(Drew) MDOT presents The Extra Mile Podcast: Legislative Session.

(Paul) Welcome in to another episode of The Extra Mile Podcast: Legislative Session presented by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. I’m MDOT Deputy Director of Public Affairs Paul Katool and as always I’m joined by my co-host Will Craft. He handles government and constituent affairs here at the agency.

And Will, the batteries are hopefully recharged. We’re rested up. The 2023 legislative session is underway. And the last time you heard from us we teased that we once again would be doing weekly episodes during the legislative session. That is indeed the case.

And for the first episode we thought we’d try something a little different. Our guest is from outside of MDOT and she’s not an elected or appointed official though we will have plenty of those in the coming weeks. Today we’re pleased to welcome Emily Wagster Pettus. She is with The Associated Press and this week twenty-two years at the AP.

(Will) Really?

(Paul) That’s quite the career with The Associated Press. Thank you so much for coming in and talking with us.

(Emily Pettus) Absolutely. I’m happy to be here. Thank you for asking me.

(Paul) Of course. Of course. So, let’s start out 22 years that’s a long time. How did you initially get into journalism and then you know why in particular did you want to be a political reporter?

(Emily Pettus) Sure. So, I grew up in Texas. And when I was in eighth grade I signed up as a home economics class as an elective. My English teacher Mrs. Gray came to me and said, um, no you can write a complete sentence so I’m recruiting you to the newspaper. So, I started working for the Hawk Highlights at Pleasant Grove Junior High School and never look back. I guess I never had an imagination to go into being a stockbroker or a dentist or something that would be more lucrative. But yeah. I’ve just always wanted to be a journalist ever since then. So, here I am.

(Will) That’s really cool. How about the political aspect of it? Was that always kind of a passion of yours?

(Emily Pettus) Yeah. I’ve always been interested in politics. And I went to Ole Miss and graduated from there. And once I got out I had my mind on trying to cover politics. So, when I was working for The Clarion-Ledger back in the 90s and the legislative job came open and I was like please you know, can I do that? So, yeah this is actually regular session No. 30 for me. That’s what makes me feel so old. So, yeah.

(Will) That was The Clarion-Ledger right after college?

(Emily Pettus) Um, the Vicksburg Evening Post for a year.

(Will) Okay.

(Emily Pettus) And then The Clarion-Ledger for ten and a half.

(Will) Ten and a half. Yeah.

(Emily Pettus) So, yeah. Yeah. Been covering the legislature since 1994.

(Will) A long illustrious career.

(Emily Pettus) Kirk Fordice was my first governor broke me in.

(Paul) Oh wow. So, when when the session starts are you looking forward to it or you’re like Oh, I’ve got to hunker down you know really you know work hard for three months?

(Emily Pettus) I mean honestly, my job hasn’t given me much of a break during the off session with like the Jackson water crisis and various other things going on. So, I do always kind of look forward to the legislative session a little bit like the first day of school, you know?

(Paul) Awesome.

(Will) And so, back up just two seconds because I’m curious about this. So, again with your long-standing career and everything you’ve seen all these years and experience. The media landscape right things have seemingly changed a little bit in the last few years. Now we’ve got podcasts everywhere and Twitter’s you know the animal that it is, Facebook, social media. People get their news from all over the place.

(Emily Pettus) That’s right.

(Will) And not so much seeming like to me from print media. Have you kind of noticed that and dealt with it as you go through

(Emily Pettus) I mean it’s changed tremendously since I got into journalism. And as you mentioned you know Twitter is one way to get information out quickly. We use that a lot during legislative sessions. We will often live tweet debates. And yes, I still write the traditional story that people read either in a printed form in the newspaper or on their telephone.

Um, the deadlines are much more immediate. You know, I used to write one version of the story and I could kind of you know go back kind of like stretch my fingers so I’m gonna work on my lead now. But I mean now it’s much more immediate like you’ve got to go, you know get back to your laptop and get at least a version of the story out there as quickly as you can.

(Will) I believe it because the nature which things happen so quickly which you just said. Um, yeah, man, I’ve never thought about that part of it. Yeah. If you’re somewhere covering a story then you got to turn around you got to get it out too.

(Emily Pettus) That’s right.

(Will) So, you got to get ahead of the camera almost uh

(Emily Pettus) Pretty much.

(Will) Because it’s so quick. Wow.

(Emily Pettus) Yep.

(Paul) Goodness.

(Will) Yeah.

(Paul) So, we want to look forward but let’s look back a little bit. Uh, so, MDOT covering MDOT over the years. Are there any memories or any stories in particular that stick out in your mind?

