With longtime State Sen. Terry C. Burton retiring, three candidates are in the race to represent District 31 in the Mississippi Senate.  

The district encompasses Newton County, Scott County and Northwest Lauderdale County. 

Two Republicans—Tyler McCaughn and Hampton Gardner—and Democrat Mike Marlow spoke to the Meridian Star about K-12 education, healthcare and infrastructure. 

McCaughn and Gardner will face off in the primary Aug. 6 with the winner facing Marlow in the general election Nov. 5.

Tyler McCaughn

“District 31 is a diverse district,” said McCaughn, who referenced a wide range of employers from La-Z-Boy Home Furnishings and Decor to defense contractor Raytheon. 

“It’s full of hard-working, God-fearing people.”

McCaughn, a native of Scott County, is a farmer and attorney in Newton. 

He said there is too much of an emphasis on testing in schools and not enough on curriculum “even if there needs to be a measuring mark.”

Still, he believes Newton County’s results on the Reading Gate—a test that assesses third-graders’ reading ability and determines if they advance to fourth grade—were a sign that teachers are doing a good job.

The Newton County School District placed second in number of students who passed the test, with 92.5 percent meeting requirements.

“All teachers need to be adequately paid,” he said, but lawmakers will need to “make sure the funds are there.”

“(Teachers) say (a recent $1,500 raise) is not enough, and I agree,” McCaughn said. “But I also believe it’s not enough for an individual to stay in a hospital, making minimum wage, taking care of a loved one. If I send a loved one there for a condition, I would like for the best to be there as well.”

He said he will do what’s necessary so that local industries expand in District 31 while working with nearby governments to grow East Mississippi.

To bring more industry to the area, good infrastructure is a necessity, he said.

He “would consider” voting to raise gas taxes to improve infrastructure, but stressed that he would need to “see the language.”

“A use tax makes more sense than adding onto an ad valorem tax,” he said. “The gas tax that went through, it’d be great for state aid roads. We’re still not doing anything for our counties.”

He would “tread lightly” on Medicaid expansion.

“You’re putting people back on that system. You’re never going to take them off that system. What happens when the feds pull that 900 million down to 500 million, or if they take it away?”

“I think that (expansion) is an alternative, but I just want to be sure we’re not walking into something that we can’t get out of.”

McCaughn added that he will support law enforcement to prevent gang violence from growing, that he is pro-life and a defender of gun rights.

When he announced his run in a statement, he stressed agriculture’s importance to the district and said he will “fight for our farmers to keep our family farms thriving and food source safe.”

Hampton Gardner

Decatur native Hampton Gardner’s experience in insurance has prepared him to get his feet wet with the Legislature, he said. 

“My daughter being a teacher, I get an earful (about K-12 education) all the time,” he said. 

Gardner added that he is for teacher pay raises and thought a recent $1,500 raise was “great,” but he does not want more raises at the cost of higher taxes.

“We did get a pay raise, but then the state reverted that back to the taxpayers,” he said, citing House Bill 1643. “On the other hand, we’ve got millions in surplus for emergency funding that we’re not touching.”

Gardner said he would support a bill that provided technical training in high schools.

“There’s young men and women who would rather work with their hands than sit behind a desk,” he said. “I’d endorse a bill like that in a heartbeat.”

The next senator will have to “sell” District 31 to manufacturers, he said.

“You’ve got to be willing to give to receive,” he said, pointing to tax exemptions Nissan received during its first ten years in Madison County, according to Gardner.

He would “absolutely” support Medicaid expansion, he said before quickly adding that “it can get abused” and “there’s got to be rules, and those have not been worked out yet.”

“The main issue is they don’t one day say, ‘Ok it’s over’,” he said. “So, we want to lock everything in so it doesn’t revert back to the state.”

Gardner said the program’s expansion would help rural hospitals.

He wants regulation that would ensure flat, single rates on charges. 

“I don’t want there to be two sets of fees, whether you have insurance or don’t,” he said.

He would not support a gas tax for road and bridge repairs, he said.

“Honestly and truthfully, I hate to say that I hate tax,” he said. “I am taxed to death and I know my people are tired of taxes. We need to review our spending in Jackson.”

He did not specify any areas where money is being spent unwieldy but said he will know where they are when “I get my hands on the papers.”

“You’re not in business 39 years without having a few chances to put together a budget.”

Mike Marlow

“That’s what I’m running on,” Marlow said when asked what he thought of the state of K-12 education in District 31. 

He serves on the Scott County Emergency Planning Committee and is Scott County’s emergency management agency director.

“Since 2010 we’ve been underfunded about 77 million dollars,” Marlow said. “Just in Lauderdale County, alone we’ve been shorted about 33.7 million.”

Marlow said those tens of millions of dollars, under the MAEP, should have gone “straight to the classroom.”

“The supermajority has seen fit to spend that money in other places,” he said. “Some of the places it’s been spent is the unnecessary testing we’ve had. We’ve sent a million dollars to a private school in Oxford, Mississippi—a private kindergarten; two million to private school vouchers.”

“Our legislators have a track record that they basically want to gut public school funding.”

Scott County and Newton County have had to raise taxes at the local level to make up for shortages, he said.

Marlow would support changing Medicaid so that it would “offer assistance to the working people who make too much to qualify for it and not enough to afford it.”

Marlow cited the Mississippi Hospital Association’s program, Mississippi Cares, which has been called an expansion or a reform by different candidates, as a program he endorses.

“To provide assistance to those (working but uninsured people), I don’t think it’s expanding Medicaid,” he said. “I don’t think that’s the right terminology.”

“If we can get that passed, that gives stability to your rural healthcare system,” he said. “That’s where your working folks—the majority of them—are located.”

He chose to not comment on a gas tax raise, saying there is not enough information right now. 

“We’re already taxed to death,” he added.

Funding K-12 education will be “ground zero” for economic development and curbing poverty, he said.

“You’re getting an influx of new money, good money, high-paying jobs and your tax base raises, and your poverty rate starts to dissipate.”