DOJ fishing for information on MS Voter ID.

The U.S. Department of Justice still is considering whether to preclear Mississippi’s voter identification requirement that was approved by voters in November 2011.

Jan Schaefer, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jim Hood, said information requested by the Justice Department on March 21 “is being sought and will be submitted to DOJ as it is collected from various officials and agencies which have it.”

Pamela Weaver, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, said the Justice Department in March requested “any correspondence between legislators, elected officials, employees and members of the public regarding voter ID. Because this was an unusually broad request without specific dates, we worked with the Justice Department on clarifying the scope of information and time frame.”

Once the Justice Department receives the information, it will have 60 days to respond. Under federal law, any changes to Mississippi elections must be approved by the Justice Department to ensure they do not violate minority voting rights.

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Division of Medicaid preparing to notify beneficiaries of loss of coverage.

“I think it’s required 30 or 45 days before the July 1 deadline,” longtime state Rep. Bobby Moak said last week of recipients being notified.

State Attorney General Jim Hood said a 2004 federal court opinion mandates that proper notice be given to Medicaid recipients prior to the end of services because of a lack of funding.

“The Mississippi Division of Medicaid continues to hope the Legislature can reach a resolution regarding our reauthorization and funding prior to July 1,” said Medicaid spokeswoman Erin Barham. “However, if that is not the case, we are currently reviewing guidelines regarding the procedure for notifying interested parties of potential impacts. Although we are aware of the situation, when we have more direction we can provide additional information.”

Lawmakers failed to pass reauthorization and funding for Medicaid during the regular session that concluded April 4.

Democratic lawmakers and Republican legislative leaders are trading blame for who is responsible for the stalemate.

“Gov. Bryant regrets the situation Democrats have created by voting several times to withdraw funding and authorization for Medicaid services provided by Mississippi’s nursing homes, hospitals and other facilities,” spokesman Mick Bullock said last week. “He has repeatedly stated that when Democrats are ready to fund and reauthorize the current Medicaid program, he will call a special session so Mississippi can continue providing services to children, pregnant women and aged, blind and disabled adults.”

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Senate dispute over Voter ID holds up approval of Secretary of State’s budget.

Mississipi state senator David Blount (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mississippi senators rejected the secretary of state’s budget Thursday over an argument about paying lawyers to defend a proposed voter identification law.

It’s probably just a temporary setback in setting an overall state spending plan for fiscal 2014, which begins July 1.

Appropriations Chairman Eugene “Buck” Clarke, R-Hollandale, said he’ll bring the secretary of state’s budget bill back up next week and he expects it to pass when attendance is better. Several senators were out of the chamber and didn’t vote Thursday.

“I think some of them went to lunch early, to be honest,” Clarke told reporters.

Mississippi needs federal approval for any election changes, and a voter ID proposal was submitted to the Justice Department months ago. If it’s rejected there, Republicans want to ask federal judges in Washington, D.C., to approve it.

Senate Bill 2901 says the secretary of state could spend up to $695,000 for voter ID litigation during the budget year.

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, said it’s the attorney general’s job, not the secretary of state’s, to submit election proposals to the Justice Department. He said there’s no point in paying two agencies to do the same job.

“You can be for voter ID and against wasting money,” Blount said.

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Gipson legislation to clarify Mississippi Constitutional right to open carry of guns.

In a June opinion in response to the Ellisville Police Department, Attorney General Jim Hood said state law requires someone carrying a weapon to have it “totally concealed” by clothing at all times in public.

Hood wrote that, “The authority to legally carry a pistol or revolver is derived from (state law)” and then quoting the law, that “… Further, nothing in (the law) shall be construed to allow the open and unconcealed carrying of any … deadly weapon.” Hood went on to say that it is illegal to carry a weapon without securing a concealed carry license.

But Gipson, who says he has a permit and sometimes packs a concealed gun, said the state constitution allows Mississippians to openly carry a weapon and only allows state law to regulate concealed carry.

“Open carry is allowed under our constitution, and it always has been,” Gipson said.

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January 6–On This Day in Mississippi History . . .

