Mississippi Happenings

Okay, good.

Hey, my name is David Oles and I'm your co-host for Mississippi Happenings.

Joining me each week is my friend Jim Newman.

Jim, what you got for us today?

Oh, we've got a great program today talking with the Mississippi ACLU Executive Director
Jarvis Dorch about, gosh, I don't know, the first, second, 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments,

Civil Rights, just an awful lot.

It's a full program.

good.

Each week we do discuss the kitchen table issues about what's going on in Mississippi.

And there's so much going on in Mississippi.

And there's also so much going on in Washington.

And it's about

our rights, our civil rights.

You know, in each week we talk about public education, we talk about healthcare, we talk
about voting rights.

We talk about what's going on in Jackson with the lawmakers.

We talk about, you know, state income tax issues that are coming up.

And today we have a first, we have a guest who has firsthand knowledge and experience
about all of these.

Our guest today, as Jim said, is

Jarvis Dortch and he is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of
Mississippi.

He's received his bachelor's degree in political science from Jackson State and got his
law degree from the Mississippi School of Law and he's a member of the Mississippi State

Board.

He was also elected to the House of Representatives in 2015 and he was re-elected in 2019.

He covered

District 66, House District 66, which is South Jackson, Byram, Terry, Raymond, and Utica.

And he stepped down from the legislature to become the executive director.

So Jarvis, it is great to have you.

It's great to have you with us.

And I know we got a lot to talk about what's going on.

And it seems like our rights are being taken away from us every...

every day.

So Jim, I'll turn it over to you.

Or excuse me Jarvis, you're welcome to say something before I turn it over to Jim.

just thank you all for inviting me over and I'm happy to be a part of this and to talk
about what's going on here in Mississippi and what's going on nationally.

Thank you.

Great.

Jarvis, when I look up the ACLU Mississippi, a couple of things struck me as right off the
bat.

It seems that you've really taken a liking to the city of Lexington.

I don't know, are you going to open a branch office there?

you know, when, I guess this was happening my first year here and, we started getting a
lot of complaints that were about Lexington and I grew up just south of Lexington and, and

Yazoo County.

so I knew the area and, you know, we had people that were putting together town halls,
events up there.

And one thing that we got,

the impression from local folks was you guys are just showing up and as soon as you know,
we're done with this, y'all will be gone.

You're not gonna do anything.

I was intent on not doing that and was trying to figure out a way to be able to bring in
the capacity to bring some lawsuits and.

we started reaching out to national law firms.

I think every one of the cases that we have in Lexington is backed by a firm from out of
state who is backing some of the expenses of it and putting some of their lawyers pro bono

on it.

And really for us, it was stunning that we tried to work with the city and it was like,
hey, you guys need to change some of these policies.

You need to make sure people that are getting arrested that they're...

when they're paying bail, that that money is actually being tracked.

There are no policies for that.

There were so many things they could have easily done.

at every point, they said no.

we were able to do some investigating and turn over some information to the federal
government, to the US Attorney's Office.

We sent it to every state agency as well.

And none of the state agencies wanted to.

to do anything about it.

yeah, so we brought multiple lawsuits.

The changes with the Trump administration, we're not sure where the US attorney's
investigation is at right now.

They had completed the investigation and we're working with the city coming together with
some agreements.

But last time we talked with the office.

They had basically put, were under a pause and any of these corrective agreements, they
don't know what's gonna happen with them or if they're gonna be able to go forward.

Yes, because let's see, where is the, what's the status with, I think it's Deborah Powell
and Javarius Russell, or those are the two.

Yeah, those are still two of them are in discovery and the other two we are.

I think we're.

Battling motions to dismiss, which is typical.

We've gotten past that on the other two so.

You know these lawsuits take a lot of time.

We really were hoping.

that we're going to see some systematic change come from the federal government through
their investigation and also provide some benefit and assistance to these individual

plaintiffs.

But the big structural change will come through that settlement process.

And we'll push for that in our litigation.

But the federal government has, the Justice Department has a lot of

power to come down and be able to correct some of this behavior.

But, you know, when we called the U.S.

Attorney's Office, it was kind of scary for them to tell us that we know, y'all know what
we know.

