the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department, was more than $75,000.

In 2018, there were six seizures of more than $100,000, with the biggest being a bust of vape shops by the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics that netted $644,421.

Only three seizures were $60,000 or more in 2019 after such busts in 2018. The majority of the seizures, 177 were $10,000 or less. In 2018, there were 224 seizures of that amount in the database.

Breaking down the numbers, 118 forfeitures were $2,500 or less in 2019, down from 2018, when 158 met that threshold. Going even lower, 21 were for $500 or less in 2019. That’s down from 2018, when 54 were $500 or less.

As for the property seized, the majority was currency (186), with the average seizure amounting to $5,422. Also seized were 86 weapons (average value of $363.91) and 41 vehicles (average value of $5,091). 

Among the unusual items seized included an Xbox One video game console, 16 televisions, an auger (a drilling device), two watches, an Ozark Trail cooler, and 30 ounces of silver bullion bars.

The way the system works is law enforcement officers can seize property if they believe it is connected with a crime. Since the property’s fate is adjudicated in civil rather than criminal court, there is a lower burden of proof for the prosecution. 

One part of the law that surprises those unaware is that a property owner doesn’t have to be charged with a crime for his property to be forfeited. 

For the property owner to prevent their property being forfeited to law enforcement, which can use 80 percent of the proceeds to bolster their budgets, they must file a lawsuit. That happens precious little, as only 39 property owners contested the forfeiture in court (11.04 percent) in 2019. 

In 2018, 30 property owners filed suit to recover their property, or 9.52 percent.

It would be harder for a nail stylist to work in Mississippi than in almost any other state in the country if the Board of Cosmetology gets their way. 

Nail technicians in Mississippi are currently required to complete 350 hours of training before they can practice in the state. Licensing is required in 49 states, with Connecticut being the lone holdout that does not require licensing or certifications for nail technicians, according to the National Association of Complementary and Alternative Medicines.

Mississippi’s 350-hour requirement is in line with the national average of 368. But a bump to 600 hours would be the second highest burden, which is shared by eight states. Only Alabama’s 750 hours would be greater. 

But Sharon Clark, the executive director of the Board, made her push for expanded licensure in a meeting of the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, arguing that it was a sanitary issue and this will help protect the public. Because teachers don't have time to teach cleanliness in the first 350 hours. 

If you’ve heard one licensing pitch, you’ve heard them all

The Board has admitted that the current licensing regime is not working well. We agree. But instead of increasing the regulations as the Board wants, the state should move to do away with the license for nail technicians and allow voluntary or non-regulatory options that help entrepreneurs start and run businesses while providing the maximum options for consumers.

What would that look like?

This begins with market competition, the least restrictive option. Without government imposed restrictions, consumers have the widest assortment of choices, thereby giving businesses the strongest incentives to maintain a reputation for high-quality services. When service providers are free to compete, consumers can decide who provides the best services, thereby weeding out those that do not. 

Quality service self-disclosure is a fancy term for customer satisfaction. Think about all the common sites people can leave reviews such as Yelp, Google, Facebook, specific industry sites, etc. Finding out which location is providing a good customer experience is easier than ever, providing users with more complete options. 

Voluntary, third-party certification allows the provider to voluntarily receive and maintain certification from a non-government organization. One of the most common examples is the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) designation for auto mechanics. No mechanic is required to receive this certification, just like you may or may not care if a mechanic has it hanging on their wall. But it sends a signal to the consumer that the location with that designation is committed to quality service. Again, if that matters.

If you would like the government to still be involved, you can continue with inspections or you may choose to require registration, as they do with hair braiders. Hair braiders previously needed to take hundreds of hours of irrelevant cosmetology classes. Now they register with the state and pay a small fee. This discourages “fly-by-night” providers, while still only creating a small barrier for providers.

Licensing makes sense in certain – and limited – fields. But if we want to encourage economic growth, we need to start trusting the free market. 

Senate Bill 2115, sponsored by Sen. Angela Hill, would cap fees paid to outside money managers for the state’s defined benefit pension system and require annual reporting.

The Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi serves most state, municipal and county employees (150,651 active employees and 107,844 beneficiaries) and is only 61.6 percent fully funded. 

Its unfunded liability amounts to $17.6 billion or more than three years of all general fund tax revenue. While that liability isn’t due at once, the figure provides an insight into the health of PERS.

Last year, PERS’ plan investments earned $1.7 billion and total service fees represented more than $102 million of that total. In 2018, PERS’ investments earned $2.3 billion and manager fees added up to more than $103 million.

The bill, if signed into law, would require the PERS Board of Trustees to review all investment contracts and reduce investment fees by half by June 30, 2021.

The saved monies would be put back into PERS and the Board would have to report to the legislature on or before December 31 of each year on how much it spent for investment management services.

While this wouldn’t be a huge boost to PERS’ bottom line, reducing the amount PERS pays to outside money managers would allow more money to stay with the fund and provide more capital for investments.

MCPP has reviewed this legislation and finds that it is aligned with our principles and therefore should be supported. 

Read the bill here.

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

Senate Bill 2004, sponsored by Sen. Kevin Blackwell, holds any party that contests a Certificate of Need, or CON, application liable for the legal costs of the applicant should their contest fail, and the CON be approved.

Essentially, this disincentivizes interested parties from attempting to have a CON denied, ultimately allowing more of these applications to be successful and lowering the cost burden for those wishing to provide healthcare solutions in Mississippi.

CON laws originated from federal legislation that was fully repealed in 1986. Thirty-five states, including Mississippi, still have CON laws in state legislation.

Many states issue moratoria on specific medical facilities, practices, and materials through CON laws. Mississippi’s CON law requires health care providers to seek approval from the state Department of Health to build a new facility, add beds or diagnostic equipment to an existing facility, or any other capital-related project. The regulated areas include:hospital and nursing home beds,Inpatient psychiatric beds for children, beds in chemical dependency centers, and home health services.

CON laws inevitably grant monopolies to existing medical providers with facilities already in an area and only stifle the ability of new facilities to open up. This often eliminates the possibility of competition in the medical industry between providers, keeping costs up, and quality of service down.   

While the overall goal should be full repeal of CON laws, this is a step in the right direction. 

MCPP has reviewed this legislation and finds that it is aligned with our principles and therefore should be supported. 

Read the bill here.

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

A report by a state watchdog says there isn’t enough evidence to conclude that public prekindergarten programs have a positive long-term impact.

The PEER Committee (Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review) issued a report on the state’s taxpayer-funded prekindergarten program, which began as the Early Learning Collaborative Act of 2013.

The Mississippi Department of Education runs the program, which has received $21,229,151 since fiscal 2017 to assist 14 early learning collaboratives (a district or countywide council that submits an application that involves a public school district) in implementation for 2,200 students. 

MDE evaluated the sites (either a public or private school, licensed child care center, or Head Start Center) and found 59 successful and put three on probation.

*Estimates using percentages mandated in Senate Bill 2395

The report also says that MDE should investigative several sites for highly unlikely results on several assessments used to measure whether the program prepares students for kindergarten. It also criticized the MDE for its evaluation criteria for the program participants, which uses a “rate of readiness” score. 

The report says the measure fails to adequately measure collaborative and site performance. The MDE, according to the report, has added two more assessment tests to measure the success of grant recipients.

MDE also requires prekindergarten program participants to use a curriculum that PEER says is not evidence based, as required by the authorizing law from 2013. The curriculum, known as Opening the World of Learning or OWL, doesn’t meet the requirements in state law because it has not been tested at multiple, random sites across heterogeneous populations. PEER said the only test conducted found that OWL was worse than another curriculum in comparison.

Collaboratives must match state funds on a one to one basis and those can include local tax dollars and federal funds. Taxpayers pay $2,150 per student for a full-day program and $1,075 for a half-day one. 

Also, MDE is prohibited from reserving more than 5 percent of the appropriation for administrative costs and funds can be carried over to the next fiscal year if they’re not used.