Image via Wikipedia

In 2005, a Neshoba County grand jury indicted Edgar Ray Killen on three counts of murder. When the Mississippi Attorney General prosecuted the case, it was the first time the state took action against the perpetrators. Rita Bender, Michael Schwerner‘s widow, testified in the trial. Afterward she said to the press,

“You’re treating this trial as the most important trial of the civil rights movement because two of these three men were white,” she said. “That means we all have a discussion about racism in this country that has to continue. And if this trial is a way for you to all acknowledge that, for us to all acknowledge that and to have that discussion openly, then this trial has meaning.”^[19]

On June 21, 2005, a jury convicted Killen on three counts of manslaughter; he was described as the man who planned and directed the killing of the civil rights workers.^[20] Killen, then 80 years old, was sentenced to three consecutive terms of 20 years in prison. He appealed, claiming that no jury of his peers would have convicted him at the time on the evidence presented. The Mississippi Supreme Court confirmed the verdict in 2007.^[21]

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Hood’s price fixing lawsuit to proceed in federal, not state court.

A Mississippi federal court will hear Mississippi’s lawsuit that alleges price fixing by manufacturers of liquid crystal display screens.

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling that sent the case to a state court.

“Nothing we have said denies the State of Mississippi the right to proceed with this case. It will simply proceed in federal, not state, court,” the panel said.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood sued several major suppliers of LCD screens in Hinds County Chancery Court in March of 2011. Hood alleged in the lawsuit that consumers paid extra because of price fixing in violation of the Mississippi Consumer Protection Act.

The lawsuit seeks damages, restitution and civil penalties for actions from 1996 to 2006 by companies in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, plus their U.S. counterparts.

The companies have paid out millions to settle class-action lawsuits and still face other lawsuits in the United States and around the world.

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Wilson: Only votes suppressed by voter ID are illegal votes

BY: Cory T. Wilson @CoryWilsonMS

On Tuesday, a million or more Mississippians will go to the polls to help elect our next President, U.S. Senator, Congressmen, Supreme Court judges, and election commissioners.

We will complete yet another election without a voter identification requirement. Many voters may reasonably wonder why.

More than two years ago, the voter ID initiative petition gained an overwhelming number of signatures to support placing the measure before the people. Those 130,000 verified signatures came from all over the state, including a strong number from the Delta.

When I served as the Deputy Secretary of State under Secretary Delbert Hosemann, I almost always got the same question from the Rotary Club: “How could anyone be against something so common-sense as voter ID?” I was never asked to justify why we needed it. It was all but an assumption that we did.

That assumption is held by a huge majority of the people. A year ago, Mississippi’s voter ID initiative passed, even more overwhelmingly than the first signature drive.

Mississippi’s voter ID law is modeled on laws from Indiana and Georgia. Indiana’s law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court; Georgia’s law was approved by the Department of Justice. Our Secretary of State’s Office worked closely on the development of Mississippi’s law. I can say from personal experience that a lot of thought went into making voter ID fair, workable, and affordable for every Mississippi voter.

So, why don’t we (finally) have voter ID in place? The Obama Justice Department.

Attorney General Eric Holder has made clear that he views voter ID as “voter suppression” on the part of dastardly Republicans. The DOJ, with some help from our own Attorney General Jim Hood, has slow-pedaled consideration of Mississippi’s law. Earlier this fall, the DOJ asked for “more information” to determine whether the law has a discriminatory effect. That new request puts any final decision well past November 6.

But the Obama DOJ is fighting voter ID provisions in Texas, South Carolina, and even Pennsylvania, which is a state not subject to the “preclearance” (i.e., advance approval by the feds) requirement of the Voting Rights Act. The Democratic line is that voter ID is a solution in search of a problem, that there are no cases of voter fraud that ID would prevent. The Rachel Maddows of the media world have joined the chorus of “voter suppression” right on cue from Team Obama.

This is as phony as the “war on women” (or the “Youtube” explanation of the outrage at Benghazi). During my three years at the Secretary of State’s Office, we had more than a few calls and substantiated cases of voter impersonation, dead people who came back to vote one last time, and other forms of cheating.

The only votes we were interested in “suppressing” were the illegal ones. Beyond that, voters have a right to believe that their elections are fair, and free. Voter ID is a part of ensuring cleaner elections.

And, support for voter ID goes well beyond the Republican base. The GOP makes up at most a third of the electorate. Yet voter ID garnered the support of three quarters of Americans, according to a Washington Post poll from August.

