Oregon Democratic Congressman Peter DeFazio traded jabs over funders with Republican challenger Art Robinson at a City Club of Eugene forum Friday.
DeFazio, of Springfield, has held the 4th District seat in the House since 1986. This is the 4th time Robinson, of Cave Junction, has run for the seat. In previous campaigns Robinson received contributions from New York billionaire Robert Mercer, now a major funder of Donald Trump’s campaign. DeFazio blames the Citizens United decision.
“This one individual, because of the unbelievable, right wing activist decision of the Supreme Court under Justice Roberts, overturning hundreds of years of precedence and saying money is speech, corporations are people and by the way you can spend whatever you want on campaigns and you can hide the money.”
DeFazio says Robinson received millions of dollars from Mercer’s superpac. Robinson says career politicians do not like competition.
“They don’t like it from people like me. Incidentally, 8,500 people gave a total of 1.2 million to each of my first two Congressional campaigns, those weren’t millionaires.”
Robinson accuses DeFazio of receiving more money from special interests. Green Party candidate Michael Beilstein and Libertarian Gil Guthrie also participated in the forum.
You can hear the one-hour forum on the City Club of Eugene Monday evening at 6:30 on KLCC.
