Welcome to Mississippi Happenings.
Each podcast, we focus on important events and news that affect all of us in Mississippi.
We also want to keep you aware of the actions in Jackson by our lawmakers and all the local events.
Joining us this week is our guest, Dr.
Deborah Williams.
Dr.
Williams received her graduate from Tougaloo College.
and she received her doctorate from the of Georgia, Athens.
Deborah is also the chairwoman of the executive committee of the Democratic Party in Desoto County.
Welcome, Deborah.
We appreciate your time and we appreciate you being here.
Along with me.
David.
Thank you.
Also with is my cohost, Jim Newman.
Jim, say hello.
Good morning.
Morning, doctor.
All Deborah, tell us, tell us, tell us what's first, tell us what's going on in DeSoto County, Mississippi.
Well, DeSoto County, Mississippi Democratic Party is pretty busy right now.
The 31st of January is the final day, or was the final day, that people were able to file to run as candidates on the various tickets, either Mayor Alderman or Alderman at Large.
Horn Lake, for example, has a full slate of Democratic candidates that are going to be running.
It's a...
a good hot bed for a democratic vote.
And so we have all of those slots filled.
We do not this year have people running out of South Haven and Olive Branch, but that's soon come.
We also have some candidates out of walls.
We have a candidate out of walls for mayor, who is Mayor Henderson, and we also have several alderman candidates coming out of walls, Mississippi.
So it's gonna be busy.
Today's gonna, well,
The 31st is going to be busy, it's going to be a big scramble, everybody trying to make the deadline and making sure that they got all of their paperwork in on time.
So the deadline is this Friday the 31st.
It is Friday the 31st.
Was Friday the 31st.
Thank you, Deborah.
Let's talk about for a minute, an issue that's important to everybody is of course voting and of course poll workers.
so if you would tell us a little bit about that as far as voting in DeSoto County and also as far as poll workers and how that goes.
So as far as voting, we're always encouraging more people to register to vote.
DeSoto County has about 131,000 registered voters and about really 60,000 of those actually voted in the past election.
So we've got a lot of people that are registered to vote already who have not actually voted.
And so we're always encouraging people and reminding them of how important their vote is, their vote counts, their vote matters.
important to this process.
So we're always encouraging those that are registered to vote to vote.
And then we're also encouraging those to vote or register who have not already registered.
There are about 50,000 people in DeSoto County who have not registered to vote.
So we encourage them to go down to City Hall if it's for a municipal election or you have to go to your circuit clerk in Hernando if it's for like a county or state election and
get yourself registered to vote because your vote does count, it does matter.
And then you said about poll workers, I'm sorry Jim.
Dr.
I hear frequently everybody says we need to encourage people to go vote.
Can you expand on how that encouragement?
What is it?
So we try to get as deeply as we can into the community itself.
Because I don't think that we can wait for the community to come to us, we have to go to the community.
So we participate in a lot of events that the churches are doing, the fraternities, the sororities.
We're there, we're setting up tables, we're talking to people and encouraging them and trying to empower them to vote.
We try to do as much of that as we possibly can.
We use social media to try to get our messaging out about how important it is to vote and that their vote matters.
We have a whole campaign that says your voice and your vote matter.
And we have that on signs that we've been putting across the county.
We have that on social media and it's kind of driving our email threads that your voice and your vote matter.
And so that's.
part of our message that we're getting out through all of the various community activities.
We try to participate in the festivals, in the fall festivals that all the organizations are having, the churches are having.
We do the Juneteenth celebrations wherever we can find the community present.
We do events out in the park.
We go out and set up tables and we talk to people there.
and we collect information from people that might be interested in working the polls as Mr.
Oles mentioned earlier.
We always are looking for poll workers and people to help at the polls.
Being a poll worker is an important job because you're our eyes and our ears inside of the polling places.
And so we're always looking for those people that might not have understood how to go about being a poll worker, to go and to have an opportunity to sign up with us and
and work the polls and actually be a part of the process.
