Transcripts For CSPAN3 Washington Journal 50 Capitals Tour - Jackson Mississippi - Jim Hood 20180208

They spoke to jim hood. From washington journal this is 30 minutes. Fjoining us on the cspan bus is mississippis long serving attorney general jim hood. What is the secret to getting elected statewide in very red mississippi . I was lekted in 2003. I think i was grandfathered in. But, you know, Law Enforcement issues, fighting cyber crime, protecting children, those issues are sort of nonpartisan in our state. There are large dependents in many other states. One of the cases youre working son a case about prescription drugs and the cost include recently won. Describe that for us. It was one of those cases where there was average wholesale pricing and one particular company wattson pharmaceuticals, the company was really a bad operator. We had to try the case. It went on for about ten years. And a very conservative judge issued a 20 million punitive damage verdict against them. We recovered 33 million. Our state Supreme Court very conservative court upheld that verdict. So that sort of tells you some of the operators. I mean they had overcharges of 1,000 in our Medicaid Program. The pharmaceutical companies will continue to do this unless a attorney general stops them. As part of that litigation, we recovered 224 million for the state of mississippi against a plethora of drug manufacturers. Now where does that money go once you recover that . Some will go to the Medicaid Program and the rest got state general fund. And thats part of the job of attorney general is collecting money from a lot of Large International corporations and, you know, it takes a state to fight them. Because it takes years to reach those recoveries. And at the same time, i have republicans in the legislature fighting to take my authority away under the Consumer Protection act trying to protect the pharmaceutical companies and large number of Large International corporation thats try to thwart the efforts of states to recoup funds that are taken from the states improperly. Now approximately 25 of mississippis 22 billion budget goes towards medicaid. One of the other issues that weve been discussing here on a national level, general hood, is prison and judicial reform. Where is mississippi with this issue . This issue with attacks on fbi. I was in Law Enforcement for 20 years. I was assistant attorney general and i served 14 years as attorney general. Worked with many fbi agents and i just hate to see, you know, washington politicalization of our Law Enforcement issues. That is a concern for all of us in Law Enforcement when you have these kind after tacks and having travelled to turkey three or four years ago, i saw the president do similar things there. They tacked prosecutors, fired the prosecutors and many in the media that i met there met with there or are in jail now. There are patterns that are disconcerting for mississippian thats are going out in washington as far as the legislation and economics, you know, theyre trying to make these cuts without knowing what theyre cutting. In fact, theyre just hacking. And theyre doing the same thing in mississippi. Its translated down to our legislature. And theyre doing tax cuts to give them to large corporations that are having an impact on our services forMental Health and, you know, were facing the Opioid Crisis. So those policies in washington are affecting our states and, you know, when we make these huge tax cuts, recently they passed 418 million tax cut on franchise taxes and 78 of those tax cuts went to large out of state corporations. We need money to face the Opioid Crisis and treat those who are addicted to opioids. A lot of issues going on in Washington Land in the states as attorney general, im in the midst of a lot of the battles. Jim hood is our guest. Hes the long serving attorney general for the state of mississippi. Numbers are on the screen. If you like to dial in and participate in our conversation, 202 is the area code. 7488000 for mississippi residents. And for everybody else, 7488001. Attorney general hood, you mention the Opioid Crisis. Could you put some numbers or some facts to how its affecting mississippi, arrests, costs, et cetera . 85 of the Overdose Deaths last year were as a result of oep identifies. I can tell you as a prosecutor during the crack epidemic in the early 90s. We dealt with the meth epidemic in the early 2000s. I havent seen an epidemic that reaches such a Cross Section of our citizens as have opioids. It can be a kid playing football that gets injured, a military someone serving in the military that gets injured to a middle age person to an elderly person. Some of injury they get addicted to opioids. And many times they turn to heroin. Thats where were seeing the overdoses in our state. And many appalachian states have struggled with this before. So we had an opportunity watching what happened in the state of kentucky to take some measures and ive encouraged our legislature to do that through some of the recoveries. In fact, part of that 224 