Election 2026: District 9 Congressional Candidate Keil Roark (D)

Continuing our “Election: 2026” series, this addition to our candidate interviews features District 9 Congressional Candidate Keil Roark (D). Leading up to the primaries, we will continue to release candidate interviews in order to keep you informed as you make your way to the ballot box.

Publisher's Note: The Washington County Times does not endorse political candidates. Our mission is to provide balanced and informative coverage of local politics so our readers can make their own informed decisions at the ballot box. We aim to give all candidates a fair opportunity to share their views and connect with the community. This Q&A is part of that commitment to open, unbiased political reporting.

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Keil Roark

Candidate's campaign site: https://www.keilroark.com

• Reader-submitted question: What inspired you to run for Congress? What drives you to represent our district?

“All this stuff comes back to how you're raised. Growing up in Maryland, my grandparents used to pester us kids all the time – I have three other siblings – about coming to help the church out,” began Keil Roark. “Growing up, my parents always worked a lot. My dad was a security guard for Chrysler, and my mother was a meat cutter. So, my grandparents always interjected, ‘hey, come to church, go to church with us. And oh, by the way, while you're there, we need you to help on the roof.’ And other community service things like that. So, I did that a lot when I was in high school. And after doing that a number of times, it just felt gratifying. I got a sense of, ‘wow, I actually did something for the church today.’ No pay. And that felt good.

“My grandfather was a World War Two vet, and he always preached service to country,” he continued. “Take care of your community, help out your community. And that kind of carried with me for many, many years. And then when I went through my divorce from my first wife, I said, hey, I'm going to join the service. I tried to do it in 2004, but my wife at that time wouldn't agree to it because they were deploying all the time. And then in 2010, I went through a divorce. And next thing you know, I'm a single dad, every other weekend, etc. I wanted to give back. I wanted to help our community. It all hearkens back to my childhood. Helping out the community. I feel like I need to help. And so, I joined the Navy. I joined the Navy as a Navy reserve officer, civil engineering, Seabee. And I did that for 11 years. Eight years on the reserve side, three years in active duty. Active duty was recruiting, it wasn't civil engineering per se. But that was a big deal because I was really assessing new officers, building the next generation of leadership in the Navy. I did that for three years here in Louisville.

“So, I did that duty, went back to the reserves for about a year, and then the drawdown happened. You probably remember 2020, 2021. Biden was pulling everybody back from Afghanistan. So all of a sudden the Navy was like, oh, we got too many officers, and they were making it harder and harder to be promoted. And I just decided, okay, I'm okay to go. I'll take my honorable discharge. And out I went.

“When I got out of the Navy, it was the height of Covid,” he said. “Everybody was grumpy, very grumpy. I went back to work at Ford because before I went on active duty, I was at Ford as an engineer. I went on active duty three, went back to Ford, and everybody was just grumpy from Covid. Finally, I was like, what am I doing here? I need a break from it. Between that and the Navy, I just need a break. So, I left Ford and then went back to school. I went back to college for a year and a half. I got two master's degrees. I got one from U of L, and then University of Chicago invited me up to do their public policy. I wanted to do writing and I wanted to do some law. Something different than engineering. Engineering is all math. My GI Bill covered everything. So, I went to the University of Chicago and met a lot of great people. I finished my degree there in 2022. Then I got an opportunity at Rolls Royce, and here I am. I’m back and ready to serve again. The service thing never really left me. It’s part of me.”

• What personal or professional experience has best prepared you to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives?

“I think in that role, you need to be a people person,” said Roark. “You have to be able to build relationships. That is key and instrumental in the success of your role because what you're doing is you're designing legislation not only with others, but in the mind of helping your constituents. So, you need to know how to design legislation to be able to do that. But you have to build relationships. You have to get other parties to sign up for your legislation. So, you have to be able to build relationships. So, I would say some of those skills and competencies are when I was an assembly line worker, I was a production supervisor, managing large swaths of people and being around large groups of people all the time. In the Navy, I managed 200-some people. You have got to be a people person or you will not make it because you can't do it all by yourself. You have to be able to identify personality skills and traits and get the best out of people without offending them. Some of my best friends I grew up with are Republican or MAGA, but I don't really look at them that way. I'm like, ‘I don't know if I agree with that.’ But I still think about them as a person, as a character. They just have a different view on something. But a lot of people take that offensively. I don't. And so I think that's probably what makes me a little different.

“But really, the real world manufacturing experience, the military experience, the educational experiences, the legal writing, the legal classes, all these things have allowed me to build those relationship skills,” he said. “Also to be able to direct and manage a staff because you're going to have a staff to write press releases, to write legislation, to put it on the floor, to get those different folks from different areas of the country to sign up to support your bill. You can get it in committee. So, once it gets voted on in committee, you can get it out of committee so you can get the Senate to look at it. Once the full body passes it, the Senate can look at it. There's that back and forth with the bill. But all those experiences definitely align with that core competency as a representative, and what I'd be able to do for the community to get that job done.”

