Secretary of State Michael Watson: Removing Barriers to Education and Work

This week host Grant Callen sat down with Mississippi’s 36th Secretary of State Michael Watson to talk about removing barriers to opportunity, especially those related to education and work. Sec. Watson has been a longtime advocate for school choice, so they discussed why he believes giving parents more options will help kids, schools, and ultimately our whole state. They discussed why access to work is so important to Mississippi families. Sec. Watson has been chopping away at regulations and administrative bloat through his “Tackle the Tape” initiative, which aims to review all 118,000 regulations in Mississippi’s regulatory code and cut anything that is anticompetitive and that does not substantially further the safety and well-being of Mississippians.

 

Transcript 

Welcome to the Empower podcast, the show where we talk about Mississippi's big challenges and big opportunities. Each episode, we'll talk with lawmakers, policy experts, and community leaders about how we can break down barriers together to create a Mississippi where everyone can rise.

Grant Callen: All right, welcome back. This is Grant Callen. I'm your host today and delighted to be talking to my friend, Mississippi's 36th Secretary of State, Michael Watson. Secretary Watson was born and raised in South Mississippi. He's a graduate of Pascagoula High School and the University of Mississippi where he got his bachelor's and went to law school. He is husband to Lauren. Father to three beautiful daughters, and before being elected to his current office, he served three terms in the Mississippi State Senate Secretary Watson. Welcome to the show.

Michael Watson: Great to be with you, Grant as always, it's fun to talk about good issues for our entire state, and I appreciate the work that you guys do and look forward to visiting with you.

Grant Callen: Thank you. Let's jump in. As our mission at empower is about creating a Mississippi where everyone can rise. We want people to have mobility, doesn't matter what part of the state or what your parents did for a living, everybody ought to have a chance at the American dream. So we talk about removing barriers to opportunity, and today I want to focus on two particular categories of barriers that as I've watched your career from afar, you've really focused on these two and have made a huge impact. So let's talk about your work and your interest in removing barriers to a great education. Specifically school choice. And then, more recently, your work removing barriers to work. While in the legislature, I know of no one who introduced more bills about school choice than you did. Why do you support school choice?

Michael Watson: It's interesting, I think I go back to maybe my first or second year. I was on the education committee and we the topic of charter schools, public charter schools came up. And so I was talking to the chairman of education, but at Carmichael at the time, and I said, Mr. Chairman what exactly are public charter schools? We had a little bit of a conversation lo and behold, I did not know this, but basically he went through the Lieutenant Governor at the time, and that was Phil Bryant and he said, look this young senators really interested in charter schools maybe we can get him to work on. I didn't know this was happening. So a couple of days later, the lieutenant governor calls and he says, hey I hear you want to take on a charter school legislation and I had no idea, it was just something I was really interested in learning about. But the more I dug into it, the more I learned that there's no better issue for a conservative. There's no better issue for Mississippi in general. When you think about our charge, Proverbs 22:6 train up a child. I think we have a duty to make sure that our children are getting a great education. When you look around public education in general, and I'm a graduate of Pasco High School. I grew up in public school. It's not the cure all, but I also think people need to understand that's a big part of education moving forward, the vast majority of our students are going to stay in public education, traditional public education is important, and we've got to continue to working on that. But I hope we understand that it's not a one size fit all, and as we add different dimensions to education to this, we'll get a better product at the end of the day. And so for me, it really, as I saw children around different parts of the country getting an actual education that really worked towards them and their skill sets and then became a parent and understand how my Children learn differently. You know what works for any may not work for Gracie Pierce. What works for Gracie may not work for Core Beth. But as I'm the parent and I see these different learning styles, I see an education that fits them and how they learn best, I want every child to have that opportunity, bit in the delta being a most point, be it in DeSoto County, you name it. That's the beauty of parental choice in education because we are the ones that God charged to raise up our children, and so I think that's really important and one of the reasons that I just dove in head forward.

