**************************************************** Magnolia Political Report #63
April 13, 2005
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Battle of the Walleys
Going into last week’s run-off special election to fill the seat State Rep. Bubba Pierce vacated when he accepted an appointment as a Chancery Court Judge, one thing was for sure – a Walley was going to win. After the first round of voting on April 22nd, Shaun Walley of Leakesville and Paul Walley of Richton were the top two vote getters.
The Walley’s are unrelated and both have interesting connections. Paul Walley is the law partner of Bubba Pierce. Shaun Walley is the brother of State Senator Shannon Walley and his dad is a county supervisor in Greene County.
Though candidates don’t run under a partisan label in special elections, the race ended up pitting Republicans and pro-business groups against Democrats and trial lawyer money. Paul Walley received the backing of U.S. Senator Trent Lott, the Mississippi Republican Party and the Mississippi Manufacturers Association. Shaun Walley got his outside support from groups like the House Democratic Leadership PAC, Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Dowdy and mega-trial lawyer David Nutt.
In the end, Shaun Walley came out on top – but his election probably has more to do with where he’s from than who backed him. As Tip O’Neil famous said, “All politics is local.” Shaun Walley’s home county of Greene produced 1,975 votes while Paul Walley’s home county of Perry generated 711 votes. They each received about 62.5 percent of votes in their respective counties. The huge advantage Shaun Walley had being from Greene County gave him more than enough votes to defeat Paul Walley in the special election.
Barbour Wins Presidential Bracket
Governor Haley Barbour topped 63 other Republican heavy-weights to emerge victorious in Survey St. Louis’ on-line presidential poll. The format pitted candidates in an NCAA basketball tournament-like bracket. Barbour dispatched Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, Senator Lindsey Graham, former RNC Chairman Mark Raciciot, Rep. Tom Tancredo, former Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Rep. J.C. Watts to make his way through the bracket. Other notables indirectly pitted against Barbour included Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Surprising, Barbour’s toughest competition came from little-know Rep. Tom Tancredo. Over 10,000 votes were cast in the race between Tancredo and Barbour, with Barbour winning by 21 votes.
Barbour’s win in the contest and rumors of a possible candidacy have been noted by several national publications. In their March 28th issue, U.S. News & World Report labeled Barbour “this month’s hottie” for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008. The magazine noted is strengths are “a fat Rolodex filled with names of backers and donors” and that he is “very popular with his folk and even the national media, who never tire of his southern sayings – or snacks and drinks in his office.” The drawbacks, they say, are that “he’s up for re-election a year before the presidential race, and he doesn’t have a national following…”
New York Newsday columnist Jim Pinkerton also weighed in with a column about a Barbour candidacy. “The surprise victory of a ‘dark horse’ in an early presidential test is a reminder that the 2008 election is under way, already producing surprise. Yet, there's a logic to the latest surprise,” wrote Pinkerton about Barbour’s win in the Survey St. Louis poll. Pinkerton noted the results were unscientific but observed that such results are still indicators of support and intensity and can help build momentum toward an eventual candidacy. Barbour, for his part, has so far denied any interest in running for president.
Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing
The most significant thing about the 2005 legislative session is what didn’t happen rather than what did. The House wanted a tobacco tax. Didn’t happen. Governor Barbour and the Senate wanted Momentum Mississippi. Nothing. They wanted an education reform package. No luck. Everyone wanted a bond bill and a budget. Neither happened.
For all the huffing and puffing, not much significant got done. The House did reluctantly agree to a package creating savings in Medicaid. The legislature added nine new judges to Mississippi’s courts. They toughened anti-methamphetamines laws.
Not much else got done.
The legislature’s failure to pass a budget is nothing short of unprecedented. No one ever remembers a legislative session that ended without a budget. The fact that this one did is indicative of how bitterly state government is divided.
One thing is for sure – the legislature will be back before June 30th to pass a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Conventional wisdom says the special session will be around the middle of May, but it’s up to Governor Barbour when to call it. He could wait until later, pushing the reluctant House up against the June 30th deadline. He may call it earlier to avoid fallout from when teachers’ contracts expire April 15th. Either way, Barbour should have a stronger hand in a special session to deal with a budget than he did in the regular session.
Chuck Espy v. Bennie Thompson
One of the worst kept secrets in Mississippi politics is that State Rep. Chuck Espy is thinking about challenging U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson in the Second Congressional District seat Thompson has held since Espy’s uncle, Mike Espy, stepped down to become Secretary of Agriculture in 1992. The race would pit an entrenched incumbent against a strong political family in the Delta. Along with his famous uncle, Chuck Espy’s dad, Henry Espy, is mayor of Clarksdale.
Thompson became the ranking member (highest ranking Democrat) on the House Homeland Security Committee when the new Congress convened in January. He’s been able to stay in the headlines since assuming the post, but he could have trouble with Espy.
Espy is no conservative, but conservatives would likely flock to him in a race over Thompson, who conservatives view with disdain. With 506 votes cast in last week’s Magnolia Report poll, Espy ran away with it by 87.75 percent to 12.25 percent. Web users skews conservative to moderate, so the vote is a good indication of where Thompson stands with those groups.
