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Nika Bartoo-Smith
Underscore Native News+ ICT

EUGENE, Oregon — Around four dozen community members gathered at WOW Hall for a forum for the Democratic party for Oregon’s 4th Congressional District hosted by the City Club of Eugene in mid-April.

“City Club creates access to our local leaders and provides a platform for Eugene area community members to be heard,” said Alyssa Gilbert, president of the City Club of Eugene, before the candidates were introduced. “In light of the division we’re experiencing in the world, I believe it’s important now more than ever for us to gather as a community with curious minds and mutual respect. This space to listen, ask, learn and gather is what City Club aims to provide to our community.”

At the forum, Melissa Bird, descendant of the Shivwits Band of Paiutes, arrived early and stayed after the conversation to introduce herself to as many constituents in the audience as possible.

“I’m so glad I get a chance to vote for her,” an audience member said, about Bird, following the forum.

Her opponent, Dan Baylen, Apache, arrived moments before taking the stage and left before he could give his closing remarks.

“This is the last question I’m going to answer. Then I have to go,” Baylen said before answering the final question. “I got some homeless people to go tell about some stuff, about what happened here.”

Incumbent Val Hoyle, did not attend the forum due to “congressional duties casting votes” in Washington, D.C., according to Laurie Trieger, Lane County commissioner for the 3rd District, who read an opening statement from Hoyle that went three minutes over the allotted two minutes per introduction, to which members of the City Club of Eugene expressed clear frustration.

Melissa Bird (center), and Dan Baylen (right), candidates for Oregon’s 4th Congressional District, answer questions on health care, housing, climate change and immigration and more, during a Democratic primary forum hosted by the City Club of Eugene at WOW Hall on April 17, 2026. (Photo by Jarrette Werk, Underscore Native News)

During the forum, around four dozen people gathered as Baylen and Bird answered questions ranging from access to health care and housing to climate change and immigration enforcement.

“I’ve spent my career fighting for people who the system wasn’t built for. I’m a Native woman, a mother, a small business owner, and I’m done asking politely. I’m running for more. I’m running for you, for your family, for our communities and our futures,” Bird said to the audience during her opening statement. “We need fighters to end the system that keeps food, housing and healthcare out of reach for many. We need to bury the system that tried to destroy my people and profit off their suffering. We need to imagine and create a system that puts an end to our neighbors having to ration their prescriptions, and that doesn’t force parents to skip meals so they can feed their kids. We need fighters and visionaries to create a future that works for us all.”

Baylen came out of the gate criticizing Congresswoman Hoyle, claiming her leadership has cost taxpayers millions of dollars. This was his second run for the 4th Congressional District, the first time being in 2024 when he ran as a libertarian.

Dan Baylen, an Apache candidate for Oregon’s 4th Congressional District, speaks during a public forum in Eugene, outlining his policy positions and discussing economic inequality and his experience with homelessness. Baylen is making his second run for the seat after previously running as a Libertarian in 2024.(Photo by Jarrette Werk, Underscore Native News)

“The poor are getting poorer. Rich are getting richer as [the] Congresswoman who is costing us millions of dollars, while cost of living is unbelievable, unbelievably high, and it ain’t stopping,” Baylen said.

He also talked about how he is currently experiencing homelessness in Eugene.

“The poor, the homeless, they have no lobby, no representation. I am. This is a domestic holy war going on, and I am the representation,” Baylen said later in the forum. “I don’t want to be your representation, because you are the Antichrist to the established Christianity in Washington, D.C. That’s what you are. That’s what anybody who stands for you will be. I’m telling you, therefore I am the Antichrist. And this domestic holy war has been this way since 1849 [when] the Indian [was] officially categorized as a domestic problem that was handled through systematic massacres. The California genocide, Sand Creek Massacre, Wounded Knee Massacre, countless others.”

In Congresswoman Hoyle’s opening statement, read by Trieger, Hoyle discussed how she has worked on gun safety legislation, efforts to raise the minimum wage, expand sick leave and others.

“Now in Congress, I continue that work by supporting career pathways to good paying jobs through apprenticeship and training programs. Through it all, my priorities have stayed the same. To fight for working people, protect our rights, deliver for our communities, stand up for Oregon values,” Trieger read from Hoyle’s statement.

Laurie Trieger, Lane County commissioner for the 3rd District, read an opening statement from 4th Congressional District Incumbent Val Hoyle, who was unable attend the forum on April 17, due to “congressional duties casting votes” in Washington D.C.” (Photo by Jarrette Werk, Underscore Native News)

“I will never stop fighting for our democracy. That means taking on corruption, including banning members of Congress from stock trading, overturning Citizens United and closing loopholes that benefit special interest in billionaires who buy our elections,” she continued. “November is one of the most consequential elections of our times. We have to ensure that every vote is counted.”

