Phil Bryant

Governor of Mississippi

• Born: December 9, 1954
• Place of Birth: Moorhead, Mississippi

Education: Mississippi College; University of Southern Mississippi

Phil Bryant was the sixty-fourth governor of Mississippi, where he was born, raised, and educated. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he worked for a short time as deputy sheriff in Hinds County before returning to school to earn his master’s degree in political science. He worked for a time as an insurance fraud investigator and was pondering a transfer to Texas when a talk by President Ronald Reagan concerning community service convinced him to stay in Mississippi and run for office.

In 1991, Bryant was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives. In the House, he served as vice chairman of the Insurance Committee and pushed for fiscal reforms. He served as a legislator until 1996, when he was appointed Mississippi state auditor. At this post, he helped recover more than $12 million in taxpayer money that had been embezzled or wrongly spent. He was officially elected state auditor in 1999 and reelected in 2003.

Bryant won the race for lieutenant governor of Mississippi in November 2007 with 59 percent of the vote. One of the first items on his agenda was to make the state government more transparent through live webcasting of senate meetings and by making legislators post their ethics reports online. He also championed stricter laws for undocumented immigrants, including immigration status checks for both employers hiring new employees and police officers making traffic stops.

In 2011, Bryant announced he was running for governor of Mississippi. After a successful campaign, he was officially sworn in on January 10, 2012. Shortly into his first term in office, he presented his legislative agenda, which included initiatives aimed at expanding the economy, making the state government more efficient and accountable, and ensuring adherence to fiscally conservative values. His administration has worked to promote small business, stronger education, and private investment. Some of his policies have met with opposition from liberal groups, including gay-rights and abortion-rights activists.

Background

Dewey Phillip Bryant was born on December 9, 1954, in the Sunflower County town of Moorhead, Mississippi. His father, Dewey C. Bryant, was a diesel mechanic, and his mother, Estelle R. Bryant, was a homemaker who took care of Bryant and his two older brothers. The family later moved to the Jackson area.

Bryant attended Jackson’s McCluer High School, graduating in 1973. He decided to enroll at Hinds Community College while working in a tire store and went on to attend the University of Southern Mississippi, where he received his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. He was the first member of his family to graduate from college. In 1976, he married his wife, Deborah Hays Bryant. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, Bryant took a job as a deputy sheriff in Hinds County, Mississippi.

Bryant continued his education at Mississippi College, a Baptist college in Clinton, where he earned his master’s degree in political science. To afford the cost of raising a family, he left his post as deputy sheriff to take a higher-paying job as an insurance fraud investigator.

In 1986, he was part of a Junior Chamber of Commerce (Jaycee) group that was invited to the White House to meet President Ronald Reagan. The president encouraged the group to become leaders in their own communities. This speech inspired Bryant, and after several years in the insurance business, Bryant turned down a transfer to Dallas, Texas, to stay in Mississippi and run for office.

State Politics

Bryant’s political career began in 1991 when he was elected to represent his legislative district in the Mississippi House of Representatives. There, he served as vice chairman of the Insurance Committee and helped promote conservative fiscal reforms by authoring the Capital Gains Tax Cut Act of 1994. During his first year as a legislator, Bryant began to rally against the marriage penalty in Mississippi’s tax code (a situation where some married couples pay higher taxes than if they were each single).

He served in the House until 1996, when he was appointed to the position of state auditor by Governor Kirk Fordice. While serving as Mississippi’s auditor, Bryant helped recover more than $12 million in taxpayer money that had been embezzled or inappropriately spent. He was officially elected state auditor in 1999, and re-elected in 2003, winning eighty-one out of eighty-two Mississippi counties. Beginning in 2001, Bryant began serving as a part-time adjunct professor teaching American government and politics at his alma mater, Mississippi College.

In 2006 he issued a report condemning Mississippi immigration law. He claimed that undocumented immigrants cost the state $25 million a year for education, health care, and various other social services. While many agreed there needed to be stronger immigration laws, critics of the report believed Bryant ignored the role that immigrants played in the state’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

In 2007, Bryant ran for lieutenant governor of Mississippi. He defeated state senator Charlie Ross in the Republican primary, and Democrat Jamie Franks in the general election. Bryant officially took office in 2008 as Mississippi’s thirty-seventh lieutenant governor, ending his term as state auditor. During his first week in office, Bryant pushed for live webcasting of senate proceedings to provide a greater level of government transparency and access to the citizenry. Acting on the same motivation, Bryant championed a broad ethics reform that required officials to file their ethics reports online for taxpayers to see.

