In 2022, Oregon voters cast ballots for the first time in a newly created congressional district the state was awarded after the 2020 U.S. Census. The 6th Congressional District stretches from suburbs southwest of Portland to Salem, and includes all of Yamhill and Polk counties, as well as portions of Marion, Washington and Clackamas counties.
We hear from two prominent candidates in the Republican primary vying for a chance to flip the seat in November. Mike Erickson is the founder and CEO of AFMS, a supply chain and logistics consulting firm based in Tigard. He narrowly lost to Democrat Andrea Salinas in 2022 after winning the GOP primary that May. David Russ, the mayor of Dundee in Yamhill County, is challenging Erickson once again in this year’s GOP primary race. Russ and Erickson join us for a debate to talk about their platforms.
Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Two years ago, Oregon voters cast ballots for the first time in a newly created congressional seat. The 6th Congressional District stretches from Portland’s southwest suburbs to Salem and includes all of Yamhill and Polk counties, as well as big chunks of Marion, Clackamas and Washington counties.
Former democratic state lawmaker Andrea Salinas was elected as the first
person to represent this district in D.C. I’m joined right now by two of the Republicans who would like to flip this seat in November. Mike Erickson is the founder and CEO of a supply chain and logistics consulting firm based in Tigard. David Russ is the mayor of Dundee in Yamhill County. Welcome to you both.
Mike Erickson: Thanks.
David Russ: Thanks for having me, Dave.
Miller: I flipped a coin just 20 minutes ago and Mike Erickson, you’re gonna get the first question. Why are you the right Republican for this primary for Oregon’s 6th Congressional District?
Erickson: Well, as a small business owner, I feel the pains that we’re all dealing with. I think the small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy. And here in our state, we employ more people and are a big part of the economy here. I don’t think our governments do enough to help us and the people that we support or the families that we hire. Every day I see the problems out there, we all do. I’m running for Congress to fix the problems that we all see, from the fuel, housing costs, price of food, all these things are just terrible right now. And that’s just here in the state and in the U.S. You look at what’s going on at the federal level, they really need some common sense perspectives back there.
Unfortunately, it’s become too political and people aren’t working across party lines. I just think this country is headed in the wrong direction. I’ve got a young family, kids that are nine and 12, and everything I see on TV and everything I’m seeing out there, it’s just become a terrible situation. This is not the U.S. I, and many of us, grew up with. We can turn this around, but we need to have the right leaders back there that truly will go back there and do things right for the country and not for their political party.
Miller: I’ve got to try to keep both of you relatively to time so we can get a lot in here. David Russ, why are you the right Republican in this primary for this seat?
Russ: Well, because I’m a patriot servant leader. I’m the only Republican candidate in this race at this time that has any experience as an elected official. And my record there speaks for itself. I’m endorsed by local leaders who know me. All three of my county commissioners, [the] nearby mayor and city councilor, my city councilors, my chief of police, retired chief of police, a couple of police officers and my pastor – these people know my work and know that I am the conservative that could do what needs to get done.
We need to head towards some more conservative type legislation and actions in Washington, D.C. Working across party lines basically for conservative means that you’re giving up half of everything you have before you start the negotiation. And this is what’s been going on in Washington, D.C for nearly 100 years or more. We need somebody with a backbone to get in there and actually negotiate from a position of strength rather than a position of weakness, to get things done for people, for Oregon, Congressional District 6 and for our nation.
That’s why I say, “Russ is for Us,” because it’s not just you or I or Congressional District 6, it’s this nation. And when we’re talking about a congressional seat, it’s the nation that matters. We can talk about trying to fix things locally, but unless we attack things from a holistic, nationwide kind of perspective, we’re going to continue down these roads and have problems that have been developing over the last several years.
Miller: David Russ, the short version of your platform on your website is: God, Constitution, You. What does that mean?