Grant Callen: And when designed right, there's lots of evidence to show that it will help kids who choose something different. But it's also a rising tide that lifts all boats and states that implement school choice, their public schools actually do better, and that's what we want is we want all kids to have access to better education and to improve in the schools they're at. So when you think of school choice really is an umbrella term for at least three types of choice. You got your charter schools. You've got open enrollment, which is public school choice between public districts. And you've got private choice, which looks like either an ESA, education savings accounts or vouchers or something like that. What do you think of those three? Do you support all three? And how do you think they would help Mississippi?

Michael Watson: Yeah, I strongly support all three, again I think at the end of the day it comes down to a parent knowing their child best. And what is the education mechanism that brings them to life that excites them about learning? Sometimes it's going to be a public charter school. Sometimes it's going to be some type of a private education and many times it's going to be traditional public schools. Sometimes it's going to be moving from one public school to another. And I think the idea of competition, entering competition into this is one that's really important. And I remember you may have been on the trip. We went to Orlando. And met with, I think it was a public charter school principal and a traditional public school principal. And the conversation we all thought was gonna be fireworks, that they were gonna be mad at each other because of this competition. And I remember the public school principal, one of the first things he said was about how helpful it has been to have a public charter school right in the same vicinity of their good. And we were like wait a minute, I thought you were going to be fighting here. He said, I can specifically speak of one student out of many, but this one in particular, he had some disciplinary problems. And not only was he disrupting class and harming his own education, but he was also hurting the education of the other students in that class. Come to find out, this public charter school just down the road had a real disciplinary focus on Children who needed that additional discipline, and he has gone on and just done great things and it's also allow the students who were left in that class to learn better because they weren't disrupted anymore. So I think we've got to get out of this, it's public charter schools versus traditional public education or it's parental choice versus we can only have public education. We need everything to move forward so people have opportunities that best fit them. It's just like jobs. I'm an attorney and some people may be a welder or a plumber or a doctor. That's what excites them and that's how they have that passion to do good things, you got to find what is that education opportunity that impassions a child to learn? And I think that's the key that we need to focus on here. It's not one against the other, it's all of us together.

Grant Callen: But why do so many people want to pit people against each other and particularly want to put politicians? In the category and force you to choose either, I support public schools or I support choice, but you can't do both. Why does that happen?

Michael Watson: I think again, politics, when you see an institution that is as big and as storied as traditional public education, and when you cross the line here and you don't support us then you're against us, that's just not the case. I reject that from the very get go. If at the end of the day, what it's supposed to be about is the child's education. That's what we're funding. We're funding a child, giving them the ability to learn and hopefully injecting some passion in there so they really get excited about that learning. Sometimes that doesn't work in traditional public schools and sometimes it does and that's okay. And again, as I mentioned before, the vast majority of students are going to stay in traditional public schools and that's fine. But to those that it doesn't work for let's find them an option that it works for because at the end of the day, all Mississippi will benefit from children getting great educations and I think that's the key, we've got to focus on here.

Grant Callen: There's no doubt. When you think about a system with parents matching their kids to better schools or different schools sometimes it's not better it's just different, and different always isn't one superior to the other. When you think about a future where parents have options, what do you think the landscape either in Mississippi or other states are going to look like in five or 10 years when every parent has choice.

Michael Watson: I think you inject hope. When I look at 20, 30 years down the road. And I remember the original conversations about really parental choice and education and again, as you mentioned, I got on this train real early and I started talking to different families around the state. And when you go to the Delta and you've got a parent who's a single mom who's working her tell off and her child is in perhaps a failing school and not getting a great education. I don't care who you are. At the end of the day, you want your child to do good. You want them to do better than you have done in the past and you want them to go and succeed and do great things, and I talked to one of those parents and I'd say what if you had the opportunity to send them to a better school? Oh, absolutely I'd love to, but that'll never happen. If you can give them that hope that, you know what, there's an answer coming and we're going to give you that opportunity for your child to have a better education. And then Johnny down the road sees a miss Sally's son or daughter doing well. Johnny down the road is going to say, I want that for my child. And it just takes that little bit of hope, and as you inject hope into the situation, these children didn't think, you know what? I'm going to be able to get a great education, I'm going to make a lot of money and I'm going to do really good things for my whole family, my community and my state. Again, when you can get that hope there and it starts with someone who's passionate about that education, and that's what this is all about. How do we fit the model for each child that works best for them? At the end of the day, I hope that people can see that.