million i encouraged them to provide more beds for treatment, you know, rehabilitation for those that are addicted. I filed an action in december of 2016 against the opioid manufacturers. Five companies, you know, its incredible the misrepresentations that they made about the addictive nature of opioids. My grand father was a doctor back in the 30s and, 40s and 50s and we knew how dafkt morphine was. The Drug Companies sent out a lot of salesmen to mislead our doctors and public. So at some point they will be held accountable. We were one of the earlier states to get involved in that litigation against the manufacturers. So hopefully well have a source of funds to pay for the damage caused by those. But tell that to a mother who loses her son to an overdose. Well never be able to repair the damages. At some point theyll pay but the legislature is not moving forward to, you know, try to deal with this crisis. It affected the growth of the state and Economic Growth and its doing it here in mississippi. So, you know, weve seen a lot of the turmoil that occurred in other states. Were struggling with a lot of the cuts that and theyre just hacking off parts of government that affect people. You know, last year we had the state of mississippi laid off 624 workers at the department of health right at the time when we really need them the most. 41 of mississippis budget comes from federal funds. Do you keep a close eye on a potential shutdown . Does that affect you on the state level . Sure. Our state turned back federal dollars. And for every dollar we spend, we get about three back. In medicaid money, different type of federal money. So, you know, our legislature made such deep cuts that were not even able to provide that match. Its not good economic sense to do those things. But theyre doing them for political reasons. Its for the next election. They have taken a blood oath that theyre not going to raise anybodys taxes. And there are ways to raise revenue without necessarily raising taxes. But its all about politics rather than policy. A couple more issues in mississippi before we go to calls. I want to ask you about the antiprofiling ordinance in jackson. What is it and whats your view of it . The antiprofiling ordinance. What is that and what is your view of it . Yeah. You know, im not familiar with that. I havent read it. So i really cant comment on it. Most of our Law Enforcement are trained about any kind of racial profiling and the Police Department here, i think, does a pretty good job of following that. Also, if you can comment on the new proposal that has been put into the legislature in mississippi to have two state flags. What is that . Yeah. You know, we have a flag that in the corner is the confederate flag. And, you know, it hurts so many of our citizens. I know mississippi is about 39 africanamerican. And there are many people that thats offensive to. And so theres been a move in mississippi to try to have a flag that unifies us. Of all things, you know, our flag should unify people as a symbol. At some point well have to develop a sense of unity in our state instead of the devisivness that weve seen in washington and to some extent here in our legislature. Jim hood is the long serving attorney general for the state of mississippi. A democrat. And lets begin with a call from jim in oxford, maine. Jim, youre on the air. Please go ahead. Caller good morning, mr. Hood. Good morning. Caller you said that you got 22 million back from that Pharmaceutical Company there. I dont remember how many years that you fought to get that back. But my question is how much did it cost you to fight that for all those years . Yeah. We were able to basically privatise that outside counsel attorneys foot the bill for it. If they lose, we dont recover anything. Our state contract is much lower than what people get when they hire a lawyer. And at a maximum after appeal and everything it goes the legislature is capped at 25 . So we have been very successful in recovering those funds and using outside counsel to help us do it. They have expertise in these cases. Many of these case thats we filed, you know, theres been a recovery in other states. And so, you know, a lot of law firms that do that type practice, they will go around to other states and theyve already got the model. And so its just a matter of engaging the firms to go out and do the work for us. I only have about eight lawyers in my civil litigation division. I have 135 lawyers total in the state. Theyre spread out among all the agencies and represent every board and agency and council, city and county governments. So its rather difficult for us to have the expertise and the money to back it. Legislature doesnt provide funding to the office of attorney general to engage in that type large scale lengthy litigation. What is your budget per year, general hood . Im sorry. What was that again . What is your budget per year . It used to be about 36 million. And we recover over that every year. We recover over 50 million generally every year. We recovered over 3 billion in 