Before You Vote
The Facts About the Swapped Newspaper, the Quiet Lawsuit, and Matt Scarfo's Third Term
By Levi Bakke | Valor Investigations | April 30, 2026
Ballots reach Union County mailboxes this week. By the time you drop yours off, you will have decided whether 5,578 local votes still mattered.
In 2016, Union County voters passed a ballot measure capping county commissioners at two consecutive terms. It wasn't close -- it passed by a 68 percent margin (5,578 to 2,599).
Recently, the county filed a lawsuit to strike those limits down, and won. But not a single one of those 5,578 voters appeared in court to defend the limits. Why? Because the legally required public notice never ran in a Union County newspaper. It ran exclusively in the East Oregonian in Pendleton, 65 miles away.
Today, I have a motion pending in Union County Circuit Court to throw out that judgment. Meanwhile, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission has voted unanimously to investigate Commissioner Matt Scarfo over his role in erasing those term limits. And just days before ballots were mailed, Scarfo posted a campaign interview addressing the controversy.
Here is what the court records, the ethics filings, and Scarfo's own words actually say when compared to the documentary record.
THE QUIET LAWSUIT
On April 16, I filed a legal motion to set aside the judgment that killed our term limits. The argument is simple: state law requires a county to publish notice of this kind of lawsuit in a local newspaper of general circulation so citizens can object.
Union County has the La Grande Observer. Even though it stopped printing physical papers in 2024, it still operates online, employs local reporters, and is legally qualified by the state to publish public notices. Instead of using the Observer, the county published the notice in Pendleton. Because the notice was defective, I am arguing the court never had jurisdiction over Union County voters, making the ruling void from the start.
In its response, the county's legal counsel argued a list of technicalities. They claimed that even if the notice was defective, no citizen has the right to challenge it now. They also argued that the East Oregonian was the county's "official" newspaper, pointing to a one-paragraph order passed by the Board of Commissioners on January 22, 2025.
What the county's lawyers didn't mention, however, is exactly how that January 22 meeting played out.
THE MEETING MINUTES
I pulled the official, approved minutes from that January 22, 2025 Board of Commissioners meeting and submitted them to the court. They reframe the county's entire defense.
The county claims the East Oregonian was their carefully chosen, official publication. But the minutes show the Board made the Pendleton paper the official county paper that morning with exactly one sentence of explanation, taking no evidence and having no discussion about the La Grande Observer. Commissioner Jake Seavert made the motion, and Commissioner Scarfo seconded it.
Just three agenda items later, during the exact same meeting, the Board voted to authorize the lawsuit to kill the term limits.
Wyatt Baum, the county's lawyer, walked the Board through two options to challenge the law. Option one: wait for a commissioner to file for a third term, let the county clerk reject the filing, and have the resulting lawsuit driven by the candidate. Option two: the county could sue itself proactively, meaning there would be no opposing party.
Shelley Burgess, the county's senior administrator, pushed for option two. She told the Board that waiting for a candidate to trigger the lawsuit would be a "disservice." She recommended the county seek the determination, stating on the record it should be done "sooner rather than later so that it is known before anyone could file."
In other words: file the lawsuit now, so no sitting commissioner has to put their own name on a lawsuit against the voters.
Before the vote, Commissioner Paul Anderes stated he was not running again. Commissioner Scarfo, however, stated the opposite. According to the official minutes, Scarfo said "he would like to see an option for a third term," specifically citing a fairgrounds funding project he wanted more time to finish.
Scarfo then immediately seconded the motion to file the lawsuit that would clear the path for his third term, and voted yes. He never declared a conflict of interest, and he did not recuse himself.
THE ETHICS INVESTIGATION
Following a complaint by Jim Mollerstrom -- the chief petitioner of the original 2016 term limit measure -- the Oregon Government Ethics Commission (OGEC) opened an investigation into Scarfo.
On February 6, 2026, the Commission reviewed the evidence. They voted unanimously, 7-0, finding a "substantial, objective basis for believing" Scarfo violated two state ethics laws.
First, using an official position for personal financial gain.
Second, failing to declare an actual conflict of interest before participating and voting on a matter.
The investigation is currently ongoing.
THE INTERVIEW FACT-CHECK
On April 24, Scarfo's campaign posted a 14-minute interview on Facebook. In it, he made several claims about the lawsuit and the ethics investigation that directly contradict the public record.
The Lawsuit's Goal. Scarfo claimed, "We did not ask to get it overturned. We asked to clarify the legality." The record: the county's own legal petition explicitly asked the judge to declare the term limits unconstitutional and strike them down.
The Ethics Vote. Scarfo claimed the OGEC only opened the investigation because he brought them a 2018 legal opinion they simply needed time "just to read," describing it as something that "could have been an email." The record: the Commission opened the investigation with a 7-0 roll call vote explicitly stating they found a substantial basis to believe he violated two specific ethics laws.
The Charges. Scarfo mentioned he was accused of using legal counsel for personal gain, but entirely omitted the second charge he is facing: failing to declare a conflict of interest before voting.
The Courts. Scarfo claimed the Oregon Supreme Court "overturned" the ordinance. The record: the Oregon Supreme Court has never ruled on Union County's term limits. The judgment came solely from an uncontested, local hearing in Union County Circuit Court.
When asked why he was running again despite the voters' 68 percent mandate for term limits, Scarfo answered: "I am all for the will of the people. But this should never have been on the ballot in the first place."
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
The narrow legal question of whether a public notice published 65 miles away is legally valid will be decided by a judge. The narrow ethics question of whether Commissioner Scarfo broke the law by voting to authorize a lawsuit he personally benefited from will be decided by the state.
But your question, as a voter, is none of those things.
Your question is whether the votes of 5,578 citizens still have a place in the conversation. Whether you will tolerate any elected officials who change the paper of notice in the same meeting they move to overturn the voters in an editorial they told nobody they changed it to. All three commissioners voted in lock step, not one opposed. Not one stepped up to say, "hey, maybe we should inform those whom we serve." Which begs the question: if the commissioners aren't serving the people of Union County, then who are they serving?
The courts or the ethics commission may eventually intervene. But your ballot will be counted long before those rulings arrive. When you fill out that ballot, you have the facts. The meeting minutes are public. The court filings are public. The 7-0 ethics vote is public.
The decision is yours.
Levi Bakke is the movant in the case described in this article. Valor Investigations is an independent investigative journalism organization based in La Grande, Oregon. Contact: levi@valorinvestigates.com. (971) 303-4982.