During his first visit to his district since voting for federal budget cuts, Oregon’s only Republican member of Congress spoke of his ‘incredible power’ to influence national policy.

By Antonio Sierra, Oregon Public Broadcasting

After weathering protests from some constituents at a series of Eastern Oregon town halls last year, U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz returned to his district Friday to take a victory lap in front of a more receptive crowd near Pendleton.

The Eastern Oregon Economic Summit was the Ontario Republican’s first public speech since the narrow passage of the GOP’s budget and domestic policy bill earlier this month.

Bentz’s speech drew protesters, though this time they set up outside, across the street from where political and business leaders were gathered at the Wildhorse Resort and Casino on the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

Bentz used his time speaking at the event to expound on the benefits of being in the majority party and promote the contentious federal budget bill he helped pass.

Bentz, who is Ashland’s congressional representative, has a district that covers roughly two-thirds of the state and is one of the largest in the U.S.

The bill puts Oregon at risk of losing $7 billion in health care funding for low-income residents over the next decade.

Bentz defended his vote, and highlighted the $47 billion rural health fund it included. A lot of the talk around the bill was “incorrect,” he said in his speech.

Prior to his election to Congress in 2020, Bentz spent a dozen years in the Oregon Legislature, the entire time in the minority party.

With his party taking control of the White House and Congress in 2024, Bentz said he has newfound influence. He’s currently the sole Republican delegate from Oregon.

“If you want someone to pick up the phone and call the White House, call me because there isn’t two days that it goes by where we don’t reach out to one of the agencies,” he said.

“It is incredible power.”

Bentz made his remarks in front of a bipartisan group of elected officials, local government leaders and business executives. He had kind words for Democratic Secretary of State Tobias Read, a former colleague in the Legislature, and also affirmations for the leaders of his own party, President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

While Bentz’s speech was occasionally greeted with polite applause, it was far more raucous at small protest outside the casino.

Regina Braker, a retired Eastern Oregon University professor from Pendleton, held up a sign that read, “Cliff Bentz voted holes into our social safety net.”

Braker disagrees with Bentz for not only supporting the budget bill and the public media funding rescission, but also his support for an administration that tied federal funding for rural public transit to cooperation with immigration enforcement actions.

“He seems to behave in a way that says only people who voted for him are his constituents,” she said.

“All of us who live in his district are his constituents, and if we have something to ask him or something to say to him that is not in agreement with his positions, he needs to hear that.”

Braker said she doesn’t expect Bentz to change any of his positions, but she hoped the protest could raise some awareness with the public.

Protesters had Bentz’s attention in February, when they frequently criticized him in Pendleton and La Grande over federal funding cuts.

In an interview after his speech, Bentz said his in-person town halls were becoming “not productive” after protesters organized to follow him from event to event.

He hasn’t done any in-person town halls since then, but he said he’s considering resuming them in August.

Antonio Sierra became OPB’s first rural communities reporter in 2022. He is especially interested in Eastern Oregon’s emerging communities and changing demographics, and the resource gap between the region and its urban neighbors. This article first appeared on opb.org.