GOP governor handed state positions to big donors: report

In April of 2021, Mississippi's Republican governor Tate Reeves hopped on a flight to a fundraiser that was provided by a powerful businessman whose son was handpicked to advise Reeves’ COVID “Restart Mississippi” program, The Daily Beast reported.

The flight, estimated to cost $12,500, was among the $1.4 million the Reeves campaign has banked from his own government appointees, including their immediate family members and associates, according to an investigation from The Daily Beast.

The Beast's reporting expanded on previous information that identified a number of Reeves appointees who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign.

Reeves is currently locked in a tight race against his Democratic opponent Brandon Presley, and he's supported by 70 percent of Republicans.

Shelby Wilcher, who is Reeves' press secretary, told The Daily Beast, “It’s not a surprise” that some of Reeves’ appointees are also donors.

“He has a lot of supporters across the state, so it’s not a surprise that some appointees may have also donated to his campaign,” Wilcher said, noting that Reeves divines appointments “solely based on the appointee’s qualifications.”

According to The Beast, Doug Hederman, who contributed to Reeves’ 2015 campaign for lieutenant governor, "not only doubles as a Reeves appointee; he’s also an employee." Entities associated with Hederman were paid around $300,000 in total by the Reeves campaign for consulting work.

"Restart advisers and their immediate corporate and political networks had supplied more than $760,000 to Reeves since 2008, when he was state treasurer," The Beast's report stated. "The donor-appointee network has since fanned hundreds of thousands of dollars at Reeves, state filings show, including the contributions identified in the Mississippi Today report and another previously unreported $400,000."

Read the full report over at The Daily Beast.