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- Eight separate stalwart Republican donors told Magnolia Tribune they were rethinking their political giving after what one called a “dismal” legislative session.
Earlier this year, a group of one hundred prominent businessmen and women, representing some of the largest, most successful employers in the state, asked the Legislature to pass a comprehensive universal school choice plan backed by President Donald Trump. Among the group were some of the perennially largest donors to Republican politicians in the state.
In a letter sent to the Legislature, they argued that continuing to improve the education available to every student in Mississippi would pay dividends long-term in preparing the workforce.
In an 84-second Senate Education Committee meeting, one with no questions or debate, the Senate voted to kill the plan for which these leaders had advocated. No amendments. No strike all. No discussion of pain points that could be improved upon. Just killed.
In the last two weeks, business leaders from around the state have been unified in opposition to the creation of a “dispensing fee” of $11.29 on every prescription written in Mississippi. Projections are that the Senate’s changes to HB 1665, which morphed the bill from PBM reform to a de facto tax increase, will cost Mississippi employers and Mississippi workers nine-figures a year.
Individual large employers, like Electrical Cooperatives of Mississippi, hired independent consultants to run their numbers. ECM shared the math showing over $300,000 in new annual expense should the Senate’s version of HB 1665 take effect. That’s just one employer.
When the votes were counted in the Senate, only seven members had the courage not to raise everyone’s prescription drug costs. Everyone else voted for the hike because they’d rather make getting your medicine more expensive — and hope you don’t realize it’s their fault — than to have a hard conversation with a pharmacist at church.
It remains unclear whether the House will vote to concur on the Senate’s changes. House Speaker Jason White has been strong on the issue in years past, pushing meaningful PBM reform while resisting new fees on businesses and consumers. But there’s only so much political capital under the Dome and a lot of fatigue from vitriolic attacks leveled during this debate.
The Senate voted to flatly ignore the legitimate concerns of Mississippi’s entire business community with its version of HB 1665. Should the House concur, it will be doing the same.
As with the school choice fight, the White House has weighed in on the Senate’s plan to raise drug prices, urging the Mississippi House to reject the changes.
Some of the Republican representatives now speaking out in favor of raising the cost of your prescriptions sound more like members of the Soviet politburo than conservatives. In a Facebook post, Representative Becky Currie framed the issue as taking “billions of dollars away from people that don’t deserve it.”
Set aside the fact that these new fees will ultimately be paid by everyday citizens in the form of lower wages, higher health insurance premiums and higher out-of-pocket costs. When did Republicans become the party of deciding who in the private sector “deserves” money and who “deserves” to have it taken away and given to someone else? That’s AOC, Bernie Sanders level stuff.
How is it conservative to pass laws requiring that private citizens be forced to pay more money to a private business? How is it conservative to invalidate private contracts bargained for between employers and their insurance companies?
If enough plumbers get together and say nasty things on Facebook, will the Legislature create a mandatory plumbing service fee too? Where does this big government attempt to centrally plan the economy end and what makes any legislator, even a well-respected nurse from Brookhaven, qualified to make these calls?
All of this creates an environment of uncertainty that business abhors. It’s bad for the economy. It’s bad for Mississippians. It’s the polar opposite of conservative, free market or business friendly.
For movement conservatives, the picture is arguably even bleaker. Not only has the Senate denied parents options for their children’s education. Not only is the Legislature on the verge of raising our drug prices. But legislators are spending like drunken sailors, likely slowing or stopping phase out of the state income tax passed last session.
There are legislators that now have on their records a vote to expand Obamacare in Mississippi, a vote against President Trump on school choice, and a vote to increase drug prices on Mississippians, again in contravention of the White House. One can be an outlier. Three starts to look like a pattern. This is not a great lineup in a Republican Primary.
Magnolia Tribune spoke to eight regular Republican donors, including both business leaders and more ideological donors, on Thursday. All eight said they were reconsidering their political giving. One shared that there are less than 5 members of the Mississippi Senate they consider worthy of support and that they are evangelizing others to turn off their spigots, too.
Money is the mother’s milk of politics. It is often the very best signal of who wins and who loses. That’s not a nefarious thing. People give to candidates because they happen to agree with their policy positions and think they are competent to achieve them.
Legislators right now are gambling that supporters will stick with them out of inertia, or because they have an R next to their name. They might be right, but they are ignoring the alternative where a more conservative, or business friendly, person with an R next to their name runs and money shifts.
Editor’s Note: Representative Fred Shanks questioned whether the White House letter was real on social media, a piece of errant speculation picked up by others. Magnolia Tribune confirmed the validity of the letter three separate ways before publishing, including the receipt of the letter by the Speaker’s office, visible confirmation of the email sent to the Speaker’s office from an official White House email account of Alex Meyer, and confirmation through separate White House channels.
Russ Latino