(Emily Pettus) You know, that’s a really good question. And I have to say that MDOT is one of the agencies that I have not covered intensely as I’ve covered some other things like Medicaid and Human services for example. Um so, I would love to have a great story to put out here about MDOT coverage, but my coverage has mostly been from the perspective of being at the Capitol trying to follow infrastructure funding like when the legislature did the um Road and Bridge local funding

(Will) Yeah. Right.

(Emily Pettus) with the lottery. Yep.

(Will) Yeah in a special session. How many special sessions have you been a part of?

(Emily Pettus) Well, let me say first there’s nothing special about a special session. Um, I’ve been part of lots of special sessions.

(Will) I’m sure.

(Emily Pettus) I don’t have a number on that. But, um, you know, there for a while there were governors who were calling them for a big thing. I mean, you know, there have been things like Nissan and Toyota…

(Will) Sure.

(Emily Pettus) Continental Tire. And there have also been special sessions for projects that really kind of didn’t go anywhere. Um the post Katrina session was really something. I mean that was obviously a great need in the state to get some things done. So, yeah.

(Will) Fingers crossed no specials this year.

(Emily Pettus) Right. That’s right.

(Will) Knock it all out. Um, well talking about the session you know and there’s always stuff going on. This one is a little different. Not so much different but every four years it kind of looks like this. Does the election season of it kind of play into anything goes on legislative wise?

(Emily Pettus) Oh my goodness. That will be the overriding theme of this session, right? Most of them are running for re-election. And of course, if they’re going to put their name on the ballot they want to come back.

And so, yes. They’re going to look at further tax cuts. They’re going to look at the possibility of some sort of compensation increase for state employees whether that’s a pay raise or some money going into the public employees retirement system. There’s going to be some showboating believe it or not.

(Will) Right.

(Emily Pettus) Um, yeah. I know shocking, right?

(Will) And I mean again like you just said, you know, it’s it’s always something in the back of their heads. I know because you have to run for an election. You gotta that’s a process you have to through with and deal with. You have to put your name out there. So, I can imagine it is pretty heavily weighing on their minds right now whether they want it to be or not. It’s always kind of in the back of your head that right around the corner I gotta get on the ballot here.

(Emily Pettus) That’s right.

(Will) Um, and I guess we’ve changed qualifying deadline.

(Emily Pettus) It’s earlier. That’s right. It used to be March 1. It’s February 1 now. So, it’s a very short time period if people want to run for office starting today up through February 1. Get your name on the ballot. And that’s you know for legislature, statewide, regional offices also for like county supervisor offices like that.

(Will) Yeah. So, it’s coming up quick. So, all that going on in the background too. I can’t imagine.

(Paul) Yeah very much so. Uh, so, MDOT podcast. During the 2023 legislative session what are you looking at when it comes to MDOT and transportation infrastructure?

(Emily Pettus) One thing I know specifically is that Delbert Hosemann said in the interview with reporters this morning that he’s looking at putting an additional $100 million dollars into roads and bridges. Now that’s probably more like local funding than state funding. But as y’all know and I’m sure your listeners know because they’re savvy. A lot of the MDOT money comes from the federal government and so that’s essentially like pass-through money. You know, the legislature has to approve it, but it’s there’s not a lot of policy debate like trying to take money away because you know it’s federal money. It’s coming here. Yeah.

(Will) And and we’re more than happy to see that $100 million uh to come this way. If I had to guess that maybe one of a number of things you know got the emergency road and bridge program which is exactly what you were just talking about a minute ago. And that’s usually about that $100 million number.

Um, you know, the other two things that we’ve had in the past this past session as a result of the federal money was having that match money to be able to receive all of the federal money that we were getting. So, I know there’s a couple of things that that hopefully are on the radars and they’re getting worked out over there. But yeah like you said day one too, right? We’re getting the ball rolling. I think they gaveled in at noon today. And I’ve seen I saw a couple out at lunch today too. So, everybody’s moving around. Got the suits in town.

(Emily Pettus) That’s right. The suits are here.

(Will) We’re wide open. Yep. Uh, Paul. What you got? Anything else?

(Paul) Oh, yeah just um, so we talked MDOT a little bit but obviously there are other things going on in the session so what are you keeping tabs on when it comes to really anything else out there?

(Emily Pettus) Well, Jackson water of course. That’s a big issue. I mean not just for the city but for the entire state of Mississippi. Jackson’s having the problems now. Other communities are going to start having problems in the future because as infrastructure ages problems come up.