14 years that ive been attorney general. So our office is one of the few agency thats actually pays for itself. You know, ive got a case that is set to go to trial in november against a Power Company called entergy. Theyre in four states, mississippi, arkansas, louisiana, and texas. The company owes us literally a billion dollars. It is set for trial in november. I fought that case since 2008. And, you noknow, im getting se for trial and in the capitol, that company has already got a bill out of the senate to do away with that lawsuit. And its gone over to the house which i hopefully cooler heads will prevail. But when you have that kind of corporate power, lobbying our legislature, using their influence, Campaign Contributions to hurt our own people and the evidence is clear because we some lawyers that handle the case in louisiana where they settled about 15 years ago, you know, this is one of the few cases i have when i began that already have the material before we start discovery. We already have the evidence. So those battles skirmishes occur, i remember when i worked for mike moore who brought the tobacco litigation. I was assistant attorney general then when that was filed. The governor himself filed a suit trying to stop that litigation and protect the tobacco companies. So the large corporations have the power and influence that it affects congress, our capitals when they can come in and just cut off litigation like, you know, like they did in West Virginia where a coal company had a verdict and got a judge beat and got one of theirs elected and, you know, reversed that litigation finally i think a federal Court Reversed the Supreme Court the West Virginia Supreme Court. But you have that power and influence. We have seen it in 1800s. We saw it in the roaring 20s where large corporations took control of our government. And i think were seeing some of that again. Bruce is in winter haven, florida. Please go ahead, bruce. Caller yes. Thank you for having me on. Id like to ask the attorney general, most of these opioids, are they coming from overseas or out of the country . Or are they coming from prescription thats are filled by doctors there . Right now the vast majority are coming from prescriptions written from doctors. We didnt have a mandatory requirement that they check the prescription Monitoring System in our state. Ive been encouraging the medical licensing board to do that. If they prescribe over ten pills that they check the prexrimscrin monitor system to see if their doctor shopping. Its coming from pharmaceutical companies. There are some that are being purchased that are counterfeit over the internet particularly. The dark web. And some of the battles ive had with google dealt with that. The sale of prescription drugs over the internet without a prescription. But, you know, a lot of the heroin that is the fallback position, once the doctors cut them off and they cant get prescriptions, now thats coming out of mexico and from all areas of the world where were having the heroin epidemic. One particular case just exemplifies how bad the Opioid Epidemic is. A friend of mine, a doctor that i bird hunt with had a son, did two tours in iraq in a marine. Two buddies were killed in a rod side bomb. They put him on opioids. When they cut him off, he got on heroin. Wasnt on that long. He got off, clean a couple years. He got in law school down here in mississippi. And i told his father he can work in our office the second semester. I wanted him to get his grade the first semester of law school. He started in our office and didnt show up about the second or third day when he started in january and that was in 16. And we called his wife. She found him dead at home. He had taken apparently the same dose that he had taken when he was addicted to heroin and shot up and it killed him. You know, american heroes dying like that, you know, at a rate of an airplane crash every day in our country is unacceptable. And when Drug Companies cause that by misleading people saying its not as addictive, its okay, you dont have to have it for end of life pain. You can use it for a tooth ache or back ache, knowing it is highly addictive, you know, they unleashed a major problem for the states and the federal government. And unfortunately im not seeing the help out of washington that i expected to help some of the states like poor states like mississippi to deal with it. And you in florida have been through this Opioid Crisis for probably the past eight years. Its just been you had pill mills and all those problems down there. Weve had an example and we saw it coming. Its hard to get the legislature to deal with it. Now were doing work that is innovative with just what we have. Such as training our Law Enforcement officers to identify somebody with aMental Health issue or an opioid addiction and instead of taking them to jail, they deescalate the situation. We train them how to identify those people, deescalate the situation and they have the numbers to call through training and theyre doing the training with Mental