Not gonna run in 2019 season is upon us.
Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs started it. He announced early this month he is not gonna run for Lt. Governor or any other statewide office next year.
While Petal Mayor Hal Marx says he is running for Governor and former Nettleton Mayor and now Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley might run for Lt. Governor, the expected avalanche of not gonna run for statewide office announcements from other mayors, supervisors, and aldermen has yet to drop. It could happen any day now.
Meanwhile, the cascade of statewide elected officials who are not gonna, or probably not gonna, run for re-election is well underway. Two, of course, are term-limited and cannot seek re-election, Gov. Phil Bryant and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves. State Treasurer Lynn Fitch and Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann have announced they will not run for re-election. Attorney General Jim Hood probably will not. State Auditor Stacey Pickering and Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney have not announced their intentions. Blogger Wayne Weidie speculated a while back they would not seek re-election., but Chaney had a fundraiser recently. Then, there is newly appointed Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson who is expected to run.
It's not that all these politicians are ready to fade away, of course. Reeves and Hood are expected to run for Governor, Hosemann for Lt. Governor, and Fitch has announced she will run for Attorney General.
Half of our current statewide officials are former state legislators – Bryant, Pickering, Chaney, and Gipson. As incumbents seek other offices, the expectation is state legislators will rush to fill the void, I mean open positions. So far the number rushing in outnumber non-legislators by just two to one. State Representative Mark Baker of Brandon has announced a run for Attorney General and State Representative Jay Hughes of Oxford has announced a run for Lt. Governor. Ridgeland attorney and businessman David McRae has announced he will run for State Treasurer.
Still and all, a vast majority of state legislators are expected to join Flaggs, other mayors, supervisors, and aldermen in announcing they are not gonna run for statewide office.
Perhaps, the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision making sports betting legal in states besides Nevada will influence their decisions. Because of sneaky legislation passed last year, Bible Belt Mississippi could be the first additional state to take bets. As reported by Mississippi Today, when the Legislature passed a bill to legalize fantasy sports betting, sponsors "slipped in language that would legalize sports betting in Mississippi casinos if the federal ban were lifted." Most legislators and state officials denied knowing the language had been slipped in, but state officials immediately started preparing to open sports betting in our casinos. The state even took an official position in court in favor of lifting the ban.
This sneaky way to expand gambling may not go over well with voters. So the 92 House members and 46 state senators who voted for it could face consequences. Among those mentioned above who could be at risk are Reeves who allowed the bill through the Senate, Hood who represented the state in court, and Baker and Hughes who voted for it.
Crawford (crawfolk@gmail.com) is a syndicated columnist from Meridian.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Bill Crawford: Who Won't Run in 2019?
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19 comments:
I don't understand Crawford's last paragraph. Who - outside of a few fundamentalist Baptists - spend their days bemoaning the presence of casinos and legalized gaming in Mississippi? And that crowd is not large enough to influence a statewide election. Now, if we could only get Powerball, people like me could play the trifecta...blackjack, sports book and lottery!
Serious question...will legalized sports book mean the casinos will also offer off-track betting?
Crawford just wants to bitch about how it was done, because he could have done it better. This man has had a sweat in every branch, and nobody does it right
11:51 I understand yes as well as dogs
"Serious question...will legalized sports book mean the casinos will also offer off-track betting? "
Great question. NYC has had the OTB parlors for decades, far away from the actual racetrack. The city just keeps cashing the checks from bets VOLUNTARILY placed by the losers.
As opposed to taking money by taxation under threat of jail time if you don't hand it over to the gub'ment.
by all means bring in sports betting. that way all the SEC pretty boys around here can piss their money away on that rather than 90,000$ extended cab pickups, deer camp dues where they hunt fenced in animals over bait and get away from their wives, columbia fishing shirts, yeti coolers, salt life windshield stickers, costa sunglasses, ticos steaks, 90$ a bottle bourbon, duck clubs where they kill more booze than ducks, back page hookers, and 120,000$ saltwater bay boats that they take to south louisiana to get drunk and haul ass around in. except for the hookers , all paid for on credit. but you can bet your last yeti cooler they will all be at pine lake baptist church on sunday morning giving their "testimony" on what wonderful family values christians they are.