You know, it said, whatever you read online is what we know.

And, you know, there hasn't been much of an update since.

And this includes the investigation in the Rankin County, Rankin County Sheriff's
Department.

So.

We don't know where any of that is standing right now.

Yeah.

of the lawsuits that you mentioned, that regarding, you said Mrs.

Debbie Powell, did I get the name right?

Tell us a little bit, what is that lawsuit about?

If you would, tell us about that.

I'm not sure about the exact details on that one.

think that was the one where, most of them had to deal with police detaining folks for,
any type of reason just to detain people and what they were basically doing.

Yeah.

And they were putting people over and putting them in a position where they were forced to
go to jail and then have to pay,

some type of fine or bail to get out.

And there was no records of where that money was going to.

No court records, municipal court.

The city court there was not keeping records on who was receiving funds.

There's also the abuse angle.

There is a lot of...

This is a small police.

You were talking about a police agency of about three people.

They were basically operating

from a point of view that these are poor black folks in Holmes County, we can do whatever
we want to them.

And, you know, it started right after COVID and from what the mayor has said was in
response to a rise in crime in the area.

So they started setting up roadblocks, started just enforcing, you know, pulling people
over or people that were just on the street, just, you know.

locking them up or just harassing folks.

it's been very systematic and some of it has been just blatantly racist with some of the
police officers even being recorded saying that they can kill people and get away with it.

Some of it's just insane, but it all goes back to this police department operating

as if the people that live in that community have no rights, that they don't have the
ability to contest any of this.

My fear is that this is not necessarily true in all 82 counties, but I think it's probably
true in a majority of the counties.

Police departments or sheriffs have a pretty strong hand in ruling what goes on and who
goes to jail, who's in their jails, how long they're in their jails, and whether they can

get a hearing.

and get bonded out or whether they can't.

friend of mine.

the Department of Justice told us that this when they do these investigations, they're
usually in larger cities like they've got one in Memphis that they closed one in outside

of St.

Louis.

That this was the first one they've done in a town the size of Lexington, like they don't
usually go to places like that, but they did want to make a point of showing that they

were committed to protecting rights.

in rural areas, no matter how small, instead of just focusing on big cities.

One of the things that interested me was the suit that y'all brought, Net Choice versus
Fitch.

That's interesting.

What's the status of that?

It's about censorship and the internet.

Yeah, I think we only signed on as amicus on that one.

But that came out of a law that was passed two or three years ago by the legislature to
mandate that some internet companies put in place a system where they verify age.

And it's a burdensome system that is

You know, some of these internet providers have just made it clear that it's too costly to
put this in place for them just to operate in Mississippi.

And that it's gathering data and information from...

individuals that shouldn't have to provide that information and that there are other
safeguards in place for people to prevent people from seeing something like child porn.

this just goes, the law is pretty just so broad that it was intrusive on those internet
companies and local libraries.

And right now it's still working its way through the court system in the Fifth Circuit.

Yeah, and the big one I guess is one I think that the NAACP as well as ACLU brought on the
redistricting in 2020.

Yeah, that one, this, no, last week we filed and we filed a brief opposing the remedial
plan that the state legislature came up with.

The state was ordered to draw three new majority black districts, two in the Senate, one
in the house.

The maps that they presented, especially the one focused on DeSoto County, that area.

we fully reject that map.

We think that map could actually reduce the number of, of, districts where black voters
can select on one of their choice instead of adding an additional district.

it's drawn in a way to, really offset any gains that the court ordered.

And on the house side, they did something similar, in Chickasaw, Monroe County, and we're
objecting to that.

So,

The state has a few more days to reply to our objection and then we'll be before the court
arguing that the court should adopt some other options.

But the hope is to still have a special elections this November.

I live in DeSoto County, so I'm aware of that redistricting and already the Board of
Supervisors, you know, they've opposed that as well.

And I think they've filed a lawsuit against that, against that redistricting.

For different, they agree with it, but for different reasons, but that's okay.

Different reasons.

Yeah, I I think it's clear what they were doing in the Senate.

They created a district that paired up a black senator and a white senator.

it's majority, small majority of the population is in the Delta and about 48 % of the
population is in Hernando, which is a wealthy suburb.

the votes there are gonna be higher than those districts in the Delta.