And so, you know, Jackson’s a capital city. Um, the health of the state relies on having a healthy capital. So, that’s one thing. We did ask both the speaker and the lieutenant governor about this today. There was they did not make any commitments to throw any more money towards Jackson. I mean there’s millions of dollars going from the federal government right now. So, that’s one big issue.
Um, we’re going to keep an eye on as I said the compensation for state employees because that’s always a topic of discussion during election year. They did a big teacher pay raise last year so, I don’t expect they’re going to come back with another big package for that.

But they are going to look at things like funding for the possibility of school districts that want to go to a modified school year calendar. So, instead of having a long summer break you would have like nine weeks of classes, two weeks off, nine weeks of classes, two weeks off. And during those two-week intervals the students who need some sort of remediation would be able to get help so they don’t fall so far behind.

There are a few districts around the state that are doing this already. Corinth was one of the early adopters. And you know, it’s really a community. It’s going to be a community decision. Delbert Hosemann said that the state’s not going to force this on anyone but if districts want to go to it and they need to have some bureaucracy erased and they need to have a little extra funding for it. He’s wanting to push that issue. It’ll be interesting to see if the house jumps on board with that as well. So, yeah.

(Paul) Awesome.

(Will) There’s always things that you know are at play over there that we don’t necessarily know or follow, but it’s always interesting to hear you know the education stuff. Obviously, that’s not really one that we’re following and making sure because we’ve got to make ends meet elsewhere. But I didn’t even know that that was a conversation about the

(Emily Pettus) You know and it’s interesting there are implications for a lot of things. I mean if you look at the way families lives are structured. You know, parents at this point are accustomed to finding daycare plans for their young children during the summer so, then you look at a different calendar. Maybe you’re having to worry about two weeks of daycare at a time but more often during the year for example. It probably impacts high school sports which a lot of people care about. You know, you look at when the volleyball season starts in late July, early August for example. If you’re on a modified school calendar and you’re on your two-week break during that time period how does it impact volleyball, football, softball or whatever.

(Will) Yeah. I would have to say that would be totally just alien to me. I’m sure you know for whatever reason they’re trying it so there must be some good things that are happening.

(Emily Pettus) Right.

(Will) as a result of it. Um I’m sure it makes it easier in some ways and harder than others maybe. I don’t know.

(Emily Pettus) I think a big argument in favor of it from the people who like it is that I mean, and I don’t have a position on this, but I think people who like it say that it helps students retain their learning. Like you don’t have that big loss of learning that you have during the summer when you’re not there for however long.

(Will) Probably true. I had to look up my password just from being the couple days we had in and out with the Christmas holidays where I can remember to log in up there. It’s always stuff going on. Go ahead, Paul.

(Paul) Oh no worries. So, we do have some fun questions for you. Before then is there anything that sticks out in your career of covering politics in Mississippi past thirty years? What maybe a favorite story or anything that’s happened during that time?

(Emily Pettus) Oh my goodness. I mean I mentioned Kirk Fordice up front on this, and you know he was that was a heck of a way to be broken in as a young reporter covering him as governor because he didn’t love us. And you know, um, he didn’t make any secret of that. So, I mean Fordice was certainly an interesting character. Um, slightly traffic related, he did have that big life-threatening accident on election night 1996. I was in the newsroom. We were just expecting to cover congressional elections and Bill Clinton getting reelected. And all of a sudden my editor comes in there. She’s like, “Oh my, God! Kirk Fordice had a wreck!” And you know, like we had to scramble that night and find out what happened to him. And it was crazy.

(Paul) Wow!

(Emily Pettus) So sort of traffic related I guess.

(Will) Anything dealing with Governor Fordice I know it was entertaining and a lot to deal with.

(Emily Pettus) That’s right.

(Will) In the heyday.

(Emily Pettus) Yeah. That’s right so

(Will) So, there’s one more random one for you before we get to the question.

(Paul) The most important question

(Will) You mentioned income tax or taxes and election year all these things. Are you hearing anything about specifically income tax? Are they going to kind of try and further work on that?

(Emily Pettus) It’s interesting you asked that because just today um how Speaker Philip Gunn modified his stance ever so slightly on that he’s been saying firmly that he wants to eliminate the income tax. You know, this is the last year’s speaker that’s been his goal all along. And today, he’s like you know what? Yeah. I still want that, but I’m also open to a lot of other discussions. So, instead of phasing in the current tax reduction over four years maybe we can squeeze it into a two or three-year time period.

(Will) Okay.

(Emily Pettus) Or maybe instead of having a four percent top bracket we can end up with like a 3.5 or 3.75 percent top bracket. Um, it was interesting because he wasn’t like it’s my last year I have to have it gone altogether like he’s kind of you know maybe taking a more realistic approach to there are people who want to talk about a lot of things so maybe we’ll talk about a lot of things.

(Will) It might still happen anyway.