In 2002, Thompson’s GOP challenger Clinton LeSueur received 44 percent of the vote. If Espy can get Republican voters to move over to the Democratic primary, he could make a race of it with Thompson. Several years ago, then Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Mike Retzer described Thompson as one of the last two remaining Communists in the Western Hemisphere (along with Fidel Castro). His sentiments summed up the intensity Republicans and conservatives have against Thompson. The desire to unseat Thompson is there. If they understand the impact they could have in the Democratic primary, conservative Republicans will move over to help unseat Thompson.
Capping A Great Career
In an appearance on the Gallo radio show, State Rep. Charlie Capps announced he is retiring at the end of the fiscal year, June 30th. Capps, 80, is the longest serving member of the Mississippi House of Representatives.
Over the past year, Capps has been relegated to a back-bencher in the House. Speaker Tim Ford named Capps chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee in 1988. Capps served in the position until Billy McCoy was elected speaker last year. After McCoy was elected, Capps was appointed chairman of the Constitution Committee, a committee which Capps chaired from 1976-1988. Though he still held a committee chairmanship, the position was a big step down for Capps, who had initially opposed McCoy in his race for Speaker of the House.
Stepping Up?
Reps. Joe Taylor (D-Waynesboro) and Lee Jarrell Davis (R-Hattiesburg) want to be mayors in their hometowns. Each faces party primaries May 3. Taylor is facing incumbent Mayor Marshall Wood in Waynesboro. Davis is in a primary field with several other Republicans vying for the chance to take on incumbent Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny Dupree. Dupree, the first African American mayor of Hattiesburg, was initially elected four years ago.
Reps. Joe Taylor, D-Waynesboro and Lee Jarrell Davis, R-Hattiesburg, want to be mayors in their hometowns. Each faces party primaries May 3.
"I have something to offer the people with my connections in government,'' Taylor, 61, said at the Capitol Thursday. "We need more jobs.''
Taylor takes on incumbent Mayor Marshall Wood in the southeastern Mississippi city, population 5,197. Wood, who became Waynesboro mayor in a 1999 special election, is a businessman. The job pays $18,000 annually.
Taylor hopes to spend more campaigning and will "knock on doors'' immediately after the Legislature wraps up April 3.
Davis is among a handful of candidates hoping to unseat Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny Dupree. A Democrat, Dupree is the first African American to serve as mayor of the Hub City.
Sen. Hillman Frazier, D-Jackson, believes the job of a state lawmaker today is more stressful than being a mayor. "It's a tough job being in the Legislature.''
Politico Turned Hero
Aaron Rice, a former campaign volunteer for Haley Barbour, was recently injured in Iraq when the Humvee he was driving drove over a mine. Rice, a political science major at Mississippi State University, had been deployed with the Marine Reserves since the beginning of the year. After his injury, Rice was airlifted to Germany and then Bethesda, MD, where his right leg was amputated below the knee. Despite the unfortunate accident, Rice is reported to be healing well and in good spirits.
National Naval Medical Center
8901 Wisconsin Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20889-5000
c/o ICU, Room 17, Lance Corporal Rice
Special Session
Governor Haley Barbour called an unprecedented special session within a session to address the impending shutdown of Medicaid on Monday, March 14th.
Though the shutdown was averted, the result could cost taxpayers significantly because a few skeptical members of the House refused to go along with tobacco securitization, choosing instead to rob the Health Care Trust Fund of $240 million instead.
Barbour called the special session after the house adjourned without agreeing on a deficit appropriation to keep Medicaid from shutting down. Medicaid needed an additional $240 million to stay afloat through the end of the fiscal year which ends June 30th. The Senate had initially proposed taking the $240 million from the Health Care Trust Fund, the repository of the state's tobacco settlement. Before the house would agree to such a maneuver they demanded a tobacco tax to generate new money for Medicaid.
On the first day of the session, late on a Saturday evening, President Pro Temporae Travis Little offered an amendment to break the impasse. Little's amendment would have securitized $20 million a year of the approximately $90 million yearly tobacco company send to Mississippi as a result of the tobacco settlement. The proceeds from the securitization would have generated enough money to fund the Medicaid deficit through the year. Over the course of 20 years it would have cost the state $400 million.
Initial reaction from the House leadership was favorable. Financially the state would have come out far ahead by securitizing future payments rather than robbing existing dollars from the Health Care Trust Fund. The bottom line is that securitizing would have cost the state over $400 million over 20 years. Taking $240 million from the Health Care Trust Fund now means the state will not benefit from the almost billion dollars of compound interest that would have accrued over 20 years given a historical 8% rate of return. In short, the state would have come out over hundreds of millions ahead by securitizing tobacco payments rather than robbing from the healthcare trust fund.
What went wrong?
As we stated the House leadership initially recognized the benefits of securitizing. Sources tell the Magnolia Report that Republican house members supported it to a person as did most members of the House Conservative Coalition. Combined with the leadership votes there were more than enough votes to pass the proposal.
