Dewey Phillip Bryant (born December 9, 1954) is an American politician serving as the 64th Governor of Mississippi since 2012.^[1] He previously served as the 31st Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi from 2008 to 2012 and 40th State Auditor of Mississippi from 1996 to 2008.

A Republican, Bryant was elected governor in the 2011 gubernatorial election, having defeated the Democratic nominee, Mayor Johnny DuPree of Hattiesburg. He was reelected in the 2015 election, defeating truck driver Robert Gray.

Bryant was born on December 9, 1954, in Moorhead in Sunflower County in the Mississippi Delta. The son of Dewey C., a diesel mechanic,^[2][3] and Estelle R. Bryant, he grew up with two brothers.^[4] Bryant's family moved to the capital of Jackson, where his father worked for Jackson Mack Sales,^[5] and was later Service Manager there. Dewey Phillip Bryant attended Council McCluer High School his junior and senior years.^[6] Council McCluer was a segregation academy founded after the Supreme Court of the United States forced schools to desegregate with its 1969 Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education decisions.^[6]

Bryant studied first at Hinds Community College, and received an undergraduate degree from the University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg. He was a deputy sheriff in Hinds County from 1976 to 1981; he worked undercover in drug law enforcement.^[7] He subsequently earned a master's degree at Mississippi College in Clinton, at which he would later teach Mississippi political history both before and during his first term as governor. For the years leading up to his election as a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives, Bryant worked as an insurance claim investigator.^[8]

Following his election, Bryant served five years as a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives; during his term he also served as Vice Chairman of the House Insurance Committee. Notably, he sponsored the Capital Gains Tax Cut Act of 1992.

In 1996, he was appointed State Auditor by Republican Governor Kirk Fordice. Bryant was subsequently elected to a full term as auditor in November 1999 and reelected in 2003.

In 2007, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi, defeating the Democratic Party candidate, State Representative Jamie Franks.

Bryant won the Republican primary in the gubernatorial election in 2011. He defeated Democratic nominee Johnny DuPree on November 8, with 60.98 percent of the vote compared to DuPree's 39.2 percent.^[9]

On January 10, 2012, Bryant was sworn in as the 64th Governor of Mississippi. Former Republican State Chairman Jim Herring, a lawyer from Canton, headed the transition team.^[10] Once inaugurated, Bryant signed into law a bill requiring doctors at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at local hospitals in an attempt to "end abortion in Mississippi". The state has a single abortion clinic, served only by out-of-state doctors who lack in-state admitting privileges.^[11] Bryant defeated Democratic gubernatorial Robert Gray in the 2015 gubernatorial election, which he won with nearly two-thirds of the votes cast.

In March 2012, Bryant endorsed Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for the 2012 United States presidential election.^[12]

Governor Bryant ran for re-election in 2015, facing off against Mitch Young in the Republican primary, carrying 91.7 percent of the vote.^[13] On November 5, Bryant faced the Democratic nominee, truck driver Robert Gray, winning with 66.6 percent of the vote.^[14] Because Mississippi is one of the eight US states that have a two-term lifetime limit, he is ineligible to seek a third term in the 2019 gubernatorial election.

In 2015, Phil Bryant refused to support legislation to change the flag of Mississippi to remove the Confederate battle saltire, even though some members of his party, such as House Speaker Philip Gunn publicly said the flag needed to change so that it could represent all Mississippians. Phil Bryant refused to accept this position, and in February 2016, he issued a proclamation declaring April, Confederate Heritage Month.^[15] Investigative reporting into Mississippi statewide public officials' misuse of political campaign funds showed that Bryant had not made payments to himself or utilized campaign credit cards for unrelated personal spending and since 2012 the subject had spent 2.6 million on his campaign with almost as much left over.^[16] The campaign fund was closed out with the majority of funds going to a political action committee, Imagine Mississippi PAC.^[17]

During the 2016 presidential election, Bryant endorsed fellow Republican Ted Cruz for President of the United States.^[18] On April 5, 2016, he signed House Bill 1523, the HB-1523, which allows government employees and private businesses to cite religious beliefs to deny services to same-sex couples seeking a marriage license.^[19] The governor said on Twitter that HB-1523, "merely reinforces the rights which currently exist to the exercise of religious freedom as stated in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."^[20]

Bryant announced on February 21, 2017, that he would make emergency budget cuts to most state agency budgets for the third time in the current fiscal year, having made similar cuts in the previous year because of the lack of projected revenue.^[21]

Bryant signed a law scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2019, that would ban abortions later than six weeks of pregnancy. The Center for Reproductive Rights in Jackson challenged the law. Because of his decision finding the prior, less restrictive, "15-week" law in the Currier case to be unconstitutional, Southern District of Mississippi Judge Carlton Reeves began his decision by referencing a prior law Bryant had signed and which Reeves had struck down in 2018. Reeves wrote, "Here we go again. Mississippi has passed another law banning abortions prior to viability."^[22] He inquired, "Doesn't it boil down to six is less than fifteen?", adding that the new law "smacks of defiance to this court." Reeves noted that although there were exceptions for situations where the mother's life or health is endangered should pregnancy be taken to term, the law does not allow for exceptions in the cases of pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.^[23]

In January 2019, Bryant said he supported a bill to expand the use of civil forfeiture (the practice of seizing the property of individuals suspected of crimes even if they are not indicted or found guilty in court) so that assets valued up to $20,000 could be seized by law enforcement without the forfeiture going before a judge.^[24][25] Under the bill, if the owner of the assets does not contest the forfeiture, the owner loses all right to it, and could not contest it before a judge. Nick Sibilla of the Institute for Justice (IJ) notes that almost half of all asset seizures are valued at under $1,000, yet the filing fees associated with contesting a forfeiture can cost upwards of $1,500, and that fees associated with hiring an attorney add to the financial burden of the owner.^[26]

He and his wife, Deborah, have two children, Katie and Patrick, and three grandchildren.^[27] They are members of St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Brandon.^[27]

Deborah Bryant had a professional career in hospital management at St. Dominic's Hospital in Jackson, and is active in a number of health-related causes.^[28]