Columbia Gorge News
THE DALLES — All the candidates for Wasco County positions, from county commission to U.S. Senate, were invited to a forum at The Dalles Senior Center on April 28. Most attended, though three candidates ended up answering the moderator’s questions alone.
One of them was Jim Doherty, a fourth-generation cattle rancher from eastern Oregon who’s challenging incumbent Rep. Greg Smith for Oregon’s District 57 in the Republican primary, one of the longest-serving state representatives in Oregon. District 57 includes most of Wasco County.
Doherty said he’s running to continue his fight against special interests that he began as a Morrow County Commissioner. When he learned that families in his area were suffering high rates of thyroid and kidney cancers, Doherty went door-to-door testing wells and exposed high levels of pollutants. That resulted in a settlement from Amazon, one of the polluters.
Asked about his top legislative priorities, Doherty said they include the Hanford cleanup (he opposes the government plan to send 180 trains of hazardous waste up and down the Deschutes River). In strengthening rural workforce and healthcare needs, he emphasized communications with professional to understand what they need: “You guys know better than I. My door is open to hear from you.”
Doherty also said holding onto agricultural land is “super important to me, and never in our lifetime have we seen it going away like it’s going away now.” He noted 19 hyper-scale data centers being developed on the Columbia, and is opposed to large amounts of resources and farmland they siphon from local communities.
“My opponent’s been in Salem for 26 years. He makes over $1 million a year. He’s brought in over [$2] million into his campaign,” Doherty said. “I’ll never take a PAC dollar because they come with strings. And the Amazon payment was because one person stood up, right? There’s 10 more folks that are going to have to pay because they polluted that.”
“I’ll never take a PAC dollar because they come with strings. And the Amazon payment was because one person stood up, right? There’s 10 more folks that are going to have to pay because they polluted that, as well,” Doherty continued. “If you want to find their campaign funds, you’ll find them in my opponent’s coffers.”
District 26, Oregon Senate
Rivals for Oregon’s District 26 Senate seat present were Nicole Bassett, Matthew Favro, and current District 52 Rep. Jeff Helfrich.
Bassett is a hospice volunteer and business professional who runs her own company in Cascade Locks. She said her top priority will be people’s “immediate needs” — housing, mental health and education — followed by building a resiliency economy that emphasizes resale, reuse and recycling. Asked about homelessness, she recounted a morning spent cleaning an abandoned homeless camp with officers in Sandy: “Some of the things I heard was a desire to have more resources to help people at the community level ... that really inspired me.
“When I look at solving problems, I look at, okay, what do we have control over, and where can we make the biggest impact? And then also, how do we really weigh short and long-term consequences to these decisions?” she said.
Favro is an electrical engineer and father of four, running to make sure “we continue to have jobs and to have the best education that we have to offer,” he said. His top priority is data centers, because they use vast resources and drive up electric rates for others. He also wants a lower cap on rental increases, and if faced with competing priorities, would focus on things necessary for daily life — mentioning roads and schools.
On houselessness, he said drug use “is a definitely big part of it” and while services should be available, he thinks people who don’t accept help should receive special attention. “If they are currently using drugs, we need to enforce it and take them in and try and help them break free of the habit.”
“I don’t really want to tell you to vote for me or anybody else. It’s just what you want to envision the future of the state of Oregon,” he said.
Helfrich is a current representative and Air Force veteran who spent 25 years in law enforcement. On his top legislative priorities, Helfrich harked back to “fixing” Measure 110. He also talked affordability, and mentioned energy rate increases, which he said were due not to data centers but the premium placed on clean energy. On houselessness, he said local leadership needs to get the money for services directly, rather than going through the Oregon Health Authority.
Faced with competing priorities, he noted public safety, schools and affordable housing.
“[W]e build the future for the next generations,” he said. “Because I have 12 and 14 year olds at home, and I want them to be able to live where we live — where we’re at — Hood River — and be able to stay there and raise a family. And right now, you can’t afford that.”
Smith investigations
In 2025, Rep. Greg Smith was the subject of four investigations by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. In one that concluded last December, the commission found that Smith improperly used his helm as executive director of the Columbia Development Authority, a publicly funded agency tasked with converting a former military base west of Hermiston into an industrial complex, to arrange his own pay increase.
Smith has failed to disclose large consulting contracts with county government agencies on three separate occasions. Additionally, he’s being sued by Attorney General Day Rayfield for his role in privatizing Windwave, a fiber optic company that subsequently benefited from a lucrative Amazon contract. The company has also donated to his campaign, according to state finance records.
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Stories or questionnaires for candidates in the other contested races can be found at columbiagorgenews.com.
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