Jackson Free Press

Jackson attorney Dorsey Carson announced over the weekend that he is running for the Mississippi House of Representatives seat for District 64, which Jackson Republican Bill Denny currently occupies.

Carson, a managing partner at the law firm Burr & Forman, said crime in his district is also a serious problem, and said he would strongly support legislation helping to fund Jackson police officers. Legislators outside the city have offered little support for various referendum bills supporting public-safety initiatives, as well as annually proposed Payment in Lieu of Taxes legislation designed to offset more than 30 percent of the untaxed property inside the city limits.

Carson, who is running as a Democrat, clerked in the office of former Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, and he works on contract with Attorney General Jim Hood. Carson recovered $3.5 million for the state in a construction suit filed in 2005 and is currently working with Hood in a $50 million state suit against the construction manager of the failed Mississippi Beef Processors plant, which closed weeks after opening in 2004.

The candidate has represented Democratic associations in the past. He represented the Jackson Democratic Municipal Executive Committee in 2009 when then-Jackson Mayor Frank Melton sued the organization to return his name to the Democratic primary ballot. Committee members removed Melton's name from the ballot and argued that Melton did not qualify to run in Jackson because he filed for homestead exemption for his property in Texas, rather than in Jackson.

Jones County Circuit Court Judge Billy Joe Landrum ordered the committee to reinstate Melton's name on the Democratic ballot after Melton showed the court his Mississippi driver's license, utility bills and other documents showing his address to be in Jackson.

District 64 could change if the Senate and the House agree on the new redistricting plan the House submitted last Friday. If the plan is appoved, the black voting population of voters over the age of 18 in Denny's district will climb from 15.20 percent to 26.43 percent.