Republican Rick Kozell announces run for Florida’s CD 18

Attorney and Republican activist Rick Kozell announced he will launch a bid for South Florida’s 18th Congressional District based in Palm Beach County.

Kozell is running as an outsider, who like most Americans, is fed up with dysfunction and gridlock in Congress.

“Today, Congress seems more focused on growing the bureaucracy than on solving problems. It’s time we fix Washington and restore America’s reputation abroad,” Kozell said in a statement.

“Throughout our community, working people are struggling while big government in Washington is thriving,” Kozell continued. “We need a Congressman who will fight to promote greater opportunities for hard-working Floridians and to create a healthy economy for everyone. As a former small business owner, I have seen first-hand that a rising tide of prosperity can lift all ships. I have been blessed to be the beneficiary of the American Dream and it is time we restore that Dream for everyone.”

The Jupiter native and Georgetown University Law Center graduate pointed to his experience as Counsel for a Republican member of a federal administrative court.

“For the past year, I have fought the Obama Administration’s attempts to increase the reach of government into our local communities and small businesses. Now it’s time to take the fight to Congress,” Kozell declared.

Kozell has also previously worked as a law clerk in the U.S. Senate alongside Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, and for U.S. Sen. from Florida George LeMieux and longtime U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, who Kozell’s campaign called a “conservative hero.”

Kozell is hoping to take the 18th District back from the Democrats, who took it when former former congressman Allen West was felled by U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy in 2012. The open seat was left vacant when Murphy decided to run for the Senate earlier this year.