The $20 million, part of $120 million the state receives annually from a 1997 tobacco settlement, currently funds the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi, an organization dedicated to youth and adult tobacco prevention programs and marketing. Barbour and the Division of Medicaid are jointly suing for the funds, which they claim were negotiated in the tobacco settlement by the former attorney general without the state legislature's approval.

Hood says the Partnership has already survived numerous attempts over the years to re-appropriate the funds, and that all of those have been turned away, giving the tacit approval of the legislature. Local health leaders have supported Hood, with more than a dozen speakers stepping up to support the Partnership.

Said Kimberly Hughes, government relations director for the American Cancer Society: "The partnership [is] a major component of the anti-tobacco program in the state … I don't think there's anybody else who can do what they do."