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City & County
Oh, The Places I May Go
It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat from south Jackson or a Republican from Rankin County. We can all agree that the city needs help.
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City & County
Making of a Landslide: Chokwe A. Lumumba and a Changing Jackson
Primary night wasn't supposed to end that way. Chokwe Antar Lumumba could not possibly beat nine Democratic opponents outright and avoid a run-off. Here's why he did.
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Media
JFP Editor Donna Ladd's Speech at the Women's March, State Capitol, Jackson, Miss, 1/21/17
JFP Editor-in-chief and CEO Donna Ladd ended the Jackson Women's March at the Mississippi Capitol on Jan. 21, 2017, with this speech about the importance of independent media.
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Civil Rights
Sen. McDaniel, Meet the Real ‘Liberal Women’
As I was consumed with Best of Jackson week last week, I kept getting emails and texts about a state legislator proving himself to be among the worst of Mississippi.
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Politics
Mississippi Women: Time to ‘Personhood’ Donald Trump, Mike Pence
Mississippi women turned back Personhood in 2011. Now, we need to vote against two men likely to limit everything from the birth-control pill to in vitro fertilization, from affordable cancer …
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National
‘Mad and Scared’: The Religious Shift in U.S., Mississippi Politics
Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says no one has seen a presidential election like this one in his lifetime, at least. Speaking at the Mississippi Economic Council's Hob Nob event …
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Politics
The Rough Road to Reproductive Health Care
Regardless of the state's appeal of the JWHO case, the fight for reproductive health in Mississippi will continue in the Mississippi Legislature.
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Editor's Note
A Girl Strikes Back
I was astounded to read in a recent Associated Press story that Mississippi House of Representatives Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, refers to fellow legislators exclusively as "men."
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Editor's Note
Don’t Act Normal
I'd rather be "not normal" than stick with the status quo. I'd rather judge people based on the quality of their character, not by the way they look.
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Cover
Phil Bryant: Tea Party Governor
The running joke in Jackson political circles is that Phil Bryant is just three handshakes away from being a Hinds County sheriff's deputy.
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Education
Cristen Hemmins: Education, Equal Pay and Taking On Tollison
Jackson native Cristen Hemmins decided to run for the District 9 Senate seat (which includes Oxford and most of Lafayette County) when her opponent, Gray Tollison, introduced Initiative 42A to …
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Initiative 42 Supporters Outraising Opponents
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The most expensive ballot initiative campaign in Mississippi history got costlier in September, as supporters of the Initiative 42 education funding measure continued to outraise opponents.
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Cover
Mississippi AG’s Race: What’s at Stake?
Since announcing his candidacy for the state AG's office, Mike Hurst has made fighting public corruption the centerpiece of his campaign as well as attacks against Jim Hood, whom Hurst …
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Editor's Note
My Advice for Mississippi Politicians
Being inspired is pretty much the same whether you're trying to decide who to elect or to stay excited about your career.
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Clinton Takes Mississippi in 2016? Probably against Trump, at least ...
By Donna LaddA new polling analysis published by examiner.com indicates something about Mississippi that has been in the works for a while: Based on recent elections, our state is trending blue.
Based on polling data on a Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump showdown in 2016, Mississippi is one of the few Deep South states that would go for Clinton in that matchup.
This analysis might surprise many who think that Mississippi is the reddest state of the red (especially based on our statewide cavemen, er, elected officials). But several facts make it much more complicated than at first glance:
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State Democrats have provided very few even-marginally-progressive options historically, giving younger and less-conservative choices to vote for, creating voter lethargy among those who might turn out and vote "blue" otherwise. That fact is actually changing this year, with several openly progressive (and female) Democrats getting at least some party support, instead of the pseudo-Republicans the party has tended to put up in the last 20 years.
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More young people of all races are staying in Mississippi, and many of them are voting Democratic, and have since 2004.
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Demographics, demographics, demographics. The irony of Mississippi being the state with the highest percentage of enslaved people in 1860 is that our state still has the highest percentage of African Americans and is more likely than much of Dixie to go blue first. Put simply, African Americans tend to vote Democratic, ever since the Republican Party embrace of Dixiecrats back in the late 1960s after national Dems supported civil-rights laws, and we have the highest percentage of black residents in the country.
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And, let's be honest, even many Republicans don't want bat-shit-crazy Trump running this country.
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Finally, to be honest again, a lot of white people like Clinton better than Obama (even if I'm not one of them).
So, there are no surprises here: Mississippi has been steadily trending blue for a while now. The question, as always, is: Will the people who can flip the state into the blue column turn out both this November (to save public-education funding and turn out a governor who makes us look like the most stuck-in-the-past state) and next November?
Time, and voter registration, will tell. Progressive (which is easy to be here by rejecting the radical right) Mississippians must find the will to stop giving up our power to sellouts to bigotry and backward ideas (and ideologues) to lift our state up. I've watched this will grow since we started this paper in 2002—and saw serious evidence of it when we turned back Personhood, shocking the nation—and I believe in upcoming elections we may well surprise the world once again. I've believed this was coming for nearly 15 years now.
Stay tuned and register to vote.
UPDAT Aug. 24, 2016: The examiner.com link above is broken, but here is an article and another about …
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Learn from History: Change the State Flag
Now, our elected leaders should get on the right side of history, listen to the will of the people and embrace progress. Change the flag.
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Politics
Analysis: Initiative Process Complex and Difficult to Use
A conservative group announced last week that it will try to put a term-limits amendment on the Mississippi ballot, but history shows there's a good chance the proposal will never …
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Editor's Note
An Open Letter to Our Teachers
I don't doubt for a second that there are bad teachers who just show up to collect a paycheck, but I can't recall ever having a teacher who I didn't …
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LGBT
LGBT Leader, Other Democratic Women Running for Office
The civil engineer and businesswoman helping to spearhead the fight for marriage equality in Mississippi is running for state auditor and hopes to bring transparency to the office that holds …
