State Representative of Pennsylvania’s 53rd legislative district, which encompasses Franconia, Hatfield, Lansdale, Salford, Souderton, and Telford– Steve Malagari hopes to instill the values he learned from his time at North Penn to the “People’s House.”

Malagari graduated from North Penn high school in 2002 and later pursued a degree in Biology at Ursinus College. From there on, he first landed a job at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, worked there in a clinical laboratory for several years, and then transitioned careers into sales. But that was not what Malagari truly intended to do with his life.

“When I was in high school, I wanted to go to medical school. And I was pre-med in college. I took the coursework in high school to kind of get myself toward medical school and then the same in college. And then when I started working in the hospital, I realized medical school isn’t the thing I wanted to do,” Malagari said.

“I needed something with a little bit more personal connection. As a result, I ended up starting to get involved in the community. And people within our community started recognizing how involved I was getting. So, members of the local party asked me to run for Lansdale’s borough council when an opportunity came up. So I did and I won that election, then ran again, won that election too,” Malagari added on.

For some people educated in the world of politics, they might be blind to how much a council position in a local town’s borough truly means. It’s what one makes of that position and during his time there, Malagari has left little to no regrets.

“It was probably one of the best experiences I’ve had being able to represent your neighborhood, if you will, your constituency, your ward, on the larger council as a Councilman,” Malagari explained.

As his time in Lansdale’s Borough Council went on, an unexpected opportunity arose. Thirty-five-year Republican incumbent, Robert Godshall decided to retire his seat as the state representative of PA’s 53’rd district. Malagari saw this opportunity and seized it. Soon he formally declared his run for state representative in 2018. His path, however, was not an easy one.

“I remember speaking with my wife, Rachael, at dinner in our home in December of 2017, and I remember telling her, ‘I just feel like I should be doing this.’ She said, ‘well, start making a couple of phone calls to some of your friends.’ So I started reaching out and I reached out to the county commissioner, I reached out to council members and some friends from Montgomery County Democrats and I said, ‘Hey, what do you think’ And they said, ‘well, if that’s what you think is good, then go for it.’ So I did, but the party already had a candidate, and so we had a primary.

Unlike his run for councilman, nobody came up to Malagari out of the blue and asked him to run for state representative, he just jumped in even though the Montgomery County Dems had a candidate in mind. But Malagari never took to the “wait your turn” ideology.

“My main argument was what if there’s a candidate that can do better, or win? But overall, don’t let that be a deterrent of you trying. The only way that people win races is if they run. And if they don’t try, and they don’t put their foot forward, and put their neck out there and say, ‘look, I really want to do this,’ they may never have the opportunity ever again in their life, because no one’s going to come to you and say it’s your turn,” Malagari explained.

Malagari won his election in 2018 by a slim margin of only 854 votes. With that slim of a margin, some would think Malagari was worried about his reelection chances in 2020, but the final result denounced any sense of worry after Malagari won his second term in office with a vote profit of 3,438!

One of the first things he realized in state-level politics, was how similar it truly was to a smaller local level of politics.

“As far as the transition from a local government to state government role, it isn’t too different. There are four boroughs within the district, what happens in one borough, you can almost translate and use as a guide in what other boroughs are going through as well because they operate under the same code. On top of it with all the townships, the three different townships that we have the local government aspect, even from the borough is similar, it’s not exact, but it’s similar,” Malagari explained.

In his 2-years in office, Malagari was quick to learn how much public opinion would be a side-effect of his role. Whether that be in Harrisburg, in his Souderton office, or even in his Lansdale office.

“You’re never going to make everybody happy. 100% of the time, someone is always going to be mad at you for something or just disagree with you on the matter. And no matter what you do, what you try, what you say, there’s always going to be the opposite end of the argument. That’s probably the most difficult thing on a day to day is to try and make everyone happy, which you can’t ever do,” Malagari said.

Despite all of the criticisms he may or may not be partied to as a lawmaker, Malagari has only one thing in mind when carrying out his duties.

“The thing I enjoy most is the constituent work, and being able to get a service for an individual that’s in desperate need– just to guide them in the right way so that their life can be possibly changed, or impacted,” Malagari explained.