FILE - Oregon state Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, right, speaks to an audience at a 2024 town in Boardman, Ore., as Community Counseling Solutions executive director Kimberly Lindsay, left, and Boardman Police Chief Rick Stokoe listen.
Antonio Sierra / OPB
After a year of high-profile controversies, Oregon’s longest-serving state lawmaker says he wants another term.
Rep. Greg Smith has filed to run for a 14th term representing Eastern Oregon in the state house.
The Heppner Republican’s Jan. 1 declaration comes after a state watchdog found he violated ethics laws, and while the Oregon attorney general’s office is suing Smith over allegations of self-dealing.
In an interview with OPB this month, Smith said his intentions were never bad, and some of the ethical accusations against him were driven by his political opponents. Despite serious allegations from the attorney general, Smith said, he was unfazed.
“I have not lost a minute of sleep over this,” he said. “Not even during a nap.”
First elected in 2000, Smith has built a reputation as a Republican who can work across the aisle on some issues, especially if it means bringing home money to his district.
In the last legislative session, he secured millions of dollars for the Lower Umatilla Basin to connect residents to clean water sources, he said. If reelected, Smith said he wants to focus on child care issues and the state budget.
Related: Longtime Eastern Oregon legislator at the center of ethics investigation
Smith hasn’t lost an election since he was voted into the Legislature, and has easily turned back challenges in both the primary and general elections. This year he faces a Republican primary race against former Morrow County Commissioner Jim Doherty.
Doherty was recalled from office in 2022, in part due to local conflicts over the firing of an administrator and competing ambulance services. His campaign has focused on issues like nitrate pollution in the Lower Umatilla Basin and on Smith’s controversies.
While Doherty was critical of Smith, he said the main motivation behind his campaign was a desire to get back into community service rather than ousting Smith.
Smith’s work as a private consultant has earned him plenty of scrutiny from others in recent years.
The Malheur Enterprise investigated the connections between his work as a legislator and his economic development consulting business, after which Smith dropped or lost multiple contracts across the state.
Over the past year, state authorities have also taken notice.
In December, the ethics commission found that Smith violated ethics laws when he applied for a federal grant that raised his salary as the executive director of the Columbia Development Authority, an agency that oversees an industrial park development near Hermiston.
Smith said he took the complaint seriously and characterized it as a “learning experience.”
But he also placed blame on his political opponents. Smith claimed Doherty and his wife, Port of Morrow Commissioner Kelly Doherty, and their political allies were behind the complaints, in order to help Doherty’s campaign.
Doherty dismissed Smith’s accusations, saying he didn’t file those complaints and only found out about them well after the fact. He pointed out that the ethics findings were made by an independent, bipartisan commission.
“They’re certainly not in my camp,” he said. “They are just doing their job. It’s ludicrous to suggest that this is a political ploy by myself or my wife.”
Related: State attorney general alleges Morrow County officials enriched themselves in broadband deal
Smith also faces accusations from the Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield. In a lawsuit filed last summer, the state Department of Justice alleged Smith was part of a self-enrichment scheme. Rayfield’s lawsuit says that scheme led to a nonprofit broadband company being sold to local public officials ahead of a data center boom.
But the attorneys who defended Smith said the company’s sale was approved by the justice department’s charitable activities division.
Smith said he only agreed to join the broadband company’s board because he was under the impression that the proceeds of the sale would go toward a student scholarship fund.
“I never received so much as a ham sandwich for this,” he said.
But the state lawsuit continues.
“Mr. Smith’s explanation for his conduct and decisions are something that we will continue to explore,” Jenny Hansson, Oregon Department of Justice spokesperson wrote in an email. “DOJ is very confident of its position in this case, and we look forward to having the opportunity to present the facts of this case in open court and let justice take its course.”
A circuit court judge will hold a hearing on the case in Heppner on Feb. 17. The primary election is on May 19.
