Mar 23, 2026
JACKSON, MS — Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith stood before cameras on Day 38 of the DHS shutdown and declared that "the safety and security of the American people is not a bargaining chip." The Mississippi Democratic Party agrees. That's exactly why we're calling out her breathtaking hypocrisy.
While Senator Hyde-Smith was busy crafting talking points for TV, Senate Democrats brought forward multiple bipartisan bills to fund critical DHS agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration. Senator Hyde-Smith voted against advancing every single one of them.
You don't get to shut the door, then complain no one's coming in.
"Senator Hyde-Smith is counting on Mississippians not paying attention," said MSDP Chairman Cheikh Taylor. "She blocked the very votes that would have funded the very agencies she's now crying about on Facebook. That's not leadership, that's an insult to the intelligence of every Mississippian who has to take off their shoes at Jackson or Gulfport and trust that the TSA agent on the other side of that scanner is being treated right by their government."
The consequences aren't abstract. TSA agents at Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport and Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport are working through a shutdown that Senator Hyde-Smith helped extend. Mississippi travelers are experiencing the ripple effects of funding instability. Mississippi's local economies, which depend on air travel, tourism, and commerce, are absorbing the damage. And Senator Hyde-Smith is forgetting her own voting record.
"Day 38," said MSDP Executive Director Mikel Bolden. "Thirty-eight days of a shutdown that didn't have to happen. Thirty-eight days of Mississippi workers going without the stability they deserve. Senator Hyde-Smith had multiple opportunities to vote to end this, and she didn't. Now she wants a round of applause for pointing at the fire she helped set. Mississippians deserve a Senator whose votes and words match. Right now, we don't have one."
The Mississippi Democratic Party calls on Senator Hyde-Smith to immediately support clean DHS funding legislation and stop using Mississippi's safety and security as a backdrop for political theater.