Russ: It means that in order for a leader to lead well, they need to have ethics and morals. And often anybody who believes in God has that, and that’s where I stand. I have very strong ethics and morals and lean on God for guidance and that. I would never attempt to legislate God into our Constitution or our government or laws, or anything else. It’s just the fact that I have God with me and I maintain that sense of ethics and morals. The Constitution is the law that I will follow when trying to move legislation through Washington, D.C. and I will stick to that rather than try to legislate God, because God doesn’t fit into the Constitution that way.
And then there’s you. The truth is as long as I keep God and the Constitution my primary focus, that makes you number one because those things serve you. And that’s how I serve you, is by serving God and the Constitution first. We need to bring everything in this country and our government back to the Constitution. We’ve gotten so far away. The executive branch is full of 10th Amendment violations that we need to reel in so that the people of our country and District 6 can get back to their small businesses and survive and thrive.
Miller: Let me go back to you, Mike Erickson. How would you describe your political philosophy, sort of boiled down? I mean for David Russ, it goes to these three words: God, Constitution,You. You have more than three words, if you’d like, but how would you describe it?
Erickson: As a small business owner, I’ve always followed certain principles and do what’s right, help others. And I’ve been real successful in growing a business to one of the fastest growing companies in Oregon by treating others well, whether you’re a business client, a vendor or whoever it may be. And I’m a conservative, common sense businessman and those pretty much drive how I operate in my life, whether it be business or political.
Miller: How does that translate to how you would approach lawmaking? You’ve mentioned twice now that you’re a small business owner. It seems like it looms large in your understanding of who you are and what you’d bring to Congress. Practically speaking though, what do you do with that?
Erickson: Well, you deal with problems every day as a business guy here – literally from health care for the employees or pension plans or retirement plans, providing good paying jobs for your employees. Everyday I’m a problem solver and helping our clients, not just the employees, solve problems. We’re in the supply chain logistics world and it affects every part of this world here. I’m moving goods from the farms to the consumers, from retail to the stores. The price of food, or the price of transportation and related costs from the supply chain are just going through the roof.
And as a problem solver, you look at what’s going on with the port issues, you look at what’s going on with all kinds of every issue, up to related to supply chain in the past during COVID, it was a disaster. I’d like to get a chance to be on the Transportation Infrastructure Committee and bring some of my transportation supply chain background to Washington, D.C., to really bring some solutions to help solve the problems that we’ve been dealing with the last few years and make it better for everybody.
Miller: What do you see, Mike Erickson – David Russ you will get a chance for this as well – as the number one issue affecting this particular district, Oregon’s 6th Congressional District?
Erickson: Well, I think it’s skyrocketing inflation. Everywhere I’m out there from knocking on doors and meeting with folks, everybody says, hey, the price of gas, the price of food. Everyday kitchen items are just through the roof and affordable housing, rent from being [in] one apartment or wherever you may be. Prices are just … And interest rates to even buy a home are higher than they’ve ever been. Those are the problems I keep hearing over and over. It’s all around the inflation and we need to do everything we can to get our country back into being more energy independent and reducing gas prices. We have a national debt that’s $34 trillion, I believe right now, that’s adding to our inflation, what’s going on. So, those are the things I want to work on and be a conservative business guy back there and look at how we’re spending our money.
Miller: So how would you address inflation? You talked about the price of food, or food or fuel or consumer prices broadly. What role would you have to do that as one vote among 435?
Erickson: Well, we need an all in energy policy first. I think that policy means looking at clean energy, looking at the Keystone Pipeline, looking at what we’re doing with the refineries. Everything that we’re doing in this country was reversed when Biden came in and changed things when he became president. I disagree with all of Biden’s policies on energy and what’s going on with the southern border. We just must return America to be more energy independent, doing everything we can to do that. And I just think we’re missing the boat right now under his leadership.
Miller: David Russ, what do you see as the number one issue affecting this particular district you’d like to represent?
Russ: Well, talking about the number one issue is actually a plethora of issues and Mike kind of hit on a bunch of those. But the truth is the real number one issue is government overreach and I already mentioned 10th Amendment violations. And the 10th Amendment says that everything that’s not specifically stated for the federal government to be doing in the Constitution is a specific purview of the states. And it’s this government overreach that has led to inflation and the budget and national debt and immigration issues that are out of control; that by the administrative state taking on all these things and dictating what states should do when it’s actually their purview to do so, is what’s leading to this.