As lieutenant governor, Bryant continued to push for stricter immigration laws. In 2008, Mississippi passed a law requiring all employers to go through a federal electronic verification system to ensure that their applicants were in the United States legally. He later supported a bill that would allow police officers to check people’s immigration status during traffic stops. This bill failed to make it through the Mississippi legislature.

Bryant supported much of the agenda of Governor Haley Barbour while serving as lieutenant governor under him. Alongside Barbour, he pushed for the approval of large state incentives for a German manufacturing company to produce stainless steel pipes in Mississippi’s DeSoto County. Bryant also supported Barbour’s approval of a biofuel company’s plan to build three plants in the state to convert timber into an oil substitute.

Governor

In 2011, Bryant ran for governor of Mississippi against the Democratic nominee, Johnny DuPree, then mayor of Hattiesburg. In the November 2011 elections, Bryant won with almost 61 percent of the vote. He was officially sworn into office on January 10, 2012. During his inaugural address, Bryant outlined his agenda, which included thirty-one initiatives concerning economic expansion, an efficient and accountable state government, and adherence to fiscally conservative values.

In March 2012, the Mississippi House and Senate passed legislation addressing some key points in Bryant’s "Mississippi Works" jobs agenda. The House passed the Energy Sustainability and Development Act of 2012, which would have furthered Bryant’s jobs goals by incentivizing workforce investments made with money saved from energy efficiency upgrades. The bill, however, died in the Senate. Bryant’s Mississippi Works agenda also called for dual enrollment opportunities for potential high school dropouts seeking admission to community and junior college workforce development programs. Dual enrollment legislation passed both the House and the Senate.

His first administration also saw its share of controversy. In 2012, Bryant signed into law a bill that requires abortion clinic doctors in Mississippi to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. He enacted this bill as part of an effort to end abortion in the state. The bill was roundly opposed by abortion-rights activists. Bryant signed another controversial bill in 2014, banning abortions after twenty weeks of pregnancy.

In April 2014 he signed the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a piece of legislation that supporters claim will ensure the state government cannot interfere with the practice of religion. The law also added "In God We Trust" to the Mississippi state seal. Critics of the bill believed it might lead to state-sanctioned discrimination against gay and lesbian people. Gay-rights supporters and advocacy groups heavily protested the bill.

After taking office in January 2012, one major aspect of the Bryant administration’s agenda was revitalizing Mississippi’s economy through business, health, and education initiatives. Bryant took measures to champion small business growth, improve the health care industry, and reform education policies and the state’s criminal justice system.

To boost access to medical care for Mississippi residents, and to increase the number of health care jobs in the state, Bryant signed into law the Mississippi Health Care Industry Zone Act in 2012. This created an incentive program to encourage health care related businesses to locate or expand with designated "health care zones" within the state. The same year, he signed the Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Act to help small businesses flourish in Mississippi.

According to the governor’s office, his commitment to economic development led to more than twenty-one thousand jobs and more than $3 billion in private-sector investment in his first term. On the education front, legislation passed under Bryant provides dual enrollment opportunities for school dropouts pursuing community and junior college workforce development programs.

Bryant devoted the 2013 legislative session to improving public education in the state. On April 17, 2013, he signed a law initiating several reforms contained within his education reform agenda, which include ending status-quo social promotion policies, rewarding teacher quality, increasing school choice, and improving college and career readiness. The agenda also calls for salary increases for teachers.

For the 2014 legislative session, Bryant pushed for ample criminal justice reforms to ensure further transparency in the state’s sentencing policies. His agenda called for placing more law enforcement officers and prosecutors within Mississippi communities.

Bryant won reelection with about two-thirds of the vote in 2015, beginning a second, more controversial term in January 2016. He soon proclaimed April as Confederate Heritage Month without mention of slavery, prompting outcry. Then in April 2016, Bryant signed a religious freedom act allowing refusal of service to same-sex and unwed couples and transgender people on moral or religious grounds; the use of conversion therapy on foster children; job and housing discrimination based on religion; and forced gender expression for trans students in schools. In March 2018, Bryant passed a law restricting abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy, which was struck down in federal court on due-process grounds that November and again the following year in appellate court. In March 2019 he signed a so-called heartbeat bill banning nearly all abortions after about six weeks; it was struck down that May.

