Greg Smith: Oregon Rep’s Ethics Findings and $6.9M AG Lawsuit

Oregon state Rep. Greg Smith, a Republican who has represented eastern Oregon’s House District 57 since 2001, is the subject of multiple ethics scandals: a unanimous state ethics commission finding that he violated Oregon law by engineering an unauthorized pay raise at a public agency he ran, additional disclosure violations resolved with letters of education, a pending investigation into how he billed his time, and a $6.9 million Attorney General lawsuit tied to the 2018 sale of a nonprofit’s fiber optic subsidiary. Calls for his resignation have come from his own county Republican party, but he won renomination in May 2026 and continues to serve in the legislature.

The Columbia Development Authority Pay Raise

The central case involves Smith’s outside job. From 2015 until January 2026 he served as executive director of the Columbia Development Authority, an intergovernmental consortium of the Port of Umatilla, Umatilla County, the Port of Morrow, Morrow County, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The CDA is redeveloping land from a former military chemical depot near Hermiston.¹

Smith’s CDA salary was roughly $126,000 to $129,000 in late 2023. The Oregon Government Ethics Commission found he sought to raise it to as much as $238,000 without a board vote. Investigators concluded he embedded a “board-approved increase” in a 2024 federal grant application to the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation, listing his salary at $195,000 — the maximum allowable under the grant’s cost-sharing structure, with $123,350 to come from the federal government and $71,650 from the CDA.²

On December 12, 2025, the ethics commission voted 7–0 that there was sufficient evidence Smith violated state law by using his public position for personal financial gain and failing to disclose a conflict of interest.³ When the CDA board discovered the unauthorized raise, it revoked the increase and ordered him to repay the excess. As of December 2025, investigators reported he had not returned the roughly $33,000 he had already received. He faces potential fines of up to $10,000 per violation or a penalty equal to twice the financial benefit he obtained.⁴

House Speaker Julie Fahey called the findings “deeply troubling” and said she intended to follow the case before deciding on any legislative next steps. Smith did not issue a public statement at the time.⁴

Resignation and Lost Federal Funding

Smith resigned as CDA executive director on January 27, 2026, effective immediately, at a board meeting in Boardman. The day before, he had terminated the agency’s only other employee, project coordinator Emily Collins, citing payroll insolvency. The board voted unanimously to reinstate her right after his resignation.¹ He had declined a proposed three-year contract extension offered in November 2025 that would have paid $298,000 annually.⁵

The U.S. Defense Department separately terminated $800,000 in federal funding for the CDA in 2025 after an audit of Smith’s time cards.¹

The Pending Time-Usage Investigation

In October 2025, the ethics commission opened a separate investigation into allegations that Smith accepted CDA pay for hours he actually spent on private consulting or legislative work, approved his own time cards, and used CDA staff and resources for his private firm, Gregory Smith & Company. In February 2026, his attorney obtained a time waiver to pursue settlement negotiations, pushing commission deliberations past the May 2026 primary.⁶

Other Ethics Findings

The pay-raise case is not Smith’s only ethics finding. In March 2025, the commission issued him a letter of education for failing to disclose income from Harney County, where he also served as a local development authority director, on his annual statement of economic interest.²

In January 2026, the commission resolved another case in which Smith had failed to disclose his firm’s $100,000-a-year contract with Morrow Development Corporation on his 2024 and 2025 statements of economic interest. He signed a stipulated final order and received another letter of education rather than a financial penalty. According to the nonprofit’s tax returns, Morrow Development Corporation’s 2024 income of roughly $103,929 went almost entirely to Smith’s company to manage its loan program.⁷

A separate complaint alleging a conflict of interest tied to the Bank of Eastern Oregon was dismissed by the commission in February 2026 after investigators determined Smith was not “associated” with the bank under the relevant statute.⁸

Smith reported gross annual household income exceeding $1 million in 2024, including his legislative stipend, his CDA salary, his wife’s salary as his legislative assistant, and business income.²

The Attorney General’s $6.9 Million Lawsuit

In July 2025, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield sued Smith and other defendants in Morrow County Circuit Court over the 2018 sale of Windwave Technologies, a for-profit fiber optic subsidiary of the nonprofit Inland Development Corporation. The lawsuit alleges a group of insiders on Inland’s board arranged to buy Windwave for roughly $2.6 million, a price the state says was at least $6.9 million below its true value, to enrich themselves ahead of a surge in the company’s worth tied to contracts with Amazon Web Services.⁹ The state contends the actual value was at least $9.5 million.¹⁰

Smith was recruited to the Inland board in September 2017 to serve as a “disinterested director.” The Attorney General alleges he failed to exercise adequate diligence, breached his duties of loyalty and reasonable care, and voted to approve the sale in May 2018 despite the insiders having bypassed attorney recommendations for an independent fairness opinion. The state seeks at least $6.9 million in reparations from the defendants and asks the court to permanently bar Smith from involvement with any Oregon charity.⁹

Political Fallout and the 2026 Primary

The Morrow County Republican Central Committee passed a resolution on January 21, 2026, calling for Smith to resign from the legislature, a rebuke from his home-county party.¹ Smith declined. He drew his first serious primary challenge in over two decades from Republican Jim Doherty in the May 19, 2026, primary.¹¹

Smith won the primary with roughly 4,008 votes (55%) to Doherty’s 3,244 (45%). He carried Umatilla and Morrow counties by wide margins but lost Gilliam, Sherman, Wasco, and Jefferson counties to Doherty.¹² Because no Democrat filed to run in the district, he is set to return for a fourteenth consecutive term.¹³

What Remains Open

As of mid-2026, Smith continues to serve in the Oregon House, where he is co-vice chair of the Joint Ways and Means Committee.¹⁴ The ethics commission’s time-usage investigation is still pending, delayed by settlement negotiations. The CDA pay-raise case remains open, with potential fines still to be determined. The Attorney General’s $6.9 million lawsuit over the Windwave Technologies sale is proceeding in Morrow County Circuit Court.⁴

1
Salem Reporter. Greg Smith Abruptly Resigns as Columbia Development Authority Director
2
Oregon Capital Chronicle. Oregon Ethics Commission Finds Rep. Greg Smith Violated State Ethics Laws in Pursuit of Raise
3
Salem Reporter. Ethics Commission Finds Greg Smith Repeatedly Violated State Law in Boosting His Pay
4
OregonLive. Republicans’ Bosses Silent on Finding Greg Smith Broke Ethics Laws
5
Hermiston Herald. Greg Smith Resigns From Columbia Development Authority
6
OregonLive. Ethics Report on Republican Rep. Greg Smith’s Conduct Delayed, Possibly Until After May Election
7
Oregon Capital Chronicle. Oregon Rep. Greg Smith Admits Ethics Violation, Fails to Disclose Business Client
8
East Oregonian. Oregon Ethics Group Dismisses Greg Smith Case
9
Salem Reporter. Greg Smith Sued Over Role in Nonprofit Scheme, Faces Third Ethics Investigation
10
Oregon Department of Justice. Complaint – State of Oregon v. Healy et al.
11
OregonLive. After Ethics Lapses, an Eastern Oregon House Member Faces 1st Serious Primary Challenge in 25 Years
12
Times-Journal. Smith Wins Nomination but Loses Gilliam and Sherman to Doherty
13
East Oregonian. Smith Leading Doherty for District 57 House Seat
14
East Oregonian. Oregon Rep. Greg Smith Seeks Reelection to State Legislature