MDE has asked for an increase of $3,276,616 over last year’s appropriation of $6,699,517 for the prekindergarten program in fiscal 2021, which starts July 1. 

This was PEER’s second evaluation of the program after another report was filed in 2015. 

As lawmakers propose new laws that would limit consumer options concerning vaping, which would inevitably lead to a larger black market, the federal government has confirmed that vaping related illnesses are largely from the black market, not products legally purchased in stores. 

According to a new report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), those with illnesses were linked to marijuana vapes – not nicotine – and, at least 85 percent of those were purchased somewhere other than commercial sources. Still, even that number may be lower than the actual statistics. 

Regardless, the CDC has now removed language from their website suggesting people refrain from all vaping products. Instead, they suggest you avoid purchasing products from “informal sources,” more commonly referred to as the black market. 

Yet, proposals to limit vaping products would do just that. 

Because of this “outbreak,” we are told we must do something, such as ban vaping and e-cigarettes. Legislation is likely in Mississippi this year. This would be just the latest example of unintended consequences.

First, the potential bans ignore the fact that e-cigarettes have proven to help tobacco smokers quit. Since 2007, these products have helped an estimated three million Americans quit smoking and a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that e-cigarettes and vaping devices were “twice as effective as nicotine replacement at helping smokers quit.”

The Royal College of Physicians proclaimed in 2016, “in the interests of public health it is important to promote the use of e-cigarettes, NRT (Nicotine Replacement Therapy), and other non-tobacco nicotine products as widely as possible as a substitute for smoking in the UK.” We can presume that would apply in the United States as well. 

And there is a cost savings benefit from current smokers switching to the replacement devices. A 2017 study by R Street Institute found that taxpayers could save $2.8 billion in Medicaid costs per one percent of enrollees over 25 years if users switched from combustible cigarettes. 

A ban also ignores the question of where current users, particularly the teen vapers lawmakers are particularly interested in saving, would turn. After all, teen vaping is surging. 

Yet, sales of e-cigarettes have been prohibited to those under 18 since 2016 and they are now illegal to those under 21, so minors are already turning to the black-market. That should be our first clue that bans don’t work. Because the black market is the problem, as it usually is. Not the products adults are legally purchasing today. 

So, because teens, who are already prohibited from purchasing these products, have resorted to the black market, we must ban adults from being able to purchase these products, at least when it comes to the fruit and candy flavors that most prefer (whether we are talking about teens or adults trying to kick the cigarette habit). This will only lead to a larger black market, and more illnesses, and more deaths. All the things those in favor of banning the products seemingly are trying to prevent. Or maybe it will just push more users back to tobacco products, which, coincidently, are at an all-time low among minors. 

We’ve played the prohibition game before. It doesn’t end well. During alcohol prohibition, individuals made their own liquor that was often much more dangerous than what you could legally buy prior to prohibition. Today, many people roll their own cigarettes in locales that have absurdly high taxes. Again, these are often more dangerous as you can get more nicotine by leaving out a filter. 

And when it comes to vaping, teens can turn to YouTube for do-it-yourself videos on raising nicotine levels. This won’t change if and when any of these proposals to regulate or eliminate vaping or e-cigarettes becomes law. 

The bans won’t provide an alternative to current cigarette smokers, nor will they stop teens from vaping. Instead, they will only increase lawlessness.

The Republican-dominated Mississippi Senate announced its 41 committee chairs at the beginning of the session and one surprise is how many Democrats were named to lead committees.

The Senate has 36 Republicans and 16 Democrats, but 12 of the Democrats have committee chairmanships. This means that 75 percent of Democrats hold chairmanships in the Senate while only 80.5 percent of Republicans hold chairmanships.

By comparison, the 2019 Senate comprised 32 Republicans and 20 Democrats with 39 committees. Twelve Democrats held chairmanships (60 percent) compared to 29 Republicans (84.4 percent). 

These numbers, of course, do not tell the entire story as some chairmanships are more powerful than others. In 2019, Democrats held important chairmanships in Corrections, Transportation, and Judiciary B. In 2020, Democrats will control Corrections, Gaming, and Public Health and Welfare.

