Lane Carson

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Lane Anderson Carson (born August 21, 1947) is a Covington (St. Tammany Parish) businessman and attorney who was a conservative member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1976-1983. He represented House District 99 in Orleans Parish, first as a Democrat (1976-1977) and thereafter as a member of the Republican Party. Carson was the first veteran of the Vietnam War to serve in the Louisiana legislature.

After more than six years of service, Carson resigned his House seat and was succeeded by the Democrat (later Republican) Garey Forster. Carson thereafter became the assistant district attorney in St. Tammany Parish, a position that he has held for more than two decades. He is the chief of the department's Civil Division. Carson is also an attorney in private practice, with specialization in estate planning.

During his legislative tenure, Carson joined a small band of House conservatives, including Louis E. "Woody" Jenkins of Baton Rouge, John W. "Jock" Scott of Alexandria, Daniel Wesley "Dan" Richey, of Ferriday in Concordia Parish, B.F. O'Neal, Jr., of Shreveport, and Michael F. "Mike" Thompson of Lafayette in opposing what they saw as the "tax-and-spend" policies of then Democratic Governor Edwin Washington Edwards. In 1976, freshman member Carson cast a critical vote in the House Civil Law Committee against the ratification of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, much to the outrage of feminist supporters of the proposition.

In 1985, President Ronald W. Reagan nominated Carson, who is also a licensed building contractor and real estate broker, to the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board for a term which expired on December 3, 1988. In 2003, President George W. Bush named Carson to the board of directors of the National Institute of Building Sciences for a short term which ended on September 7, 2004.

The New Orleans-born Carson was a platoon leader in South Vietnam while serving in the U.S. Army. He was wounded and discharged. Thereafter, he graduated in 1971 with a bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. In 1974, he received his Juris Doctor degree from the law school of Tulane University in New Orleans. Carson is the adjutant and the finance officer of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, Louisiana Northshore Chapter, in Covington.

Carson and his wife, Laura Carson, have two children. A son, Christopher Carson, is a 2004 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. A daughter, Rebecca, is married to Matt Parks. Mrs. Carson is retired from the St. Tammany Parish School Board. Carson is Baptist.

Carson was elected to the St. Tammany Parish Republican Executive Committee in 2004. In 2006, however, he assisted in the New Orleans mayoral campaign of a Democratic candidate, Ron Forman, and in the city council race waged by the independent Roger Wilson. Forman and Wilson were both defeated.

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