And I think to your first question, Jim, the first part of that is getting a lot of people to be poll workers because we have a lot of first time poll workers who've never been
engaged in the process before.
And bringing all of these people into the process automatically starts to change the narrative inside of the community because now there are people who understand what's going
on, who
before that did not understand the whole process and why it's important that you work the polls, why it's important that you register, why it's important that you vote.
They were disconnected from the process.
Bringing them all in as poll workers has started to change that narrative, so that's part of it as well.
Do you think the fee that is being paid to pull workers has had any influence on bringing more people in?
I believe, I think it's what, 225?
Yeah, the pay has gone up to $200 now for the day.
And if you're a receiving manager, you also get an extra $25 for going to pick up the ballots and another $25 for bringing them back.
So that's a total of $250.
So I think because it was like $100 and to spend a whole day from six o'clock in the morning to eight or nine o'clock at night.
$400 was not really appealing to people and then some people were having to take off work.
I think increasing the pay has definitely made it easier for us to secure people to work the polls because it's just a practical matter.
If you're going to spend that whole day or not go to work, it needs to be worth it even though we all know that that's part of your civic duty but we all have bills to pay at the
same time.
Good.
Thank you for that.
Yeah, the poll workers, they're so vital to the elections and to the whole voting process.
You mentioned Horn Lake.
Let's talk a little bit about that.
We know that, let's see, in Walsh, Mayor Kendrin Henderson, he's running for re-election, correct?
correct.
He is running from you.
running?
I'm sorry.
Is he running up unopposed?
He is, well, that's in question right now because he is not running unopposed.
But there are questions about the person that has put his hat in the rain, which I don't wanna get into here.
But there are questions about his residency.
So the jury is out as to whether he will or will not have an opponent.
Understood, Well, in Horn Lake, you mentioned there's a full slate of candidates for mayor in the alderman positions.
Tell us a little bit about that.
Well, as you know, Mayor Latimer has been the mayor of Horn Lake for many, many, many years, and he has retired this year.
So we're going to have new leadership in Horn Lake regardless.
We've got two on the Republican side that are battling it out on the Republican side.
And then on our side, we have Jimmy Stokes II, Commissioner Jimmy Stokes II, who ran a very, very competitive race with Mayor Latimer during the last cycle.
and is in this race again.
And I would venture to say the favorite going into this particular race.
So he has gotten a lot of traction.
He's gotten support publicly from a number of high profile people.
Brandon Presley, to name one, and many, many others.
He's getting a lot of good support.
He's getting a lot of good financial support.
And he's getting a lot of volunteer support.
So I am certain that we are going to launch a very competitive race for the race of mayor in Horn Lake, Mississippi.
We also have a candidate for Alderman at Large, Larry McKinney.
So almost all of the Republicans have primaries.
There are two, three or four people on each spot.
And then they're gonna battle out whatever they're gonna battle out and then they're gonna face our candidate.
So it'll be Larry McKinney for Alderman at Large.
Then we move down to Ward 1.
And Ward 1, the incumbent is not running.
all three of those that in that race right now are all newcomers.
Our newcomer is Joshua Langford, and he is going to lodge a vigorous fight against whoever wins the primary from the other side.
Then we move to Ward 2, Yolanda Rooks is going to be running against whoever wins that primary.
Ward 3, we have someone from the Sheriff's Department.
He's a sheriff here in DeSoto County.
His name is Officer Morrell and he's going to be battling for the seat in Ward 3.
In Ward 4, we have Kelly Smith.
Kelly is a newcomer.
He's a young guy.
He's kind of new to the process, but he's very, very influential inside his ward.
The people there know him, the people there love him, the people there support him.
When he made his announcement, he probably had 500, 600 people that were singing his praises on social media.
So I think he's going to lodge a very competitive race in ward four.
Ward five, have Lashonda Johnson.
She's our returning Alderwoman.
She will be opposed this time last cycle she was not opposed.
There was no Republican in the race.