Of the two candidates who participated in the forum, Baylen and Bird, it is hard to pin down where their policies align and differ.

Bird had clear and direct points for each question. She talked about supporting the impeachment of President Trump and his entire administration along with the abolishment of ICE and the need for universal healthcare.

Baylen’s answers were hard to follow. He spent much of his time talking about a global government in Israel and the coming Armageddon while also drawing connections between numbers, including claiming the number “666” for himself.

The forum

During the forum on Friday, Bird and Baylen were each asked about how their own lived experience informs their political views and how they would serve in Congress.

For Bird, the question had her reflect on her childhood in Utah. She talked about losing her father to suicide at 6-years-old and the impact it had on her family.

“My life has been built on empathy and compassion and being scrappy and trying to survive in a world that doesn’t really want me around,” Bird said.

Melissa Bird, descendant of the Shivwits Band of Paiutes, is a progressive democrat running in the Democratic party primary election on May 19. She shared some of her key issues including; the environment, housing, 2SLGBTQIA+ equality, reproductive justice, gun safety, tribal sovereignty and more during a public forum in Eugene on April 17. (Photo by Jarrette Werk, Underscore Native News)

She also reflected on a meet-and-greet the week before where she got asked a similar question.

“People were asking me about who I am and how comfortable I’m going to be in spaces where people don’t really want to listen to the words that I have to say,” Bird said. “And I very lovingly and jokingly said ‘I grew up as a non-Mormon, bisexual, Native American in Utah, so I think I’m going to be okay.’”

For Baylen, he described being taken from his tribe as a young kid and being placed in the foster care system and later being homeless. He also talked about the overall lack of representation of Native people in Congress.

“We have no representation in Congress. Something radical, a revolution needs to happen,” Baylen said. “I have faced this my whole life, it’s highly traumatizing. I was in foster care as a kid, taken from my tribe. I was on the streets for years, homeless, gangs and all that crap on the streets, and then I went to college for years and years and years. Went to go help my tribe. Worked a full time professional job, working for the Department of Health and Human Services for seven years, doing my master’s degree, getting my doctorate. And I had to face corruption, fraud, abuse of employees by someone who’s not in trouble by my tribe, supported by the corruption in my tribe. And I was [a] whistleblower in that case, and I was retaliated against. So I had to face poverty.”

“With that strength, I can go forward and face any threat, any challenge, including this President and the administration and the GOP, which I’m coming after,” he continued.

Main topics of the forum included health care, housing, climate change, access to education, ICE, U.S. military action in the Middle East and congressional authority in the case of presidential action.

The candidates were also each given a chance to outline their policy priorities.

Bird told the gathered crowd that she is Courage Candidate, committed to impeaching the president and his entire administration. She also mentioned how she signed a pledge to abolish ICE just the week before. And, she actively named what is happening in the Middle East, in Palestine and Iran and Lebanon, a genocide.

“We have to shift funding priorities as a congressional body away from war and death and inhumanity more towards building up our communities, our infrastructure, our forests, our waterways, and the people who live here in Congressional District Four, and that will be my priority,” Bird said.

Audience members loudly applauded her responses.

Baylen outlined that one of his top priorities is to establish a new global government headquartered in Israel. He warned about the coming Armageddon and the need to prepare for it.

“[We need to] establish the new global government to have more authority, more teeth in this UN. Move the UN from the Indian land in New York. It’s on stolen Indian land, and the international community is on top of it,” Baylen said. “We need to establish that land in New York as the place where Indian tribes can gather and form a new United Indian government.”

As the forum wore on, Baylen talked more and more about Armageddon, the new global government he hopes to create and numerology to which the crowd responded with a small scattering of applause. His points grew increasingly disjointed and hard to follow as the forum wore on.

Oregon 4th Congressional District Democratic Candidates, Dan Baylen (left) and Melissa Bird (center) discuss platforms including housing, universal healthcare and the abolishment of ICE at a public forum in Eugene on April 17. (Photo by Jarrette Werk, Underscore Native News)

One of his other priorities was to move election week to Thanksgiving week, to encourage more people to get out and vote, eliminating some barriers when it comes to work.

He also advocated to increase access to gender neutral public restrooms for homeless people, and talked about how it is a healthcare right.

Voters will have a chance to pick between these three candidates to represent them in the Fourth Congressional District during the Democratic Primaries on May 19.

This story is co-published by Underscore Native News and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest.

The post Democratic candidates in Oregon’s 4th Congressional District meet, incumbent absent appeared first on ICT.

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Democratic candidates in Oregon’s 4th Congressional District meet, incumbent absent

Democratic candidates in Oregon’s 4th Congressional District meet, incumbent absent

Democratic candidates in Oregon’s 4th Congressional District meet, incumbent absent - ICT