Cliff —

What happened to you?

When we served together in the Oregon Legislature, I always found you to be a man of strong principles, a fierce advocate for your constituents and clearly committed to keeping your oath to uphold the constitutions of Oregon and the United States of America.

Since you have become a congressman, you have not been the man I knew.

In every interview you’ve given recently, you’ve made it clear that you are fully supporting an unelected Trump campaign donor destroying the federal government by ignoring Congress’ constitutional power of the purse and significantly damaging the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of people in our district.

Elon Musk’s destruction of USAID is even worse. In a report that has been blocked by the Trump administration, his reckless cutting of foreign aid programs has not only impacted farmers in our district and around the state who earn their livings through contracts with USAID that feed impoverished people around the world but has led to what the blocked report states could be “tens of thousands of preventable deaths” through the elimination of life-saving efforts.

Let me repeat that — “tens of thousands of preventable deaths.”

Your stated reason for supporting something that is clearly unconstitutional and immoral is that we have to cut the federal budget. This is not the way to cut the federal budget and you know it. We both served in the Legislature during times when the state budget had to be cut, and we sure as hell didn’t ask Phil Knight to come in and cut it any way he wanted to. We analyzed the budget of each and every state agency, we held hearings, we held votes. We acted in accordance with the oath we took to uphold Oregon’s constitution. We were thoughtful, we cared about the impacts of our decisions on the people we represented.

And you know that is how Congress should be doing it if you believe it is so important to cut programs that Americans depend on. Your party controls the House, the Senate and the White House. You can analyze each budget, you can hold hearings, you can hold votes. You can respect democracy and the constitution of the United States of America.

Yet you refuse to. What has happened to you?

If you sincerely believe the federal deficit needs to be reduced so badly, you could also choose to do something blaringly obvious — don’t support extending a tax cut for billionaires and wealthy corporations that is going to add over $4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

As your constituent, I’ve called your office a number of times in the last two months to raise these concerns and have consistently asked for a call back. There have been no replies.

And I’ve read about the town halls you’ve held and your displeasure with being yelled at by people who attended. I can totally understand that. No one likes being yelled at. But I believe you are being yelled at because you are supporting actions that are unconstitutional, immoral, damaging and cruel.

Withdraw your support of these actions. I believe the man I served with in the Oregon Legislature would have.

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Peter Buckley is a Democrat and former state representative from Ashland who served in the Oregon Legislature from 2005-17.