The reason that our country was built as it was with the Constitution, the way it was is that the founders realized that when men are free and have the liberty to do what they want to develop their lives and their businesses and their communities, they are much more successful and prosperous than when they’re under the thumb of government. So we’ve got to reel in those federal agencies, reel in the administrative state, so that we can get things under control and start to have that prosperity again.
Miller: What are specific examples of the way you would want to reel in the administrative state, whether it’s particular departments you’d like to slash the budgets of, or particular regulations you’d like to overturn? I mean, what would you specifically want to do? And you said that there’s a lot, but what’s the top of your list?
Russ: Well, it’s pretty much a lot of that, all of them, but an example I can give that makes it really …
Miller: When you say all of them, meaning just get rid of the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, the … What’s on the list?
Russ: Right. Well, so that’s it and also let’s just say SNAP, for instance. SNAP is a very good program, helps provide food for people that need it.
Miller: It used to be called food stamps.
Russ: Yes, food stamps. So, when you pay your taxes, that money goes to the IRS. Well, they have to do operations, they have to pay for those operations, they skim some money off. Then they hand it off to the central accounting department of the federal government. They’ve got business to do, they skim off a little bit before they hand it off to the SNAP people. That’s the USDA. The SNAP people, then of course they gotta do their processes and pay for their bills, they scrape off a little more before they hand it down to the states, who then scrape off a little more and give about .10 or .20 cents of the dollar you sent to the people to eat.
Now, if it was strictly under the state purview, you would send your dollar to the state, they might scrape off 10% or 20%, and 80% of that money would end up giving food to these people. The systems would be more efficient. Your taxes will go down and the people getting the food will be much happier. You can even get better food.
Miller: Mike Erickson, you mentioned the cost of housing recently. There’s wide bipartisan agreement in Oregon that there’s a shortage of housing, and a lot of agreement all across the country. Does Congress have a role to play in addressing the housing shortage and the price of housing?
Erickson: Absolutely. I think you look at … Well, it all ties into the federal government that controls interest rates at different levels, making sure that we’re getting rates that are affordable to buy a house for first time owners. Right now, people look at this and say, I can’t afford a house with interest rates based on their 6%, 8% or whatever it may be, it was 10% a few months ago …
Miller: Just to be clear, that this is the Federal Reserve, not Congress.
Erickson: Yeah. Well, but you can put pressure on the Federal Reserve and other people, other functions in government to do what they can to get interest rates back to a level that helps people, not just for housing, but for their interest rates and their credit cards and other things. It’s just become very discouraging to a lot of Americans. A lot of people are in Oregon but they can’t even get, even keep a home, let alone maybe get into a first home. So I want to do everything I can to push hard to make sure that that message is loud and clear to the people back in D.C.
Miller: OK. So what else, besides putting pressure on the Fed?
Erickson: Well, the local government here … I also do some development on the side besides my logistics business and we’re developing properties out in Oregon City and some other places, in Happy Valley. It takes a year to two years to get your permits. And I know they’re trying to fast track that with what Tina Kotek’s doing. But there’s so many delays and problems dealing with all of the bureaucracy and the regulations when it comes to development. So if you’re a developer out there and you’re trying to create affordable housing, there’s just a lot of steps that could be mitigated out there. I mean, just the permit process, the fees and the … And then the neighbors come back and they may file a LOOP appeal and it takes six months, and they file another LOOP for another six months.
Miller: I want to take us back to Congress because that’s the job that both of you
are hoping to be elected to. David Russ, you’ve said that your number one priority is reining in, as you say, unconstitutional federal overreach. Given that, do you think that Congress has a role to play in terms of building more homes nationwide and lowering the price of homes?