Grant Callen: So as you look at the political landscape, and this has been, as you said, this is an issue that you've cared about for a long time, and we really haven't made near as much progress as a lot of states. Are you hopeful for this moment in Mississippi? Are you hopeful for the future of school choice in Mississippi?

Michael Watson: I am. I think as you see across the country, this wave of parental choice in education that's happening right now. One of the things that really disturbs me from time to time in Mississippi is that we talk about being a good conservative state, and when you can find an idea like parental choice in education, again, in my mind, there is no better conservative idea than that. But it shouldn't be painted as a Republican or Democratic idea. It should be painted as this is the best idea for children. Because we're gonna give them a bright future because if they're excited about learning, then that leads to a better future for all of us, not just the Children, but all of us. And so sometimes I feel how can we not get this across the line to really expand it like it should be here in our state? So you're gonna hear a lot of talk about that this year I know you guys have been a great supporter of parental choice and education. Actually, I had breakfast with the speaker this morning, our speaker to be this morning. We had a great conversation about it really excited that he's passionate about the idea and going to be pushing that idea. There's always hope, and I think that looking back to my first year talking about public charter schools and seeing where we are now it's definitely not as far as I'd hoped we'd be, but there's progress. And so I think as long as we continue to push, we're going to see it eventually. It may take a little longer than we had hoped, but we're on the right side of this idea. We're on the right side of parents of children, and again at the end of the day, I hope the whole state can see that idea that this is about the children, getting them a great education, what works for them might not work for everybody. But let's make sure this child and that child and this child all have the opportunities to succeed. And again, if you can get them passionate about learning, that leads to a bright future for our entire state.

Grant Callen: And it really is one of those barriers that when kids are not in the right setting where they can learn it just holds them back and I think about, how many generations of kids stuck in schools that didn't meet their needs, or maybe they're highly rated schools that didn't meet their needs. Just the untapped potential that we have left on the table because we didn't do this sooner. But you're right, I think it's coming. When you look at the states around us, Arkansas has already done universal ESA's, they already had broad charters, they had open enrollment recently, tennessee governor, came out and said, we're going to do it in Tennessee. Louisiana is working on it.

Michael Watson: Alabama

Grant Callen: Governor of Alabama has recently declared. She said in a tweet, I want to make Alabama the most school choice, friendly state in the country. I hope we beat her at that. So we talk about barriers. We've talked about education, we've talked about school choice. I wanna shift to another category of barriers, and it's the barriers that we put up in front of people who want to work. Barriers to entrepreneurs, barriers to existing businesses who want to grow, and you've been a great leader at removing these barriers so let's talk a little bit about what is the role for the Secretary of State in setting the business climate for the state, and then specifically tell us about tackle the tape.

Michael Watson: Yeah. In our office, basically, there's three kind of areas in which we work elections and that's the face of the office for everybody knows about that business services and I'll come back to that, but that's really where the breadth of the office comes in, and then public lands. So back to the business services piece, if you're an LLC, a corporation, a nonprofit, a scrap metal dealer, an athlete agent, I could go on, you get the picture here, you're going to register with our office. So we've got a really large role the Administrative Procedures Act fits under our office, so we've got a large role in the rules and regulations that businesses have to deal with. We have a great pulse of the new businesses across the state. We really know what's going on in the business landscape here in our state, so we've got a natural fit there and as I started looking during my time in the legislature, the idea of cutting the regulatory burden is just one that's a winner. And again, that cuts across party lines. If you can make it easier for someone to work, to chase the American dream, that doesn't matter if you're a Republican or Democrat, that should be a good idea. So we started tackle the tape. I was looking at 19 when I was running. And I wanted to figure out how can we really build on this idea of the OLRC, the Occupational Licensing Review Commission, which we had passed in the legislature a few years before. And I thought, this only touches on 29 boards of commissions, how do we grow this, make this bigger? Then comes tackle the tape. And I thought, if we can just get our businesses around the state to report to us the stumbling blocks they're running into or the tape that they're seeing, then we can actually go to these different entities, agencies and say, Hey, do you actually have the authority to do that? And if you don't, then stop. If you do, then let's figure out a way, if it's not good for business, how do we make it good for business? How do we cut that tape or how do we reword a regulation or take a regulation out? And so it started then and just exploded. And it's really fun for me now to see small businesses call and say, Hey, I've got this issue and this as well as I do both of us are wonks, we love to get into the policy, we love to think about, into the weeds and at the end of the day that's phenomenal, we've got to do that. But when you can take that policy position and you can turn it into action and you can cut a regulation that then allows an individual to start a business, to put food on their table, grow their community, grow their state, that's real life. And so as we see that happening across the state through Tackle the Tape I don't know that there's a more rewarding part of our job than that, so to be able to build families and help them get great livelihoods from having a dream and starting a business and making it easier on them, it's really exciting for us.