She will be opposed this time not in the primary but in the general election.
So we expect her to go back in there and fight and get her seat back in Ward five.
And then in Ward six, have Charlotte Armstrong.
Charlotte came within 50 votes of winning that election last time and trust and believe we're coming for that seat this time.
There's no doubt about that.
And Charlotte is committed to giving it a good, strong fight.
We're committed to getting in there behind her and making sure that she does that.
And so that as well is going to be a competitive race in Horn Lake, Mississippi.
There's always been talk about uncontested races and where you have the Republicans running two or three people and the Democrats essentially don't have a primary because
they only have one candidate.
Do you think that affects the voter turnout when it comes to the general election?
Jim, I think it depends on the mindset of the candidates.
So in our case, I don't think so.
And that is because we're not gonna waste the time that we have.
If you sit and you wait until after the primary to get started, then I would say yes, that probably is, because they're gonna be out in front of you.
But trust me, we are moving as though we have a primary.
Everything that we do, we're moving as though we have a primary.
But we don't have to waste time trying to get people to the polls for the primary on April 1st.
We don't have to deal with that.
The only thing that we need to do is to make sure we've delivered our people on June the 3rd.
So that's where our time and our effort is.
While they do that, we're gonna be getting our people ready to come to the polls on June the 3rd and support our candidates.
So no, I think there's advantages to being out, but I also think there's a disadvantage because that costs money.
You have to buy signs, have to do mailings, you have to do all of these things to try to even get to become the winner of your primary.
So you spent a lot of money and most of us don't have extra money.
While they're doing all of that, we're raising money.
So I think it levels out the playing field as long as you don't sit and wait and pretend as though nothing is happening until after the primary.
No, day one, we're going out.
We're going to get it.
Sounds like you've got a good plan because most candidates seem to me to wait until after they filed to start raising money and getting their organization together.
When in reality, they should have been doing that in October and November.
Correct.
What about as far as that's good.
importantly, we don't have to spend any.
It's also about walking the streets and knocking on doors in the local races, isn't it?
Absolutely, and that's one of the things that we'll be doing while they're battling, while they're duking it out amongst themselves.
That's one of the things that we'll be doing.
Canvassing, knocking doors, talking to neighbors, better understanding what their viewpoints are.
interested in the Democratic Party in DeSoto County, how could they get in touch with you or how could they become involved as a Democrat in DeSoto County?
So they can join our Facebook page, is DeSoto County, Mississippi Democrats.
So they can feel free to join our Facebook page.
It's a private group, but they're certainly willing, invited to join that.
They can send me an email and they can send that to chair.dcdec.
So DeSoto County, DC Democratic Executive Committee, DCDEC at
gmail dot com that's chair dot d c d e c at gmail dot com they can send me an email just let me know they're interested and I will make sure that they get where it what whatever
they're interested in doing and volunteering around I'll make sure that happens
Fantastic.
Thank you.
Now, do you guys have a monthly meeting, a weekly meeting?
Tim, tell us about that.
So we meet once a month.
We meet the third Thursday in every month.
And we also have an administrative committee that meets the first Thursday in every month.
So that's the group that kind of looks at things first, makes recommendations, sends those recommendations to the executive committee, and then we vote as a collective group from
there.
So those executive committee members were voted at the convention that we had in, I think it was March or April.
and they will be in place until 2029.
Thank you.
is there anything else, Deborah, that you want to talk about that we want to bring up?
So in terms of some deadlines, I'll go over a few of the deadlines.
So anybody who has not registered to vote, they have to vote no later than March 3rd.
You have to go down to City Hall for this particular municipal, for the city elections, you have to go to City Hall and you have to register to vote no later than March 3rd.
That is the deadline.
There are also absentee ballots.
So if for some reason you're going to be out of town, you have to work, or you've got some kind of conflict.
Or if you're 65 or older, you don't need an excuse.
If you're 65, you automatically don't have to come out on voting day and vote.
You can send an absentee ballot.