So even though that district is 51.2 % black, it's gonna be very difficult for a black
candidate to win because of the difference in turnout in Quitman County as opposed to

Hernando.

Yeah.

And Hernando is very red.

It is Trump supporters all the way.

Yeah, Hernando folks, especially Senator McClendon in the Senate, in the state Senate, did
not want to be lumped in with these folks from the Delta as they made perfectly clear they

did not think that they should be, the citizens of Hernando should be included in a state
Senate district that includes Clarksdale and Quitman County and parts of Tunica.

Gotcha.

David?

Yeah.

What was the?

original on this.

redistricting plan.

What was the intent?

Was it to create another or I think you said three more minority districts, minority
majority districts?

Yes, sir.

the lawsuit.

Yeah, the court ordered for the legislature to enact two additional two additional
districts where black voters can select the candidate of their choice in the state Senate.

One in and around DeSoto County, the second around Hattiesburg and on the health side,
they ordered the legislature to adopt one.

in and around Chickasaw, Monroe County.

So three in total.

In doing that, you know, they want to make sure that these are additional seats, that
there's no harm done to existing representation as far as with black voters being able to

elect people of their choice.

So they give the legislature the first option to create these maps and

They, of course, usually defer to these legislatures to be able to draw this because they
don't like getting in the business of drawing maps.

But we feel like we have a very strong objection in DeSoto County, especially because the
two districts that are created that are supposed to be districts where black voters are

able to choose a candidate.

both of those districts look like they're losers for black voters.

So it would actually take a, there's one district in that area right now where black
voters have the opportunity to elect their candidate.

We think with this map that may take it down to zero.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

I know that looking through the website and everything, one of the things that you talk
about is of course protecting citizens' right to vote, which would be online voter

registration, no excuse early voting, and then yes, protection for registered voters.

You want to talk about that for a minute?

us your thoughts on that.

Yeah, surprisingly last year we saw early voting bill come out of the state Senate.

It wasn't a great bill, but it did provide for like 10 days of early voting prior to
election day.

There were some issues with it, but when it came over to the House, we actually met with
the chairman of the elections committee who was going to take up the bill.

I guess I can say he's very much in favor of doing the early voting, but at the time he
had a lot of pushback from local circuit clerks who were concerned about, you know, the

work that would be put on them by having early voting.

So this session, he came back and was thinking that, you know, we're going to do the same
thing, but they had addressed a lot of the concerns of those circuit clerks, but

And he's publicly said this, that he could not get the support in the Republican House
caucus to bring the bill out, which means they're the votes.

They have the votes over in the House to pass it, but we essentially have a rule in the
House where if a certain number of, it takes a certain number of Republican caucus members

to support something controversial before it can go out, even if, you you could get the
votes.

by a combination of Democrats and Republicans.

know, their rule is that the actual debate happens in the House caucus meeting, Republican
caucus meeting.

Well, which brings up something that David and I had discussed.

When you've got a super majority and...

whether it's the Senate or the House, and the Republicans have a meeting on whatever
committee it is.

That meeting is not.

notification of that meeting is not always sent out to the public.

And if by chance they find out about it, the public are not allowed to be in there or make
any comments regarding what's up for discussion that day in that committee.

And it's like you don't have any input into what's going on.

And that...

also leads back to another question later on about the...

right to have an initiative petition.

how does this work that the House and the Senate, I think the court ruling was that the
Republicans having a meeting did not have to be open to the public.

And yet they discussed legislation in that meeting.

How is that justified by the court?

I'm not familiar with it.

It doesn't seem right.

the court is essentially saying that this isn't an official meeting of the legislature.

It's basically them looking at what's happening and kind of closing your eyes to the
reality that, you know, we all know it's come out from a number of legislators throughout

the last five, six years that those meetings are where the House debates bills, if you
watched.

the legislature in the House debate bills, you'll see that questions are only coming from
Democrats.

It's not that Republicans don't have questions, it's that they've asked their questions
behind closed doors and they've gotten the answers there.

And they essentially have a rule too that, you know, we don't do arguments on the House
floor in public.

