Ellington

Photos by Roy Adkins

Rep. Jamie Franks, D-Mooreville, does not have the most expressive mug in the world. Somebody in his life taught this guy that looking you directly in the face is the only way to have a conversation, so his eyes keep a direct, unsettling stare on you throughout any exchange.

This doesn't mean that Franks is stoic. On the contrary, he wields emotion like a battered hockey stick. This session, he's been ganging up with like-minded thinkers on the House floor, pushing through bills that favor the middle class.

It's a kind of ballet, actually, if you watch them work.

People in North Mississippi are losing their jobs, Franks will announce from the floor.

Isn't it true that these same people have no health insurance? asks Rep. Cecil Brown, D-Hinds, almost rhetorically.

Why, yes it is, Franks will answer.

You know they closed Oreck down south, pipes in Rep. Diane Peranich, D-Pass Christian, from somewhere in the back. That's at least 300 people unemployed now, she adds.

That does it. The working man needs us, announces Rep. Ricky Cummings, D-Burnsville, from the left side of the aisle.

And so, Democrats have managed to push a bill increasing unemployment payments to approval with 86 "yeas," before the other Democrats even begin to pile on.

To think, critics call the Mississippi Democrats disorganized.

Franks sat down recently with the Jackson Free Press to speak on his political views and his desire to run for lieutenant governor.

We always start with the basics. How old are you?
I was born December the 26, 1972. I'm 34.

Ooooh, you're a youngster. Great, now I feel old. You got any kids?
I've got a son, James Roger Franks III. He goes by Jayce, and he's 6 years old. I've got another son, Nicholas Parkman Franks, and he's 2 years old. I'm married to the former Lisa Parkman, born and raised in Byram, and then moved to Florence. She's a graduate of Jim Hill High School.

Really? We (Murrah High School) kicked their tails a couple of times—at least in the 1980s, I'm sure. How long have you been in politics?
Well, I was first elected to the Mississippi House off Representatives, at age 22, in 1995—been almost 12 years.

Looks like you aspired early to be in politics.
I had a friend of mine, who was a member of the House, and he was running for re-election. I helped him do that, and then I helped him with his congressional campaign. He won the Democratic primary in 1994, beat the incumbent speaker of the House, Tim Ford, and then he lost to Roger Wicker. It was a bad year for Democrats in 1994, like '06 was a bad year for Republicans.

Who was your influence early on, when you were first gaining political awareness?
I had a congressman, by the name of Jamie Lloyd Whitten, who's one of the longest-serving members ever of the U.S. House of Representatives—served for over 54 years. Whitten was the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and I saw from him how you could deliver for your people and make their lives better. Congressman Whitten was able to have a profound impact on bringing electric power or rural water systems, to getting people out of the mud and putting them on paved roads, and bringing jobs and infrastructure, doing the kinds of things to make people's lives better.

Any national leaders?
When I was born, Richard Milhous Nixon was president of the United States, and, of course, he had to resign, and then we had President Carter. I remember going to participate in the election process for the first time in 1980. I went with my grandmother, who was born in 1897, so I guess that made her 80-something years old—maybe 83. We went to the polling place and I said, "Grannie, who are you voting for?"

She said, "'I'm voting for Jimmy Carter."

I said, "Why are you voting for Jimmy Carter when everybody I know is voting for Ronald Reagan?"

She said, "Well, I tell you, son. I was an old lady working on a farm with my husband, trying to raise my children in the Great Depression. When it comes to Republicans, they're going to be on the side of the people with money, the big corporations, the powerful and the mighty, and you don't ever need to be for them because they're not going to be for you."

Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority didn't make a dent in her during that time, huh?
My grandmother was the daughter of a Baptist preacher, and she was probably one of the most godly women that I've ever come by. I've never heard her cuss, never heard her say anything bad. Her values were taking care of people and making life better for people, not simply paying lip service to some set of values that you don't even have when you go out on Saturday night.

Amazing. More than I could probably say about my grandparents. Say, you're an attorney, right?
I practice law in Tupelo. I'm a partner in the law firm Wheeler and Franks there.

What are some of the biggest issues facing the state right now?
I think the No. 1 issue facing Mississippi right now is education. The economic-development tool that you can give somebody in Mississippi is a first-class, high-quality education. We need to do everything we possibly can to fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. I've fought to do that since 1997. I'm going to continue to do that. I'm glad that the House has stood strong in that position, over the objections of the state Senate—even over the objections of Gov. (Haley) Barbour. Since it's an election year, they've finally come on board, but in my opinion, our children's future cannot simply be taken care of in an election year. They need to be taken care of all four years of a four-year term.