• What are the top three policy priorities you would focus on in your first year in Congress, and why?

“Affordability, affordability, affordability,” said Roark. “Those are the top three. But if you peel back the onion, you're really looking at grocery prices, housing prices, rent prices, wages and health care costs. General cost of living. The dollars being depressed. Wages aren't keeping up with inflation. One of the number one issues is how do we get employers to start to increase wages? That would help offset inflation. So, there could be tax incentives for employers. We could call it the Wage Increase Act. I don't know yet. To encourage employers to pay more to their employees. And I'm not talking about CEOs. I'm not talking about the people at the top. I'm talking about people at the bottom. Those are the ones who need that support. Anybody making less than $80,000 is probably feeling it right now. Maybe even $100,000. It's really a top five in my mind. It's really affordability, affordability, affordability. You really have those five underneath that support that concept because they're all family items. Wages, grocery prices, health care costs, housing prices and rent prices.”

• Reader-submitted question: Washington County is facing interconnected challenges with substance abuse, family instability, and economic decline — what specific actions would you plan to take to support recovery programs, strengthen families and youth engagement, and promote workforce development to help our community achieve long-term stability and growth?

“First and foremost, you have to look at programs that provide substance abuse programs there,” he stated. “And the logistics of that individual getting to substance abuse. Say you have a population of folks in Salem. Say it's 50, and they have to drive an hour or two hours to a substance abuse center. That's going to be a problem. So, you're going to look at federal funding and federal programs to identify how many centers are in Salem. What are their accommodations? How can we subsidize programs that help to make sure that in Washington County, there are plenty of substance abuse centers to help deal with that population that is struggling? In terms of the drug epidemic and situation, opioids and all the issues that we have, at some point, you have to figure out a way to get that out and minimize it. It's very destructive. People get hooked on meth, and it's very destructive. You have to figure out a way to get it out. That's where law enforcement funding could come in.”

• How would you approach federal spending and the national debt — do you support spending cuts, tax increases, or a mix, and in what areas?

“In terms of taxation of the rich, that's long overdue. Long overdue,” Roark said. “Even the rich are saying they need to be taxed. And the reason why they're saying that is because if the government goes belly up and bankrupts, they get impacted. We're $38 trillion in debt. The rich in this country have to start paying their fair share. Because what happens is, you have probably heard of the effective tax rate. Effective tax rate is like, if I'm worth $20 million, I use my assets in the county to lower my tax burden. So, I own one house and then say I have five businesses, six businesses. The more businesses I get, the more of a tax write off I can do. Therefore, lowering my tax burden. So, that's called the effective tax rate. You've probably heard of Elon Musk and Bezos and those folks have an effective tax rate of less than 5% because they take their assets and their write offs to lower their tax burden.

“What we have to do is get rid of these write offs,” he continued. “That's step one. That alone is not going to fix the debt problem. But Simpson-Bowles did a debt commission. It was 12 or so years ago when Obama was in the White House. They basically said, ‘we have to cut spending across the board.’ I totally agree with that. We have to. There's no way around it. Because you're already starting to see the $38 trillion red line being hit. The red line is basically when you get to such a high debt level, the interest on that debt becomes unpayable. You can't keep up. It's like a snowball. You get to that point where it gets too big, and you can't stop it. That will adversely affect the markets and the bond market. And then what happens when you affect the bond market? Interest rates go up and up. Dollar value goes down, down, down. Once that happens, inflation goes with it. And that's what you're seeing now.”

• What specific steps would you take to improve access to affordable health care in Indiana, including for Medicare and Medicaid recipients?

“So, in the Big Beautiful Bill, I know they had some cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, and I don't know exactly how many different hospitals that's impacted because every hospital is different. So, I'll have to do my homework on that one,” said Roark. “The Affordable Care Act subsidies expired, I would be in favor of extending that. The republicans don't really want to talk about it. They just say, ‘eh, we're going to try.’ It's not happening. They didn't extend it. The folks who are enrolled in ACA, they're going to deal with the premium hike, and they're already struggling. That's unfortunate. So, I would definitely support extending that. I would also look into how to address the Medicaid cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill. Because I know that was aimed at Medicaid. A big chunk of dollars came out of Medicaid, and I'm curious to see which hospitals it really impacts. To dovetail that last part, I need to do some research on the Big Beautiful Bill and its impacts on things. I know there are a lot of steep cuts in Medicare, but I'm curious to see how bad it is. And I don't know, it just kicked in a month ago. I was going to get a hold of Dr. Eric Fish of the hospital and Seymour. He's the CEO. Let's see if I can get his opinion on that and see how it's impacting things.”

