Election Day is still more than a month away, but Republican House candidate Mike Erickson is already threatening to sue to overturn the results of his own race.
Erickson, you see, is furious that his Democratic opponent for Oregon’s brand-new 6th Congressional District, state Rep. Andrea Salinas, has been running a TV ad highlighting his 2016 arrest and conviction for drunk driving. In that spot, the narrator notes that in addition to the DUI, Erickson was “charged with illegal drug possession for illegal oxycodone”—and it’s that word “charged” that has Erickson hot and bothered and wanting to subvert the will of voters.
Can you donate $10—or $50, if that’s within reach—to Daily Kos-endorsed Andrea Salinas so that she can give Mike Erickson the drubbing he deserves?
Erickson claims he was never actually charged, but his own attorney filed a plea agreement with a handwritten statement that prosecutors had "agreed to dismiss felony possession of controlled substance upon tender of guilty plea." That attorney now claims the filing was a “mistake,” but as Salinas’ counsel points out, “[A] charge is a charge, whether or not the DA files it.” Even if prosecutors did not actually seek to convict Erickson of drug possession, police most certainly accused him of wrongly possessing oxycodone. By any reasonable definition, law enforcement charged him with illegal possession of a drug.
Don’t expect reasonableness to play much of a role here, though. In a recent cease and desist letter to the Salinas’ campaign, Erickson’s attorney—a different one from the one who supposedly botched his criminal case—invoked a state law that allows the courts to overturn an election if a candidate knowingly runs an “advertisement that contains a false statement of material fact regarding their opponent,” though the burden is extremely high. An aggrieved party has to show “by clear and convincing evidence” both that “the false statement was deliberately made” and that the statement “reversed the outcome of the election.”
Good luck with that! Forget about the heightened showings of deliberate falsehood and the impact on the election (how on earth would you prove that?), Salinas has a pretty darn solid argument that nothing she even said was “false” in the first place. Yet Erickson nonetheless thinks, “This showing would be relatively easy as the average voter is likely to not vote for a candidate who has been charged with felony drug charges” and warned that Salinas could “be deprived of a successful election if it can be shown that the false ad influenced voters to not vote for Mr. Erickson.”
A funny thing, though: Erickson did just follow through on his threat to sue Salinas, but his lawsuit didn’t mention anything about overturning the election. Oh, he did demand that the courts order Salinas to stop airing her ads, start running “correction advertisements with the same frequency and broadcast location as the false advertisements,” and pay him $800,000 in damages for the supposed cost of his own commercials “to correct the false statements.” But that whole bit about invalidating the race? Nothing, not even as a preemptive shot across the bow.
Perhaps he’s reconsidered and no longer thinks that undoing the election results will be “relatively easy.” Or perhaps he’s just waiting to find out whether he loses—and only then will he try to have a judge decree that a Salinas victory ought to be vacated because of an attack ad he doesn’t like.
Whatever the nature of his threat, though, this sort of disrespect for the voters—and our democracy—is simply standard operating procedure for Republicans these days. Should he make it to Congress, it’s not hard to imagine how Erickson would treat the results of any other election—say, a presidential election—which has an outcome that displeases him.
Fortunately, we have a vastly superior choice in Salinas, whom Daily Kos recently endorsed as part of a slate of 12 fantastic Democrats running in races where we’re on offense and can pick up seats this year. Oregon’s 6th is only light blue at best, and Erickson’s super PAC allies just dumped $300,000 into the race on his behalf this week, so Erickson is right about one thing his attorney said in that letter: This race is going to be close. That’s why Salinas and the rest of our endorsees all need our help to make sure anti-democracy Republicans don’t retake the House and derail all the progress we’ve made in the last two years.
Please give $12—or even more, if you can—to Andrea Salinas and the full Daily Kos Dozen running to keep the House in Democratic hands!
Erickson, you see, is furious that his Democratic opponent for Oregon’s brand-new 6th Congressional District, state Rep. Andrea Salinas, has been running a TV ad highlighting his 2016 arrest and conviction for drunk driving. In that spot, the narrator notes that in addition to the DUI, Erickson was “charged with illegal drug possession for illegal oxycodone”—and it’s that word “charged” that has Erickson hot and bothered and wanting to subvert the will of voters.
Can you donate $10—or $50, if that’s within reach—to Daily Kos-endorsed Andrea Salinas so that she can give Mike Erickson the drubbing he deserves?
Erickson claims he was never actually charged, but his own attorney filed a plea agreement with a handwritten statement that prosecutors had "agreed to dismiss felony possession of controlled substance upon tender of guilty plea." That attorney now claims the filing was a “mistake,” but as Salinas’ counsel points out, “[A] charge is a charge, whether or not the DA files it.” Even if prosecutors did not actually seek to convict Erickson of drug possession, police most certainly accused him of wrongly possessing oxycodone. By any reasonable definition, law enforcement charged him with illegal possession of a drug.
Don’t expect reasonableness to play much of a role here, though. In a recent cease and desist letter to the Salinas’ campaign, Erickson’s attorney—a different one from the one who supposedly botched his criminal case—invoked a state law that allows the courts to overturn an election if a candidate knowingly runs an “advertisement that contains a false statement of material fact regarding their opponent,” though the burden is extremely high. An aggrieved party has to show “by clear and convincing evidence” both that “the false statement was deliberately made” and that the statement “reversed the outcome of the election.”
Good luck with that! Forget about the heightened showings of deliberate falsehood and the impact on the election (how on earth would you prove that?), Salinas has a pretty darn solid argument that nothing she even said was “false” in the first place. Yet Erickson nonetheless thinks, “This showing would be relatively easy as the average voter is likely to not vote for a candidate who has been charged with felony drug charges” and warned that Salinas could “be deprived of a successful election if it can be shown that the false ad influenced voters to not vote for Mr. Erickson.”
A funny thing, though: Erickson did just follow through on his threat to sue Salinas, but his lawsuit didn’t mention anything about overturning the election. Oh, he did demand that the courts order Salinas to stop airing her ads, start running “correction advertisements with the same frequency and broadcast location as the false advertisements,” and pay him $800,000 in damages for the supposed cost of his own commercials “to correct the false statements.” But that whole bit about invalidating the race? Nothing, not even as a preemptive shot across the bow.
Perhaps he’s reconsidered and no longer thinks that undoing the election results will be “relatively easy.” Or perhaps he’s just waiting to find out whether he loses—and only then will he try to have a judge decree that a Salinas victory ought to be vacated because of an attack ad he doesn’t like.
Whatever the nature of his threat, though, this sort of disrespect for the voters—and our democracy—is simply standard operating procedure for Republicans these days. Should he make it to Congress, it’s not hard to imagine how Erickson would treat the results of any other election—say, a presidential election—which has an outcome that displeases him.
Fortunately, we have a vastly superior choice in Salinas, whom Daily Kos recently endorsed as part of a slate of 12 fantastic Democrats running in races where we’re on offense and can pick up seats this year. Oregon’s 6th is only light blue at best, and Erickson’s super PAC allies just dumped $300,000 into the race on his behalf this week, so Erickson is right about one thing his attorney said in that letter: This race is going to be close. That’s why Salinas and the rest of our endorsees all need our help to make sure anti-democracy Republicans don’t retake the House and derail all the progress we’ve made in the last two years.
Please give $12—or even more, if you can—to Andrea Salinas and the full Daily Kos Dozen running to keep the House in Democratic hands!