So it's the courts, you know, closing their eyes to reality and looking at something as a
technical, you know, this is just a meeting of,

of a caucus of lawmakers and that that's not no official action is taking place there.

Well, every county's got its five supervisors, and three of them cannot get together.

Why doesn't that apply to the legislature?

I think it should.

mean, with the super majority where they are essentially making decisions on, you know,
what's going to go forward with the amount of members that they have in their caucus.

It would seem that that would apply.

We've heard on the Senate side that the Lieutenant Governor even thinks that he doesn't
have these type of meetings because he believes that that's a violation of open meetings

law because they have a super majority on the Senate side as well.

But

The courts also give the state legislature a lot of leeway in what they do and they are
reluctant to tell them how to operate.

within the legislature, within their rules.

You know, there was a lawsuit brought a few years ago by a house member that challenged
the way bills were read when the state constitution clearly says that every legislator has

the right to have a bill read.

And the house uses a machine that goes, I guess, like 20 times the speed of a regular
person talking to get through the bill as quickly as possible.

And he brought a lawsuit that got

got thrown out because the court said that legislature, we're not gonna tell the
legislature how to operate their rules.

So even though it's clearly the constitution says a bill has to be read, you would think
it has to be read in a way that someone can comprehend what it said because you cannot

understand what is being recited through that machine.

So.

to the point if the people, we the people, in order to form a more perfect union, if some
of those we the people decide that we want to challenge this, do we contact you?

Is it worth even challenging?

I think with the courts that we have right now, the best way to change it would be forcing
lawmakers to change their rules when they come in for a new term.

Those rules that are adopted by the House and Senate don't require much debate and they
don't require hearings.

don't public opportunities for the public to

provide remarks on legislation and this is something that's done in legislators across the
country, even Republican super majority legislators.

There's opportunity for the public to comment on bills before they're passed.

We don't do that in Mississippi.

Outside of the courts, that's probably the best way to attack it.

Because otherwise, mean, the courts have pretty much made it clear to state courts that
this isn't these meetings aren't leaving these meetings as not official meetings of the

legislature.

It seems like, excuse me, President Trump has started his immigration deportation.

a federal judge said, you need to stop.

And Trump's response has been, he needs to be impeached.

Isn't that the first step?

It's not the first step because I think we've already passed the first step in losing our
democracy.

But how far down are we going with this losing our civil rights before organization?

Well, not necessarily organization like yours, but before the people take to the streets
and we see riots.

Yeah.

For me, it's been disappointing to see the reaction from, you know, democratic or
progressive politicians that they have come with this attitude that, you know, we're not

going to swing in every ball that comes their way.

I don't think you can choose whose rights can be denied and then come in and jump in and
say, well,

we're gonna protect these folks when he does that.

Once he gets into practice of denying folks rights, it just goes to the next group.

It's not going to be walled off at just trans people.

They are literally taking...

Venezuelan migrants that, many of them, it looks like they have no criminal record.

They are not deporting them.

They are taking them to a prison work camp in a country they have never been in and
basically forced into prison slavery with no due process at all.

the federal government is saying, Trump is saying that,

Yes, we wanted to see if we could get Mr.

Taylor, my executive director, on to a podcast.

it's absolutely crazy.

And one of the things that I want to commend your website is you have a section for
immigrants and you have a section that gives immigrants their rights.

It tells them what they have a right to do and a right not to do.

Which, which I think is extremely important.

And one of the things that, that was so upsetting to me, number one, it's, it's just so
upsetting.

And because it came out of DeSoto County, you know, the bounty law, what the heck?

I mean, what kind of a nation have we become?

Then we're going to give you a thousand dollars if you, you know,

If you find an illegal alien and that was that was part of, you know, Matthew Barton,
who's the DA in DeSoto County where I live and, you know, representative, I think his name

was Keane.

You know, that's that's just horrible.

Luckily, the bill died, but still.

You know, just think of the fear that that put into people, you know, and and people were.

Gang ho, yeah, I'm going to get $1,000.

I'm going to turn in somebody.

And it's just atrocious.

Well, he got the idea from, I think, from the state of Texas and the abortion laws that
they passed out there.

And there was a bounty on reporting pregnant women who had abortions.

And you got $10,000.

