Bill Stricklend endorses Alan Miller for Alabama State House, District 27

On Monday, former candidate for Alabama State House, District 27, Marshall County Commissioner Bill Stricklend, announced that he is endorsing Alan Miller to fill the vacant State House seat in the Republican Primary Runoff election on April 30.

"I cannot think of a more qualified candidate than Alan Miller who has spent the past few decades serving the people here in District 27," said Stricklend. "Alan is a public servant, not a politician. He is exactly who we need representing us in Montgomery."

Stricklend encouraged those who supported him during his campaign to vote for Miller.

"Alan's positions are very similar to the issues I ran on," Stricklend said. "That's why I'm asking the 532 people who got out and voted for me on April 2nd to get out and support Alan Miller on April 30th for the run-off election. Alan Miller has my complete and total endorsement. He is hardworking, personal, and will not back down on his word."

Only 3,579 Republicans voted in this special election on April 2 even though there were six very different candidates on the special election ballot.

Jeana Ross finished in first place with 1,404 votes (39.23%), while Miller had 737 (20.59%). Stricklend finished third with 532 votes (14.86%). The other three candidates (Bill Hancock, Billy Todd, and Stacy George) combined for over 25% of the vote.

Alan Miller is a longtime employee of Redstone Federal Credit Union. He is the treasurer at United Methodist Church in Arab, Alabama. He has a finance degree from Florida State University. He is a native of Arab, Alabama.

"Alabama has done a great job of incentivizing new industries to come into the state, and we've also done a lot of work to make the business climate more friendly to the companies already here," said Miller. "One area we need to improve is labor participation. The governor even mentioned that in her State of the State address. Alabama's labor participation rate is 57%, which is the third lowest in the country."

"We have to find the friction that keeps people out of the workforce, whether that's folks who don't want to go to work or factors such as childcare, housing, or other factors, and get those folks back into the workplace," Miller continued. "If elected, one of my top priorities will be working with my colleagues on how we can improve this for our state, and House District 27."

Ross was formerly the Secretary of the Alabama Department of Education.

HD27 became vacant earlier this year when Rep. Wes Kitchens (R-Arab) was elected to the Alabama Senate District 26 in a special election to replace Clay Scofield (R-Guntersville) who left to go to work for the Business Council of Alabama (BCA).

District 27 is in Marshall County. HD27 includes Arab, Asbury, Grant, Guntersville, Union Grove and a portion of Albertville.

There is not a Democratic candidate qualified in this race, so the winner of the Republican primary will be the eventual representative.

The special runoff election is on Tuesday, April 30. There is still time to vote by absentee ballot if you won't be able to be in town on election day.

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