Dems take issue with Speaker Gunn’s private use of his private office.

Democrats are questioning what House Speaker Philip Gunn was doing at the Capitol on Monday night, when he invited some guests in after hours and served them food while Capitol police turned away media.

A spokesman for Gunn says the meeting was just that – a meeting with some of Gunn’s top advisors and supporters.

But Brandon Jones, of the Mississippi Democratic Trust, said the meeting was using the public Capitol “for an awards banquet for top Republican donors.”

“The Speaker and his campaign director can call it what they want,” Jones said. “It’s gross, that’s what it is. It’s gross to use the Capitol this way. It’s beneath the dignity of that office and it’s unprecedented.”

Nathan Wells, Gunn’s policy director, said the meeting was small, and consisted of Billy Powell, Billy Mounger, Wirt Yerger – all big Republican Party movers and leaders in Mississippi – and their wives.

“These are top advisors and supporters of the speaker and he had them in for a meeting, and some of them hadn’t seen the Speaker’s Office,” Wells said. “We have food brought in for meetings all the time. This was completely paid for by (Gunn). There were no contributions, and none asked for. It’s not an event. We eat food here at meetings all the time.”

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Governor calling lawmakers back for April 29 special session.

Another perspective of the “New” Mississippi State Capitol building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gov. Phil Bryant is calling the Mississippi Legislature back into special session on April 29, Capitol sources say, to consider economic incentives for an automotive supplier that wants to locate a plant near West Point.

A spokesman for Bryant did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. But some Capitol staffers are being told to prep for a special session, and several lawmakers were receiving word.

“All I’ve heard is that we’re being called back on April 29th,” said Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ellisville. “The topics have not been communicated to me.” Sen. Will Longwitz, R-Madison, said he heard the same.

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Salter: Medicaid expansion comes down to DSH payments.

Concerns over uncompensated care costs, the specter of reductions in DSH payments and uncertainty about the reliability of federal health care policies — particularly the future division of just what the federal and state shares of Medicaid costs will be — have produced political stalemate in Mississippi on Medicaid authorization much less expansion.

But does a reduction in DSH payments by the Obama administration equate to punitive action against those states that relied on the Supreme Court’s ruling in not choosing to expand Medicaid? The high court ruling held that the feds couldn’t take punitive actions against states that didn’t expand Medicaid.

Gov. Phil Bryant believes cuts in DSH payments to states that chose not to expand Medicaid would violate the Supreme Court ruling. Proponents of Medicaid expansion believe the federal government can’t require states to expand Medicaid, but can choose to fund public health care as they deem appropriate.

Mississippi is no stranger to political stalemate over Medicaid, so settle in for another long battle.

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Harrison: Dems better hope no one calls their bluff.

Thus far Democrats have been remarkably cohesive on the issue of Medicaid expansion. If they remain cohesive in special session, they can again block the continuation of the existing program.

While the speaker is holding a strong hand, the Democrats can only hope the speaker and the governor do not call their bluff.

Are Democrats really willing to put in jeopardy an existing Medicaid program that provides health care for about 640,000 disabled, poor pregnant women, poor children and a certain segment of the elderly in order to try to get health care for about 300,000 people earning less than $15,000 annually – primarily the working poor?

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Gray: Speaker Gunn’s leadership saved charter schools.

Speaker Gunn did show on one central issue in this session a bit more flexibility than is often the case these days in our polarized legislative bodies. He wanted a broader, more sweeping charter school bill than the Legislature eventually approved. But he gauged the membership and knew what was possible.

Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and the Senate wanted more than the House was willing to give. Gunn made the matter a simple choice: Do you want to get something passed, or do want to go down in flames with your purity of purpose intact?

Lawmaking is about compromise and consensus, the speaker preached – a sentiment that used to be self-evident but that has given way to insistence on all-or-nothing in so many circumstances.

Gunn was insistent that the charter school legislation that emerged from House-Senate negotiations could actually pass the House. That meant he and other charter school supporters didn’t get everything they wanted, but they got much more than they would have otherwise. Legislative compromise – what a concept.

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Senate Ed Committee: Bomgar gets the boot.

Image by Bomgar Corporation via CrunchBase

The Senate Education Committee blocked Joel Bomgar’s nomination to join the state Board of Education Thursday on an 8-7 vote.

Bomgar, the 33-year-old founder of Bomgar Corp. of Ridgeland, saw his nomination set aside after opponents sharply questioned his board membership on the conservative-leaning Mississippi Center for Public Policy, his choice to home-school his children and his policy preferences for education.