Chairmen are important in the legislative process because they act as gatekeepers for legislation. If a chairman doesn’t support a bill, he or she can keep it off the committee’s agenda. Conversely, a chairman can push a bill to send it to the floor for a vote by the full chamber. 

Using legislation authored by the new chairmen in past sessions and utilizing an annual rating of legislatures by the American Conservative Union (ACU), one can make an educated guess on what measures are likely to make it out of committees for a floor vote. 

The ACU graded Mississippi legislators on their votes on 21 measures, which included: landowner protection, the Heartbeat bill, funding for the Board of Cosmetology and funding for public television, among other issues. 

In the Senate, the overall average rating was 46 percent, with Republicans averaging 54 percent and Democrats 32 percent. For the new chairmen, the average Republican earned a 53.32 percent rating, while the average Democrat was a 29.42 percent.

Public Health and Welfare

State Sen. Hob Bryan (D-Amory) was appointed to chair this committee, which handled bills related to everything from physician and nurse licensure, child protective services, certificate of need, and even food service.

Bryan has been in the Senate since 1984 and was chairman of the Judiciary B Committee in the last cycle. 

One piece of legislation that could be handled by his committee is a Medicaid expansion bill that would expand Medicaid eligibility to able-bodied, working-age adults who earn up to 138 percent of the poverty level. This Medicaid expansion is a key piece of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Bryan authored similar legislation last year and it died in the Medicaid Committee.

Bills are referred to committee by chamber leadership, in this case, the Lt. Governor. The committee assignment for any Medicaid expansion bill would be a critical indicator on whether it is supported by leadership.

Bryan scored a 40 percent in 2019 and has a lifetime rating of 36 percent from the ACU. The average Democrat score was 32 percent. He has authored bills in the past that would’ve require mandatory, comprehensive eye exams for students entering kindergarten or the first grade, would’ve forced financial institutions to adopt policies to detect transactions related to Iran or terrorism and would’ve ended the phaseout of franchise tax and one state income tax bracket passed in 2015. Most didn’t survive the committee process.

Finance

State Sen. Josh Harkins (R-Flowood) chairs this committee, which deals with bonds, taxes, incentives, exemptions, the minimum wage, and alcoholic beverage control issues. Along with the Transportation Committee, this committee would play a big role in any possible gas tax increase at the state level or a possible local option gas tax proposal. 

In 2019, Harkins authored the Landowner Protection Act, which was signed into law by then-Gov. Phil Bryant and reduces the liability for property owners for injuries that occur on their property. He also previously authored Right to Try, which provides terminally ill patients with access to experimental therapies.

Harkins scored a 52 percent grade from the American Conservative Union, while the average Republican score was 54 percent. 

Judiciary Committees

Like the House, the Senate has two judiciary committees named Division A and Division B. They deal with legal issues, including criminal justice reform and other issues facing the judiciary system. While there has been a division of workload where one committee handled strictly criminal issues and the other handled civil issues, it’s unknown if the new Senate leadership will continue this practice.

Division A is chaired by state Sen. Sally Doty (R-Brookhaven), who received a 52 percent score from the ACU. In 2018, she authored a bill that would’ve allowed public and private nonprofit hospitals to collect debts using the state Department of Revenue to garnish income tax refunds from debtors.

She has also worked on legislation that expanded SNAP (food stamp) benefits to drug dealers/users and that sought to create a comprehensive sex-ed program for children in public school. 

State Sen. Brice Wiggins (R-Pascagoula) will chair the other judiciary committee. He received a 48 percent grade from the ACU.

Wiggins wrote a “red flag” bill that would’ve allowed judges to issue orders to restrain a person’s right to possess firearms. It died in committee.

He also authored a bill that would’ve expanded the definition of a gang member and increased fines for gang members convicted of a felony. Under Wiggins’ bill, they would’ve also been prohibited form parole or any early release program. It died in committee.

