Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net
HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us
Keil Roark: https://www.keilroark.com/
SUMMARY:
With less than a week to go before Indiana’s May 5th primary, Scott Aaron Rogers sits down one-on-one with Keil Roark, one of four Democrats running in Indiana’s 9th Congressional District. Roark — a former UAW assembly line worker, Navy Reserve officer, and Purdue-trained electrical engineer who has worked at Chrysler, Ford, Cummins, and Rolls-Royce — is running as an explicitly moderate candidate, arguing that his working-class background and ability to appeal across party lines makes him the strongest general election contender in this deep-red district. The conversation covers his personal story and motivation for running, the geography and character of the sprawling 9th District, and a look at his economic priorities: increasing wages, congressional stock trading, healthcare (including his skepticism of Medicare for All and his ACA-plus-prevention alternative), wealth inequality and tax reform, trade and reshoring manufacturing, the threat of automation and AI to workers in both blue- and white-collar fields, and the need for federal oversight of AI data centers. Moderate Roark agrees with progressives on this issue: the economic game has been rigged for too long.
WHAT’S INSIDE:
00:00:23 Introduction and upcoming PIN coverage
- Scott previews PIN’s May 5th primary election night broadcast with Derrick Holder, Brianna Newhart, Carlie Dunn, and Kelly Delong
- Announces Sunday PIN Virtual Town Halls with Dr. Tim Peck
- Find us on social media @hoosleft on Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube; @hoosleft.us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky; PIN is @progressiveindiananetwork on most social media sites, @PINIndiana on TikTok and BlueSky
00:03:29 Meet Keil Roark: background and biography
- UAW assembly line worker for 8+ years; Navy Reserve officer for 11 years (3 active, 8 reserve)
- Electrical engineer by trade; worked at Chrysler, Ford, Cummins, and Rolls-Royce
- Has taught at Ivy Tech, ITT, and Sullivan; father of four
- Running to serve, not to build a résumé — motivated by financial stress he sees in the community
00:06:04 The 9th District: geography, culture, and Hoosier unity
- The district stretches from Bloomington in the northwest to Clark County near Louisville and Dearborn County near Cincinnati
- Vast rural areas in between — Scott County, Jackson County, Jennings County, Monroe County — with stark cultural differences
- The unifying moment: IU’s 2025 NCAA football championship
00:09:33 Why run? Service, the tax code, and leaving something better behind
- Roark traces a lifelong thread of service: church volunteer work, ESGR work at Camp Atterbury (2007–2010), Navy Reserve
- Flags the $7.25 federal minimum wage and the FICA tax cap (~$180K) as examples of a tax code rigged against working people
- Wants to leave his kids a world with good-paying jobs and real upward mobility
00:16:22 Affordability as the defining issue: union decline and supply chains
- Scott frames the affordability crisis around the concentration of capital; Roark agrees and traces union decline over 50 years
- NAFTA and WTO accelerated outsourcing and gutted union labor
- The CHIPS Act as a rare bipartisan win — bringing semiconductor manufacturing back from Taiwan
- China’s near-monopoly on critical minerals (titanium, etc.) as a parallel supply chain vulnerability
00:22:39 Minimum wage: what we need vs. what we can get
- Federal minimum wage stuck at $7.25 since 2009; Roark says actuarial science puts the right number at $25/hour
- His realistic political target: $15–$18/hour, citing Virginia’s recent $15 passage
- Brief detour into congressional insider trading — Roark supports a No Stock Trade Act and blind trusts for sitting members
00:27:36 Healthcare: ACA reform, prevention, and Medicare for All skepticism
- Roark’s near-term priority: reinstate ACA subsidies, which he says he’d push for on day one
- Proposes adding a preventive care incentive to the ACA — modeled on Japan’s system — offering premium reductions for annual checkups, blood work, dental, exercise
- Not yet sold on Medicare for All: raises concerns about funding, wait times, and specialist access under a universal system
- Scott pushes back: those problems exist now; the real waste, fraud, and abuse is systemic and corporate, not individual
00:37:50 Wealth inequality and tax reform
- Roark calls Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” — cutting Medicaid and SNAP to fund billionaire tax cuts — un-Christian and un-American
- Proposes raising the top income tax rate from ~35% to 45–50% (Scott says that’s not high enough; Roark revises to 55–60%) to account for effective rates billionaires actually pay through borrowing against assets
- Trade reform: supports bringing manufacturing back, criticizes how US consumer spending has effectively subsidized China’s military buildup
00:43:18 Automation, AI, and the future of work
- Scott challenges the “reshore manufacturing” argument: automation means far fewer jobs even if production returns
- Roark’s answer: push workers toward “three-dimensional” skilled trades (electricians, plumbers, millwrights) that robots can’t yet replace, and medical/care jobs (nursing, phlebotomy)
- Supports UBI as a contingency once AI unemployment data warrants it
- Scott extends to the “pink collar” care economy — nurses, home health aides — and argues government must mandate living wages in those fields or face social unrest
00:48:22 AI, the Great Depression, and congressional inaction
- Roark shares his grandfather’s Depression-era stories as a warning about mass unemployment
- Argues Congress is dangerously tech-illiterate; as an electrical engineer he’d push for AI hearings and legislation
- Scott: tech oligarchs have purchased both parties’ silence on automation’s consequences
00:51:49 AI data centers: regulation, transparency, and community value
- Roark calls for AI regulation on labor displacement grounds and on data center siting
- Communities deserve transparency: who’s funding the project, what’s the tax revenue, what’s the value proposition — then let communities vote
- Scott: if they’re built with renewables and closed-loop water systems and actually pay their taxes, maybe; right now they’re just dumping on communities
- Scott mentions Maine’s AI data center moratorium; Roark notes counties are beginning to use moratoriums and state-level abatement controls
00:54:38 Closing: where to find Keil Roark
- Website: keilroark.com
- Accepting last-minute donations and volunteers for sign deployment
- Scott invites Roark back for a general election conversation if he wins the primary
Upcoming Programming
- Sunday, 10:30 a.m.: HoosLeft This Week with guests Fred Miller (songwriter/artist) and Sharon Wight (HD-81 candidate).
- Sunday, 7 p.m.: Final PIN Virtual Town Hall of the primary season with Dr. Tim Peck (IN-9).
- Tuesday, May 5, 7 p.m.: PIN Election Night coverage with Scott, Derrick Holder, Brianna Newhart, Kelly DeLong, Carlie Dunn, and guests.