Grant Callen: So I heard somebody say this week. In America, we've made poverty survivable? But not escapable. And I thought, that's true in a lot of ways. We're the wealthiest country on earth, and even the most abject, impoverished person in America and certainly in Mississippi still has more than most people in other parts of the world. But we know the path to actually escape poverty. And it's a job, and yet they're still as policy makers if you just look at the kind of the history of our state and government, we still make it really hard. Why do we put up so many barriers to work?

Michael Watson: It's a really good question, and people say not Mississippi, it's so red and conservative. We had over 118, 000 regulations on the books, and when you think about that as a small business, the number of regulations that you've got to climb through or crawl around or spend money on spend the time on that's hard. It's really hard to start and grow a successful business. One of the things that we did as well as our 29 by 29 that we've talked about a little bit, where we're going through all 29 boards of commissions and looking at the regulations under those boards and commissions and making sure which ones are good, which ones are bad, how do we cut these? So we just finished our first three recently. And we had about 17 little north of 1700 regulations in the first three boards and commissions. So when you look at that on average, it's about 600 roughly per. So think about that as a small business owner in one of these categories. I've got 600 regulations that I've got to deal with just to get my business off the ground and operate. That's awful. And so again, going back to the power of cutting the regulatory burden, when you look at that of those 1700, we found just north of 500 that were discretionary. What does that mean? They just pulled him out of thin air and said, Hey, we're gonna do this too.

Grant Callen: And when you say discretionary, these aren't bills that are passed. This is administrative code.

Michael Watson: That's exactly right.

Grant Callen: Who is the entity that's making those discretionary decisions?

Michael Watson: So it's these boards and commissions. And so they come in and many times what we have seen is, it's just, it's flat out anti competitive. How do I protect my buddies that are in this field? And I'm gonna make it hard for new businesses to start because that's going to be competition for my friends. And that's that good old boy style that we're getting away from, and sometimes we get a little bit of tax for that and that's okay. I get it. I'm a big boy, I can handle that. But at the end of the day, again, it's about giving Mississippians the opportunity to chase their dreams, and one of the things that we saw which was really interesting for me, after COVID, we saw so many people lose their jobs because of the different regulations that came out, the vaccine, you name it, whatever the reason was. And we had just a spike in new businesses located here in Mississippi. And so part of that was, I understand the idea of there are federal dollars out there, so people are going to work the system when they can, but the other part was, we saw so many Mississippians and heard from them that said, you know what, I always had this dream. And I lost my job. So what better time than now to try to chase this dream? So we rolled out a welcome business webinar. So we try to help Mississippians understand here's the regulations you got to deal with the partner revenue or tax or whomever. And we ensure them into the business sector and then we tell them. If you see a regulation, that's hard for you to get around or you can't work through or whatever we want you to tell us. And again, just being a helping hand to them. It was work wonders. And we've seen our numbers continue to grow, we'll have over 50, 000 new businesses for Mississippi this year as well, proofs and putting, when people see that our legislature has done a good job of reworking the tax code. Now we got this secretary of state over here is cutting the regulatory burden. Those two put together mean jobs, and so we're seeing that growth in Mississippi.