Health people. So were putting them in aMental Health bed rather than in jail. So were trying to divert them to the Health Care System and i think that will work. But unfortunately it takes money to treat the people once they get over into the Mental Health system. Adam is in water valley, mississippi. Youre on with attorney general jim hood. Caller good morning, mr. Hood. Sir, how are you . Good morning. Doing great. Caller good. First i want to thank you, you know, i understand and im sympathetic to how tough it can be to the democratic among our strongly republican governor and legislature. So definitely thank you for your efforts. I want to get you to comment for two things, please. Three. Any effort, any current effort on jergerrymandering in mississippi, Marijuana Legalization and, of course, can we expect your run for governor . Thank you. Well, thank you. As far as gerrymandering, you know, we got to get prepared for the 2020 census. So that we do avoid the problems that weve had in mississippi. You know, peoples eyes glaze over when you Start Talking about redistricting. But its vitally important as to why washington is so divided now. Three redistricting cycles 30 years ago, 135 members of the United States house of representatives who could that office could be lekted by a democrat or a republican could serve. So they had to listen to the other side. Now through the gerrymandering districts in an attempt to do the right thing and create more minoritymajority districts, we created the districts where people get elected to be just say nasty things about the other side and so now there are less than 35. We went from 135 to 35 who can be, you know, those districts that can be elected. So they dont have to listen to the other side. And therein lies the problem of why i think washington has become so devisive. Unfortunate lit United States Supreme Court struck section five of the voting rikts act. So now theyre struggling to try to come up with a remedy for these devisive districts being created. I think they will. I think our Supreme Court is working very hard, the United States Supreme Court so fix those problems and i have reached out to some experts to make sure that were prepared in mississippi to draw some lines where we can have more moderates, you know, to elect. The extremists have become elected and thats whats ha happening in washington. Its happening in our legislature. And, you know, people dont want all this fussing and fighting. Maybe you do it during an election. But after that, you got to govern. And i think this devisivness is something that people are looking for. And your answer about maybe whether or not i can run for governor is something im looking at very carefully. Of course, my wife hadnt decided this a thing for us to do. I got children and the social media and all the impacts. That is something we have to consider. But i am being encouraged by republicans and democrats, both side, that want to see more moderation, get things done. I mean, there is such easy issues of low hanging fruit the state could do to put us in a better position such as expansion of medicaid. We missed that. That was 11,000 jobs in our state. We could, you know, have a lottery here and dedicate it to prek education which is so vitally important to those young people and there are a lot of other Internet Sales tax, things we can do building, fixing our roads for Economic Development purposes. Theres a lot of things that people want to see us accomplish and thats business people. Many of whom have supported republicans in the past. But now i see undercurrents in our state changing just as they did in louisiana where louisiana elected a great democratic governor there john bell edward. And then we saw the senate race in alabama. Hopefully well return to some moderate government so that we can actually govern. Both the house of representatives and the senate in mississippi are dominated by the republicans. In your view, is Governor Phil Bryant and Lieutenant Governor tate reeves, are they extremists . I think theyre politics. Not them personally. But noord to keep someone running to the right of them, they had to move over in that direction. You know, anybody that runs on the extreme right of the republican side, you know, if they raised any revenue, they would call it taxes and defeat many of them because there are so many disgruntled people. After that great recession, people lost their savings, theyre mad. Theyre angry at government. And all it takes is somebody to tell them you know what is wrong and whose fault it is. That emotion gets stirred up and people get out and vote. But thats affecting our state. When youre concerned for about politics rather than helping people. And mississippi is the poorest state in the nation. So many of them get elected over here by thumping the bible and telling people how great they are but they never raeld the new testament about how jesus talked about taking care of the elderly and the least among us. So, you know, i am encouraged by the undercurrents and hopefully with