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The Pike County Republican Women hosted the two candidates vying for Sen. Jimmy Holley’s District 31 Alabama Senate seat.

Holley announced earlier this year that he will retire at the end of the 2022 legislative session.  Rep. Mike Jones, R-Andalusia, and Coffee County Commissioner Josh Carnley, R-Ino, are both seeking the nomination for Holley’s seat in the 2022 Republican Primary.

The GOP women asked both candidates to introduce themselves and to speak briefly about their qualifications and platform.

Carnley said he was born and raised in Ino, a small community northeast of Kinston in Coffee County. He said growing up on the family farm, he learned the values of hard work, cooperation and faith. After graduating from Kinston High School, Carnley received a degree agricultural science from Auburn University.

He continued farming and also opened an insurance agency, which was later purchased by Sanbuck Insurance, Carnley said he still works for Sanbuck. In 2010, he was elected to the Coffee County Commission.

Conley said if elected, he was committed to honest government, continued economic development, improving education, making sure the state was fiscally responsible and would support the military and specially the state’s veterans.

Jones said he is a 1985 graduate of Andalusia High School, a 1987 graduate of Lurleen B. Wallace Junior College, a 1989 graduate of Birmingham Southern College and a graduate of the University of Alabama Law School. He opened a private family practice in Andalusia in 1992 and served two terms on the Andalusia City Council, the second term as mayor pro tem.

Jones was first elected to the Alabama House in 2010 and has been re-elected twice.

Jones said he made two campaign promises in 2010 — to hold regular town hall meetings and to never vote on a bill he hadn’t read. Jones said he had been able to keep both of those promises.

He said he said his dedication to reading bills and tutelage under Holley enabled him to served as the House Rules Committee chairman as well as being selected by House members to served as the chairman of the House Impeachment Committee that investigated former Gov. Robert Bentley.

Jones said he was pro-life, pro-agriculture and pro-Second Amendment.