You're pretty confident full MAEP funding will survive the Senate this year?
I think it will. I think it will.

What about the minimum-wage increase bill that recently got out of the House? What kind of chance do you think it stands?
I represent a very rural district in the very rural northeast Mississippi, and I speak to several different classes each and every year and talk to young people who are graduating from high school, who are going to go to college and do different things. That's an issue that they're very concerned about—making enough money to be able to afford to go to college, to be able to buy their books, to be able to afford the tuition or to be able to put gas in their car, to simply have a better way of life. It's a big issue with young folks. It's a big issue to working families. You may have a single mother out here working two jobs at minimum wage, and she still can't make ends meet. We should be rewarding work in this state, and you can do that with a higher wage. That's why I supported the minimum wage bill.

(Ed. Note: Franks voted against an amendment to the House minimum-wage bill that disqualified high school and college part-time workers from an increase in the minimum wage.)

What about some Republicans' argument that we need to wait until House Dems push a wage hike on the federal level? The argument is that if our neighboring states have the same labor cost increase then they can't take advantage of our state-limited higher wage to siphon off Mississippi businesses.
We've been waiting on the federal government for the last 10 years. We've seen the Republicans in Congress, time and time again, refuse to give working families in this nation a minimum-wage increase, but we've seen them, time and time again, vote to increase their salary by almost two times the average per capita income here in Mississippi—and that is wrong.

(Off to the side) I'm gonna get to preachin' here, ain't I?

Throw it on out there. Hey, what about that cigarette tax increase? Do you know when the House is bringing that up?
I have no idea.

Will you be getting behind it?
I'm going to support raising the cigarette tax in this state and cutting the sales tax on groceries. In my opinion, there's something wrong when you have the second lowest cigarette tax in the country and the highest sales tax on groceries in the country. We need to do something about that. Everybody eats. Everybody has to buy groceries, and we need to give working families and senior citizens and low-income people a reduction on their groceries. But at the same time, cigarettes cost the state of Mississippi a lot of money on health-related issues, and we need to recoup that money.

It's something that should have been done a long time ago, and it would've been done had we not had a governor who happened to be one of the highest-paid tobacco lobbyists in Washington, D.C. If you'll go check his ethics reports, you'll find that Gov. Barbour has a blind trust, and you'll find that he put his interest in Barbour, Griffiths and Rogers LLC in a blind trust. If you go and look at the U.S. House of Representatives for lobbyists, and you go look at the U.S. Senate for lobbyists, you'll find that Barbour, Griffiths and Rogers still represent the biggest tobacco companies in the world. The almighty dollar is waiting here.

Do you think a cigarette tax and grocery tax cut would survive a governor's veto?
It's an election year, and things get a little strange in the election year. Republicans vote crazy, and Democrats vote crazy, too. I don't know, but I do know that people in this state deserve a reduction in sales tax on groceries, and hopefully that will happen.

Are voters telling you that's what they want?
Polling tells us that it's popular, but polling doesn't mean anything. It's just the right thing to do. I come from a family where I never had a grandfather. My grandfather died at 62 years of age from lung cancer from smoking. He had two other brothers that died in their early 60s from using tobacco—from smoking. He had two other brothers who never smoked. They lived to be in their late 80s and early 90s. Thirty years is a long time. I think we need to educate the people of Mississippi and have some kind of smoking cessation program that models the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi, to make sure that we prevent young people from smoking now. After all, you've got a lot of tobacco manufacturers that market to children.

Sounds like Barbour isn't opposing the Partnership replacement outright.
Well, we'll see.

Tell me why you're running for lieutenant governor.
I'm running for it because I've served in the Legislature long enough to know that the rich have their lobbyists, the poor have their advocates, and average Mississippians have no one. I want to be that voice. I want to make a difference in the lives of the people of this state. I want to see a progressive state Senate that will not kick 65,000 elderly and disabled Mississippian off of Medicaid, a state Senate that will override a gubernatorial veto when the governor's wrong on the issue. I want to see a state Senate that takes health care and education and other issues that affect the lives of the people of this state and makes them a priority—not simply be beholden to the big corporations and the big campaign contributors that fill their campaign coffers.

You're looking to step into a very Republican Senate. Can you think of any names over there that are already bristling at the prospect of having you lord over them?
I have no idea. I've had very little contact with the Senate this session. I've been working hard on a lot of issues and trying to take care of the issues in my committee. I'm the chairman of the Conservation and Water Resources Committee. A lot of important legislation comes through there, and we're trying to deal with that.

I'm still representing the people of District 19, Itawamaba, Lee and Tishomingo Counties, and I've got to fulfill that over the next few months. The campaign will kick-off after the session ends.

