U.S. Senators represent an entire state’s constituents, rather than representing a specific district within the state. Each state has two senators who serve six-year terms. Senators write and vote on federal laws, approve treaties, confirm presidential appointments and oversee the federal budget. Typically, senators focus on national concerns such as foreign policy, federal taxes and military spending.
Currently, Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both Democrats, represent Oregon. Wyden has served in the U.S. Senate since 1996 and is not up for reelection this year. Merkley, who has held his seat since 2009, is running for reelection against eight other candidates, seven of whom are Republicans. Paul Damian Wells, the other Democrat, declined to provide answers. Republican candidates Brent Barker, Deborah Brown, Russell McAlmond, Jo Rae Perkins, Timothy Skelton and David Brock Smith did not provide answers. Street Roots made multiple attempts to contact each candidate.
Each candidate received a questionnaire containing three questions. Candidates were limited to 150 words per answer. Candidates submitted written responses via email, and may be edited for clarity. Read more about Street Roots elections coverage here.
Democratic Primary
Name: Sen. Jeff Merkley
City: Portland
Current occupation: U.S. Senator since 2009
Lawmakers throughout the country have proposed specific taxes on millionaires or billionaires in an effort to rein in wealth inequality and reinvest in public services. Do you support these efforts?
Yes — The Trump agenda is ‘Families Lose, Billionaires Win,’ most evidenced by their signature Big, Ugly Betrayal bill that slashed Medicaid, gutted food assistance, and demolished clean energy programs — all to hand massive tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy at the expense of working families. And now, at an event in April, Trump directly said that the federal government can’t help working families with health care or child care expenses because it needs to fund Trump’s reckless and illegal war with Iran.
I have a better vision, where ‘Families Thrive, and Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share.’ We can do that when massive corporations and billionaires pay their fair share and we invest in the foundations for thriving families: health care, education, housing, and good-paying jobs.
Some lawmakers are calling to shutter Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, after a series of in-custody deaths, legally dubious arrests and a skyrocketing budget. Do you support abolishing ICE?
ICE as it exists today can’t be rehabilitated. We have to strip it down to the studs and rebuild an ICE that enforces immigration laws and earns the trust of our communities. I was a HELL NO on a blank check for ICE as Trump’s lawless federal agents are operating as secret police, terrorizing communities in Oregon and across the country. People are dying in detention and ICE is hiding the details. It’s inexcusable. ICE needs serious reforms to end the roving patrols and secret police tactics and bring real accountability and justice.
What proactive measures will you/are you taking to protect your constituents’ rights under threat from the current presidential administration?
Trump is violating Oregonians’ core Constitutional rights. The President is attacking the right to free speech by targeting those who disagree with him, the right to free assembly by deploying lawless agents at protests, and the right to due process by detaining people without access to their lawyers, key hallmarks of authoritarianism. Right now, we have all three ingredients of a strongman state: a rubber-stamp Congress doing the President’s bidding; a Supreme Court finding “invisible ink” in the Constitution to enhance the President’s powers; and a power-hungry president behaving like a king, breaking the law and violating the checks and balances of our Constitution. In my roles on the Budget, Appropriations, and Foreign Affairs Committees; I’ve been on the front lines of pushing back.
Republican Primary
Name: David Burch
City: Salem
Current occupation: Unemployed
Prior political office held: None
Lawmakers throughout the country have proposed specific taxes on millionaires or billionaires in an effort to rein in wealth inequality and reinvest in public services. Do you support these efforts?
No. This process is stupid. Think about it real quick. A flat tax IS a wealth tax by default. Just make the legal code more difficult for the wealthy to evade. Do those two things and the rich pay more by default. End of story. Use your brains, you’re smarter than this.
Some lawmakers are calling to shutter Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, after a series of in-custody deaths, legally dubious arrests and a skyrocketing budget. Do you support abolishing ICE?
Hell to the fuck no. ICE is a good thing. Holding individual ICE members accountable is fine, but abolishing ICE isn’t. It’s a necessary evil. It’s the fault of Democrats for bringing illegals in with false promises. If he didn’t do that, if Democrats didn’t do that, ICE would cease to exist due to a lack of need. ICE ICE baby.
What proactive measures will you/are you taking to protect your constituents’ rights under threat from the current presidential administration?
None. Your rights are not being attacked. You know whose rights were attacked? The Jan. 6ther political prisoners, who were not given their due rights to process. (Editor’s note: Accused Jan. 6, 2021, rioters did, in fact, receive due process.) Get over yourselves. Stop housing illegals. Let ICE do their fucking jobs.
And maybe then, I won’t be tempted to deliver Portland (the source of ALL of Oregon’s evils currently) to President Trump on a silver platter as a sacrifice.
This article appears in May 13, 2026.