An independent candidate for Doc Hastings' seat in Congress highlighted the most recent round of election filings.

Leland Yialelis, a 62-year-old state Department of Transportation worker from East Wenatchee, filed late Tuesday to run against Hastings, R-Pasco, and fellow challenger Jay Clough, D-Kennewick. Despite his government job, Yialelis is positioning himself as a small-government fiscal conservative.

"I don't see it as contradictory," he said.

On the contrary, Yialelis said his time as a state employee and the waste he's seen from within has helped solidify his small-government ideals.

"I know government can be made more efficient than it is," he said.

Prior to working for the Transportation Department, Yialelis was general manager of W.A. Craig Inc., a California company specializing in fuel systems. And before that he was a Seventh-day Adventist clergyman. It's likely a unique path to congressional candidacy, but not one that Yialelis thinks should be seen as a negative.

"I believe this diverse background actually prepares me better for that role," he said.

In terms of politics, his philosophy is not dissimilar from that of the Libertarian Party -- limiting government and protecting individual freedoms above all else -- but Yialelis has purposely avoided aligning himself with that or any other party.

"I'm not a Libertarian," he said. "That's why I'm not running as a Libertarian. Those kind of party labels make me somewhat nervous. That's why I'm running as an independent."

Socially, his emphasis on individual liberty makes him something of a moderate. He is for gay rights, for instance, insofar as he believes gay people should be given all the governmental rights afforded straight people. He's more hesitant on the issue of gay marriage, arguing that on one level the difference between "civil union" and "marriage" is nothing more than semantics. The important thing, he said, is that a gay couple should have "equivalent rights" with a straight couple.

Yialelis concedes that running as an independent makes his candidacy a long shot. Though he won't have to toe anyone's party line, he also won't have the built-in campaign infrastructure a party organization offers. But he believes that in independent-minded Central Washington, in a state with a top-two primary, he might just have a chance.

"While my campaign is a long shot, it is certainly a viable campaign," he said.