You can either mail them in, and they have to be postmarked by the deadline, or you can go down to City Hall and you can do it in person.
We always recommend going down and doing it in person because the mail is the mail.
Things happen.
Things get lost.
And if you go down there in person, then you don't have to worry about things being lost because
you took it there and you got a stamp from the clerk yourself.
So the deadline, if you want to go down there in person and vote absentee because you can't make it to the primary on April 1st, you have to do that no later than March 29th.
That is the deadline.
The primary election is on April 1st.
And also for absentee on that day, the 29th, you can only go as late as noon.
The office is only open until noon.
So you have to go ahead and vote absentee by 12 o'clock on March 29th.
And then the primary will be on April 1st.
If you are looking to vote in the general election, then you have to be registered by May 5th.
That is the deadline to be able to do that.
And then the general election itself takes place on June 3rd.
And you can go to vote anytime between 7 a.m.
and 7 p.m.
And just make sure that you have some form of ID because you will have to have ID required.
I also wanna add that if for some reason we have the primary and that during the race with the two people, one of them does not get 50 % of the vote, then they will have to move to
a runoff election.
And that runoff election, if they are forced to do that, will take place on April 22nd.
So a candidate, like I'm saying, there's two or three people, they may all run.
Somebody has to give 50 % of the vote.
If no one gets 50 % of the vote, they have to do a runoff.
And I think that's it.
Those are all my key dates.
Those are, those are very important dates for the candidates.
Let me talk a little bit about a little more national this morning.
Congress is talking about cutting Medicaid.
So I want to encourage everyone to get involved.
I want to encourage everyone to use that right that our ancestors and our forefathers and everyone has fought and died for, for our right to vote.
And just encourage everybody to make your voice heard because your voice is important.
Your voice matters.
and your vote does matter.
We do want to ask you about and get your
opinion on.
Jim just brought up Medicaid
That's how this is wanting to cut Medicaid by two point three trillion dollars.
And that's going to affect an awful lot of rural.
Mississons.
And we already have enough.
Problems with lack of emergency rooms, hospitals closing.
All those things that go along with it and.
all that.
And whether we like it or not, that is part of this election.
Because it's local.
And.
What happens locally affects me.
Right.
But also at the same time, I mean, it is a deported issue, but that's not something that as far as the mayors and the older people, I don't know if they have a lot of influence on
that.
Do they, Jim?
Mayors pick up the telephone and call their congressman.
They get, they get heard.
Okay.
I think the point that you're bringing up is even larger than just, that's not just a Mississippi issue right now.
It's a country-wide issue with everything that we're struggling through right now with them trying to get rid of DEI, trying to get rid of federal loan programs.
All of that speaks to the same issue that you're talking about, meaning that the least of us are being left behind.
You
like to us that the least of us are being cut out of the process and left behind.
And so I feel strongly about that.
across the board, not just in Mississippi, but certainly Mississippi is included in that as well.
I think the whole visual that we have right now of people ice going in and waiting at the school bus stops and taking kids off and talking about getting rid of the holidays and all
of these things that we've all been hearing over the last week are
concerning I think to all of us.
If we have any sense of empathy, any sense of humanity, I think that most of us and many of the companies understand that inclusiveness is good business, it's not bad business,
but for them to try to get rid of diversity, equity, inclusion, should be concerning to everybody.
So I will answer it in that way.
It's a good answer and it's also a very good reason for people to get involved and go vote.
Because if you don't vote, you don't have a voice in what's happening to you.
Exactly.
Absolutely.
If you don't go vote and then you do need to pay attention even if you do vote because I think there's a lot of buyer's remorse right now even from this last election.
I've heard that one of the most googled terms is can I change my vote?
No, you can't change your vote at this point so you have to do the research.
You have to do the research in advance and make sure that you know who you're voting for as well.
Yes.
Yeah, it is.
And I agree with you.
People are beginning to be surprised at what's going on.
And I was actually
Absolutely.
with the cancellation of Black History Month.
