By GRANT STRINGER/The Oregonian
In the race to represent Oregon’s 4th District, a Republican lauded for bravery on a French train in 2015 and a Democratic politician who served in the Legislature for years and then as a state agency head each say they’d be the best replacement for the state’s longest-serving member of Congress.
Congressman Peter DeFazio Oregon’s Democrat-controlled Legislature redrew the district in 2021 and gave an edge to DeFazio’s preferred successor, Val Hoyle, a Democratic former legislator wrapping up a term as state labor commissioner.
She’s up against Republican Alek Skarlatos, who if he were to win could help the national party take control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Skarlatos is well-known for his heroics stopping a terrorist attack on a train in France and for featuring in Clint Eastwood’s movie adaptation of that attack, as well as for his appearance on TV show Dancing with the Stars.
DeFazio’s retirement gives Republicans a rare but narrow opportunity to win the seat, which represents the college towns of Eugene and Corvallis as well as Roseburg, timber towns and coastal communities stretching from Lincoln City to Brookings.
DeFazio easily defeated most challengers during his 35 years in office, including Skarlatos in 2020. This year, the 4th District is rated by national election forecasters as one of the three most competitive races for Congress in the state, although many political analysts think it’s Hoyle’s race to lose because of its new boundaries.
The redrawn district now includes all of Lincoln County and consolidates power in the Democratic strongholds of Eugene and Corvallis, benefitting Hoyle. Registered Democrats in the district outnumber registered Republicans by more than 40,000, although the 173,000 unaffiliated voters make up the district’s largest bloc.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the race as leaning Democrat.
Several third-party candidates are also running for the seat: Constitution Party candidate Jim Howard, Libertarian and Independent parties candidate Levi Leatherberry and Michael Beilstein of the Progressive and Pacific Green parties. Howard ran unsuccessfully against DeFazio in 1988 as a Republican.
Candidate differences
Skarlatos says he’s willing to work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to lower inflation and healthcare costs. His campaign released an ad that touts former President Barak Obama’s admiration for his heroics.
His adversaries and some supportive Republicans say he’s more conservative than he admits, citing his past support for abortion restrictions and comments about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In 2020, he listed endorsements from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Oregon Right to Life, which lobbies for severe abortion restrictions. This year, he is relying instead on endorsements from local Republican officials.
Hoyle is running on progressive polices she helped enact during eight years representing part of Eugene and Junction City in the Legislature. As labor commissioner, she oversees compliance with anti-discrimination laws and apprentice programs, which she wants the federal government to expand to boost incomes in the 4th District, which includes economically struggling former timber communities.
Republicans have criticized her as an out-of-touch progressive while also pointing out that she pushed legislation for pharmaceutical firms while in the Legislature. Hoyle says she’s long represented both conservative and progressive residents and prides herself on building bridges between them.
“Although, yes, I’m a Democrat, and I am a strong Democrat, I worked very well with people across the political spectrum and across the aisle, and that’s one of the things I’m proudest of,” Hoyle said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive’s editorial board.
Skarlatos reported raising more than $2.4 million from the start of 2021 through June, the most recent campaign finance records available. That’s more than double Hoyle’s haul. Skarlatos also outraised DeFazio in his bid to oust the incumbent two years ago.
Priscilla Southwell, a University of Oregon political scientist, said whoever wins the election will have their work cut out for them. Homelessness, crime, climate-fueled fires, ocean acidification and a ballooning cost of living are all impacting the district.
Many coastal communities and timber towns in the 4th District have long lacked enough middle-class jobs amid declining natural resource industries, both candidates say. Coos County and others on the coast are also grappling with an alarming shortage of affordable housing.
Regardless of who wins, Oregon will lose DeFazio’s influential position as chair of the House Transportation Committee, where he helped craft and pass the $1 trillion bill funding roads, broadband, power grids, water projects and more last year.
Time for Republicans?
Skarlatos and Republicans say it’s time for a new party to take the reins. He said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive that households are struggling across the district that was once a global hub for timber products.
