Gerald “Jerry” Starnes announced Tuesday that he is running for Alabama House of Representatives District 88 as a Republican.
Starnes currently serves as president of the Prattville City Council. He is also a lieutenant colonel in the Alabama Army National Guard, and works as a probation and parole district manager for the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles.
“I’ve spent my life finding ways to serve my community, my state, and my country,” Starnes said. “My time in the National Guard has taught me that when you’re called to serve you do so and you give it everything you’ve got. We need leadership for our district. We need someone fighting for our local farmers, police officers, small businesses, and our children. That’s why I’m running.”
Starnes has served a tour in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 as a military police officer, where he earned the Purple Heart in November 2005. Starnes has a bachelor’s degree from Troy University. He is a graduate of Prattville High School.
Starnes says that is a lifelong conservative Republican.
“President Trump built the absolute best economy this country has ever seen,” Starnes said. “His policies lifted millions out of poverty and gave middle class America the resources they needed to create better lives for their families. Unfortunately, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are working to dismantle the Trump economy piece by piece making it harder for everyday Americans to succeed. Once I’m elected to the State House, I’ll work with my Republican colleagues to prevent this administration’s socialist agenda from making their way to Alabama.”
Starnes is a member of the Prattville Chamber of Commerce, the Prattville Y.M.C.A. Board of Managers, and is a graduate of the Autauga County Leadership. Jerry and his wife, Dawn, share three children.
Starnes is challenging GOP incumbent Will Dismukes. Prattville area attorney Joshua Pendergrass is also running for the Republican nomination in District 88.
The incumbent, Rep. Will Dismukes, faces criminal prosecution on charges that he stole tools and materials from his previous employer, a custom flooring company, before entering the custom flooring business himself.
Dismukes maintains his innocence and is running for another term despite the ongoing criminal case. If convicted on all counts, he could not serve in office.
Dismukes, a Sons of Confederate Veterans chaplain, has also been asked to resign by many in the district for his insensitive attendance at a birthday party for Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest in Selma on the same day that Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis’s, D-Georgia, body was lying in state in Selma.
Some Republicans have suggested that Dismukes does not represent their values. Dismukes was elected to his first term in 2018.
House District 88 consists of parts of Autauga and Elmore Counties, and includes the communities of Prattville, Millbrook and Coosada.
The Republican primary is on May 24, 2022.