I just could not believe that.
And I don't think that's going to last very long.
I don't think so and I don't think anybody's gonna pay any attention to it because how you can't cancel a culture.
Unfortunately, people are still gonna celebrate in the way they're gonna celebrate.
So you can try to erase it, but as long as we're gonna still celebrate it, you haven't erased anything.
Excellent point.
That's important.
Yes, that's important for the soda counting.
just trying to, but you can't.
You are the second largest city in...
important for this whole country.
Yeah.
You're the second largest city in Mississippi.
Is that right?
county.
Second largest county.
We're not the second largest, well yeah, county, yes, but we're also the second most dense population of registered Democrats.
So the only county in Mississippi that has more registered Democrats is Hines County down in Jackson.
Number two is DeSoto County.
So DeSoto County has a lot of upside.
It has a lot of potential.
It has a lot of room to really change the trajectory of politics in Mississippi if we keep on track and we stay focused and we become better tacticians, quite honestly, here in
DeSoto County.
And that's what we're focusing on, becoming better tacticians.
If we do that, we are gonna start to see that DeSoto County makes the change and that we hope that that change will trickle across the state as well.
have any events that also involve the Memphis Democratic Party?
Do you have any events that are inclusive of the Memphis Democratic Party?
Because you border right up against...
done any...
We do, we do.
We have not.
We've done some things with Van Turner, but he's not the Democratic Party per se.
was NAACP.
He did some things with us here, but we really have not partnered per se with the Memphis Democratic Party.
That doesn't mean we won't, because I believe in collaboration.
And I think that that's the key to everything, and that you can't get out here and try to do everything on your own.
You have to partner.
And so I do believe in that, but that group is not a group that we have partnered with so far.
Okay Yeah, it seems it seems like because you're so close border wise and you've got a lot of
distribution and warehousing in DeSoto County.
And it's part of the Memphis distribution period.
So it would seem that eventually you might have some.
that their issues are a little bit different than the issues here in DeSoto County, but I would have to have a series of meetings with them and really determine that.
But I'm sure that even if our issues are different, that there have to be some things that we have in common.
I'm sure there probably are.
Turning out the vote for one thing.
Exactly.
are you guys seeing in terms of voter turnout?
I'm in DeSoto County, but in other counties across Mississippi or in the first CD, what are you all seeing in terms of voter turnout?
Is it increasing?
Is it going down?
Is it staying static?
What are you all's observations about that?
What I've seen is at the last moment, the last three four days, more Democrats signing up to run for office.
And I really believe that that is a result of national political situation.
Shailen.
Verona, Plannersville, Lafayette County is deeply there.
I'm sorry that Lee County does not have a mayoral candidate, but I believe four out of the seven council positions are being challenged.
And one position has got
four people running in a Democratic primary.
So at least in Tupelo, it's going to be a hot election period because all of the Democratic primaries have got challenges.
And Jim, you live in Tupelo, correct?
Yes.
This is, that's your home turf.
It is, it is encouraging.
There's two city council positions that I'm sorry, we don't have anybody running, but well, through Ashley, if I include the mayor, but in all practicality, they're not
winnable.
There's such a majority of Republican, but it doesn't make any difference who you would run.
They're not going to win it.
So we're going to end up concentrating our efforts on the winnable races.
That's exactly what we're doing too, concentrating on winnable races.
Briefly, I do want to touch on the situation in DeSoto County, which is coming from nationally, which is also affecting everybody in Mississippi.
We do know that Matthew Barton, who is the district attorney for DeSoto County, he was talking about, and he is pushing for a bounty on illegal immigrants.
a thousand dollar bounty.
Now we know that there's a Senator and I don't recall his name out of Bahalia who is pushing for this law.
It may happen, it may not, but it establishes a certification program for private citizens to track down undocumented
immigrants.
And to me, that is, to me, that is frightening.