But you've got to have your feelers over there already. Word has got to be getting back to you of the people who are resenting you already.
The situation is: I don't think the people are Democrats or Republicans. I don't think the people in Mississippi are on the right or the left. They're at Wal-Mart. They're concerned about their lives. They're concerned about their community, and they're going to vote for a candidate who will best represent their interest in the state Senate as lieutenant governor.

I think it's going to be about my story, about where I come from, about my opponent's story, where they come from, what our views are and how we differ on those views. I think there's a clear-cut difference of vision that we have for Mississippi, depending on who my opponent is.

Let's talk about some of the beliefs that may come between you and some senators.
Well, here's where I'm at: My family has been working the land of Itawamba County for five generations. It was from them that I learned respect—respect for the law, respect for the land, but most of all, I learned respect for God. And protecting that respect will be my No. 1 priority as lieutenant governor.

Here's what you got to understand about me. I come from a rural, working-class background. My parents both work in a factory. My father's been at Day-Brite Lighting for the last 36 years. My mother's been there for the last 40 years. They taught me the value of the hard-earned dollar and the value of an honest day's work. I'm the only member of my family that has a college education. They taught me those values—a good, strong work ethic—and it's allowed me to fulfill the American dream.

I've done well by the grace of God, and you know, I didn't get my values from the national Republican Party, nor did I get them from the national Democratic Party. I got them growing up in rural Mississippi, from my parents, and that little Church of God church on Briar Ridge Road. I may not be as conservative on some issues as a lot of members of the state Senate, but I'm probably more conservative when it comes to social issues than most people. That may be a problem for me with some Democrats, but I think we can reach common ground, and I think we can come together and do what's in the best interest of Mississippi.

Last year, when we dealt with the Mississippi Gulf Region Utility act, I had several people that said "There's no way you can do that," or "You're just pitting yourself against the governor and you'll try to kill it just because it's something that he wants." But we sat down and worked through it, with all the members of the House and with the supervisors from the Gulf Coast and municipalities, and we came up with a product that seems to be working rather well. Now it seems we're going to have to revisit it and make a few changes. But at the same time, we were able to come together and hopefully make the Mississippi Gulf Coast a better place by spending that $600 million on the utility districts.

What was the point of contention?
Gov. Barbour wanted to appoint a board that would make a determination on where the money was spent. I said, "No. If there's going to be a board then it has to be made up of local folks, and the local folks have to make the determination on where that money is spent, not the politicians in Jackson."

Did the Senate fight you over it?
We had a battle.

Barbour also has the advantage of a Republican Washington that basically bailed out the state and gave us a temporary budget surplus.
Well, Haley Barbour can claim credit for the hurricane bailout but at the same time, he's got to claim credit for the shortcomings of his administration. We've seen property taxes raised all over the state because of not funding MAEP. We've seen homeowners on the Mississippi Gulf Coast not getting their grants in a timely fashion. We've seen lawmakers allowed to profit off the storm. … To me, it's more important to take care of the people who are living in FEMA trailers and tents than Republican lawyers who serve in the Legislature.

It bothers me that when you go to clean up the debris, you find that Ashbritt, Haley Barbour's former clients, gets the contract, and it bothers me that one of the largest contracts that went to a single Mississippian went to his own niece. It bothers me that when you look at his nephews that come up here and lobby the Legislature, you'll find that most people—to get a bond bill passed—have to go through them. Or if you look at what his nephews made off tobacco companies—they made hundreds of thousands of dollars off tobacco companies, representing them. State government should be looking out after people, not simply taking care of the Barbour family.

That leads us to the topic of oversight, doesn't it?
We passed an oversight bill. We didn't say we wanted control. We didn't say we wanted to mandate where the money was spent. We said we wanted transparency. Open the books, let the people see, and what's wrong with that?

As lieutenant governor, would you be willing to revisit that?
Well, I believe in transparency. That's one of the things that we've seen happen in Washington. The Republicans there thought they could take power to the extreme. They thought they were invincible. They thought they could make the money, take it, grab it, pull it out of every hole. That's something that we need to make sure that the state Senate has—an ethics committee that's active and an ethics committee that works.

You were in Washington recently, right? Did you get to shake hands with Nancy Pelosi? We have a few fans of Pelosi among our readership.
I did get to shake hands and talk to Ms. Pelosi. I am proud that we have something that we've never had before, that we've broken the gender gap, and we now have a woman as speaker in the U.S. House. Pelosi and I come from very different worlds, and we have some very different views on some issues, but we do believe that the people of this country deserve better. We're going to do everything we can for the people of this country, not just the corporations of this country.

