Ethics ruling on Rep. Greg Smith delayed until after primary ballots are mailed

Union County voters may mail in their primary ballots before the Oregon Government Ethics Commission acts on the latest complaint against Rep. Greg Smith, leaving them to weigh a contested race without the commission’s ruling in hand.

The earliest the commission is expected to discuss the case is May 8, 2026, after election officials begin mailing ballots and about a week before the May 19 primary. Smith’s attorney asked in February for extra time to explore settlement talks, and the commission granted a waiver that delayed public action.

That timing matters because the issue is not just the allegation itself, but what voters are able to know before they vote. Smith, a Republican from Heppner and the longest-serving member of the Oregon House, is accused of being paid for work he did on a public development authority in eastern Oregon while also doing work for his consulting business and serving in the Legislature. The ethics commission has 180 days to complete an investigation, and negotiations are still underway.

The Oregon Government Ethics Commission, which meets about once a month in public session, says about 90 percent of its cases begin with complaints from the public. In Smith’s case, the commission had been expected to discuss the findings at its April meeting before the waiver pushed the matter back.

Smith’s name is already familiar to voters following two earlier ethics findings in the past year. In December 2025, the commission unanimously found that he used his public position to secure a higher salary tied to the Columbia Development Authority, where he sought to raise his pay from $129,000 to $238,000 a year even though the board had not approved it. In January 2026, Smith agreed to a letter of education after failing to disclose Morrow Development Corp. as a consulting client on his required annual statement. The commission said Gregory Smith & Company was paid $100,000 a year to run Morrow Development’s loan program.

The Columbia Development Authority includes the Port of Umatilla, Umatilla County, the Port of Morrow, Morrow County and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. It uses federal grant funding to redevelop a former military chemical depot near Hermiston.

The unresolved ethics case comes as Smith faces Republican challenger Jim Doherty, a rancher and former Morrow County Commissioner who is running unopposed for the GOP nomination in the 57th House District. That district covers most of northeast Oregon, including Morrow, Gilliam, Sherman and Wheeler counties and parts of Umatilla, Wasco, Jefferson, Marion and Clackamas counties. Doherty, known for sounding alarms about groundwater nitrate contamination and helping lead a 2022 door-to-door water testing effort in Boardman, has made the ethics questions part of the campaign.

For voters across eastern Oregon, the practical question is straightforward: whether they will cast ballots before the state finishes answering the ethics complaint hanging over one of the Legislature’s most enduring figures.