Sid Salter
- Columnist Sid Salter commends Mike Chaney for advocating to take “the politics out” of the regulation of the insurance industry, reducing the size of state government.
Kudos to Mississippi Commissioner of Insurance Mike Chaney for advocating for the elimination of his elective office by changing it to an appointive one in the interest of “taking the politics out” of the regulation of the insurance industry in the state.
He’s right. Mississippi is one of only 11 states that elected insurance commissioners, while the position is appointed in the other 39 states. Insurance regulators who have to campaign will find one reliable group of campaign contributors – the very industry they are supposed to regulate.
Neighboring states Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and Tennessee appoint their commissioners, while Georgia and Louisiana elect theirs. Mississippi lawmakers seem to think well of Chaney’s efforts, and prospects for the change to become law this session seem good.
This isn’t the first time cooler heads prevailed in a state that just loves to elect any many offices as possible. Mississippi voters like electing their political leaders and that’s all the way down the ballot from governor to justice court judges.
Since the state’s first constitution was drafted in 1817, Mississippians argued over elections. In 1832, a constitutional convention fight erupted between three groups — the “aristocrats” who favored the appointment of all judges, the “half hogs” who wanted to elect some judges and have others appointed, and the “whole hogs” who wanted all judges elected.
History shows that the “whole hogs” won in 1832, and Mississippi has been electing judges ever since.
However, several previously statewide elective offices have been eliminated or combined over the last century. Most of those instances involved an exercise of leadership and sacrifice by previously elected leaders.
The late William Winter was first appointed in 1956 and then elected to a full term as state tax collector in 1959. He held that post until the office was abolished on his recommendation in 1964. The following language is straight from a House Concurrent Resolution honoring Winter in 2021:
“…in 1956, Gov. Winter was appointed State Tax Collector by Gov. J.P. Coleman, and was responsible for collecting the state’s black-market tax on whiskey and liquor at a time when alcohol sales in the state were outlawed, and in that position, he was the second highest paid officeholder in the nation, behind the President of the United States, and as a good government initiative, he successfully advocated to abolish the position of State Tax Collector, which the Legislature did in 1964…”.
Winter also had a hand in the elimination of the elected post of the State Superintendent of Education. Prior to July 1, 1984, the office had been one of the statewide elected posts. But on the heels of the adoption of Winter’s landmark Education Reform Act of 1982, the post and the State Board of Education were made appointive.
Hearing Mike Chaney talk about eliminating his Commissioner of Insurance post, I could not help but remember one of Mississippi’s most colorful and interesting politicos and the last elected State Land Commissioner, the late John Ed Ainsworth. Ainsworth helped countless children he helped across Mississippi who would never know his name.
But along with Dick Molpus, Eric Clark, Joe Talley, Mack Cameron and later Delbert Hosemann, Ainsworth was among a handful of Mississippi public officials with the political courage and personal integrity to demand that Mississippi schoolchildren get their fair share of school trust lands in Mississippi.
Ainsworth actively campaigned for office on the political platform of 16th Section lease reform and abolishing the office if he was elected. In 1975, Ainsworth ran for land commissioner and defeated Roy W. Miller by some 90,000 votes in the Democratic primary.
School trust lands or 16th Section school lands were set aside by the federal government in 1787 for education purposes. The 16th Section leases were a source of corruption, abuse and squandering by counties for almost two centuries until Ainsworth and a few other brave souls took on the power structure.
Once elected, Ainsworth worked with the Mississippi Legislature to pass the 16th Section Reform Act of 1978. Ainsworth asked lawmakers to abolish his job as land commissioner and roll the duties into the Secretary of State office. They complied.
Chaney could join Winter, Ainsworth and a few others who left legacies in reducing the size of state government.
Sid Salter
