ABOUT ANDREA

Rep. Andrea Salinas is the daughter of an immigrant from Mexico who served in the military including 2 tours in Vietnam before he became a citizen. Her dad was a police officer for over 30 years and a member of a union. Rep. Salinas grew up in a middle class family and worked her way through college, the first in her family to graduate from college. 

Rep Salinas initially worked as a legislative aide to the U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and also to 2 U.S. Representatives. She worked as a lobbyist for the National Treasury Employees Union and also as legislative director for the Oregon Environmental Council; she also had her own legislative consulting practice. 

Rep Salinas was elected to the Oregon Legislature as Democratic representative for the 38th House District from 2017-2023. She served as Chair of the House Committee on Health Care. Rep. Salinas was elected to Congress in 2022 as a Democratic representative for Oregon’s 6th Congressional District. She is the freshman representative for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Rep. Salinas sits on the Committee on Agriculture and Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. 

Find a list of bills she has sponsored or co-sponsored in Congress here. Find Rep. Salinas’ votes on bills here. 

ABOUT MIKE

Erickson is the GOP nominee running against Rep. Andrea Salinas for the 6th Congressional District. Erickson also ran against Rep. Salinas in 2022 for the same seat and lost. He has run for Congress twice before in different Districts and lost each time. Before that, Erickson ran for the Oregon legislature two different times and also lost those races. 

Erickson played a lot of football in college and later began working for AFMS LLC, his current employer, which is a consultant on supply chain logistics. 

Erickson’s attempt at a political career has been more marked by election losses and scandal than anything else. In one political race, a newspaper reported that Erickson, allegedly a Republican that opposes abortion care, nonetheless drove his pregnant girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her abortion. The Oregonian followed with more detail. 

Then in 2016 Erickson was arrested for drunk driving in Hood River. Police found oxycodone in his wallet; he claimed the drug belonged to his wife. Erickson ultimately pleaded guilty to drunken driving and completed a diversion program; the charges were then dismissed. Fortunately, no one was killed or hurt as a result of his drunk driving. Erickson is suing Rep. Salinas for her campaign’s disclosure of the details of his arrest to the public, claiming defamation. 

Curiously, “Crime and Public Safety” are purportedly Erickson priorities per his campaign website.

In Oregon Rep. Salinas helped pass one of the strongest laws in the nation to protect reproductive freedom including abortion care. She worked as an advocate for NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon. 

In Congress Rep. Salinas is working to restore reproductive freedom across the country in a federal law. She is the only candidate for this office who is committed to restoring reproductive freedom. She is also working to expand reproductive and maternal health care and family planning particularly in underserved communities of color.  

Despite allegedly having secured an abortion for his girlfriend, he wants to deny abortion care to everyone else like other MAGA candidates. He may also want to deny other reproductive freedoms to us such as contraception, IVF and the like, but he has not stated positions on these issues. 

Voting rights and our democratic institutions are under attack by Trump and his MAGA supporters who continue to push lies and false information about the legitimacy and integrity of our elections. As a state legislator Rep. Salinas worked to establish Oregon as a leader in voting access. In Congress, she supports the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act and is focusing on restoring the freedom to vote that has been restricted in so many states. 

Erickson was all in for Trump in 2020 and perpetrated Trump’s election lie including during his failed 2022 campaign. It was noted he scrubbed the election fraud lies from his website during the general campaign in 2022. He has not said anything about protecting the freedom to vote. 

Rep. Salinas comes from a union family and is committed to supporting working families. Costs of living are still too high despite all the work that’s been done under Biden/Harris to create new jobs, raise wages, and bring down prices after the economic collapse under Trump’s mismanagement of the COVID crisis. Rep. Salinas has supported increases in the minimum wage in Oregon and helped bring paid family and medical leave to Oregon. She sponsored a bill in Oregon to mandate overtime pay for farm workers that became law in 2022. 

Rep Salinas is committed to working in Congress to bring this same help to working families across the country. In Congress. Rep. Salinas has worked to bring good paying jobs to Oregon. She has brought in millions of dollars to her District for improved infrastructure including expanded broadband, improvements to roads and public transportation and other community projects. She has worked to increase resources for seniors and veterans. She is committed to continuing this work in her next term Congress and expanding other opportunities for a strong middle class. 

Erickson cites inflation as an issue and wants to “support infrastructure” and reduce the deficit. He has no specific plans listed and may not be aware inflation has come down under Biden/Harris to under 3% and as a result the Federal Reserve is planning to lower interest rates shortly. 

There is more work to do, but there is no indication what Erickson would or could do about it. On infrastructure, Erickson supports Trump who never even came up with an infrastructure plan let alone “support[ed] infrastructure.” It is not clear Erickson would actually do anything to reduce the deficit as Trump’s spending was so out of control he caused the 3rd worst federal budget deficit in US history. 

