Won't interact with jQuery .hover() function

I currently have a menu mini panel with 4 columns. I have the last 3 hidden with jQuery, and I want the three columns to become visible when an anchor tag in the 1st column (pane 1) is hovered over. However jQuery doesn't seem to interact with the list item I have in pane 1. I've added a class to the list items using the .each function (works correctly), but it will not interact with the list item in pane 1 using jQuery's .hover() function. I can't even add a class to the list item on hover, it just does nothing.

I've tried using Drupal.behaviors and it still does not work. jQuery is functioning properly all throughout the site, so it's not a misconfiguration. Any ideas?