ENTERPRISE — Joe Yetter seeks to unseat freshman incumbent Congressman Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, as Eastern Oregon’s representative in Congressional District 2.

The Azalea Democrat was in Enterprise on Sunday, Sept. 11, as part of a campaign tour and stopped by the Chieftain office for an interview.

Born in Indiana, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1968, where he was trained as a physician. First, he worked as a pathologist — studying diseases — then he switched to family medicine, a specialty he continued until his retirement in 2004.

After retirement, Yetter and his wife, Lee, traveled the country looking for a new place to settle.

“Every time we went through Oregon, we said, ‘This is nice.’ I got to miss having a garden and she missed having a kitchen. We bought a farm in Azalea (in 2007) … in south Douglas County.”

There, they have an 80-acre farm where they raise cattle, and sheep and used to raise poultry.

The congressional redistricting after the 2020 census led Yetter into politics.

“When redistricting happened, it turns out we are now in the Second Congressional District, and I found out who my congressman was and what he was doing, had done and what I thought he would do and I thought, ‘I have to run,’” he said. “I came out of retirement because I thought freedom and democracy were at stake, and I thought (Bentz) was on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of freedom and democracy.”

Against Bentz

Yetter’s website, www.joefororegon.com, includes harsh accusations against Bentz, such as his stance with veterans. When Bentz was in Enterprise in early August, he emphasized that he’d voted 67 times in favor of veteran-related issues and voted against those issues just a handful of times.

One that Bentz voted against was the PACT Act, which despite the opposition of Bentz and other Republicans, was approved by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden.

“For me, the vote against the PACT Act (a new law that expands VA health care and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances) is a betrayal of veterans,” Yetter said. “I am an Army veteran. I was on active duty 25 years and in the Reserves for 10 years, and I took care of people who came home from war wounded. What he did in voting against the PACT Act — as I say, I believe he betrayed the trust that the United States had between our nation and the veterans.”

The burn pits are where the military disposes of human waste, medical waste, burned uniforms, plastics, electronics and other substances that release toxic smoke.

Some of the veterans, Yetter said, “have lung damage and heart damage and brain damage, and they come home and many of them were unable to get VA benefits for this injury, which is just awful. Not only did the PACT Act cover veterans who were exposed to the toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it covered people who were exposed to all kinds of toxins going all the way back, even the Vietnam War and Agent Orange. So all of these folks ought now to get benefits, and Cliff Bentz voted against that.”

Yetter also opposes Bentz in the latter’s association with former President Donald Trump.

“I think Cliff Bentz is on the wrong side of freedom and democracy and history,” Yetter said. “On Jan. 3 (2021), he took an oath of office to defend the Constitution and three days later he voted to disenfranchise millions of Americans, and I consider that a betrayal.”

That “betrayal,” he said, was Bentz’s vote not to seat the 2020 electors from Pennsylvania.

“I think that’s an anti-democracy vote,” he said.

Rivers

But Yetter’s not just all about unseating Bentz. His website also emphasizes his strong support of Oregon’s U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, particularly in their support of the River Democracy Act.

“I believe that the rivers themselves, the water, the organisms in them, the organisms and people who live in the riparian areas along the rivers need to be protected from industry, from agricultural influences, from extractive industries such as logging too close, agriculture too close,” Yetter said.

Bentz — and Wallowa County commissioners — have spoken against the proposed River Democracy Act as a federal intrusion that would lock up more land and waterways that shouldn’t be designated as wild and scenic. The commissioners also oppose the act as a threat to the agriculture and timber industries of Wallowa County.

The act adds 404 river miles in Wallowa County and increases protected buffers on each side of the rivers from a quarter mile to a half mile, another element of it the commissioners oppose.

In the Sept. 11 interview, Yetter said he hadn’t talked with the commissioners on this trip through Eastern Oregon.

Grazing

Another issue where Yetter comes into conflict with local officials involves grazing livestock. The commissioners have said they believe grazing needs to continue in federal forests to cut down the underbrush that breeds wildfires, such as those now burning in the county.

As for grazing’s effect on preventing wildfires, he is for the scientific approach.

“I have cattle and I graze the cattle in the pasture and I graze the cattle in the timber areas,” he said. “I did go to the Oregon State University Extension agent when we first got there and got their input on what practices I ought best to do.”

He urged private landowners to do likewise and seek such advice, though they’re not legally required to.

“But when you’re talking about management of federally owned lands, it has to be the federal government, it has to be the Department of Agriculture or other agencies that make that decision, once again, based on science,” he said. “It’s our property — the whole nation — that’s being grazed or logged.”

Yetter said he visited the fire camp at the Chief Joseph Days Rodeo Grounds in Joseph and heard from public information officers that they are getting all the federal help they need.

Other issues

Yetter also said he’s in favor of personal choice when it comes to abortion, in favor of universal health care and when it comes to the issue of removing the Lower Snake River dams, he said they should be studied on a case-by-case basis to see if fish ladders can be installed or improved and if the hydroelectric power they produce is still needed.

He also stands firmly with Wyden and Merkley on issues surrounding climate change.

“Climate change is … an imminent danger to our civilization and it’s an imminent danger to many species on Earth,” Yetter said. “It is … causing famine, flood, wars, mass migration of human beings, starvation. It also represents a huge opportunity for human ingenuity and development because we can develop all kinds of alternative energy technologies, transmission of energy, storage of energy, all kinds of things that present an enormous opportunity for us to build a better world.”

Most of all, Yetter said, he is committed to serving the people of Eastern Oregon — even when it would conflict with the national Democratic Party.

“I will vote with the people of CD2 when it benefits them, irrespective of whether other Democrats or Republicans are voting for or against something,” he said. “I’ll vote in the interests of the people of this district, and the interests of the United States of America.”