And the next thing you know, it turns up as a bounty for immigrants in Mississippi.

Yeah, I mean, I couldn't understand how somebody that's in law enforcement, someone has
been elected to public office could read through that bill and still feel comfortable

putting their name on it.

It's almost if they don't think they're talking about real people that the only way that
it makes sense to them is if they do not see.

these folks as human and it just goes back to, you know, future slave laws where, of
course, the people that promoted those, see people in slavery as human beings.

So it's disheartening, but we've got a tough, tough time ahead of us.

know, it's hopefully people will start understanding these stories about who

these folks are and what they're doing in our country and that we will, you know, wise up
and, you know, not, not just take, not just take it, but, you know, ask for better.

And, um, you know, it's hard to do the work when you feel like people went through this
and then, you know,

folks come out and say, we want it again.

And we want it even worse than the first time around.

that's been difficult.

it could pass and there could be a bounty law.

And you talk about different people and one of the things I want to bring up is the
elimination of DEI, diversity, equality, inclusion.

Now that I, what people, I got it right.

And what people,

What a lot of people don't realize, and we had a great conversation with Greta Kemp
Martin, that this DEI, it also affects our veterans.

It affects those with disabilities, school children with learning disabilities.

And to me, and I'm gonna get on my soapbox for just a minute, DEI.

diversity, equality, inclusion.

What is the opposite of that?

And the opposite of that is, in my opinion, segregation.

And this is a question that, you know, are we going back to the days of Jim Crow in
Mississippi?

What are your thoughts about that?

Yeah, I mean, when I think about it, as far as like the policy of DEI itself, the
inclusion part stands out to me because as you mentioned, it's just not focused on black

folks.

It's focused on anybody that is going to say a university where they feel like they are
isolated as far as their lived experience.

That could be their race, their sex.

It could be disability, being a veteran.

It provides them an opportunity to

to acclimate to that university or any type of setting to make them feel part of that
community.

That used to be a good thing.

Somehow it changed into a bad thing.

And when you get down to looking at how some of these laws are being implemented and even
some of the language, when folks say DEI, it's almost as if they just want to say black

because it's not.

You know, you're not even talking about a HR program.

You're calling somebody a DEI hire just because they're a man or a black woman.

it's.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's it's really getting to the point where it's civil rights are supposed
to be colorblind, but we don't live in a colorblind society and.

the folks that are making these rules are largely white men that are trying to erase
history.

There's something over the weekend about Department of Defense has been deleting whale
pages that just talk about different heroes throughout our existence as a nation that

happen to be Black, Japanese, Korean women.

We've got word that a page discussing mega-evers military history has been deleted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's just absurd.

There was a, go ahead Jim, did you add something?

part, the middle part of it, education.

I'm older than both of you two.

So I remember very clearly schools being segregated and then the integration.

And part of the reason for the integration was the admission that diversity, exposure to
other races,

other creeds, other, just everything in general, expands a child's education and makes for
a better society.

People who travel a lot, people who go to other countries come back with a different
perspective about various things because travel is an educational process.

Whether you like it or not, you are exposed to diversity and equity and inclusion all
around the world.

I don't understand.

how we can deny DEI when, at least in my mind, that was the initial strongest point for
integration of our schools was the exposure of the children, of all children, to have a

better education and become more homogeneous, if you will, and develop a better.

country than we've got now.

There's a great, just, well, last week read an article.

It's a, in Mississippi Today, it's an editorial written by Byron D'Andre O'Ree, who is a
professional, excuse me, a professor of political science at Jackson State.

And this is his editorial.

And this, I do want to quote this because it's so,

important and so pertinent to what we're talking about right now.

and this is what and Jim, we need to talk to this guy.

He says, and this is about DEI, eliminating DEI would preserve the luxury of ignorance,
enabling those in power to remain comfortably aware while marginalized communities suffer

the consequences.

The luxury of whites.

then is being ignorant comfortably.

DEI is not just about education.

It's about justice, equity, and ensuring the future generations inherit a society where
inclusion is non-negotiable.

I just wanted to, that just hit me and I think it speaks to what we're talking about.

We just completed February and that was Black History Month, but not in Mississippi.

