Recent editorials from Mississippi newspapers:
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Dec. 15
The Dispatch on changing eviction laws in Mississippi:
When it comes to evictions, there are no winners.
For the property owner, when a tenant is unwilling or unable to pay the rent, it’s a loss of income that the owner may need to maintain his business.
For the renter, it can be devastating. They find themselves without a home and the record of an eviction can make it difficult to find housing.
Yet while there are no winners, some lose more than others.
In Mississippi, the advantage goes to the property owner. Mississippi’s laws governing landlord-tenant give the tenant few options.
A current lawsuit illustrates the imbalance.
In February of 2019, Samantha Conner was evicted from her Columbus apartment after a constable served an eviction notice. Conner was told she had to vacate the premises immediately and would not be allowed to take her personal possessions nor those of her teen-aged son.
The crux of the lawsuit relies on whether the landlord had a right to keep Conner’s property without providing her ample opportunity to remove the possessions between the time the court issues a judgment and the time the eviction is executed. An ambiguous state law currently allows a landlord to get a judgment and evict on the same day, giving the tenant virtually no time to remove their possessions.
Did the property owner act in good faith? In this case, it’s hard to fault Conner. A justice court judge had already ruled that Conner could have until the end of the month to either pay the outstanding rent or collect her property and vacate the apartment. Unknown to Conner was that after that ruling, the landlord sought an eviction from another justice court judge and under that judge’s order no provisions were provided to allow Conner time to collect her belongings.
Landlords who act in good faith aren’t usually punitive. They simply want tenants to abide by their rental agreements. When it comes to evictions, landlords typically want the tenant to take their possessions with them.
Renters, meanwhile, are not always intent on getting “free rent.” More often, they are unable to pay their rent because of unforeseen circumstances — unexpected expenses or the loss of a job, for example.
But as Conner’s case indicates, the law should allow for those who face eviction to have an adequate amount of time to secure their possessions. We do not believe a landlord is entitled to those items by default.
But we believe both are entitled to fair treatment. The Legislature should amend the law to allow renters a reasonable amount of time to gather their possessions before evictions are executed.
Online: https://www.cdispatch.com/
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Dec. 11
The Greenwood Commonwealth on President Donald Trump’s unsupported claims of voter fraud and reactions to prior U.S. presidential elections:
Unless something drastic happens, Joe Biden will become president next month with a significant number of Americans questioning his legitimacy for office.
He will be the latest in a line of four presidents to face such skepticism. Biden’s chief opposition comes from the incumbent president, Donald Trump, who clearly has no plans to leave office quietly.
Trump claims massive vote fraud in at least six states that Biden won, but the Republican president’s lawsuits have been dismissed for a lack of proof by both Republican and Democratic judges. Four years ago, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton, Democrats sounded similarly sour notes because Clinton won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College. In their view, this made Trump an illegitimate president, and Democrats spent four years trying to exact revenge.
The same allegations of illegitimacy occurred in 2008, when Barack Obama won the first of his two terms. His critics, which notably included Trump, claimed that Obama had not been born in the United States and thus was ineligible to hold office. Even after Obama produced his birth certificate, Trump did not back away from his claim until a month before the 2016 election. No doubt some people today still mistakenly believe Obama was born in Kenya.
The final example was the 2000 election, which is the only one on this list that involved a very close Electoral College vote. After weeks of counting and recounting the votes in Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in and put a stop to it, giving the presidency to George W. Bush. It was a bitter loss for Democrats.
There are two points to be made here. First, the American political pendulum is designed to swing back and forth, with the two parties taking turns holding power.
One-party dominance of Washington is rare and usually short lived, with the only significant exception of the past century being the coalition Franklin Delano Roosevelt put together for Democrats starting in the 1930s.
It should be no surprise that for the past 32 years, Democrats and Republicans have traded the presidency regularly. Voters are fickle, and recent history proves enough of them are willing to change their minds. Second, the past two decades have shown a clear trend of the defeated side being more than disappointed. They now tend to be angry and resentful, convinced that the fix was in.
In 2000, Democrats believed a Supreme Court with a Republican majority got political. In 2008, some vocal Republicans believed Democrats got away with letting a disqualified candidate run. In 2016, Democrats claimed that the Electoral College’s extra weight to states with smaller populations thwarted the will of the people - even though Trump won more states than Clinton.
And this year, Trump claims that he actually won the vote and would be getting ready for a second term if not for election trickery from Democrats and unsuspecting Republicans.
The conclusion is obvious: We have become a nation of sore losers. This is not a good thing.
Online: https://www.gwcommonwealth.com/
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Dec. 9
The Vicksburg Post on how county and city officials in Mississippi are working together to combat the coronavirus pandemic:
From day one, local leaders - those on the Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen and the Warren County Board of Supervisors - have been united in their approach to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.
From day one, leaders at the city and county level have communicated and worked in concert with one another to give a single message to avoid confusion and frustration among residents.
Even when the message and decision have been met with contempt and strong disagreement by the public, local leaders have stood strong in the belief that the measures they are taking are done with the public’s health in mind and made with the best advice and information available.
From day one, local leaders have consulted local medical officials gotten their advice, took their recommendations and put their suggestions into action. Almost weekly, leaders have taken part in conference calls where the number of new cases, the surge in testing, the number of virus-related deaths, and more, are taken into strong consideration before action is taken.
In the first few press conferences, held in mid-March as the local pandemic was in its infancy, local leaders stood side-by-side with health experts as information was passed on, questions were asked and initial actions announced. Even though those press conferences have grown more scarce, and the number of those participating has grown fewer, the cooperation between government officials and medical experts has only grown stronger.
Long before the city and county issued mask mandates days apart from one another, local medical officials were calling for such action. Warren County was among the first in the state to have municipal and county leaders join together in issuing such mandates.
And, more important, those leaders have continued the mandates long after state lawmakers allowed a crucial statewide order to expire.
Earlier this week, the Board of Supervisors were asked if they wanted to expand their current and long-standing COVID-19 emergency orders to require masks to be worn outside when social distancing was not an option. They declined to do so not because they did not feel residents should wear masks when they are in close proximity to others outdoors, but they felt their current orders covered such.
Even though one supervisor felt the city was overreaching in its new orders, it does not mean the board as a whole does, nor did it mean the board’s leadership did. It was one person’s opinion, said in public and reported as such.
The city and county have not always worked well together. That has been well-documented and part of the reason why so many members of the former Board of Supervisors are now former supervisors.
For anything to get done in Warren County, especially a successful fight against this virus, city and county leaders must work together, communicate and take actions that benefit all involved.
Warren County does not succeed if Vicksburg does not, and the opposite is also true. Yes, there are differences between the civil emergency orders put in place by the city and the county. But what they share is a common mission, built on strong science, strong data and a goal of protecting the lives of those who call Vicksburg and Warren County home. One voice of dissent is just that - one. It is not nearly enough to unravel what has been a successful partnership thus far.
Online: https://www.vicksburgpost.com/
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