Education

State Sen. Dennis Debar (R-Leakesville) takes over the Education Committee. One of the biggest issues facing the committee will be the reauthorization of the state’s Education Scholarship Account program, which will end this year without legislative action.

Debar, who was in the House at the time, voted for both the Charter Schools Act of 2013 and the original ESA bill in 2015. He also voted to renew the ESA program last year. That passed the Senate, but died in the House Education Committee. 

He earned a 48 percent grade from the ACU.

Mississippi's laws that limit who can sell alcohol and where you can purchase it need to be modernized.

Let me paint a picture with a short story: The year is 2020, on a sunny day (so not today, but maybe some day in the future) you decide to stop by the grocery store on the way home to pick up a bottle of your favorite wine. Unfortunately for you, Mississippi grocery stores aren’t legally allowed to carry wine. 

No worries, you decide to drive across the county line (because your county bans the sale of liquor) to the liquor store and grab the bottle there. Unfortunately for you, every liquor store in the state is forced to go through the one government distributor for alcohol that exists in all of Mississippi, and their warehouse didn’t order enough of your brand this month. 

No worries, you’re willing to wait for a few days, so you go home to order the bottle online and have it shipped to you. Unfortunately for you, the state of Mississippi is one of a slim handful of states that legally bans the shipment of wine into the state.

Thus, in the year 2020, in an age where people around the world are connected digitally in unprecedented ways, in a time that you can order a ride, groceries, fast food, and almost everything at the click of a digital button and have it in minutes, you can’t even get a bottle of wine you like. 

What is the reason for this tragedy? 

Look no further than the tyrannical imposition of government into affairs that it has no due right to be involved in. The common denominator throughout this series of beverage procurement failures is the over-restrictive nature of our state apparatus. Prohibition is alive and well in Mississippi, because the government controls our intake of alcoholic beverages at a rate unparalleled in the rest of the country.

What good reason is there to stop grocery stores from selling wine? Why can’t we have private alcohol distributors? Why does all liquor and wine need to be run through a single government-run warehouse in Madison? Why can’t I ship wine to my door like almost every other citizen in the country?

If you’re asking these questions like me, then you’re also probably frustrated. Apparently our state leaders think that they can run our lives better than we can. It is important to recognize that the tools of excessive regulation are not implemented solely to control alcohol. Our government has created a vast web of intrusive regulatory policies which limit the supply and impact the sellers in a variety of industries, including healthcare, food sales, and even children’s lemonade stands.

It’s worth recognizing just how much of our inflated prices and our slim range of choices is nothing more than a product of government control. Frustrating, isn’t it?

Senate Bill 2050, sponsored by Sen. Angela Hill, would ensure free speech on college campuses by prohibiting a state university or community college from implementing a policy that violates freedom of speech, religion, or association. 

If the governor receives notice that a public university has such a policy, they shall notify the university and that school would have 30 days to show compliance before the state fiscal officer would withhold state funds. 

This, unfortunately, is needed in Mississippi.

A former student at Jones County Junior College is suing the school for infringing on his free speech rights, and the U.S. Department of Justice is supporting his suit. 

Michael Brown was stopped twice by campus police for trying to inform students about the political club he was involved with, Young Americans for Liberty, without prior authorization from the school’s administration, according to the complaint filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. 

Brown was stopped by campus officials early last year about an inflatable beach ball, known as a “free speech ball,” upon which students could write messages of their choice and again in the spring for polling students about marijuana legalization. 

An administrator told YAL that they weren’t permitted on campus since they hadn’t sought permission from the college.

The current regulations at JCJC require at least three days’ notice to administrators before “gathering for any purpose.” The student handbook also puts even more restrictions on college-connected student organizations, which must schedule their events through the vice president of student affairs. The school administration also reserves the right, according to the handbook, to not schedule a speaker or an activity.

The DOJ statement says that these restrictions operate as a prior restraint on student speech and contain no exception for individuals or small groups, and grant school officials unbridled discretion to determine about what students may speak.

MCPP has reviewed this legislation and finds that it is aligned with our principles and therefore should be supported. 

Read the bill here.

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