Kozak launches bid for 14th House District as Marshall plans 2024 exit
An established figure in Beaver County Republican politics will run for outgoing state Rep. Jim Marshall’s Pennsylvania House seat next year.
Roman Kozak, an educator, former legislative aide and current Republican Committee of Beaver County chairman, launched his bid this week for Pennsylvania’s 14th House District, which comprises northern and eastern Beaver County municipalities, including Beaver Falls.
Marshall, 63, of Big Beaver, said this month he won’t run for a ninth two-year term serving the district.
Not running: State Rep. Marshall won’t seek reelection in 2024
Kozak, 35, of Beaver Falls, graduated from Geneva College in 2011 and spent his early career in the transportation and freight industry working with steel, concrete and machinery manufacturers.
“My experience in manufacturing and transportation gave me a front-row seat to the challenges our job creators and working families face as they fight to keep food on the table and our community moving forward,” he said. “I will fight to reduce red tape, hold the line on taxes and create good-paying jobs to ensure real economic opportunity for all our working families.”
In the past decade, Kozak has worked behind the scenes to propel local Republican candidates and causes, including his role as a legislative aide to former state Rep. Jim Christiana. He served as campaign chairman for state Rep. Aaron Bernstine’s first House bid and state Rep. Josh Kail’s campaigns. He was a founding Beaver Falls Community Development Corporation board member and held spots on the Beaver Falls City Planning Commission.
Kozak currently works as a high school history and social studies teacher, he said. Right now, he teaches world history at the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School based in Midland.
“Our children’s future will always be a top priority, and improving our schools and expanding education opportunities will be a key focus of my service,” Kozak said. “Every child is different, and every parent knows this. While many children excel and succeed in a traditional school setting, it is clear that expanded choices are opening up amazing opportunities for our children and the communities around us.”
As the grandson of Ukrainian immigrants who survived the Holodomor, a deadly famine engineered by the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin in the 1930s, and World War II Nazi labor camps, Kozak said his family history and upbringing has “strengthened his commitment to personal freedom, our constitutional right to bear arms, limited government and the sanctity of life.”
More: State Rep. Marshall won’t seek reelection in 2024
“We are being told from every direction that this country and our history is a failure and that the only way to fix the problems we face is bigger government, revolution and radical social experimentation,” Kozak said. “As survivors of both Nazi fascism and Soviet Communism, my family experienced exactly where more government, revolution and radical social experimentation leads.”
According to his Republican Committee of Beaver County biography, Kozak is a “pro-faith, pro-life, pro-second amendment, pro-family and pro-industry” Republican whose Christian faith and conservative principles of government rest at the heart of his values, including “limited government, limited regulation, low taxes, freedom of speech and conscience.”
The candidate’s campaign website is kozakforpa.org.
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Kozak launches bid for 14th House District as Marshall plans 2024 exit