Grant Callen: What are some examples of the type of regulations? We talk about regulations a lot in red tape, but I think sometimes we forget about the actual nature of these things. So if you're an entrepreneur, what are some of these regulations you're talking about?

Michael Watson: Yeah great example. We had as some professions have to have continuing education as a lawyer or CLE, doctors, you name it. One of the regulations we were able to strip out basically allowed them to do their CLEs. I can't remember if it wasn't CLEs, it was one of the medical professions, but they could get those online. Again that seems that doesn't mean a whole lot, yes it does, when you can save time away from your office or a whole day travel and then the expense, that's a small one but again, every single one counts. And when you add up the total cost of those, we had one the other day, Department of Education, where I can't remember the field of this certain teacher filled. But basically, if you got your degree from an out of state university, you couldn't bring that to Mississippi, you had to get licensed their first practice, and then you come here. Again, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So there are things like that. Some may seem minor, some are major, we had an issue and no offense to department revenue, good people over there but we almost lost the company to Birmingham or Nashville simply because of a power of attorney form that was on the website of the department of revenue that we had. It took us about six months to work through that for them. But it not necessarily is it always cutting regulation, sometimes it's doing the blocking piece as well. How do we get this just pushed back just enough where this business can move through and operate? So it's the blocking and tackling of tape that we're doing over there, but again it goes from small to large and I think every single one, when you've got hundreds of stories that I can now tell that we're out there helping Mississippians, you're making a difference and again, Policy is great. I love it. But when you're actually helping individuals put food on the table, that's the

Grant Callen: life changing.

Michael Watson: It is.

Grant Callen: Do we need this many boards and commissions?

Michael Watson: We do not. We do not. We've actually done a study on that as well and we're going to have some recommendations coming out. One of the things that I don't mean to get off on this subject, but one of the things that I hope we can do better as Republicans, is cutting the size and scope of government. We've seen a bloat happen for years and years and not just at the federal level, but here in Mississippi as well. So you talk about how can we get rid of some of these entities and agencies that we just don't need. And we're going to be doing some more work on that and bring it out to light as well.

Grant Callen: Are there particular pieces that you're going to be working for this legislative session?

Michael Watson: We are in communication with some legislators about reworking a few things, and so you're going to see quietly that come to the front of some discussions but again, I think it's incumbent upon all of the things that I really love about Tackle the Tape is we had some of these boards of commissions start to reach out to us. Before they were even up on our review schedule. And as you show folks that you mean business and they know that they're coming up, they start to be proactive and say you know what? Maybe I can cut some regulations and that secretary of state will leave me alone. So it's been fun to bring that about, and again as you talk about different boards commissions, or whatever it is that we can cut from government, and you grow that and you bring attention to that. Hopefully, you start to see some proactive work coming from the government, you got to bring those topics up though and make sure you're talking about them enough to make a difference.

Grant Callen: And it seems like some of it is probably what you're talking about it's protectionism that's intentional, but there's also got to be some of it where they're just trying to do their job well and the bloat has just grown and it's not been intentional it just has, as they're trying to implement a particular law or oversee their area, it just grows.

Michael Watson: That's right. And sometimes it's unintended consequences. We've seen that in the legislature, we saw it when I was in the legislature, where you had a may or a must or a shall or something that you didn't quite mean and then actually it has meaning. So there are some times where the legislature, basically gives a regulatory authority, the ability to make rules and regs in a certain specific example. And you've got somebody that may have good intentions, but they go overboard with their regulations, and then that makes it hard to operate under that scheme. As a legislator looking back, it's been fun for me now to serve on this side as Secretary of State and understand what that statute says is what we need to do. That is the really the string on our authority. And if they don't give us the authority to do something, we don't need to be doing it. And as that idea, you grow that idea, hopefully other statewides and other boards and other commissions start to listen to that and they remember, wait a minute, I am constrained by this statute. I don't need to expand my reach. So it's not just talking about it, but it's actually doing it and trying to be that example as well.

Grant Callen: So you still have a lot of friends in the legislature when you think about what maybe you would say to legislators ahead of this session, and I'm not talking about specific agenda items, but big picture. What would you say to legislators who want to remove barriers to entrepreneurs? What's your message to them?

