Sally Doty

Sally Burchfield Doty
Mississippi State Senator for District 39 (Copiah, Lawrence, Lincoln, and Walthall counties)
In office January 2012 – January 2020
Preceded by	Robert Dearing
Succeeded by	Jason Barrett
Born	December 22, 1966 Kosciusko Attala County Mississippi
Citizenship	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	William Donald "Don" Doty, D.D.S.
Children	Ellen, Sarah, and Ben Doty
Residence	Brookhaven Lincoln County Mississippi
Alma mater	Kosciusko High School Mississippi University for Women Mississippi College School of Law
Occupation	Attorney Real estate owner
Religion	United Methodist

Sally Burchfield Doty (born December 22, 1966),  is a lawyer and real estate owner from Brookhaven, Mississippi, who represented from 2012 to 2020 District 39 in the Mississippi State Senate. The district encompasses Copiah, Lawrence, Lincoln, and Walthall counties in the southwestern portion of her state.

A native of Kosciusko in Attala County in central Mississippi, Doty, then Sally Burchfield, graduated from Koscuisko High School. In 1988, she graduated from the Mississippi University for Women in Columbus, at which she was the student body president. She obtained her legal credentials from the Mississippi College School of Law in the capital city of Jackson. She practices with the law firm Jackson & Brookhaven and owns a real estate company in Brookhaven. She is a United Methodist. Her husband is the Brookhaven dentist William Donald Doty (born c. 1964). She has three children, Ellen, Sarah, and Ben. 

In 2011, Robert Dearing, the Democrat senator since 1980 for District 39, did not seek reelection. Sally Doty entered the race and won the Republican runoff election over Bill Boerner, 2,315 (54.7 percent) to 1,917 (45.3 percent). In the November 8 general election, she defeated the Democrat W. L. Rayburn, 12,182 (57.9 percent) to 8,869 (42.1 percent). In 2015, Doty won a second term by defeating Mike Campbell in the Republican primary, 3,951 votes (57.3 percent) to 2,945 (42.7 percent). In the general election held on November 3, 2015, she defeated the Democrat Michael Smith, 11,230 (63.6 percent) to 6,422 (36.4 percent).

Doty is the chairman of the Senate Elections Committee and the vice chairman of Judiciary A. She also sits on these committees: (1) Business and Financial Institutions, (2) Drug Policy, (3) Economic Development, (4) Energy, (5) Finance, (6) Highways and Transportation, (7) Public Health and Welfare, and (8) Public Property.

In 2012, Senator Doty voted to require photo identification to vote in Mississippi and to establish charter schools. In 2013, she voted to require physicians to administer abortion prescriptions. In 2014, she voted to prohibit abortions in Mississippi past twenty weeks of gestation of the unborn, but she joined the Senate majority in rejecting a proposal that abortion counseling not be mentioned by crisis pregnancy centers in the state. In 2016, she voted to prohibit state funds to the large abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. She backed the bill to guarantee within Mississippi protections for religious beliefs and matters of moral conscience. In 2017,  she supported the prohibition against local governments pursuing sanctuary city policies. She supported the legislation which authorizes additional methods of execution in Mississippi and another measure to declare as a hate crime the targeting of law-enforcement officers by the lawless element. She voted to retain a private contractor to audit Medicaid.

See also

Other Mississippi Republican state senators (incomplete listing):

• Chris Caughman
• Dennis DeBar
• Joey Fillingane
• Angela Hill
• Billy Hudson
• Dean Kirby
• Philip Moran
• Joseph Seymour
• Michael Watson
• Charles Younger