Dan Ruby, former CEO of ScienceWorks, current executive director of RCC Foundation, to be on May 21 primary ballot

By Holly Dillemuth, Ashland.news

Ashland resident and school board member Daniel “Dan” Ruby has always worn a variety of hats in his professional life. This spring, he decided to try on one more for size: U.S. Congressman.

Ruby, 47, who decided to enter the race as a Democrat for Oregon Congressional District 2 in March, will face Democratic challenger Steve W. Liable, of Grants Pass, on the May 21 primary ballot in a race to unseat incumbent U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-Ontario). Prineville Mayor Jason Beebe is challenging Bentz for the Republican party nomination, as previously reported by the Rogue Valley-Times.

Ruby sat down with Ashland.news on Wednesday at Rogue Valley Roasting Company, to discuss his candidacy, his time on the Ashland School Board since being elected to the post in fall 2023 and how it has shaped his decision to run, as well as plans to tour the district if elected as the Democratic nominee in the primary election. With coffee in hand, Ruby shared that if elected, he would also remain on the school board, serving out his term, which ends in 2027.

For Ruby, being on the school board has largely impacted his decision.

“I don’t consider myself a politician,” Ruby said, “I consider myself a public servant and it had not really crossed my mind to get more broadly into politics until really diving into the school board stuff.”

After seeing the issues Ashland students are facing, Ruby said one starts to go down the rabbit hole, noticing how everything is interconnected. He noticed that the best return on investment was aiming to take a higher office.

“So if we want students to be thriving, it’s going to be the same stuff that gets people thriving more broadly,” Ruby said. “We can do that in our community, but if there’s an opportunity to do that for more of our community, meaning broadly, southern central Oregon, I would love to do that.”

The son of a school bus driver and a sweet potato packing shed worker-turned minister, Ruby grew up in California. The family moved to Reno, Nevada, in Ruby’s youth so his dad could start a church.

Having spent a year in Portland, Ruby was fond of Ashland as a halfway point when traveling to Reno, where his family lived.

He would take his kids to ScienceWorks when stopping through Ashland. Ruby would later be tapped to serve as CEO of the nonprofit museum in 2018, when he relocated permanently from Reno. Now Ruby serves as executive director of RCC Foundation.

Ruby is running his campaign on healthcare, housing and education as his priorities, and emphasizes an interest in promoting more federal funding for mental and behavioral healthcare, as well as Career Technical Education programs.

“If we really want to impact education and funding for education, or health and funding for health, or housing and funding for housing, the best way to do that is at the (Congressional) level,” he said. “We have awesome people in most of our levels of government, but what we’re missing is somebody that participates in the earmark process for our district and so there’s a specific stream of federal support that we just are not currently accessing for programs that could benefit.”

Ruby noted that in the 20 counties within the 2nd Congressional District, some of them in significantly rural areas don’t have enough access to broadband internet.

“That means that you cannot participate in remote education,” Ruby said. “You can’t do telemedicine.”

He’s also a big supporter of more CTE programs being made available at community colleges throughout the district.

“We can do more with federal funding specifically for Career and Technical Education in medical fields, especially behavioral health, and in things like construction,” he said.

Ruby said he believes many school districts in Oregon are unable to pass bonds to fix aging infrastructure for schools and he aims to bring in more federal funding to help.

“One of the ways we can do that is voting specifically for school infrastructure,” Ruby said.

“We don’t really have other ways to fix our aging school buildings — they’re like 50 and 60 years old across the state.”

He’s focused on addressing an ever-increasing mental health needs for adults and youth experiencing depression, anxiety, substance use and suicidal ideation.

“That’s a problem we can address with more mental health providers,” Ruby said. “Part of the thing with Measure 110 is that … arguably a great idea, but we had no resources to route people to for treatment.

Ruby is a big believer in community health centers, having served as senior director of strategic partnerships and director of development at Rogue Community Health. He hopes to increase the mental health workforce and substance abuse programs through the district’s community health centers.

“We can serve people with federal funding to expand those programs,” Ruby said.

Ruby is co-founder of Sunstone Housing Collaborative and promotes incentivizing local developers to build affordable homes in the Rogue Valley.

For housing, Ruby said those living in rural areas of the district are facing the most difficulty.

“Especially our seniors are living on fixed incomes and, if they’re renting, their rent costs go up and their medical costs go up, but their income doesn’t,” Ruby said. “The most vulnerable segment of the population are seniors at risk of losing their homes.” 

Ruby acknowledged that the 2nd Congressional District has voted heavily Republican in the past. He aims to bring fresh ideas he hopes can make a difference.

“Conventional wisdom is that it is so strongly Republican that it’s not even a competitive race, but that’s based off data that’s two to four years old, as far as polling goes,” Ruby said.

“My sense is that we currently have a rep that serves some very narrow interests as far as water use goes, and that’s fairly deep-pocketed ranchers from the eastern part of the state that’s related to the ‘Greater Idaho’ movement,” Ruby said.

He said he would need to learn more about the issues facing the Klamath Project in the Klamath Basin, which includes the annual allocation of surface water use from Upper Klamath Lake for irrigators in Klamath County.

“This would be an opportunity to learn about a whole bunch real fast, which is where I like to be,” Ruby said. “My plan for this summer is just to travel around the district and just meet with folks and learn about what people care about and what’s working and what’s not.”

Ruby expressed confidence, especially knowing that there are more non-affiliated voters in the district (198,778) than there are Democrats (103,818) or Republicans (178,971), and reaching out to those who don’t align with either party will be a focus, while also paying attention to all voters.

“That’s the pathway to get elected, is recognizing the majority of voters are not identified (as Republicans or Democrats),” he said.

Ruby declined to share who has made contributions to his campaign, but said they total less than $5,000. Paperwork for the Friends of Dan Ruby committee was filed with the Federal Election Commission on March 19. No contribution data for the committee has been posted yet, and the next quarterly filing deadline is not until July 15. 

Ruby hopes to represent Ashland and the district as the Democratic nominee in November.

“What worked four years ago when our incumbent first ran for Congress isn’t going to work anymore,” Ruby said. “I think we need new ideas, new approaches.

“For me, it’s not a partisan thing,” he added. “It really is about best addressing the needs of the folks in our district.

“I would not have gotten to where I am without being able to work with folks, regardless of political affiliation, so it’s really important for me to work together.”

Reach Ashland.news reporter Holly Dillemuth at [email protected].