Democrat Shuwaski Young is calling for his own state representative to resign after a Kemper County grand jury indicted the Democratic House District 45 lawmaker Keith Jackson on possession and use-of-stolen-property charges on Monday.
“Rep. Keith Jackson has failed in his constitutional and moral duties and now has brought great shame upon Mississippians living in District 45, my home,” Young, a resident of Philadelphia, Miss., said in a statement he shared with the Mississippi Free Press on Monday. District 45 includes parts of Kemper, Lauderdale, Winston and Neshoba counties.
Young was the Democratic nominee for secretary of state in 2023 and for U.S. House in the 3rd Congressional District in 2022.
Officials allege that Jackson received and possessed a stolen log-truck trailer. The grand jury also indicted two other men, Fredwrick Young and William Tate, who prosecutors alleged were involved.
“Sheriff James Moore said during an interview that Jackson said he was working for Young, and when Young told him he wanted to sell the trailer, he arranged for Young to meet with Tate to purchase the trailer. The sheriff said the trailer has since been returned to its owner,” WTOK reported on Monday.
Jackson’s biography on the Mississippi Legislature’s website says he is a law-enforcement officer.
The lawmaker turned himself in to the Kemper County Sheriff’s Department on Monday; he posted a $2,500 bond to get out of jail on the same day.
In his statement, Young not only called on Jackson to resign but called for “a special election to replace him to be held as soon as possible.”
“Because of his judgment, actions, and criminal indictment, the residents of Winston, Neshoba, Kemper, and Lauderdale counties have to pay the price of shame by not having a State Representative in Jackson that fellow lawmakers and residents of our home district can take seriously on the merits of character and personal reputation that public officials must have in order to effectively govern,” the Democrat said.
The Mississippi Free Press called Jackson for an interview on Tuesday morning but could not get in touch with him.
District 45 voters elected Jackson to represent them in the November 2023 election. He defeated Republican Michael Cassidy, who prosecutors in Iowa later charged with a hate crime, alleging he vandalized the Satanic Temple’s Baphomet display inside the Iowa State Capitol building in December 2023.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Shuwaski Young as a U.S. Senate candidate; he was a U.S. House candidate in 2022 and a Mississippi secretary of state candidate in 2023. The current Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate is Ty Pinkins, who last year replaced Young as the Democrats’ secretary of state nominee.
