Daniel Almond of Effingham County is challenging incumbent Jon Burns for the District 159 seat in the Georgia House of Representatives as a fellow Republican. Almond said he wants to offer voters a choice where they haven’t had one.

“I think the people deserve some better representation, and they deserve a choice,” he said in a phone interview. “There hasn’t been a choice in this primary election, to my knowledge, for at least 10 years.”

Almond wants to represent the people and isn’t seeking personal gain, either in terms of making money or expanding personal power, he added.

“There’s a lot of corruption and cronyism in the gold dome, and I’m looking to expose the corruption and be a strong voice against it and not to be a part of it,” Almond said.

The race between Almond and Burns will be decided in the May 24 Republican primary, and the winner has no Democratic opposition for the Nov. 8 general election. District 159 encompasses all of Screven County, northern Effingham County, including Springfield and Guyton but not Rincon, and a wedge of northern Bulloch County to mid-Statesboro.

Marine veteran

Almond, 37, served eight years in the Marine Corps, spring 1999 to spring 2007, and is a combat veteran of the Iraq War, including the April 2004 First Battle of Fallujah, and service in Al Anbar province in both 2005 and 2006. As a counterintelligence specialist, he and an interpreter would go out with infantry patrols and talk to locals to get information.

His campaign website relates that Almond had been thinking in the summer of 2001, while serving in the garbage room of an amphibious ship during a training exercise, about getting out of the Marine Corps. Then the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America motivated him to re-enlist.

Almond had grown up in the Atlanta area, but met Amanda Page, then a teacher at Guyton Elementary School in Effingham County, while he was on leave in the spring of 2006. They married in summer 2007 and now have four young children.

After his honorable discharge from the Marine Corps as a staff sergeant in April 2007, Almond worked three years as a corrections officer at Effingham County Prison. He is now a security guard at a Savannah chemical factory.

Issues he emphasizes

Religious liberty, more local control in education, reducing taxes and the size of government, and fighting illegal immigration are issues Almond has identified on his campaign website as important.

A “religious freedom bill,” which has now passed the Georgia Legislature, with Burns voting in favor, states that pastors have discretion over what weddings to perform, and that faith-based organizations cannot be required to provide services that violate their beliefs. Opponents have argued that these protections already exist under the First Amendment and that the bill was aimed at allowing discrimination.

The legislation that Almond explicitly supported was introduced earlier by state Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, as the Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Almond said Friday he had not yet read the bill that passed to be able to comment on it. The compromise version, with changes in the final hours, was cleared Wednesday by both the House and Senate.

Almond is a member of Georgia Carry, a gun rights advocacy group, and has also expressed support for the “campus carry” legislation that recently passed in the Legislature.

In fact, when he went to the Capitol March 7 to qualify as a candidate, he also attended a legislative committee hearing on the bill that permits handguns to be carried on state university and college campuses by students and others with a permit.

“I had heard that there was a committee hearing on campus carry, and I’m a big Second Amendment supporter, and went in and showed my support,” Almond said. “There were some folks from Georgia Carry there.”

He wore a “Guns save lives” button but was an audience member and did not speak to the committee.

Attending was also a way of seeing the Legislature in action, he said.

Burns voted for the campus carry bill. He is in his 12th year in the Legislature and last year was elected by House Republicans as majority leader, usually considered the third-ranking member of the House.

“I’m the underdog, but I’m working hard, meeting the people and getting the word out, and I think as people are able to see all of the information, most of the people will choose me,” Almond said.

Herald reporter Al Hackle may be reached at (912) 489-9458.