Guest announces candidacy for congress

Madison County and Rankin County District Attorney Michael Guest announced at the Oktibbeha County Courthouse on Thursday he will run as a Republican for the U.S. House of Representatives for Mississippi’s Third Congressional District.

The seat was previously occupied by Republican Rep. Gregg Harper, who recently announced he will not seek re-election in 2018.

Guest served as the District Attorney for both Madison and Rankin counties for 22 years. He said since 2008, his offices are responsible for the prosecution of over 20,000 felony cases.

“We have worked to protect our citizens from those that would prey upon others,” Guest said. “I have dedicated my life to keeping our community safe.”

Guest told the audience he would be running on a platform fighting for limited government, lower taxes, pro-life, strong national defense, support for the military and its veterans and protecting the Second Amendment, as well as all other constitutional rights.

and discussions on the bill, ” Chism said.

Chism, who voted in favor of the formula, explained his support.

“MAEP is a formula that has been in existence for 20 years, and we have funded it only twice,” Chism said. “What this bill did was shift from district (based) funding to per-student funding.”

Chism also said the new bill would fund all Golden Triangle school districts except Columbus Municipal Schools at the same level as in years past, and Columbus’ amount would drop only because the district has lost students. However, the bill will keep the funding at the same levels as in years past for two years.

Roberson also raised the point of MAEP seldom being fully funded.

“This formula that we voted on yesterday is just a lot easier to understand,” Roberson said. “It actually, over its implementation, guarantees $107 million into that formula that was not guaranteed before. There’s something wrong with a formula that’s only been funded twice in 20 years.”

Roberson also said some of the issues he had with the original bill were cleared up while it was in committee, including work on changing the “27 percent rule.”

The rule is spelled out in MAEP allowing a community to provide no more than 27 percent of funding for education.

“That’s probably going to be fixed in the next week or so,” Roberson said.