How do you feel about the Democratic Congress' 100-hour blitz?
I believe that the Democrats can retain control in the United States as long as they remain centrists. We've seen the Republicans take a far-right agenda. Not only would they march up to the cliff, but they'll jump off. That's taking it way too far. You've got to have checks and balances, and sometimes you cannot simply stand with your leader. You've got to do what is right and in the interest of the people.

Is there any particular item in that blitz that you care about?
I think that ethics reform that they're passing is something that's imperative because the fox does not need to be guarding the henhouse. We need to make sure that our lawmakers are held accountable. Those people make over $150,000 a year. They ought to be able to take care of themselves. If the average Mississippian can get by on what we do, then they ought to be able to make it off the $150,000-plus that they get.

Republican Chairman Jim Herring thinks that Mississippi is very conservative. What's your take on it?
I think it's conservative when it comes to social issues, but I think most Mississippians want you, as a governor or a legislator or lieutenant governor, to look out for the interest of the people.

How is it that this state continually votes for a Republican president?
The Republicans have been able to use the term "conservative" to talk about the moral issues and convince Mississippians to vote that way. They have looked at the issues of things like same-sex marriages—looked at issues like abortion and things of that nature—more so than they've looked at the economic issues. I think people have seen that the Republican Party has been in control for 12 years. We've seen a Republican president for six years, we've seen Republican appointments in the U.S. Supreme Court, but we have not seen these things change. And I think people are waking up to the knowledge that they've been sold a bill of goods—a pig in a poke, as I was taught as a child—and they understand that, "Hey, these people may not have been telling us where their values really were."

It's unbelievable what these people have done. You've seen the corruption scandals; you've seen people go to jail. Where did morality come in there? And if you're so against abortion—

How did you vote when Rep. (Steve) Holland put that abortion ban bill out during the last session?
I voted to ban abortion. When Holland's bill came out in the last session, I voted in support of it. If (Republicans are) so against abortion, then why haven't they banned it? Because they want to be able to keep using it as an issue. It's not about acting on the promises they made.

People on both sides of the aisle are complaining that the Legislature has become more partisan than it ever has been. Is that your opinion, too?
We have seen Washington-style politics brought to Mississippi by the governor. Either you vote with Barbour, or he tells you he will beat you. He's going to try to beat me—there's no doubt about it. Now I've been with him on some stuff, I've been against him on some stuff. I know he's going to do everything he possibly can to beat me, but I think the people of this state deserve a choice. I'm not running in his tent. There will be a separate race that is a referendum on him, and he'll have to run on his record and talk about what he's done, and I'm anxious to see how he portrays himself to the people of the state.

Chat about state politics at StateDesk.com, the JFP's new statewide political wire.

Previous Comments

ID

80836

Comment

I had hoped that Rep. Franks would come across as more of an unapologetic progressive--I didn't expect him to jump out and preach about the need for marriage equality, but "the poor have their advocates"...if someone were elected lieutenant governor as an advocate for the poor, that would be a beautiful thing. Because it has never happened. Ever. Every politician in Mississippi, in both parties, claims to stand for old-fashioned family values and the needs of the middle class. Nobody actually stands up and says "I represent the rich," and a scant few will say up and say "I represent the poor." Barbara Blackmon came close enough to winning as an unapologetic progressive last time around, despite a disastrous campaign against a candidate who had built one of the most substantial bipartisan support networks in state history, that I can't help but think Rep. Franks would be able to do better if he would more clearly establish the differences between himself and Ross/Bryant. Rep. Franks will almost certainly get my vote, since the NARAL Pro-Choice Pledge was for 2006 and since I think he would do some good things for this state if elected, but I wish I could be more enthusiastic about his platform. There is nothing here that really distinguishes him from Ronnie Musgrove, and we all remember what happened to Ronnie Musgrove when he ran his half-measure conservatism against a more forceful conservative. I suspect Rep. Franks will meet the same fate against Senator Ross if he doesn't bring a progressive fire, a progressive passion, to his campaign. I don't expect him to turn a 180 on social issues, but he needs to give his campaign something that will energize prospective voters. In the final analysis, this is going to be about ideas and vision as much as it is about the personalities of the candidates. Rep. Franks probably has some great ideas rolling around in his head that would really benefit this state--I saw a hint of that in his proposal re: property rights a few weeks back. I hope he runs on those ideas, and not on the "I'm middle class, I'm family values" platform he laid out in this interview. Ross and Bryant can also convincingly play themselves as being middle class and family values oriented. I'm pretty sure that won't win the election for a statewide Democrat. Maybe it would have 20 years ago, but not now. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2007-01-26T02:55:34-06:00