Just when you look back at like Brown versus Board, the legal basis of that case was that
because these schools were segregated, that that diversity, the absence of diversity was

in itself something that made these schools inferior because black folks did not have an
opportunity to go to school with the white counterparts and that.

led to so many different things in society where you had black students feeling negative
about themselves because that's what they had been taught by popular culture.

And I just imagine white students who had never met black folks in their lives outside of,
you know, maybe a service job or service industry.

Like you said, they're just going to be ignorant about how people are living and what
they're going through.

And

You know, having served in the Mississippi legislature, there are a lot of folks up there
that really want to be ignorant about the experiences of people outside of their district

or outside of their the community that they care about the most.

They hate it when you start talking about those things and and when you bring up those
subjects, they almost feel like you're blaming them for it.

But, you know, all of this stuff.

that we're doing at the legislature, it goes back to these communities that have been
underserved and underrepresented.

And if you're talking about taxes and changing the tax system from income tax base to just
sales tax base, you you're putting the pressure on a lot of low income black folks to pay

for government and relieving a lot of people that

that are wealthy and pay higher income taxes.

So all of this stuff goes together.

yeah, and Haley Barber, Haley Barber, when he was in office, those two terms, the
legislation brought him two bills about the grocery tax to lower the grocery tax.

He vetoed those bills.

He would not support them.

And just the other day, and this just, just in,

And this is one of the last things he talks about.

Yes, he supports the grocery tax.

He supports it all the way.

And he talks about, also there's no doubt in my mind that it would help our economy if
there wasn't an individual income tax.

And then he goes on to say, and this just, now, and he says, now having said that, you
have to figure out how to pay for it.

And I've always been struck, even while I was governor, at the people who wanted to do
away with tax on groceries.

He continued, well, for tens of thousands of people in Mississippi, that's the only tax
they pay.

And I call BS on that, you know, and that's, he might as well say poor people, or he might
as well say black people.

And does he not realize?

You know, everybody, you you pay taxes on the cars that you buy.

You pay taxes on the clothes that you wear.

And so this is just an asinine.

I'm sorry, I'm getting on my soap box again, but that's just crazy.

He just, mean, and Mississippi is the poorest state in the union and we have the highest
grocery tax.

It's just so, and now they're talking about.

Okay, they may lower the income tax, state income tax, and they may lower the grocery tax
a couple points, but then they're gonna raise it in gasoline tax.

It's nothing, I mean, what are they doing for the poor?

Okay, I'm off my soapbox.

mean, they're the burden of government to low income people.

They also raise with the bill that passed out of the House today, they raised the sales
tax from 7 % to 8.5%.

I still don't understand a lot of that money is supposed to go back to the cities as a
diversion.

It looks like that money is now going to the general fund for the legislature to make up
for the income tax loss.

nobody's explained what these cities and counties are supposed to do when they lose
millions of dollars.

And the sense you get, especially from the folks on the house side is they don't care
that, you know, what they want to do is shrink government at the state level and, you

know, reduce the burden, tax burden on higher income people.

And, you know, if they do that in some counties and cities,

struggling is not going to be their counties or cities.

I guess that's what they're thinking.

It's, it's, it's, and I remember that argument from Haley barber.

One of my first policy jobs was with the Mississippi health advocacy program.

and one thing that we were doing, it was pushing for that tech swap to increase the
cigarette techs, to make up for cutting the grocery techs.

So I heard, I used to hear that argument and.

was so upsetting because of not just because of what you said about people are paying
additional taxes.

It's not being true.

It was almost like, you know, these folks are getting by and we're punishing them and they
need to be punished for it.

And there's somehow if you don't do this, they're just going to get by on the system.

And, you know, of course it didn't pass, but

That was a very big learning experience for me, my first time up at the Capitol working
there.

Did I understand you correctly that the Senate passed a bill raising the grocery tax to
8.5 %?

No, the House passed a new version of their bill that cut the grocery tax to 5%, but it
raises the sales tax on everything else to 8.5%.

And.

and eliminates the income tax.

Over a period of time, think, yeah, something like that.

assessors are going to have a heyday, aren't they?

They're going to be hated because they're going to have to go out and appraise property.

And you're not going to pay the same thing you paid this year because it's going to go up
1 and 1 percent.

