Jackson, Miss. (WLBT) – Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann and other top elected officials have reached and surpassed the 100-day milestone on the job.
“None of this was in the brochure. I’m just telling you, when we ran for this, we had so many things we were interested in doing,” said Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann.
He said he’s still interested in doing things like improving education, healthcare and safety of Mississippians, but the task at hand right now is COVID-19. I asked him if he thought we are trying to re-open the state too soon.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said, “You know, I think we will add up the score at the end of this, Howard. Right now, I think we need to support the governor. He’s asked medical people what to do and what not to do. Whether we should’ve opened a day earlier or closed a day later or whatever, all of those, this is really, there’s no road map for this, so everybody’s going off their best efforts and everybody in state government that I know of, all our statewide elected officials, we meet every Monday. We’re all trying our dead level best and if we’re off a day, one way or another, a couple of days, I really can’t tell you, that’ll only really come out at the end of this when we look back historically.”
Historically, Governors and Lt. Governors haven’t always been in complete lockstep, so I asked Hosemann how he and Governor Tate Reeves are getting along.
Hosemann replied, “Well, he’s been busy and we have been busy. His busy is over this pandemic. My busy is trying to balance the budget for the state of Mississippi and set priorities for how we’re going to address what will clearly…. we’re just like a regular business. We’re going to have less money and we’re our overhead stays the same. So, I’m just like every family or small business in Mississippi. Most of my time has been spent on how we’re going to pay for for the reduced income, how am I going to pay my bills.”
And the lieutenant governor said he expects lawmakers, in the next legislative session, to discuss and come up with a way to have enough PPE in stock, so that we won’t have to scramble to get it.
“We need to plan as if it’s coming back and pray that it doesn’t,” said Hosemann.