You know, we do know that the legal experts are going to eat to, they say that it's unlike the measures, unlikely to pass, but just the thought that there's going to be people out
there deputized to hunt and be paid to.
find illegal immigrants is kind of frightening to me, you know, as a person and also as, you know, someone from Mississippi.
I hate that it's happening in my state and happening in my county.
And I hope that it does not pass.
And I would highly recommend that all of us contact our senators.
and our House of Representatives and let them know our feelings on that.
I just think it's atrocious that we would even consider that.
It's inhumane.
I mean, I don't know what happened to our humanity.
It's inhumane that we would be doing that, that we would be paying people to turn in their relatives and their friends for a dollar.
It's sad.
It's scary.
And it's not just DeSoto County, but all over the state they're looking to do the same thing.
And I agree with you that people should get on the phone and contact their senators, contact their congressmen.
and let them know that they're outraged by just the thought of their proposing bounty hunters to drag people out of their homes, their jobs, their schools to cash in on $1,000.
I think it's really sad and scary.
And I agree with you, David, that we need to make our voices heard around.
You
Well, if you don't know your history, it's bound to repeat itself.
And bounty hunting, like this, is nothing more than what the Nazis did.
And you had children turning in parents because they didn't know what to do.
And our legislation.
Absolutely.
Exact same thing.
And.
I had a thought that's escaped me for the moment, but.
Here's another step that if we don't take action
know our history because if you don't know it, you don't realize that it's being repeated.
Our history.
And if you know the history of the last five years in Mississippi, you notice that what happens in Mississippi all of a sudden happens all across the country.
The Supreme Court heard the Mississippi abortion case and look what's happened.
We lost Roe V.
Wade.
Every state has gone back to every conceivable way of trying to prevent healthcare for women.
Started in Mississippi.
So this is something we cannot have start in our own towns and in our state.
I mean, with a laughing stock in so many issues anyway, because we're on the bottom, we don't need to have this kind of thing going on.
And I'd also say that if our viewers need a list of their lawmakers, they can contact me at David.Oles, O-L-D-S, O-B-M-S.
at gmail.com and I can get them the emails and the phone numbers of all of our lawmakers in Jackson.
to produce Mississippi Happenings and to talk about local issues is not free.
It does cost money.
So if any of you would like to become involved, $10, $15, whatever a month, you can go to Mississippi Happenings.
And David assures me that there's a Venmo button and you can make a contribution.
Kind of consider it like Mississippi Public TV, where they say, we've got such and such foundation, etc, etc, etc, and viewers like you.
So every dollar counts.
Have you remembered what you wanted to talk about, David?
Absolutely.
do want to thank our sponsor for this podcast.
It is Alpha Insurance, 7047 Commerce Road, which is off Goodman Road in Olive Grange.
Ali Edgelolley is the agent there and he can help you with all of your...
insurance needs and we so much appreciate him for his support along with all of our supporters.
Anything else we got?
I think that does it, David.
Deborah, any last?
comments.
No, I'm just going to encourage everybody to get involved however you want to get involved.
I think it's past time for us to sit back and just allow things to happen.
We have to get involved in some way to try to make a difference and try to push back on these rollbacks that we're all seeing happen every day.
That starts with your vote.
So if you haven't voted, I'm just reminding you again, you only have until March 3rd.
to in the primary and you only have till March, May 5th to vote in the general election.
So most of our candidates don't have competitors, we won't have a primary.
So you need to vote by, you need to register by May 5th to be able to vote for our candidates that are on the ballot.
So I just encourage you to do so and I just remind you that you do matter, that your voice does matter and that your vote does matter.
Thank you so much, Dr.
Williams, for being with us today.
Thank you so much for your passion and thank you for the information that you shared with us today.
Jim, you have anything to add?
I don't think so.
Okay.
I do want to close.
of you.
appreciate it.
Thank you, thank you so much.
And I do want to close with this, this, and that it's a wish and it's a hope that may we never be indifferent to the suffering of others.
So thank you, Dr.
Williams.
We appreciate it.
And thank you so much.
Okay.