Tuesday, roughly 880,000 Mississippians went to the polls to determine who will represent the state in the U.S. Senate, a great turnout for a runoff election. Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith defeated Democrat Mike Espy for the right to serve out the remaining two years of Thad Cochran’s seat.
Hyde-Smith, appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant to hold the seat until the special election, now becomes the first elected female Senator from Mississippi, winning by a 7.8 percent margin. That’s the closest a Democrat has come in a Senate race since Wayne Dowdy lost to Trent Lott in 1988 by that same margin.
While disappointed, Democrats can be encouraged by that relatively narrow margin of defeat heading into next year’s state races. After the debacle in the 2015 election when a Jackson truck driver emerged as the Democratic nominee for Governor and was predictably steam-rolled by Phil Bryant, the Democratic Party has a pulse and, perhaps, a bit of momentum.
Setting aside the Senate race, it is important to note that some other very important positions were in play during Tuesday’s vote, including chancery court judges in the Golden Triangle region.
In the District 14, Place 2 runoff, Joe Studdard defeated Carrie Jourdan while the Place 1 race between Rodney Fave and Lee Ann Turner may be determined by affidavit ballots, which had not been counted as of press time Wednesday morning.
The third chancery court judgeship went to Paula Drungole-Ellis, who defeated Roy A. Perkins for the Place 3 seat in the Nov. 6 general election.
While not diminishing the importance of the Senate race, a case can be made that these chancery judge positions affect more people in more ways and for a longer period of time than almost any other elected position.
More commonly known as family court, chancery courts deal with non-criminal cases involving such things as divorces, child custody, guardianships and estate disputes. Often, there is no red-letter law to determine which party in these cases will prevail and unlike criminal court in most cases, it is the chancery judge — not a jury — who determines the outcome.
Probably the first written example of a chancery court case is found in the Old Testament. It was a child-custody case that was used as an example of King Solomon’s wisdom.
Then, as now, there is no way to really “split the baby,” although joint custody and generous visitation is something available now that was not an option in Solomon’s day. Even so, the decisions chancery judges make can affect individuals and families for a lifetime. That’s an awesome responsibility to bear.
We congratulate Drungole-Ellis, Studdard and the winner of the Faver-Turner race and hope that they exhibit something close to the “wisdom of Solomon” as they assume their difficult and important role in January.
We also take a moment to express our gratitude to retiring chancery judges Kenneth Burns, Dorothy Colom and Jim Davidson for their long years of honorable service.
We also applaud the voters who performed their civic duty through exercising their vote.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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