Yeah, they're gonna have to make up for this loss and you know, the house, at least on the
house side, they just don't care.

They've not shown any interest in making sure that cities and counties are made whole and.

You don't hear much from the municipal league on this.

And that's one of the issues in Mississippi that you get trade groups and organizations
that are supposed to be fighting for the betterment of whatever group they're

representing.

But somehow they get pushed into politics and they don't use their voice.

Like last year, the state hospital association did not come out for Medicaid expansion
while other groups were pushing forward.

because of the change in leadership.

And you see that with the municipal league right now, the state medical association.

These groups are heavily conservative and they are swayed by, you know, the conservatives
that are in leadership at the legislature.

And they're not always backing or pushing what you think they would be backing and
pushing.

One of the things that we seem to have lost, thanks to, I guess it was the mayor and...

Madison, think, when they, I think it was the marijuana bill, and they had the, they got
all the signatures and wanted to have a vote and then it ended up the Supreme Court, and

Supreme Court said because we've got five congressional districts, not four, according to
the state constitution, the initiative petition was invalid.

What does it take for an organization or a group of people to get together and come to you
to file a lawsuit, to force the legislature to amend the Constitution to the point where

there are four congressional districts?

and the initiative petition is the right of the citizens.

What it would probably take, because this is something we looked at and I looked at a lot
back in, after that ruling was what type of federal lawsuit could we bring to show that

the state was depriving people of a right that they had in our state constitution.

And there were some similar things that were taken up in, I think, Florida and a couple
other states.

We ran it by a lot of different attorneys.

They did not have buy-in on it.

They did not believe that it was a valid argument.

So, and especially at that time, you still had a coalition of groups that were working on
a battle initiative for Medicaid expansion.

And they were essentially leading the opposition to what the Supreme Court had did because
they had, you know, geared up for a $5 million campaign to expand Medicaid through battle

initiative.

A lot of the decisions as far as how to take on getting the battle initiative back through
the legislature were made through that group.

And I think they had a lot of hope that they could get something passed, that the public's
reaction would be strong enough where the legislature would do something.

They did do something on medical marijuana, but as far as the battle initiative itself,

The Lieutenant Governor has made it, if people listen to what he says, he's made it very
clear.

He's not going to allow a ballot initiative to become law.

He said the ballot initiative is when you vote for your representative or your senator
every four years.

So he doesn't believe in it as a concept.

So, I mean, just to answer your question, it's, you know, it.

It's going to take some more research in finding a legal angle that we think we could get
into court and not be immediately thrown out.

And that has not been agreed upon by a lot of the attorneys that have looked at

Well, George Cochran, who taught constitutional law at Ole Miss for number of years, and I
think he pretty sure he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Black, George used to say, and

he's many times, change happens when people take to the streets.

And over history, whether it was Martin Luther King, whether it was Adam Clayton Powell,
no matter who it was,

When people took to the streets, change happened.

And I don't think that we in Mississippi have a...

Let me rephrase it.

We are locked out of advancing any initiative that we may have that the supermajority
doesn't want to take up.

And that is an infringement upon my right to free speech.

And I grew with you about, you know, one of the first conversations I had with our legal
team when I started here was that I'm not going to judge you based on the lawsuits that we

win because I know what situation the situation we're in in the Fifth Circuit and with our
state courts.

So bringing a delegation isn't always about, know, you have a slam dunk case.

Sometimes you need to make the argument to the public so the public understands what's
going on.

You

It's a way to galvanize change, as you mentioned, just sitting back and accepting
something because it's not a good legal argument or if there's a super majority in

Mississippi legislature, you're not doing your job.

I mean, we're here to do this work.

It may be something we look back at.

I know at the time it was very, there were so many groups involved in it that none of that
ever got off the ground.

You know, I'm thinking about it constantly because I do not see, at least with the current
makeup of the Mississippi legislature, I don't see it happening as far as them giving that

power back to the citizens.

And one of the things that I'm baffled by, we talk about expanded Medicaid, you know, what
a lot of people don't understand is that's money that we would get and that's money that

would help poor people and it's money that would help poor white people.

