Last week I looked at the duties of several elected offices in Mississippi because many voters often aren’t sure exactly what the roles they are entrusted with selecting are supposed to do. With huge elections looming in less than a week, here’s a glance at other county positions that will be on the ballot that I didn’t cover last week, along with some of the more obscure state positions that people might not know much about:
Sheriff
Duties: Keep the peace within the county as well as run the county jail.
Comments: Traditionally, this was the biggest, baddest dude in the county. Now it’s evolved into an administrative role responsible for a multi-million dollar budget, including the mine-filled task of running a jail. It’s just as important to have someone who can balance a budget as fight crime.
Circuit clerk
Duties: Registers voters, keeps records in circuit court, which hears felonies and lawsuits, takes marriage licenses and has broad duties related to elections.
Comments: As the full-time officials over elections, circuit clerks bear much of the responsibility for running good elections, even if officially by law those duties are assigned to the parties in primaries and election commissioners in general elections.
Chancery clerk
Duties: Keeps records of the chancery court, which include things like divorces, land records, child custody and estates, as well as serving as the clerk of the Board of Supervisors and preparing the county’s claims docket (i.e. getting the county’s bills ready to pay).
Comments: This is the closest thing, I guess you would say, that the county has to a mayor. The role is very influential and important for the good functioning of government.
Tax Assessor/Collector
Duties: Set the value for tax purposes of all property in the county and then collect all taxes owed to the county.
Comments: The most important thing from the taxpayers’ perspectives is having good internal controls because a lot of money goes through this office.
Transportation Commissioner:
Duties: Three members, elected from northern, central and southern districts, decide how highway maintenance, funded by the gas tax, is done, as well as other transportation projects like railroads and airports.
Comments: A hired executive director runs the Mississippi Department of Transportation, which is intended as a way to balance these political offices, which tend to give favors to influential supporters, with the actual engineering needs.
Public Service Commissioner
Duties: Like transportation, there are three elected members, and they set rules for communications, electric, gas, water and sewer utilities, although not all of them are regulated by the PSC.
Comments: These regulatory bodies are intended to be a watchdog over utilities, but over time they tend to fall into the utility companies’ pockets, as happened before the Kemper fiasco. It’s important for the public to pay attention and elect people who will stand up for the public’s interest rather than that of big companies. Ditto for insurance commissioner, who similarly oversees insurance regulations.
State Treasurer
Duties: Receives and keeps up with state tax money that comes in and oversees bond issues.
Comments: Again, you’ve got to have a strong, independent official who is not a pawn of the bond companies, who are very wealthy and influential.
Attorney General
Duties: Official lawyer for the state and can sue on behalf of it, as well as aiding law enforcement in investigations.
Comments: The AG, under Democrats, has brought in lots of money to the state by suing big corporations. It will be interesting to see if and how that changes now that Republicans, who are usually more business friendly, presumably take over in 2020.
Charlie Smith is editor and publisher of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him via email at csmith@columbianprogress.com.
