Delta Council, the Stoneville-based agricultural and economic development organization, raised some eyebrows last month with its public support of Gov. Ronnie Musgrove's Advantage Mississippi program.
Musgrove's plan to retool the state's economic strategy for the 21st century sailed through the Legislature with bipartisan support, thanks in large part to pro-business groups like Delta Council and the Mississippi Economic Council, whose backing made the plan more palatable for Republican lawmakers.
Not in modern history had Delta Council, whose membership consists largely of conservative business people and farmers, so aggressively embraced an initiative by a Democratic politician.
In 1982, when then-Gov. William Winter was pushing his landmark Education Reform Act, which stood to boost ailing public education in this region, the organization stood on the sidelines.
Delta Council was an aggressive supporter of the historic 1987 four-lane highway program, from which the Delta has benefited greatly, but that was a legislative, not gubernatorial, initiative. In fact, then-Gov. Bill Allain was the highway program's leading opponent, putting him squarely at odds with Delta Council.
The organization's relations with the state's last Democratic governor, Ray Mabus, went from chilly to openly antagonistic as Mabus stubbornly opposed flood-control measures that the council deemed critical to the region's viability.
The eight-year tenure of Republican Kirk Fordice was void of major initiatives that would have benefited from Delta Council's support. Fordice's ideas never got anywhere because of his hostile relationship with the Legislature. On one of the few high-profile issues of the Republican's tenure - term limits for elected officials - Delta Council bucked the governor and correctly embraced the right of voters to choose their leaders - a sign, perhaps, that the organization's traditional arm's-length relationship with the Governor's Mansion was no respecter of party.
Nonetheless, Musgrove might have seemed an unlikely choice to bridge the gap when he defeated Republican Mike Parker in an election so close that the state House of Representatives had to pick the winner.
He turned out to be just right for the role. A political moderate, the former lieutenant governor and state senator from neighboring Batesville campaigned hard in the Delta during the election and has been a frequent visitor in the region since. He has a track record of reaching across partisan lines and courting groups traditionally unfriendly to Democrats. With the help of supporters like Clarksdale businessman Jon Levingston, Musgrove actively sought Delta Council's support for his economic plan.
He got it, after some initial skepticism and some high-level discussions among Delta Council leaders.
"It really wasn't a difficult decision once people understood it," said Chip Morgan, Delta Council's longtime executive vice president.
Musgrove didn't balk when council leaders insisted on a change in a key plank of the plan: the identification of underdeveloped counties that need some extra help in industrial recruitment.
Under Musgrove's original plan, "Growth and Prosperity" counties were defined as those with double the statewide unemployment rate. Under that criterion, only Sharkey, Issaquena and Holmes counties in the Delta qualified. Delta Council and others in the region pushed to use poverty rates instead as the determining factor.
Musgrove didn't publicly embrace the change before last month's special session, "but he was a big enough man that when the Legislature passed it, he got behind it," Morgan said.
The change meant that 13 Delta counties became GAP eligible. Companies locating in these counties will be exempt from all state income, franchise, sales and use taxes for 10 years.
Rather than any radical shift in philosophy, Morgan sees Delta Council's alignment with Musgrove on the economic development plan as consistent with the organization's "history of pragmatism."
A cynical friend defined pragmatism in Delta Council's case as siding with whoever's in power at the moment.
The organization cannot be characterized so simply. Its independent streak was evident when Morgan dropped by my office with immediate Delta Council Past President Curt Presley, current Vice President Charles Reid and staff member Frank Howell for an update on council activities.
Delta Council has declined, for example, to take a position on President Clinton's proposed Delta Regional Authority, a permanent federal agency that would promote economic development in a seven-state, 219-county region.
A number of newspapers and community leaders throughout the region have endorsed the proposal. It has substantial bipartisan support in Congress.
Delta Council's wait-and-see approach on the authority, Morgan insists, is not strictly the result of the cold shoulder Mississippi's U.S. senators, Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, both longtime friends of the council, have given Clinton's plan.
Delta Council did its own independent study of the plan and found good reason to be cautious, Morgan said.
Of the $159 million proponents want to allocate for the authority, just $23 million would be new spending. The rest would be shifted from existing programs, perhaps to the region's detriment. A substantial 19 percent of the allocation would go toward administrative costs. Also, the laughably broad way that the plan's architects defined the Delta - including locales like Germantown, Tenn., Shreveport, La., and Oxford, Miss. - raises legitimate questions about whether truly needy communities would reap the benefits.
"It's most regrettable that we're not in the same place with the Delta Regional Authority that we were with Governor Musgrove's plan," Morgan said, leaving the door open for Delta Council leaders to eventually support the authority - when and if it becomes pragmatic.
