Jackson Free Press

Well-known in progressive political circles, Cristen Hemmins and Joce Prtichett today announced that they would run for elected office.

In 2012, Jackson Free Press readers opined that http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2012/oct/03/question-o-week-what-woman-should-run-office-missi/?templates=desktop">Hemmins should seek public office. http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2011/sep/14/preparing-for-battle/">Hemmins, chairwoman of the Lafayette County Democratic Party, will challenge state Sen. Gray Tollison, R-Oxford, for the Senate seat he has held since 1996. Tollison, a one-time Democrat who switched over to the GOP in 2012, had been eyeing late U.S. Rep. Alan Nunnelee's House seat but announced this week that he wouldn't run for Congress.

Joce Pritchett, an engineer who lives in Jackson with her wife, Carla Webb, and their children will make an announcement Friday at the Capitol that she will run for state auditor. So far, two Republicans have announced intentions to run, incumbent Stacey Pickering and Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler. Charles E. Graham has also said he would run as a Democrat; Pritchett did not indicate which party primary she would run in.

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2014/aug/27/whats-it-living-lgbt-mississippi/">Pritchett and Webb are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging Mississippi's same-sex marriage ban. That case is pending in a federal appeals court.