Mark Houck, the father of seven arrested and charged by President Joe Biden’s administration for his pro-life advocacy, is now running for Congress.

“I am running for Congress to further protect my family, those in the 1st district & the Republic,” Houck says on his campaign website. “I will focus on restoring traditional values & principles that are central to the American identity, such as faith, family, & freedom of speech, religion, & the right to bear arms.”

“I have seen first-hand what an out of control government can do to its citizens,” he added. “I will fight to protect all people and their rights under God & our Constitution. My platform is based on common sense.”

Houck is running for Pennsylvania’s 1st congressional district, which includes all of Bucks County and a bit of Montgomery County. The seat has been held by Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican, since 2019. Fitzpatrick formerly served as a supervisory special agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and as a federal prosecutor.

Authorities arrested Houck at gun point in front of his children in September 2022. A jury later found him not guilty of the DOJ’s Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act charges in January.

“We took on Goliath—the full might of the United States government—and won,” said his attorney Peter Breen, who is with the Thomas More Society. “The jury saw through and rejected the prosecution’s discriminatory case, which was harassment from Day One. This is a win for Mark and the entire pro-life movement. The Biden Department of Justice’s intimidation against pro-life people and people of faith has been put in its place.”

Houck and his wife Ryan-Marie previously told The Daily Signal that they believe they were targeted by the Biden DOJ in an effort to intimidate, silence, and scare the family for their pro-life work—praying outside abortion clinics for the women headed inside to abort their unborn babies. 

Houck’s platform promises to protect citizens’ rights and freedom, emphasizing “the importance of individual opportunity” as well as “the right to pursue personal growth and development.” He promises to fight for a non-woke military, for non-ideological education, for the unborn, for equal opportunities for all individuals, to address “the crisis in fatherhood as it pertains to juvenile and adult crime,” and more.

Pointedly, Houck pledges to “bring integrity to Washington, D.C. and prevent the government from interfering with the constitutional rights of the American citizen.”

His campaign website quotes a biblical passage from the book of Esther: “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance…will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your…position for such a time as this?”

The Daily Signal previously interviewed the Houck family at their home in Pennsylvania, where the children spoke out for the first time about the day the FBI showed up to arrest their father. The children described crying and sobbing as they watched authorities point guns at their parents before loading Houck into a car and taking him away.

Their FACE Act charges stemmed from a 2021 incident outside a Philadelphia-based Planned Parenthood where Mark pushed an abortion clinic volunteer who was repeatedly harassing his young son, Mark Jr. Local authorities ultimately dismissed the matter—until the Biden DOJ re-upped it in response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade. 

“I hope they grow up and remember how courageous their father was,” Ryan-Marie Houck shared emotionally with The Daily Signal earlier this spring, as she recounted the traumatic day. “I hope they remember the faith that we had. That God did not abandon us and was with us every step. I hope they just remember the truth prevailed.” 

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