Russ: Absolutely, but indirectly. Back when this country was booming, in the late fifties, early sixties, you could buy a home and send two kids to college on one income. And it’s a booming economy that reduces the cost of homes, causes more homes to be built and gives people the money they need to buy those homes. So we can’t get there by trying to buy our way out of this, by dumping money on people or dumping money on companies to build homes or trying to build little tiny homes that people won’t want as they grow into a better career.
I’ve been a businessman since the age of 17 when I started my first business. I’m currently an accountant and a real estate agent, as well as a consultant and consulting CFO, and I see how these economics work. If we can get through Congress, reel in that administrative state and spur more economic development in the country, what will follow will be better housing options, more money for people to purchase their homes.
And it will also start to clean up our streets because most of the people out in our streets that are homeless today are actually there because either they can’t find a job or they’ve gotten discouraged through all the stuff we’ve been through the last few years, and now they’re kind of drug addicted. When we get a better economy all this stuff starts to turn around and get better.
Miller: I want to go through a couple of questions quickly if we can. David Russ, sticking with you, a few weeks ago there was a bipartisan vote in the house to move forward with aid for Ukraine and Israel and other allies that was eventually passed in the Senate and the president signed it. Would you have voted for that bill?
Russ: Absolutely not. While I do believe it’s important to support your allies, sending them just money or sending them our goods without anything in return is not the best choice. I believe that we can potentially get involved in someone else’s military activities if it’s truly a major security concern for our country …
Miller: Mike Erickson, what about you? Would you have voted for that military aid?
Erickson: Knowing what we are up against, I would have probably said probably yes. But then again, I hate it when I see bills that are laden with a lot of fat and other things that have nothing to do with the issue at hand. But I’d rather see more issues that are just directly, this is for the Israeli aid or this is for Ukraine and it’s not tied into other issues out there. And unfortunately, our government is doing too much of that. So you get a convoluted bill that comes before you and you get a vote for some of the lesser of the evil and things that are more right. So I really would be a strong advocate to make sure our government has bills presented to Congress to vote on that are stand alone bills.
Miller: Mike Erickson, would you approve abortion restrictions at the federal level?
Erickson: No. I’m a pro-life person, but I think what Roe v. Wade was brought back to the reverse and brought back to the state level. I’m happy where it is at the state level, where the states make their own decisions and the states can live and be with those decisions.
Miller: David Russ, what about you? Would you approve abortion restrictions at the federal level?
Russ: As I said previously, I’m a strict constitutionalist and that is strictly for the states to decide.
Miller: David Russ, what do you see as the biggest policy differences between the two of you? Listeners so far have heard maybe some examples: foreign aid, military aid was one that just came out. But do you see other significant ones, or more experiential differences?
Russ: Well, yes, I have experience in nine-plus years as a mayor of Dundee, I’ve ushered in more economic development…
Miller: No, sorry to interrupt. But that’s not the question. The question is, what do you see as the biggest policy differences between you and Mike Erickson?
Russ: OK. Well, so I’m definitely much more strict on Constitutional issues and keeping us to within the rules and laws of the Constitution. Also, as you just heard, Mike says he would have voted yes on that Omnibus bill which just scares me. I mean, any Omnibus bill has a bunch of junk in it. We really do, like he said, need to get back to single bills at a time. If it’s more than two pages, it needs to be thrown out and rewritten.
Miller: Mike Erickson, what about you? What do you see as the most significant policy differences?
Erickson: I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure of all of Dave’s policy issues, so I can’t really answer that fairly. In the times we’ve met and been around the district, he seems like a levelheaded fair guy, but I really don’t know all of his policy issues so I can’t critique him there. But I, for one, think our border security in the southern border is one of my top priorities and I’m not sure where he stands, but …
Miller: He has said something similar, but we are out of time. But I want to thank both of you for your time. Mike Erickson and David Russ, thanks very much.
Erickson: You bet.
Russ: Thank you.
Miller: Mike Erickson is the founder and CEO of a supply chain and logistics consulting firm in Tigard. David Russ is the mayor of Dundee and Yamhill County. They are both candidates in the Republican primary for Oregon’s 6th Congressional District.
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