Oregon's largest newspaper, the Oregonian of Portland, has called on the state's four-time governor, John Kitzhaber, to resign over a lobbying conflict of interest scandal involving his fiancee,
Fox News reports.
The Democrat has come under fire after the paper determined the fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, had been working to lobby the clean energy industry while also working for the governor's administration as an unpaid policy adviser. She also, while not married to the governor, had been serving in the role of the state's first lady, Fox News said.
Hayes is under investigation,
according to the Oregonian, by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission amid charges that her work consulting marked a conflict of interest.
The Oregonian's investigation determined that two of the governor's
longtime associates helped to create paid jobs for Hayes with groups that had hoped "to influence Oregon's state energy policy."
In an editorial on Wednesday, the paper called for Kitzhaber to resign, charging that he and Hayes live in a "borderless world of public policy and private gain."
"To recite every reported instance in which Hayes, ostensibly under Kitzhaber's watchful eye, has used public resources, including public employee time and her 'first lady' title, in pursuit of professional gain would require far more space than we have here and, besides, repeat what most readers already know," the paper wrote. "Suffice it to say there's a pattern, and the person who bears the responsibility for allowing it to form and persist is Kitzhaber, who should know better. After all, as he pointed out during Friday's press conference, he's been serving in public office on and off since the 1970s."
Last Friday, Kitzhaber, the longest-serving governor in state history, said at a press conference that he would not abandon his job.
He told station KGW in a statement that he planned to stay. "I was elected to serve the citizens of the state of Oregon and I intend to continue to do so," Kitzhaber said.
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