I figure Hoseman wins the Lt. Gov. job. My question as a voter is who does he try to work with, A democrat gov. or Reeves. I want the state to be able to get things done and go in the right direction.
@ 11:51 AM
I don't understand Crawford's last paragraph. Who - outside of a few fundamentalist Baptists - spend their days bemoaning the presence of casinos and legalized gaming in Mississippi?
Because Bill Crawford knows its progressive legislation and the Southern Baptist Convention and Heritage Foundation do not like anything progressive. You noticed the words "slip" and "didn't know how it got in there" appears often when it comes to discussing how this legislation passed?
It's time for Mississippi to get the hell out of its own way and catch up with the 21st century
1a. Eliminate ABC and let independent distributors open shop
1b. Grocery stores/pharmacies should have the right to sell liquor
2. Bring in the lottery
3. Get a damn NASCAR track within the I-20 and I-55 corridor
4. Change the damn flag, its terrible for branding, plus we can start hosting so serious NCAA Division 1 tournaments and get a bowl game
5. Get a real highway going from central Mississippi to the Gulf Coast merging into I-10
@ 3:35 PM
You know the feds shut down Backpage
@5:43
Please let us know when the last time a Republican led government in Mississippi was "able to get things done" and go "in the right direction"
OTBs in New York shut down several years ago, as the city and state were terrible bookies that continually lost money.
Let us know the inverse 9:29? What did 100+ years of total control of Mississippi by Democrats accomplish?
Let us know the inverse 9:29? What did 100+ years of total control of Mississippi by Democrats accomplish?
Um, you do know those very same Democrats, better known as Dixiecrats, left the Democratic Party to form the modern era Republican Party in Mississippi.
There was this lady from the Mississippi Delta named Fannie Lou Hamer and she knew the only way to shake up things in Mississippi was to join the majority party, which was the Democrats at that time. She helped form the Freedom Democratic Party, of course, the Mississippi Democratic Party did not want to recognize her as a delegate and henceforth the national party stepped in and ordered that the state office recognize her.
Of course, they did not like the idea, so henceforth they became "Dixiecrats" and voted overwhelmingly for Barry Goldwater of the Republican Party in the Presidential election of 1964 and that's when you started seeing white Democrats leave to join the Republican Party.
Just because they switched parties, does not mean, they switched identity politics. Those policies left the Dixie Democratic party when they did. In other words, same ideas, just under the Republican umbrella now.
May 20, 2018 at 3:35 PM;
I'm going to use you as an example of a bad trend I'm seeing on this blog and elsewhere:
When describing or listing an amount of money, the dollar sign (or pound, euro, yen, etc.) goes in front of the number.
For example: twenty dollars = $20.
I would be more open to legalized gambling if proponents addressed the total effect on the state, counting the revenue and deducting the costs of collateral damage. Instead these proponents demonize those who question and, of course, the Baptists.
I hear that it is a done deal for Pickering to be appointed to the Veteran's Affairs Board, which apparently pays more than state auditor, and that Michael Watson will be appointed to the position of state auditor. Anyone else hearing those rumors?
@8:09 Hosting some "serious" NCAA tournaments and get a "Bowl Game"? I'm curious, where do you think you live that has an indoor stadium like NOLA or ATL and can hold 100k like Alabama, TN, LA, etc? I'm sure your an Ole Miss or State fan and in your mind your team has won dozens of National Championships and the only thing holding us back is your list. Wow!
I can't wait to see who the Clarion Ledger and the Madison County Journal do stories on or put on their front page for SUGGESTING then NOT RUNNING, (never intending to run in the first place),for office, like they did with Andy Taggart. He wouldn't even have been able to win his own precinct nor could he have raised 10k. It's one thing to try and con people that your important but to see our press fall for that crap is unconscionable.
7.45pm Andy couldn't win his own neighborhood. He must have some serious video on Jim Prince over at the Madison Journal.
1:41, I haven't heard it, but I hope you're right.
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