Early on in the unprecedented special session rumors were that Speaker McCoy would signal his intentions on the bill when he made his decision to which committee the bill was referred. If he sent it to Ways and Means, where the bill was to meet a certain death, McCoy was opposed. If he sent it to the Appropriations Committee, he was leaning toward it. Early in the evening McCoy referred the bill to Appropriations and implored members to keep an open mind on it. He was clearly leaning toward adopting the proposal. Then politics took over.
Sources tell the Magnolia Report that key McCoy supporters like State Reps. Steve Holland, Bo Eaton, Percy Watson and a majority of the Legislative Black Caucus passionately opposed securitization. McCoy called the House into session late in the evening to consider a bill that takes $240 million from the Health Care Trust Fund with a provision to repay it beginning in FY 2007. The measure passed 90-12 with no debate.
Originally Barbour and the Senate were inclined to go along with raiding the trust fund as long as a tax increase wasn't attached. The House leadership was adamant that a tax increase had to be apart of any deal. Recognizing that this was as good as it would get before Medicaid would run out of money the next day, Barbour and the Senate went along with the House solution.
Previously, the Legislature has "borrowed" $30 million from various special funds with the promise of repayment. No move has ever been made to repay the funds. Now they have agreed to borrow $240 million from the Health Care Trust Fund with the promise of repaying it. Not many experienced observers of the process believe it's a promise that will be kept. If it's not it will cost the state over a billion dollars. If it is kept, it will still cost money because $240 million in the Health Care Trust Fund would have earned well in excess of the 5% interest the House agreed to pay.
Movers and Shakers
State Rep. Joey Fillengane (R- Sumrall) was elected president of the Mississippi Legislative Conservative Coalition (www.msconservative.org). Fillengane succeeds Rep. Mike Lott of Petal. The group for State Representatives, which was founded in 1996, is made up of 46 Republicans and 15 Democrats.
Mike Chappell, Congressman Chip Pickering’s former Director of Special Projects has become a partner in the DC government relations consulting firm Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock. Chappell has been director of government affairs at the firm since 2003.
Simpson County native Brad White has left his post as Assistant to Central MDOT Commissioner Dick Hall, where he worked for 5 years, to become Executive Director of the Simpson County Development Foundation.
Joe Cloyd is leaving his position as aide-de-camp to Governor Haley Barbour to become executive director of the National Governors’ Association meeting at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi. Former Mississippi Republican Party political director Ryan Annison is taking Cloyd’s position in the governor’s office.
Quotable Quotes
“I've never seen any group so zealously err in the name of social Christianity and conservatism.” House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Steve Holland (D-Plantersville) on the groups trying to save Terri Schiavo.
“I just wasn't ready to receive them very nicely. And I apologize.” Rep. Steve Holland, answering a reporter’s question about why he flipped his middle finger and stuck out his tongue at a group of senators.
“I'm going to come see you at the bar at the Cleveland Country Club. There's going to be a lot of fellowship there. You know, what you Baptists call ‘sin,’ we Methodists call ‘fellowship.’” Rep. Steve Holland in a tribute to retiring Rep. Charlie Capps.
“Citizens, beware of the dictator. For a man that is so tore up about people being here and working, he's done loped off somewhere else.” House Speaker Billy McCoy, reacting to Governor Haley Barbour calling a special session of the legislature while Barbour was in Washington.
“Forgive me if I think that the attorney general's political ambition clouded his legal judgment.” Governor Haley Barbour jabbing Attorney General Jim Hood.
“It is beyond my comprehension that with a crisis this serious, one of the chambers would decide to pack up and go home.'' Senate Public Health Committee Chairman Alan Nunnelee (R-Tupelo) after the House voted to adjourn hours before the state’s Medicaid program was to run out of money.
“Let me say I would do nothing to malign the leadership of the House. I will just have to keep that a private feeling for myself.” Retiring State Rep. Charlie Capps, responding to a LA Times reporter’s question about who’s at fault for the stalemate in the legislature.
Mississippi Political Trivia
Which of the following succeeded John Bell Williams as Governor?
(A) Charlie Sullivan
(B) Evelyn Gandy
(C) Bill Waller
(D) John Arthur Eaves
(E) Cliff Finch
In 1982, who was U.S. Senator John C. Stennis' Re-Election Campaign Manager? The same year young Republican Haley Barbour was his opponent? (A) C.B. Buddie Newman
(B) Charlie Williams
(C) Billy McCoy
(D) Joe Blount
(E) Stone Barefield
What was Gubernatorial Candidate Cliff Finch's Campaign Slogan in 1975? (A) "He's For Real!"
(B) "Give a Poor Boy a Chance!"
(C) "Let's Send Them a Message!"
(D) "Luncboxes instead of Breifcases!"
(E) "Working With You to Build Mississippi!"
Aaron Rice, a former campaign volunteer for Haley Barbour, was recently injured in Iraq when the Humvee he was driving drove over a mine. Rice, a political science major at Mississippi State University, had been deployed with the Marine Reserves since the beginning of the year. After his injury, Rice was airlifted to Germany and then Bethesda, MD, where his right leg was amputated below the knee. Despite the unfortunate accident, Rice is reported to be healing well and in good spirits. 
