I'm quite sad about all this.
I believe that
my dog in this fight has turned out to be a bitch.
This is the first article I've seen that puts it all in perspective, and I don't disagree with much of anything in it.
But I have sniped out a lot of stuff that has been reported before about Kitzhaber, himself.
For me now, it's another instance of: "He knew, or he should have known..."
Oregon Gov. Kitzhaber + Cylvia Hayes: Political Valentine gone wrong?
Christian Science Monitor - Brad Knickerbocker, - February 14, 2015
Quote:
ASHLAND, ORE. — In the end, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber stood alone in the harsh political spotlight.
In the end, he really had no option but to resign as an ethical scandal involving his fiancée Cylvia Hayes kept growing.
The essence of the scandal is that Ms. Hayes, in her unofficial capacity as first lady,
used her position as an advisor and confidante to the governor
– she had an office at the State Capital in Salem – for financial gain.
The state ethics commission had begun an inquiry, and state Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum,
a fellow-Democrat who had called the allegations against Kitzhaber
“very serious – and troubling,” launched a criminal investigation.
<snip>
Ms. Hayes is alleged to have used her position close to the governor
– they lived together and had been a couple for years –
to land clients for her environmental consulting business.
Emails show Hayes directed state employees how to implement a new policy
while she was being paid $25,000 by an advocacy group to promote it.
It was also reported that Hayes earned $118,000 over two years for a fellowship
with the Clean Economy Development Center, and that the money didn't match the earnings reported on her tax returns.
<snip>
The spotlight on financial issues also led to Hayes’s admitting to have accepted about $5,000 for
illegally marrying a young Ethiopian man seeking immigration benefits in the 1990s,
which she called "the biggest mistake of my life."
Later, she admitted to having purchased a remote property with the intent to grow marijuana.
…
Hayes was raised in rural poverty in Washington State,
for a time in a home without electricity or running water.
She ran away from home when she was 16, marrying for the first time at 17.
There was a point in her early life when she lived in her car and a tent on public land.
<snip>
Over the years, Oregon does seem to have had a distinctive brand of politics
– relaxed and progressive without being particularly partisan,
a place as comfortable with moderate Republican governors like Mark Hatfield
and Tom McCall as it is with incumbent Democratic US senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.
Ironically, as Reid Wilson pointed out in the Washington Post this week,
Oregon is the least corrupt state in the nation, according to Justice Department data
showing that fewer public officials were convicted in Oregon over the last four decades than in any other state.
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