Protesters call on Rep. Cliff Bentz to schedule an in-person town hall as he left the Rotary Club of The Dalles' Aug. 20 meeting, where he was a guest speaker.
Protesters call on Rep. Cliff Bentz to schedule an in-person town hall as he left the Rotary Club of The Dalles' Aug. 20 meeting, where he was a guest speaker.
In his Sept. 5 press release (HERE), Rep. Cliff Bentz claims to have attended hundreds of meetings with various civic groups. Most of his constituents, however, were excluded from those meetings.
In Wasco County, Bentz has held just one public town hall since he was first elected nearly five years ago. So, four members of our local Indivisible group (Protect Oregon’s Progress) traveled two hours to the Boardman Town Hall referenced by Bentz. They did not coordinate with anyone. They were polite. Their account of the event is drastically different from that of Bentz.
They recall just a smattering of rudeness and a whole lot of heart-wrenching stories, some voices breaking into tears while asking Bentz not to support Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. People told him that their families were at the edge already, some with health and circumstances that won’t allow them to work. These were voices Bentz would not likely hear in the small private meetings his press release boasts about.
To dismiss large public turnout at town halls as merely “disruptive” or “scripted” ignores the deeper truth: People show up because they are frustrated or frightened. They travel distances not to intimidate, but to be heard. That level of civic engagement should be celebrated, not condemned.
Bentz’s attack on Indivisible as an “anti-Trump gang” whose intent is to “disrupt, intimidate, and threaten” is a false and thinly-veiled effort to deny the fact that his constituents are unhappy with his job performance. Indivisible is a non-partisan grassroots movement of local groups working to hold elected leaders, Republicans AND Democrats, accountable to their constituents; and to protect against authoritarian actions by Trump and those, like Cliff Bentz, who enable him.
Democracy isn’t a dinner party — it’s messy, passionate, and often uncomfortable.
Telephone town halls may make Bentz more comfortable, but they alienate his constituents. They are one-way filters, controlled by moderators, devoid of the spontaneity and accountability that live meetings demand. A turnout of 13,000 may sound impressive, but how many of those voices were actually heard? How many questions were selected, and by whom?
If the goal is truly to “learn what constituents believe would make their lives better,” then the representative must be willing to listen to all voices — not just the ones that flatter or conform. Disagreement is not disruption. It’s democracy in action.
Debi Ferrer
Member of Protect Oregon’s Progress Indivisible group in The Dalles
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Read Bentz's commentary, "Why I am not holding in-person town hall meetings," HERE.
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