Congressman Cliff Bentz has disabled all comments on his official congressional Instagram. Which appears to be unconstitutional.
Cliff Bentz represents Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District. His Instagram @repbentz has his district listed in the bio, links directly to bentz.house.gov, and every post is him conducting official congressional business at committee hearings.
He has disabled comments entirely. No constituent can respond, question, or engage with their elected representative on the platform he uses to conduct and publicize official government business.
This is not a personal account. This is a .gov linked official congressional presence and he has silenced everyone.
It gets worse. If you use the contact form on bentz.house.gov to actually try to reach him, his office does not respond to your question or concern. Instead they harvest your email address and use it to send you unrelated mass campaign style emails. You attempted to contact your representative and got put on a mailing list.
In 2024 the Supreme Court ruled in Lindke v. Freed that when a public official uses a platform to conduct official government business, blocking or silencing constituents can violate the First Amendment. This appears to meet that standard clearly.
Southern Oregon deserves a representative who isn’t hiding from the people he works for. He has disabled many avenues of public accountability while keeping all the platforms that let him talk at you.
If you want to push back here is how:
File a civil rights complaint with ACLU Oregon at intake.aclu-or.org
Submit a news tip to OPB at opbnews@opb.org or 503-977-7768
Contact the First Amendment Coalition at firstamendmentcoalition.org
Email his office directly demanding an explanation at bentz.house.gov
File a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics at oce.house.gov