Also, Erickson was happy to take $154,000 from the federal government for his business during COVID which he never paid back; he reported a net worth at the time of $32 million. 

Rep. Salinas understands there is an acute lack of affordable housing; housing costs have left so many Oregonians struggling to afford housing or without housing, and too many cannot afford to buy their own home. Rep. Salinas went to work immediately on this problem and has obtained federal funding and supported legislation that will mean 2 million new affordable homes in Tigard and Newberg. She has obtained funding to provide a full time community houseless support officer, upgrades to shelters, rental support, and more temporary shelters for unhoused folks and support for young people on the streets alone. 

Erickson has no known position or plan and no indication he has worked or volunteered on these issues. 

Rep. Salinas has long been an advocate for the right to health care for all. In Congress she voted to strengthen price transparency at hospitals and insurance companies and co-sponsored legislation to improve health care for our rural communities. She supports limiting drug prices for all Americans and supported the Biden/Harris law to allow Medicare to negotiate certain drug prices. 

Erickson says he wants to increase competition for low cost high quality health care. He opposes a single payer health care system or health care for all. He also opposed allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies so it’s not clear how he would achieve low cost high quality health care if folks can’t afford the drugs they need and under his view Medicare should not have been allowed even to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices! No plan is described, and there is no indication he has worked or volunteered on these issues or in this field in any capacity. 

Rep Salinas is Chair of the Congressional Mental Health Caucus where she has worked to improve access to mental health care and substance abuse treatment including the Home-Based Telemental Health Care Act. She knows too many Oregonians struggle with mental health and substance issues, and this is especially true of Latino and other minority communities that suffer from the lack of care that includes the language and customs of their communities. 

To improve access to mental health care, Rep. Salinas has introduced bills in Congress such as the Hope and Mental Wellbeing Act which would provide 3 free behavioral health visits each year for Medicare and Medicaid recipients. Rep. Salinas has sponsored 2 bills in Congress to expand access to peer support programs which are so important in the care and treatment of folks struggling with mental health and substance abuse issues. Rep. Salinas’ dad was a police officer for over 3 decades, and she understands the resources needed to support police and other first responders. She sponsored a bill to prioritize mental health care for firefighters. 

Addressing the fentanyl crisis is an example of Rep. Salinas’ commitment to helping folks struggling with substance abuse or behavioral health issues and supporting the police and first responders in their efforts to get drugs off the streets. She joined a bipartisan bill to reclassify fentanyl as a schedule 1 substance and increase penalties for traffickers. Rep. Salinas obtained federal funds to help rural communities in Oregon get fentanyl off the streets. 

Erickson opposed legislation that made investments in mental health care access and substance abuse treatment. He has no other known position and no indication he has ever worked on these issues or volunteered in this field. We do know he had an issue with drunken driving himself and hopefully got the help he needed. 

Rep. Salinas is the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, and she understands and celebrates immigrants who come to the US for a better life. She also knows our current immigration system is not working and supported a bipartisan border bill that MAGA supporters of Donald Trump killed. (The bill would have increased resources and authority for border security, expedited and limited asylum claims, provided alternatives to detention, increased legal immigration, and provided pathways to remain in the US for documented dreamers and Afghan evacuees.) 

Rep. Salinas also serves as a member of the Border Security Task Force where she works with members of both parties on border security. 

Erickson has issued a one line statement about preventing illegal immigration and expanding pathways for legal immigration. His Facebook page hypes an alleged surge of “illegal immigrants” at the border and demands more arrests. Erickson may be unaware that because of Bidenn/Harris actions, border crossings are lower now than under Trump’s last month in office. He has nothing to say about Trump and MAGA killing the bipartisan border bill. 

Prior to her work in Congress, Rep. Salinas was legislative director for the Oregon Environmental Council, a Board member for Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV) and advocate for a number of environmental organizations. In Congress she has worked to make Oregon a leader in renewable energy, including the jobs these new industries create.  Her goal is to put Oregon on a path to 100% renewable energy. 

Rep. Salinas co-sponsored the Clean Water Act in Congress. She has worked on legislation to mitigate the effects of climate change on low income and BIPOC communities that often suffer some of the worst impacts of pollution and global warming.

Erickson has no position on the environmental crisis. He opposed the Inflation Reduction Act which made significant investments to address climate change and bring renewable energy jobs including to Oregon. He has said that America must become energy independent. He is evidently unaware that he US IS energy independent! 

Rep. Salinas has long worked with Moms Demand Action to pass common sense gun safety legislation. She understands our children and our communities have the right to go to school, work, go to movies and concerts, shop for groceries, and play without the terror of gun violence. 

In Congress Rep Salinas has sponsored legislation to regulate assault weapons and she supports background checks for all gun sales, red flag laws, and holding the gun manufacturers accountable. 

Erickson has not made his position on gun safety public. We can't help but wonder why.