Last week, as President Obama showed his ID to vote in Chicago (that paragon of clean elections), new evidence emerged about just what kind of “suppression” might occur with ID requirements. It does not fit with Holder’s faux-concern or Maddow’s hysterical liberal narrative.

The son of Virginia Democrat Congressman Jim Moran was caught on video discussing ways to help a hundred votes get cast by impersonating Virginia voters who were inactive (and likely no longer there). Patrick Moran serves as a campaign field director for daddy’s re-election race in a highly-contested part of a highly-contested battleground state. In the video, shot by an undercover investigative reporter with Project Veritas, a conservative nonprofit, Moran nonchalantly coaches the would-be fraudster on how to forge utility bills. Moran even notes that given Virginia’s voter ID laws, impersonating legitimate voters is harder, so that forgery would probably be necessary.

Unbelievably, Moran never once, over several minutes, suggested that it would simply be wrong to vote for those hundred voters fraudulently. This is exactly the kind of behavior that should be suppressed.

Congressman Moran is an outspoken critic of Virginia’s voter ID law. The younger Moran, let’s hope, just helped to ensure that maybe by next election, Mississippi will finally get to enforce the will of the people for cleaner elections here.

About Cory:Cory T. Wilson is a Madison attorney with the firm of Heidelberg Steinberger Colmer & Burrow. You can follow Cory on Twitter, @CoryWilsonMS or email cory@corywilson.ms.

Hood says federal payday lending legislation would usurp state authority

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood has joined at least 40 other states’ legal officers in opposing legislation in Congress that could pre-empt states’ authority in governing payday lending businesses.

Hood says in a news release that the bill in Congress would allow payday lenders, installment lenders, car title lenders, prepaid card issuers and check cashers to obtain a federal charter and sidestep these more stringent state laws.

Lawmakers in 2011 allowed payday lenders to stay in business through 2015, while altering some of the practices, including repayment times and capped fees.

MP

Jim Hood announces no Voter ID in Mississippi for November elections

Attorney Gen. Jim Hood said Tuesday morning that Mississippi voters won’t have to show identification at the polls on Nov. 6 because the Department of Justice wants more information from the state before it will rule on whether to allow the new law to move forward, which could take weeks.

The Department of Justice will rule on House Bill 921, which cleared the Legislature earlier this year, but Hood said the DOJ wants more information to determine that the proposed changes “neither have a discriminatory purpose nor will have a discriminatory effect.” It wants more information from the state about its plans.

“All the DOJ is saying in this response is that they need more details of the state’s plan in order to make a determination,” Hood said. “What this means is that the voter ID requirement will not be in place before the November election. You will not be required to show ID at the poll until DOJ interposes no objections or pre-clears Mississippi’s voter ID bill.”

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Oh Bill, how we’ve missed your venomous rants!

Mississippi’s grumpy old liberal codger, Bill Minor, is back in old form with a recent attack on Voter ID, Delbert Hosemann and anything Republican. To paraphrase an old expression: he’s old as dirt, but too mean to die.

And who can blame him for being so angry? He’s lived so long that he’s come to realize most of what he’s ranted about and stood for over the years has been proven false.

Enjoy:

Here he goes again – to borrow an expression by a Republican deity – Mississippi’s Secretary of State, Delbert Hosemann, who continues to make banal statements giving the impression that the state’s proposed photo ID voting law is likely to survive federal scrutiny.

That’s not going to happen. The handwriting is already on the wall, as made clear from the D.C. federal court panel’s ruling on the Texas ID law, and the rough treatment South Carolina is getting from the Department of Justice on its photo ID Voter law.

To begin with, because of its history of suppressing minority voting dating back to the post Civil War era, Mississippi is the least likely state to get an OK under the 1965 Voting Rights law to make any voting rights change that smells like the old poll tax.

Furthermore, Hosemann keeps giving the impression he’s in charge of Mississippi’s submission of HB 921, the state’s photo ID voter law, to DOJ, when that is not the case. The 1965 Voting Rights Act designated the state’s chief legal office for DOJ to deal with. Attorney General Jim Hood is Mississippi’s chief legal officer. Though he has been low-key about it, Hood is the one to whom DOJ sends official letters if it asks the state for further information (as it has done) about its proposed voting law change.

That’s why behind the scenes Mississippi’s voter ID law is caught in a big impasse.

Subject yourself to more HERE.

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