“You want to be on the public statewide school board,” Sen. Videt Carmichael, R-Meridian, a former public school principal, said of home-schooling. “I have a problem with that.”

Bomgar said after the meeting that the Education Committee rejected him because some aren’t open to differing viewpoints.

“I believe in diversity on boards,” he said.

A Jackson resident, Bomgar was nominated by House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, for the nine-year term. Gunn said Bomgar’s background shows that he understands and appreciates learning.

“I have always believed that the people we put in charge of our education system must be people who understand the value of an education,” Gunn said.

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Salter: 2013 will be remembered as year GOP made K-12 a priority.

The 2013 legislative session will be remembered as a session in which the Republican leadership that dominates state government made K-12 public education a priority. Despite histrionic arguments from the state’s K-12 education lobby over the GOP leadership’s priorities, level of funding and methodologies, Bryant, Reeves and Gunn and their Republican legislative majorities spent an inordinate amount of time talking about K-12 education in 2013 and got their reforms enacted.

Looking back to the days when Mississippi Democrats dominated state government to the same degree that the GOP does today — and let’s face it, that involves over a century of political domination and policy responsibility — the conclusion is inescapable that the race for education reform in Mississippi is a marathon rather than a sprint. It was true for the Dems, it will be true for the GOP.

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Senate agrees to House version of charter schools, full vote ahead.

Faced with repeated warnings that changes could jeopardize support, Mississippi senators have agreed to the House version of a bill to expand charter schools.

An agreement between the House and Senate was filed 20 minutes before an 8 p.m. deadline Monday to work out differences between the chambers. The bill (House Bill 369) must still be agreed to by a majority of both the House and the Senate and signed by Gov. Phil Bryant.

The House bill would allow a seven-member board to approve up to 15 new charter schools a year. Boards in districts graded A, B and C would get vetoes over charter schools in their boundaries. Mississippi grades school districts on an A-F scale. No student would be allowed to cross district lines to attend a charter school in another district. That bar on crossing district lines could impede the creation of charter schools in districts with fewer students.

Charter schools — public schools that agree to meet certain standards in exchange for freedom from regulations — would have to be nonprofit entities. So would their management companies.

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MBJ: Reeves risks blame if charter schools bill fails.

In 2012, Reeves stiffed the House in bond negotiations, surprising House leaders by deciding to go without a bond bill rather than agree to borrow more money than he wanted. House leaders failed in their attempts to get charter school expansion proposals through their chamber, with their last try dying embarrassingly on a committee vote.

Reeves’ tight management style made it clear that all negotiations with the Senate were talks with him. Overall, the former state treasurer stamped himself as the most powerful figure in the legislative process.

But this year, as Reeves as continued to push for his version of charter school proposals, it’s become possible that a failure will be blamed on him by many Republicans.

Reeves’ my-way-or-the-highway approach has continued in 2013. For example, House leaders were dumbfounded by Reeves’ lack of warning on his decision to reject $60 million in additional revenue projected by estimators for the current budget year. And his decision to meet with House Democrats opposed to charter schools without going through the House leadership was also perceived as a slight.

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Gubment Money: Hospital Assn. holds rally for Medicaid expansion, while Dems block reauthorization of current benefits.

During the rally Wednesday, people waved signs that said “Expand Medicaid Now” on one side and “Speaker Gunn: Mississippi Deserves a Debate and Vote on Medicaid Expansion” on the other.

Sam Cameron, president and CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association, said hospitals will lose payments they’ve been receiving for treating the uninsured. Adding more people to Medicaid would help cover that gap, Cameron said.

“It’s time to put people over politics,” Cameron said to the applause of people who filled a Capitol stairwell and the marble-lined rotunda.

Under the federal health overhaul that President Barack Obama signed in 2010, states have the option of expanding Medicaid to people making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, which is about $15,000 for an individual. Mississippi’s current cutoff is about $5,500, and the state’s program doesn’t cover many able-bodied adults.

More than 640,000 of Mississippi’s roughly 3 million residents are already enrolled in Medicaid, and expansion could add as many as 300,000.

Regardless whether they vote on expanding Medicaid, Mississippi lawmakers have to find a way to keep the program in business once the current state budget year ends on June 30. Medicaid is one of several state programs that comes up for review every few years, and lawmakers have to vote to keep it alive. At this point in the session, there are no bills to do so, which means it’s likely that Bryant will call lawmakers back to the Capitol for a special session sometime before late June.

“With every passing day, it looks more and more like that’s what’s going to happen,” Gunn said.

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