Michael Watson: It should be a no brainer. Again, this is something that cuts across party lines. It's about our constituents. It's about giving them opportunities. It's about allowing them to chase the American dream. What an incredible country in which we live. What a phenomenal state. I love Mississippi with all of my heart. And as we pour into it, as we see this transition from again, just talking about theory and politics and putting it on the ground, if you cut some regulatory burdens that allow somebody to grow their career, there's nothing more rewarding in my mind in government than being able to let somebody have a great livelihood. And grow their family and as they grow their family, they grow their community, as they grow their community they grow the state. And then we have more revenue in the state so we can cut more taxes and we can shrink the size of government together, so it all fits together. I would just encourage them to have some good guts, believe in what you told your constituents you believe in and make sure you have a backbone when it comes to that I, or that no on the floor. At the end of the day, don't ever forget who sent you here, because they will pull you home. You don't work for people in Jackson. You work for folks from your district, but at the end of the day, it's about the state of Mississippi and good ideas will rise to the top. I just ask that they have the guts to support them.

Grant Callen: Are you optimistic about where our state is?

Michael Watson: I am. I am. When I see again, I talk about tackle the tape a lot because I just love it, it actually works and means something to me. But when I see our business numbers, skyrocket again, we're gonna top 50,000 new businesses this year. Put that into comparison 2019, we had about 30,000 new businesses. 2020 we saw Covid, the number was north of 50,000. 21 was north of 60,000, last year was 55 ish thousand this year would be another 50, probably four, five at the end of the year thousand, that's a great trajectory. I think people are realizing this is a great state in which to live and to raise your family. It's a great state to make a living. One of the things that we did, maybe one of the best things that we did was our ambassador program, you may be familiar with that but we had a 57, 56 high school seniors last year, 67 this year and we teach them three things. One, how do elections work in Mississippi? Why do I need to be engaged in elections? And they do voter registration trials in the high schools, two how does government work? If I want to advocate for an idea, where do I even start? And so that understanding, but number three, and this is where the important one for me is why I'm optimistic about our state. I talked to them about we bring in Chevron, we'd be in Ergon you name it. Big companies come in and tell them, here are the opportunities in Mississippi, that many of those children never knew existed. And as we pour into them and we give them faith in their home state, and I tell everyone of them, I don't care where you go to school. I would love for you to go to school in Mississippi when you go to college, but if you leave and the idea is I can't have that career in Mississippi, and you finish college. I challenge every one of you call me, and let me at least have the opportunity to find you that job in Mississippi. If it exists before you go somewhere else, giving them that confidence that somebody actually cares about our best and our brightest, and we want to keep them home, not just talk about it but actually show them that we care. That program has been fantastic and we'll continue to grow it, but having them get that experience last week, Senator Trent Lott was on a zoom call with them, we do zoom monthly calls with leaders in the state and that experience, it's really cool for them to have to know that's Mississippi, so it's been fun for us and again, that's why I'm optimistic, I see the business numbers. I see many of our young leaders and the hope that is in their eyes and the excitement about, you know what actually can do something good here in Mississippi. We're on a great trajectory.

Grant Callen: Yes, we are. I'm excited about, the next four years and the next decade and it's been the best state to live and grow up in, it's where I want my kids to live and stay. And I'm really optimistic too. Thank you for the work you do. Thank you for your work in the legislature. And now as Secretary of State, you're one of the reasons that I'm optimistic about Mississippi. So thank you for what you do.

Michael Watson: Absolutely. It's an honor. I love it. We've got a great team. And I think that's one of the key things, it's not just me it's really a bunch of good people that care about Mississippi working together that challenged me every day. So as long as we've got a great team of good people around me, you're going to see good things out of our office.

Grant Callen: Michael, thank you so much for joining us for the show.

Michael Watson: You're welcome. Enjoyed it.

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of the empower podcast. To learn more about how you can get involved and we can work together to make Mississippi a place where everyone can rise, go to our website at EmpowerMS. org. Please or subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you'll be notified of future episodes.