• Indiana’s voters are concerned about economic development and job growth — what federal policies would you support to attract and retain good jobs in our state?

“I can tell you right now a lot of the big companies are talking about the scarcity of skilled trades,” said Roark. “They are in the dirt. There are a lot of reasons for that. One, a lot of these data centers are going out there needing skill trade folks to do the work. Two, baby boomers are retiring. There are like 80 to 90 million baby boomers. So, you have to align your policies with the market conditions and where you think it's going. I really think healthcare and skilled trades are going to be the jobs of the future. And they're really AI proof. You're not going to replace a nurse or a doctor with a robot. It's not happening right now. Maybe 30 or 50 years from now, but it isn't going to happen right now. So, anything in healthcare, anything in skilled trades tech work. I don't see that changing. So, I would try to generate some legislation around subsidizing trade schools and medical schools that try to help folks go to school so they can get a good paying job. And by the way, those jobs usually pay well. They're in need.”

• Climate change and energy policy continue to be debated nationally — what is your stance on federal climate action and energy independence?

“Well, I do believe in climate change. It is happening. I'm a scientist. I'm an electrical engineer by trade, so I believe in data and facts. It's happening. And I know we got a lot of snow, but most people don't realize, this is the first time we've had this in probably 12 years. It's been a long time that it's been this much snow and this cold. It's been a long time. So, this is climate change. It's unstable. Climate change creates instability in the climate system. Although, it's on pause right now from the federal perspective because the president doesn't believe in climate change. But it's not about beliefs. It's about facts. About what's changing. The climate is still changing. The earth is still changing. The oceans are still heating up. We're still having torrential downpours in deserts. We're still having multiple earthquakes and hurricanes and all these problems, and they're just getting worse. If you look at the frequency of disasters like torrential hurricanes, tornadoes, torrential downpours, excessive heat and desert. They're getting worse and worse, and they're occurring more frequently. At a higher rate. All you have to do is look at the actuaries, the insurance companies. A lot of insurers down there in Florida, they're not insuring anymore. Like Panama City, Saint Petersburg and some of these high frequency hit areas, the insurers are saying, ‘we're done. No insurance. If you live 20 miles from the water, no go. We're not going to insure you. You're on your own.’ I have a friend of the family who bought a house down in Panama City, and they wouldn't insure them. The insurance people know. They drive big cars for a reason, and they buy big houses for a reason. Because they look at the data and the facts. So yes, I believe in climate change. I feel like climate policies are either not there or are being destroyed by the Trump Administration. And that's just reckless for us and that's reckless for future generations. Because 20 years down the road, there's not much you can do about it. It's going to be bad.”

• How do you plan to stay connected with the communities you represent, especially those with differing views from your own?

“I would definitely have Instagram and Facebook, I'd have X as well,” he said. “But I would have a portal for each county to send in their issues and their concerns. On a weekly or monthly basis. ‘Representative Roark, here's what we got for this month. John and Mary said this, they're concerned about this, this and this.’ I'd have some staff respond to some of those. I'd do some myself, too. I would take some time myself to do some, but I'm across the 9th Congressional District. That's a lot. So, you need help. You need help with getting things answered. It comes back to constituent services. How are you going to present yourself as a constituent service? How are you going to do that? My goal is to stay connected. One way is to do a portal, but also try to call people. Obviously, you can't call everybody, but you have to try to respond, reach out and stay connected.”

• Do you have any additional thoughts you’d like to leave with our readers?

“I'm a dad, I'm a Christian, I love Indiana, I love our district and I love our country. I'm worried about the American dream for my kids, for the next generation. I'm deeply worried. Folks are getting squeezed economically. There's no denying that. They need help, but they also need opportunity, though. They don't want handouts. They just want an opportunity. Good paying job. Wages up. Give me a skill trades job making $30/hr. Give me a line job making $25/hr or $28/hr. Give me something that I can work towards. Maybe some college benefits to go with it. Maybe some health care that I can afford. They just want a chance. I want to give them what I received. I didn't belong anywhere near a college when I got out of high school. Nowhere near it. My grades in high school were terrible, and I just wasn't ready for it. But I got a reality check. I went and worked on an assembly line. I was an ironworker, too, for like three months.

“It's been an experience. But those experiences have formed my character,” continued Roark. “It has made me appreciate what I have in life, and it's made me appreciate the gifts that God has given me, which are family and a job. That's why I keep saying we have to give people an opportunity. They don't want a handout. They want to make a good living so they can take care of their family and get ahead.”