Nettleton – Today, Brandon Presley for Governor earned the endorsement of the Greenwood Commonwealth. Brandon Presley is the only Democratic candidate running for a statewide office who received the endorsement. This endorsement appears in 26 papers across the state. 

The Greenwood Commonwealth called Brandon “the most courageous candidate” before recommending voters choose him in the governor’s race. The editorial praises Presley for being clued into Mississippi’s hospital crisis from the start and his pledge to tackle ethics reform. The editorial commends Brandon for standing up to Mississippi Power, “one of the most powerful and politically connected businesses in the state,” while voting against the Kemper Power Plant boondoggle. 

Read more below:

Greenwood Commonwealth: Reeves Is OK, Presley Is Better
November 3, 2023 

During Tate Reeves’ four years as governor, Mississippi has had a fair amount of success.  There is no denying that.

The unemployment rate has been at record lows for the past two years. The state treasury has accumulated a multibillion-dollar surplus. Thanks to that surplus, the state has been able to afford reducing income taxes and substantially increasing teacher pay. And on a national assessment, Mississippi students in the younger grades have gotten off the bottom of the national rankings, where they had been stuck for decades.

The Republican incumbent deserves some credit for these accomplishments, but not nearly as much as he claims. Most every state is enjoying record low unemployment rates and record high government surpluses. That’s due to nothing miraculously done at the state level but rather the byproduct of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought misery and fear but also trillions of dollars of extra money from Washington to individuals and businesses as well as state and local governments.

And while it’s true that Mississippi has made a giant leap forward on fourth grade test scores, the overall academic progress has been uneven. In eighth grade, which is also compared nationally, scores have been flat or even down, and the state’s high graduation rate has been puffed up by a weakening of the requirements.

If there were not a better alternative, Mississippi could do worse than another four years with Reeves in charge.

But there is a better alternative: Brandon Presley, the Democratic challenger.

Unlike Reeves, Presley has been clued into Mississippi’s hospital crisis from the start and called out the insanity — for which Reeves is heavily responsible — of rejecting the federal government’s sweet offer to extend Medicaid benefits to an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 of the state’s mostly working poor. Medicaid expansion by itself cannot save Greenwood Leflore Hospital or the state’s other financially endangered rural hospitals, but it would help. It would also help Mississippi’s economy, pumping in an extra billion dollars a year that, according to Reeves’ own government economists, wouldn’t cost the state a nickel because of the thousands of additional jobs Medicaid expansion would create.

Reeves, late in the game, has offered his own Medicaid plan, which would increase the government insurance program’s supplements to the hospitals. If this can be done, it should be done in addition to Medicaid expansion, not in place of it.

Mississippi is going to wise up eventually and join the other 40 states that have expanded Medicaid, but not as long as Reeves is governor. If Presley is elected, it could happen as soon as early next year.

Presley also pledges to push for ethics reforms to reduce the corrupting influence of lobbyists and big-money donors on public policy and public contracts. Reeves has no interest in ethics reforms, as he has profited from a system that allows contributors to buy into the politicians’ good graces.

Presley, it should be noted, was initially the lone public service commissioner who opposed and then eventually helped kill the multibillion-dollar “clean coal” boondoggle in Kemper County. He stood up to Mississippi Power Co., one of the most powerful and politically connected businesses in the state. Reeves would never have shown that kind of backbone.  

We recommend that voters go with the most courageous candidate, Presley, in Tuesday’s election.

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