Andrea Salinas vies for 6th Congressional District seat

Editor’s Note: We invited both candidates to speak. Mike Erickson declined to participate.

The primaries were flooded with candidates for the newly formed 6th Congressional District. Now, Democratic state Rep. Andrea Salinas and Republican businessman Mike Erickson face off in the general election. Salinas joins us with more on why she thinks voters should send her to Congress to represent Oregon’s 6th Congressional District.

This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Starting in January, Oregon will have a brand new seat in the U.S. Congress. The 6th Congressional District was added following the 2020 Census. That’ll stretch from Portland’s southwest suburbs down into Salem, and includes all of Yamhill and Polk counties. We invited the Democratic and Republican candidates in the race to join us. The Republican, Mike Erickson declined, but the Democrat said yes. Andrea Salinas is in her third term as a Democratic state representative from Lake Oswego. Welcome back to think out loud.

Andrea Salinas: Well, thank you for having me, Dave.

Miller: What do you see as the most important issue facing residents in the 6th district?

Salinas: Right now, the thing that I’m hearing most from residents and voters across this district really is cost of living. So everything from housing, groceries, gas and health care. Obviously, some of these things are longer term and bigger issues, but people need some immediate relief, and it’s something that I know that I’m feeling in my family, the pinch of all of that. I’m a middle class legislator, and my family is having to make decisions when we’re at the grocery store or at the gas pump. We’re seeing increasing prices. Some people call it inflation, some people call it cost of living. I think, for everyday voters, trying to make ends meet is the number one issue.

Miller: The policies connected to these different things that people have to pay for are actually pretty different. So let’s take them one by one, starting with health care. What would you seek to do with respect to our health care system?

Salinas: I would love to do some of the things that we have started to do here in Oregon, which is to get our arms around costs for health care, for patients, and for people who need to access our healthcare system. First and foremost, I know it’s on a lot of voters minds right now, is access to abortion. That means the full suite of reproductive health care, everything from contraception care, prenatal care, postpartum care, including abortion access. Making sure that women really do have that choice across the board.

Making sure that people have the providers. That’s a workforce challenge right now. We don’t have the providers, the nurses, the doctors that we need in different areas of our state right now. We also know that cost in general is a big deal, and people can’t afford their medications. Congress has started to address this with the Inflation Reduction Act, which will allow Medicare to actually negotiate drug prices, and caps the cost of insulin, which is a life saving medicine for many who have diabetes. And so we’ve done this here at the state level, we capped the cost of insulin copays for private insurance, and we brought some more transparency around drug pricing regimes for pharmaceutical companies. We did that a couple years ago when I was House Healthcare Chair.

So I’m really proud of some of that work. I’d love to continue working on those issues, because I know that seniors and people who are on life saving medications often can not actually afford those medications. It’s not fair, and it’s really untenable for us to move forward. And for someone [for whom] the federal government pays for healthcare, the state pays for health care, it’s just not sustainable to continue to have these increasing prices. So really tackling the prices and making sure that patients can get exactly what they need.

Miller: You mentioned abortion in there at the beginning in terms of health care. Obviously in Oregon, abortion access is guaranteed in this state. That’s not the case federally anymore. What kind of abortion protections would you seek to enshrine in federal law?

Salinas: I would really hope to enshrine Roe v. Wade, and make sure that abortion is legal for all women, and actually take what we did under the Reproductive Health Equity Act. I helped pass the strongest reproductive rights law back in 2017 to make sure that women could not only access it through legal means and have that as the policy of the state of Oregon, and abortion was made legal at that time, but to also make sure that they have the affordability portion of it, making sure that abortion access is affordable and accessible.

Going back to what I said, we know that we don’t have a lot of abortion providers in the state. And right now Republicans are waging an all out war, not only on women and their ability to make their own personal decisions about their own health care, but also on providers who know the clinical side of this, and know how to advise women in their patient offices. And so I would want to make sure that the providers are also being protected so that they can perform abortions or prescribe medical abortions, and be able to do it with their knowledge and their expertise. I think both of those things are very important to make sure that women have access to, again, the full suite of reproductive health care, but certainly abortion access.

Miller: Let’s turn to other pieces of life that people have to pay for that have gotten more expensive, thinking broadly here about consumer prices and inflation. Obviously, you know well the Republican argument, that one of the pieces feeding inflation now is out of control Democratic spending. What’s your response to that?

Salinas: I call that hogwash. I think what Democrats have done is really to help provide some safety nets during a pandemic, and to make sure that people remained in their homes, remained in the workplace. My opponent took over $150,000 in PPP Loans to assist his business when he was still an executive there, making $250,000. Yet he did not agree with providing supports for working families, and people who are still trying to stay in the workforce. Things like making sure that we lower the cost of fuels and groceries, providing the Department of Agriculture with some ability to tackle the supply chain challenges that we’re seeing that would actually get our food from our farms into our grocery stores a lot faster, and bolster renewable fuels in the process.

So I think there’s a lot of support that can be had right now. And families still need it. We’re not entirely out of COVID. To make sure that we are a full thriving economy again, and making sure that people can get back to work. We know that we keep hearing that childcare is a major issue, and people are paying more and more for that. Making sure that not only do we bring back those childcare businesses that falter during COVID so that families do have a safe place to make sure their children are being cared for when they go back to work, but also making sure that we’re paying those providers a good reimbursement rate.

Miller: Let’s turn to elections themselves. What election related legislation would you support?

