Carson Lester grew up in a conservative, Christian home in Georgia and quickly got involved in Republican politics as a young adult.
At age 22, he became the youngest chairman of the Laurens County Republican Party in Georgia and worked on Republican Herman Cain’s U.S. Senate campaign in 2004. However, over the years, his views evolved, and he found he didn’t agree with most Republicans about the proper size and scope of government.
So about six or seven years ago, he separated from the Republican Party and joined the Libertarian Party, and this year, he was recruited to run for Alabama House District 56 as a Libertarian.
He is facing Democrat Ontario Tillman in a battle for the legislative seat now held by Louise Alexander, who gave up her seat in the House to run for Alabama Senate District 19. The general election is Nov. 8.
House District 56 includes Ross Bridge and part of the Lake Cyrus community in Hoover, as well as most of Bessemer, Brighton, Lipscomb and the Oxmoor Valley and Shannon communities.
Lester said his central political belief is that less government is better and when decisions are made by the government, they should be done so at the lowest level possible. He believes decisions are best made by individuals, then families, then neighborhoods, then communities, then districts, then states and lastly by the federal government.
He believes in Section 35 of the Alabama Constitution, which states that “the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty and property, and when the government assumes other functions, it is usurpation and oppression.”
“There are tons of laws, and most of them need to be repealed,” Lester said.
He particularly doesn’t believe an action should be considered a crime if there is no victim, and he doesn’t believe the state can be a victim. He favors repealing laws such as those requiring seatbelts, having an open beer in a vehicle or ingesting chemicals or plants.
He also favors repealing all taxes, except sales taxes, and believes there should be no exceptions made about which items should be taxed when sold, including groceries.
“I don’t think government should be put in a position to pick winners and losers,” he said.
He also doesn’t think government should be involved in education or health care, he said. “Government is the problem.”
Lester said he thinks his opponent, Tillman is a good guy who is committed to the community and wants to do good things, but he believes Tillman’s plan of action is misguided and much different than the one he favors.
“I want to remove government from your life,” Lester said. “He wants to work to inject more government in your life.”
Lester grew up in Dublin, Georgia, and moved to Birmingham in 1996 to attend Samford University, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1999. He moved to Virginia to pursue a law degree but ended up joining the U.S. Air Force. He went to officer training school and then left the military after getting his commission because he didn’t want to go to Korea away from his children, he said.
He bought and ran a small bakery in Georgia for about three years but then divorced, sold the bakery to his ex-wife and moved back to Alabama, he said. He has since been in the insurance business about 18 years and currently is the executive general adjuster for Charles Taylor Adjusting.
Lester, now 45, is single but in a committed relationship and lives in the Oxmoor Glen neighborhood in Birmingham.
He is a former worship leader for Lighthouse Community Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Dublin Community Church in Dublin, Georgia, and worked in the music ministry at The Church at Brook Hills in north Shelby County and Christ Fellowship Church in Homewood, but he now describes himself as an agnostic.
He has coached youth baseball in Homewood, was the 2021 president of the Southern Loss Association and still is on that organization’s board and teaches claims litigation management at Claims College.
For more information about Lester, visit Carson Lester for AL State House District 56 on Facebook.
Read more about his opponent, Tillman, here. Tillman defeated three other candidates in the Democratic primary, including a runoff with Tereshia Huffman.