(Emily Pettus) It might but you know, I mean Delbert Hosemann was really saying um at this point he’s reluctant to make big structural long-term changes to the tax structure because we don’t really know what’s going to happen with the economy in the next couple of years so, he’s looking at maybe um a like one-time rebate if you paid $400 in income taxes, you can get up to 400 back one time instead of having it something that’s built in permanently.

(Will) Right. I think I do remember hearing something about that now. Yeah. I don’t know if we actually realize much in that one-time rebate or if it would be better to like you said have something kind of permanent come of it. I don’t know.

(Emily Pettus) You know, a lot of it I mean a lot of it’s um your sort of philosophy of the size of government. Like how much service do you think government needs to provide. And you know, it is no secret that Mississippi is one of the poorest states and there are a lot of um, you can call them unmet needs, you can call them something else, but there are a lot of things that people think should be done that are not getting done. Like there are rural hospitals that are really financially struggling right now just as an example.

(Will) Oh and that conversation about the core functions. You know, what is the government at its core level supposed to provide? And I think that debate continues to rage uh daily.

(Emily Pettus) Absolutely.

(Will) Yeah.

(Paul) Fascinating. Will, It’s your time.

(Will) The ringer. The ringer.

(Paul) It’s your time to shine.

(Will) So, this is uh one that we started jovially having this question at the end of every podcast. And it’s quickly become apparently a listener favorite. We love to eat. We all like to eat. It’s Mississippi.

(Emily Pettus) That’s right.

(Will) So, we got a food question for you.

(Emily Pettus) Okay.

(Will) And we can kind of do this two-phased. So, one you spend a lot of time traveling the states I know being a journalist and covering a lot of material being all over the place. Is there anywhere around the state where you’re traveling maybe a hole in the wall, maybe a place you don’t get to go by too often that it’s just man we got to go check it out?

(Emily Pettus) You know, one of my favorites, I think it’s not open anymore. I used to live in Ocean Springs. And I would drive across the bridge to Biloxi, and I would go to Old Biloxi Schooner and get the shrimp po’boy with cheese and put a bunch of hot sauce on it.

(Will) Okay.

(Emily Pettus) And get some fried okra and a cold Barq’s. And to me that was like the greatest meal.

(Will) And it’s not open anymore?

(Emily Pettus) I mean I think they moved after Katrina and then I think they moved again. And I don’t think that they’re still open. I would be so happy if I were wrong about that.

(Will) The podcast team is on it. We’ll check it out.

(Paul) We’re doing some research.

(Will) What about when you’re in Jackson? What about your session going on or whatever brings you here? Is there a favorite spot?

(Emily Pettus) Yeah. So, I live in Jackson.

(Will) Okay.

(Emily Pettus) This is my home. So, my husband and I like to get Thai food on Friday night.

(Will) Oh, yeah.

(Emily Pettus) Pick that up. Take it home. Um, you know, I spend a lot of time downtown so, you know, got lunch from Basil’s today.

(Will) There you go.

(Emily Pettus) Steve’s downtown. There’s also an Ethiopian restaurant downtown that I really like.

(Paul) Oh. It’s really good.

(Will) You’ve been to that one?

(Paul) Yes. Yes. I forgot what it’s called.
(Emily Pettus) Shiro.

(Paul) Yes. It’s great.

(Emily Pettus) It’s small. It’s family run. Um, the woman who runs it couldn’t be nicer. Like you go in there and have a pleasant conversation with her and she’ll dish your food up and it’s it’s a good meal.

(Will) I’ll have to check that out.

(Paul) I do believe she’s like the only person that works there. She like cooks the food and runs the register and everything so

(Emily Pettus) Occasionally her son will be in there like during summer break.

(Paul) Okay. Yeah. There we go.

(Will) I have to go check that out.

(Paul) It’s very good.

(Will) That’s pretty good. Oh, my last comment here got to give a shout out to our folks Brian and Hunt uh taking care of us, checking us out on the podcast. Hope you enjoy the episode and all the good info. Good to see you guys out there.

(Paul) Alright. Well, it’s certainly been fascinating. I’ve certainly learned a lot as we kick off the 2023 legislative session. Emily, thank you so much for coming and joining us.

(Emily Pettus) Yeah. Hey, thanks for having me.

(Paul) Absolutely. So, we’ll go ahead and wrap things up. Thanks to all our listeners out there for uh tuning in to The Extra Mile podcast. You can watch and listen to episodes by visiting GoMDOT.com/TheExtraMile. Follow us on social media at @MississippiDOT, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. We want to thank our producer Katey Hornsby, our editor Drew Hall. They do a lot of work behind the scenes. And remember to drive smart out there on Mississippi highways.