Skarlatos graduated from Roseburg High and was deployed to Afghanistan as a National Guard soldier in 2015. His role thwarting the jihadist train attack with two friends made him a hometown hero and led to numerous TV appearances.
Skarlatos turned to politics in 2018 with an unsuccessful bid for Douglas County commissioner. He lost to DeFazio in a race for Congress two years later by about six percentage points. Last year, he became national director of development for the Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank opposing public unions.
“Government, wherever it goes, ruins a good thing. And so we’re just trying to keep government out of people’s lives as much as possible,” Skarlatos told the conservative outlet Newsmax last year when he took the job.
Topping his platform is a pledge to drive down the cost of living and provide better, cheaper health care. The Oregon Office of Rural Health considers big swaths of the 4th District medically underserved with relatively few primary care providers and ambulance services. Skarlatos says he would work across the aisle to improve aspects of the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s landmark health policy, which Republicans have long moved to gut.
On his website, he also promises to curb “any wasteful spending from the federal government that will hopefully reduce inflation.”
Hoyle wants collaborative approach
Hoyle says she’d take her collaborative approach to Washington D.C. to tamp down inflation, create better jobs, protect reproductive rights and mitigate the worst effects of climate change.
She said she agrees with Skarlatos that alleviating the 4th District’s economic woes should be a priority. Both candidates support a proposal to build a container port in Coos Bay, which Hoyle said would provide about 9,000 permanent jobs. If elected, she said, she would expand apprenticeship opportunities in construction and other industries to help “rebuild” a local middle class while meeting employers’ needs.
Hoyle supports the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act — which analysts say could cut U.S. emissions 40% by the end of the decade — and said climate change should be addressed in every bill Congress considers.
Lucy Vinis, the mayor of Eugene, said Hoyle has a reputation as a dogged policymaker who helped improve the lives of Oregonians.
“She is a force,” Vinis said. “She is such a strong leader, she has such backbone and she has such determination.”
Patrick Lewandowski, vice chair of the Douglas County Republican Party, said he and most other local Republicans are behind Skarlatos.
“Obviously, he’s got conservative views and he shares pretty much the same values that I have. If there was a negative, it’s probably that he doesn’t express them as strongly as I’d like to see,” including on abortion, Lewandowski told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Skarlatos says abortion rights should be left to the states out of principle, but he considers the issue moot in Democrat-controlled Oregon, echoing other Republican candidates.
Skarlatos has alarmed Democrats with his past stances on election integrity. The Roseburg News-Review reported last year that he refused to comment when asked who he thought won the 2020 presidential election. In a Feb. 2021 interview with Newsmax, Skarlatos expressed concern that Jan. 6, 2021 rioters in Washington D.C. would be demonized by liberal journalists.
Hoyle said Skarlatos doesn’t have enough experience for Congress.
Hoyle was appointed to the Legislature in 2009 to represent House District 14, which includes a portion of the Eugene area and Lane County. She held the seat until 2017 and rose to majority leader before her run for state labor commissioner. As a lawmaker, she helped pass a broad progressive agenda that included Oregon’s law requiring employers to provide paid sick leave, clean energy provisions, the clean fuels program and a minimum wage hike.
Skarlatos and Republican political operatives have attacked Hoyle as too cozy with the pharmaceutical industry. As a lawmaker, Hoyle was a top recipient from pharma giants Pfizer, Genentech and Eli Lilly, which together gave her more than $32,000 between 2011 and 2017, according to campaign finance records.
In 2014, Hoyle used her position as chair of the House Rules committee to push an amendment restricting pharmacists’ ability to dispense generic insulin, a cheaper option, to the benefit of Eli Lilly, according to The Lund Report. The amendment failed. It would have raised the cost of insulin and other drugs, the news report said.
Hoyle said in an email that she has a strong record of expanding health care access and cutting costs for patients. She swore off pharmaceutical industry support this year.
— Grant Stringer; gstringer@oregonian.com; 503-307-3591; @Stringerjourno