{"id":8198,"date":"2015-02-14T04:23:28","date_gmt":"2015-02-14T04:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8198"},"modified":"2015-02-14T04:23:28","modified_gmt":"2015-02-14T04:23:28","slug":"governor-quits-let-the-cleanup-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8198","title":{"rendered":"Governor quits; let the cleanup begin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber made it official: He&#8217;s leaving office in a few days amid a terrible ethics scandal involving his fianc\u00e9e and a lobbying effort she allegedly launched using her position as &#8220;first lady.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now the attention is going to turn to incoming Gov. Kate Brown, the Oregon secretary of state who&#8217;s next in line for the top job.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"DxVj9sG92q\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/blog-briefing-room\/232800-oregon-governor-resigns-amid-scandal\/\">Oregon governor resigns amid scandal<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Oregon governor resigns amid scandal&#8221; &#8212; The Hill\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/blog-briefing-room\/232800-oregon-governor-resigns-amid-scandal\/embed\/#?secret=W3SHuKMk6K#?secret=DxVj9sG92q\" data-secret=\"DxVj9sG92q\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Kitzhaber had to go. Top legislative Democrats went to the governor, also a Democrat, and told him he had zero support in the Legislature. He couldn&#8217;t govern with all the tumult swirling about him and fianc\u00e9e Cylvia Hayes.<\/p>\n<p>What now? The state needs to continue pursuing possible criminal charges against Hayes, who reportedly violated state ethics laws by funneling state business to her personal lobbying firm.<\/p>\n<p>Virtually all states &#8212; including Texas &#8212; have laws that prohibit public officials from using their public office for private gain. Texas occasionally gets a bit lax in enforcing those rules. Therein is the lesson for all states: If you have these laws on the books, then it is essential that they are enforced to the letter.<\/p>\n<p>Kitzhaber&#8217;s resignation should stop the pursuit of what allegedly occurred with Hayes&#8217;s lobbying efforts. If she broke state law, or if the soon-to-be former governor broke laws, they need to be prosecuted. Too often, though, these investigations wither and die once an officeholder leaves office, as if obtaining a resignation is enough of a punishment.<\/p>\n<p>If the state believes in the ethics laws it has on the books, then the Kitzhaber-Hayes saga is far from over.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber made it official: He&#8217;s leaving office in a few days amid a terrible ethics scandal involving his fianc\u00e9e and a lobbying effort she allegedly launched using her position as &#8220;first lady.&#8221; Now the attention is going to turn to incoming Gov. Kate Brown, the Oregon secretary of state who&#8217;s next in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8198\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Governor quits; let the cleanup begin<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13,14],"tags":[1222,1634,2541,2635,3442,3444,3447],"class_list":["post-8198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-cylvia-hayes","tag-ethics-laws","tag-john-kitzhaber","tag-kate-brown","tag-oregon-ethics-commission","tag-oregon-governor","tag-oregon-secretary-of-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}