Part 4: U.S. Rep Bentz address vote-by-mail & ‘bending a knee’
Editor’s Note - We have broken down questions and U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz’s responses during a recent Rotary Club Meeting in The Dalles on Aug. 20th into four different stories that we will release during the next few days. Read Part 3 here.
Vote by Mail
Bill Lyons
The Dalles, Ore., Aug. 20, 2025 — Bill Lyons asked Rep. Cliff Bentz if he supports Oregon’s vote-by-mail system, which later prompted Bentz to ask the crowd for a show of hands for those who supported it.
About 99% of the audience present raised their hands in favor of keeping mail-in ballots.
Bentz said former Secretary of State Dennis Richardson’s review found minimal fraud in the system. But he added that trust is more important than the mechanism itself.
“If my constituents say they no longer trust vote by mail, we better do something different,” Bentz said. “We can’t have a system where people don’t believe the result.”
Trump’s Influence on Congress
Dennis Morgan
Dennis Morgan told Rep. Cliff Bentz on Wednesday that Congress has “bent a knee” to Donald Trump, undermining the independence of the legislative branch.
“I feel that our Congress … has sort of bent a knee to Donald Trump and we’re supposed to be co-equal branches of government,” Morgan said at the Rotary Club meeting. “And I want to see that carried through. And it seems to be being lost.”
Bentz pushed back, saying compromise is necessary to pass major bills. “Does that mean we’re all kowtowing to the guy? No,” he said. “But you’ve got to move the ball forward, and it requires that kind of effort.”
Bentz described negotiations in which the White House met repeatedly with holdouts to secure votes. “That’s just the way it is,” Bentz said, noting he ultimately supported the reconciliation package despite disagreeing with parts of it.