Salinas: Oh, thank you for that question. I think this is a real big issue for the voters in this district as well. I think people are really afraid of Republicans, and some of the things that we saw out of the Trump playbook, where they feel like their vote could be thrown out because of what we’re seeing. But there are a number of different bills right now in Congress, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which expands and protects the right to vote, trying to get dark money out of politics, and really protecting our democracy by holding the executive branch accountable so we never again see and suffer at the hands of someone as corrupt as our former president.

Things like making sure we boost low voter turnout by modernizing the voter registration process, and we can do that with online registration. Making sure we have nonpartisan automatic voter registration. Allowing voters to register on the same day, establishing election day as a federal holiday so that we are assisting people who maybe aren’t able to take off to go to the polls. Here in Oregon, I think we’re very lucky, the New York Times basically said that we’re number one, the most safe and secure elections. And I would love for that to be seen across the United States. But this is something that we’re just not seeing enough Republicans leaning into, to make sure that we have the conversations of how necessary, what a cornerstone of our democracy voting, and the right to vote, and getting corrupt money out of politics is to moving forward, and forging ahead as one nation.

Miller: What is corrupt money and what is not corrupt money?

Salinas: I think when we see millions of dollars being poured in, and when people in corporations have undue influence, I think that is what I’m hearing from voters of what they believe is corrupt. When we don’t know where money comes from, when it can be hidden and out of sight and not fully disclosed where the money comes from, especially when it’s large donations. That’s exactly what I’m hearing from voters. So I think in their minds, that is what’s corrupt.

Miller: What if it’s large money coming from a public employee union?

Salinas: I am not hearing that large money from a public employee union is what people are talking about, because I think they realize that there’s lots of small dollars that get put into those kinds of political action committees. But when it’s one person or one entity, one corporation, where there isn’t a bunch of people putting into a political action committee, it feels like there is undue influence. Like we’re seeing right now, people are a little nervous about one man owning Twitter, maybe having too much influence in the social media space. It’s the same kind of idea, that you know someone can influence our conversations on politics because of this new ownership. And it’s the same thing within politics. Nobody wants one individual to have the million dollar bank account to be able to sway an election.

Miller: I want to turn to a lawsuit that your opponent Mike Erickson has filed against you. It’s connected to an ad that you’ve run noting that he was “charged with felony drug possession of illegal Oxycodone”. This is in reference to a 2016 incident where he was charged with driving under the influence and two traffic violations. But the DA has said that that’s not the case, that he was charged with felony drug possession, that he was never charged with that crime. His defense attorney has explained that she made a mistake when she wrote a petition for a plea agreement. Are you still running this ad?

Salinas: No, the ad ran its course. And so the ad is not running anymore. But the ad was really about setting the record straight, and clarifying my record on police funding, because he came out with accusations against me that were patently false. I just wanted to set the record straight. I wanted voters to know that my father was a police officer, so I worry about law enforcement being safe on the job, and I actually increased police funding.

But truly, the police charge, the arrest charge, and release charge did cite that, and that’s what we cited in the ad.

Miller: You’re still standing by this, even though the DA has said that he was not ever charged with felony drug possession of illegal Oxycodone. It was found on him, he said it was his wife’s prescription, and he was never charged with that particular felony.

Salinas: That’s right. And that’s accurate, he was never charged from the DA. But there was a police charge, the arrest charge and the release charge that said that. And so I think what the DA, and Mike Erickson, my opponent, is trying to do is obfuscate and run from his record, I think is what’s going on here. So again, I was just trying to set the record straight to let voters know what actually happened.

Miler: Neither you nor Mike Erickson live in the district that you are hoping to represent. If elected, would you move?

Salinas: Yes. In fact, the sale of our home is pending, and the sale of our new one is pending.

Miller: In the Oregon legislature, you have been part of a Democratic supermajority. It is entirely possible though that if you win next week, and represent this new congressional district in D.C., that Republicans in the same election could retake the house. How would you approach representing the district while in the minority, something you haven’t been in that position before as an elected official.

Salinas: That’s right, I have not as an elected official. However, I worked on Capitol Hill for about seven years for members of Congress when we were in the minority, in both the Senate and the House. And I know and I understand from our voters that Donald Trump and the MAGA extreme ideology feels very threatening and it is not helpful at all. But what I would say is I have worked across the aisle in the legislature. I’m eager to work with whomever wants to move real good policy forward. Like I mentioned at the beginning, we have some real big issues that are hanging over us not just here in Oregon, but across the U.S., especially given our housing situation, the cost of living right now, healthcare, climate.

I have the Independent Party of Oregon’s nomination, as well as the Working Families Party as cross nominations. I’m willing to reach across the aisle and actually work with people who want to get things done. So I’m eager to find common ground. I worked with Congressman Bentz when he was both a state representative as well as a state senator on issues that I know we didn’t see eye to eye, but I knew I needed to talk to him in order to help get things done. So I have experience doing that, trying to bring different voices to the table, and I will continue to do that as a leader in Congress.

And then also there’s a lot to deliver in terms of what people need from their administrative agencies at the federal level. People are not going to suddenly not need help with Social Security or Medicare or their visas, or their passports, or their veterans benefits. There’s a lot still that you can individually reach out to voters, and they come to you seeking help and advice. So I think there’s still a lot of room to deliver for this district.

Miller: Andrea Salinas, thanks very much.

Salinas: Thank you.

Miller: Andrea Salinas is the Democrat running for Oregon’s new 6th Congressional District. As I mentioned, we did invite the Republican Mike Erickson to join us. He declined.

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