Due to term limits, Bryant could not run for reelection in 2019. In January 2020 he joined a newly founded consultancy on governance, economic development, and public relations. His honors as governor included the naming of a University of Mississippi Medical Center building in 2018 and receipt of the Mississippi College Order of the Golden Arrow Award in 2019.

In 2022, the former governor was subpoenaed in a welfare fraud scandal. John Davis, a Bryant appointee who served as director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services, funnelled tens of millions of welfare dollars in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to projects that sports celebrities championed. Davis, a woman named Nancy New, and several others pleaded guilty to state and federal charges. Former National Football League quarterback Brett Favre received $1.1 million in TANF funds. He was supposed to give motivational speeches and tape ads for the payment. Another $5 million in TANF funds was funnelled to the University of Southern Mississippi to build a volleyball stadium. Favre's daughter was on the volleyball team at the time. A further TANF allotment of $1.7 million went to a pharmaceutical company in which Favre was invested. Later in 2022, Bryant received a second subpoena to allow the court to review text messages between Bryant and Favre regarding a drug company, Prevacus, which was working to develop medications for concussion. The Associated Press reported in February 2024 that New claimed in court papers that Bryant told her he expected to receive a hefty financial interest in the drug company after he left office. In May 2024, Bryant filed a lawsuit against a reporter and the former publisher of the magazine Sports Illustrated, claiming defamation over reporting about the scandal.

Impact

One major aspect of the Bryant administration’s agenda was revitalizing Mississippi’s economy through business, healthcare, and education initiatives. Bryant took measures to champion small-business growth, improve the health care industry, and reform education policies and the state’s criminal justice system. However, his actions on abortion, race, and LGBT issues all engendered controversy. Investigations into the welfare fraud scandal continued to plague him after he left office.

Personal Life

Bryant and his wife, Deborah, have two children, Katie Bryant Snell and Patrick Bryant.

Bibliography

"About Governor Bryant." Governor Phil Bryant, n.d. Web. 18 June 2014.

"Gov. Bryant Details Mississippi’s Progress, Goals during State of the State." Mississippi Economic Council, n.d. Web. 18 June 2014.

Le Coz, Emily. "Mississippi Governor to Sign Anti-Gay Bill into Law." Huffington Post, 2 June 2014, www.huffpost.com/entry/mississippi-anti-gay-bill‗n‗5079148. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.

"Mississippi College Graduate Phil Bryant Elected Governor." Mississippi College, 10 Nov. 2011, www.mc.edu/news/mississippi-college-graduate-phil-bryant-elected-governor. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.

Pettus, Emily Wagster. "Governor Candidate Profile: Phil Bryant." The Commercial Dispatch, 29 July 2011, cdispatch.com/news/2011-07-29/governor-candidate-profile-phil-bryant. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.

Pettus, Emily Wagster. "Mississippi Ex-Governor Expected Stake in Firm That Got Welfare Money, Says Woman Convicted in Fraud." Associated Press, 28 Feb. 2024, apnews.com/article/mississippi-welfare-misspending-favre-bryant-concussion-a6523ccea2af08019a583c1a5254345f. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

Pittman, Ashton, and William Pittman. "Ex-gov. Phil Bryant Sues Over Sports Illustrated Story on Welfare Scandal, Alleging Defamation." Mississippi Free Press, 10 May 2024, www.mississippifreepress.org/ex-gov-phil-bryant-sues-over-sports-illustrated-story-on-welfare-scandal-alleging-defamation/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

Richinick, Michele. "Mississippi Governor Bans Abortion at 20 Weeks." MSNBC, 24 April 2014, www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/mississippi-governor-phil-bryant-bans-abortion-20-weeks-msna314521. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.

Rogers, Alex. "Mississippi Governor Signs Controversial Religious Freedom Bill." Time, 4 Apr. 2014, time.com/49682/mississippi-phil-bryant-religious-freedom. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.

Wolfe, Anna. "Attorneys Drop Hints that Feds are Eyeing Former Gov. Phil Bryant in Welfare Investigation." Mississippi Today, 20 Jan. 2023, mississippitoday.org/2023/01/20/phil-bryant-welfare. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.