The state of my birth is now the subject of a serious political scandal that is getting stranger by the day, if not the hour.

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s fiancée, Cylvia Hayes, has been accused of using her position as “first lady” of the state for personal gain. It involves her lobbying activities and whether she presented herself as a representative of the state her significant other — Kitzhaber — governs.

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/02/john_kitzhaber_cylvia_hayes_et_1.html#incart_m-rpt-1

The attached link spells out the trouble quite clearly.

The alleged profiteering reportedly has amounted to a lot of dough that’s gone to Hayes and, presumably, to Kitzhaber as well. The result has produced a firestorm in Oregon.

My hometown newspaper, The Oregonian, has called for the governor’s resignation. Kitzhaber so far hasn’t budged. As for Hayes, well, only the two of them know what they’re saying to each other in private.

But here’s the latest: Kitzhaber and Hayes have filed a response to the Oregon Ethics Commission complaint that borders on the laughable.

They contend that Hayes’s role as “first lady” isn’t an official government title, that she doesn’t run any agency so, therefore, she somehow is exempt from the allegations of conflict of interest that have peppered her. “The title ‘First Lady’ does not refer to an official office within Oregon state government or an officer of Oregon state government,” they wrote. “Ms. Hayes is not a public official.”

But as The Oregonian reported: “As for whether she was a public official, she subbed in for the governor at public events. She orchestrated meetings with senior state officials. She served as the governor’s unpaid adviser on energy and economic policies — by the governor’s reckoning, contributing thousands of hours.”

Doesn’t that make her a de facto state official? By my definition of the term “de facto,” that’s virtually the same thing as getting paid for her work on behalf of the state.

This drama has some distance to go before it plays out. My hunch is that it won’t end well for the governor and his first lady.