You know, and I have a, you know, trouble trying to understand why a poor, you know,
underemployed, unemployed white person would support a Republican representative knowing

that he doesn't support expanded Medicaid.

So it's kind of going, he's voting against his best interest.

Medicaid is not just for black people.

And it is, you know, it will help white people as well.

It will help white children as well.

But anyway, I've just been on a tangent today.

I don't know why.

Jarvis.

Is there anything else that you want to talk about that we haven't discussed yet?

I mean, the only other thing is really been something we've been gearing up since the
election being.

in a situation where we can respond to any mass raids on immigration enforcement.

We haven't seen that in Mississippi yet, but we know it's going to come because they seem
to be expanding.

ICE and the Trump administration seem to be expanding their ways of trying to deport as
many people as possible.

So we have been working with a number of groups that came together in 2019 in response to
the raids that happened at the poultry plants back then.

trying to reconstitute that group, but also looking at storytelling with a couple
freelance journalists that are going to go into community and talk about the experiences

of migrant workers or children, what they're going through.

And also build out a network of pro bono attorneys that can provide at least that
frontline assistance of helping someone that's being detained, being able to find out

where they're going to, what the process is.

The scary thing right now is based on what they're doing under this executive order,
they're saying there's no process.

And, you know, there's no way of checking to see if the person that they're sending to a,
sending to a prison in a country they're not even from is actually has any criminal

charges.

And we're getting stories out the story that these folks are not.

criminals.

They're not part of a gang that they have been picked up and put into a system where
they're being shipped out of the country.

you know, the federal government is saying, you know, we can't tell you how we know
they're gang members.

It's a national security issue.

Because under this executive order, this law is supposed to apply to governments.

And they're claiming that this gang in itself is a government and that they can just act
because of national security concerns.

And this is the kind of law that was used to intern Japanese Americans back in World War
II.

so yeah, we're in a very dark place.

would encourage our subscribers to go to your website, which is aclu-ms.org.

I would encourage them to go to that and look at what's going on, look at the things that
you guys are doing for Mississippi.

Jarvis, some of these things that we see in this country, it's absolutely crazy.

When did we become such a, when did we become a country of haters?

I had this just weird belief during COVID, when COVID first started that people were gonna
look at government and say, we have to be serious about the people we elect because this

is life and death.

And I was completely wrong about the response to it.

was a lot of folks that were upset that they were being told what to do, even if that was
limited to just wearing a mask.

was...

and there were a lot of people that can play off that, you know, you know, folks that are
influencers on the internet, the president of the United States, they do a good job of

tapping into people's anxieties and giving them someone to be mad at.

And used to, I don't think we've had a politician like Trump that is so overt about it.

that

That's his single policy initiative is to give you somebody to be angry with and I'm going
to take care of them.

Anything else, know, somebody's to blame for everything and it's not your responsibility.

So I'm just going to put tariffs on folks.

I'll deport people, lock folks up.

I want you angry and upset and I'm your go-to for that.

It's absolutely crazy.

Is there anything that you would like our subscribers to do?

Anything that our subscribers could help you and help the ACLU of Mississippi?

Yeah, I mean, like you said, go to our website, ACLU.

You can actually do ACLUMS.org and it'll take you to it.

You can sign up to be a supporter, just receive our emails.

We would love for folks to sign up to become members.

Which we are, I am, I think Jim is too, but go ahead.

Yeah, and you know, just, you know, stay in touch.

We'll be sharing as much as we can through that.

And you can also contact us.

We're doing Know Your Rights programs where if your group, community group, know,
neighborhood association, want someone to come out and explain what are your rights in

certain situations, you know, we can.

work with them to have that presentation put forward.

So we're really encouraging different organizations or community groups to reach out to us
and ask us to come out and explain everything from Know Your Rights when you're pulled

over by police or you encounter ICE or immigration enforcement.

If you have any questions or comments, suggestions about our podcast, you could reach Jim
and I at mshappenings1@gmail.com

And as Jarvis just said you can contact them at ACLUMS.org And it's Jarvis has been great
talking to you.

We'll keep in touch and hopefully the next couple months We'll talk again and maybe some
changes For the good have happened.

We can we can hope that we do appreciate our sponsors our subscribers and

may we never become indifferent to the suffering of others.