what were dealing with in washington and the battles the media are having to tell the truth about what is actually happening rather than the socalled fake news. You know, those battles i think are here for a reason and hopefully were about to turn the corner toward more moderation and we actually get something done in government at the state and federal levels. Quickly, that caller also asked about Marijuana Legalization. You know, our young kids in our state, i was a prosecutor, sent people to the penitentiary. But eventually our young people are going to change it. Theyre going to change the law in our state and legalize it and probably in my lifetime in the next 20 years. And, you know, thats just something that is coming. Some kids, you know, it runs them off the that are close to the edge. You know, it doesnt take much to get them off track. And thats what bothers me about legalization of it. But i suspect thats inevitable at some point. Steve, cleveland, ohio. Please go ahead. Caller good morning cspan and cspan listeners and attorney general hunt. My question is it will take me about two pliminutes to do t. In the 80s we had crack babies. In the 90s we had meth babies. Now we have opioid babies. What are we going to do about all these kids that are doing all the will crime and every one of the kids are on drugs and theyre the ones doing the school shootings. Every one of them. Now if you wanted ear rad indicate the poppy plant, drop bombs on it. If you want to get rid of the cocoa leaves, drop bombs on it. You want to get rid of the labs in mexico that make meth, drop bombs on them. Thats how you win the war on drugs. Nixon proved that in southeast asia. Remember . They had heroin over there. He incinerated that place. And thats steve in cleveland, ohio. Attorney general hood . Yes . Any answer for him . I ran the drug unit in the ags office in the early 90s before i went back to home to north mississippi and the birthplace of elvis and that area to be da. I fought the battles. Our cheapest bang for our buck is prevention. Then you have treatment rehabilitation, incarceration. We do need to do more Work Overseas and i agree with you on going to the source. But our cheapest way to do it is to prevent kids at an early age, those issues, you know, that makes a better person once they have a better vocabulary. Somebody just reading to them. So, you know, i think our cheapest way and our first line of defense is to prevent it and educate those children whose parents may be working two jobs. Maybe theyre on drugs, the parents are on drugs. If you reach that child though, your odds of making that child a productive citizen are much higher. Jim hood is the attorney general for the state of mississippi and he has been our guest on our 50 capitals tour. Were in jackson. Parked outside the State Capitol which was finished in 1903. We want to thank our Cable Partners and jackson comcast. Next week, we will be in little rock, arkansas, with governor asa hutchison. Cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up thursday morning, well look at the possible budget deal that could avoid another government shutdown. With us is a member of the bipartisan policy center. Then well talk about the history of politics and the olympics with Drexel University Athletic Director eric zelmer. And wellsy College Professor and senior fellow kathy moon on the u. S. Possibly using the olympics to highlight issues with north korea. Be sure to watch washington journal live at 7 00 eastern thursday morning. Join the discussion. The British Digital Culture Media and Sport Committee travels to the United States to host a daylong session on fake news. The event from George Washington university includes representatives from google, facebook and twitter. You can see it live starting at 9 00 a. M. Eastern here on cspan3. On june 17th, 1972, five men broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate Office complex in washington, d. C. The break in and ensuing scandal ultimately led to the resignation of president richard nixon. Journal iflt thats covered the watergate scandal discuss the legacy and compare it to todays political climate. They take part in a panel and you can see it live starting at 6 40 p. M. Eastern here on cspan3. Cspans history series landmark cases returns this month with a look at 12 new Supreme Court cases. Each week historians and experts join us to discuss the constitutional issues and personal stories behind these significant Supreme Court decisions. Beginning monday, february 26th, live at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. And to help you follow all 12 cases, we have a companion guide written by veteran Supreme Court journalist tony morrow. Land mark cases, volume two. The book shipping and handling. To get your copy, go to cspan. Org landmarkcases. Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin was on capitol hill to talk about the annual report. He appeared before the House Financial Services committee and addressed the recent stock market volatility, tax reform, the