Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber resigned Friday, giving in to mounting pressure to abandon his office amid suspicions that his fiancee used her relationship with him to land contracts for her green-energy consulting business.
In a lengthy statement, the state’s longest-serving chief executive insisted he had broken no laws.
“Nonetheless, I understand that I have become a liability to the very institutions and policies to which I have dedicated my career and, indeed, my entire adult life,” he said.
He said the resignation would be effective Wednesday.
The decision capped a wild week in which Kitzhaber seemed poised to step down, then changed his mind, but ultimately bowed to calls from legislative leaders that he quit the state’s top elected position.
The announcement is a stunning fall from grace for a politician who left the governor’s office in 2003 and then mounted a comeback in 2010 and won back his old job.
Secretary of State Kate Brown, a Democrat like Kitzhaber, was expected to assume the office. Unlike most states, Oregon does not have a lieutenant governor, and the state constitution puts the secretary of state next in line.
In addition to the written statement, Kitzhaber released a recording of himself reading it. At the end, his voice trembled, and he seemed to be choking back tears.
His statement was defiant, saying it was “troubling” that “so many of my former allies” had chosen to “simply accept” that he had done something wrong, referring to Democrats who had abandoned him.
“I am confident that I have not broken any laws nor taken any actions that were dishonest or dishonorable in their intent or outcome,” he said. “I have always tried to do the right thing, and now the right thing to do is to step aside.”
Kitzhaber called Brown back to Oregon from a conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this week. People close to Kitzhaber say he asked her to return after deciding to resign but then changed his mind. That led to a Wednesday meeting between Kitzhaber and Brown that she described as “strange.”
By Thursday, the leaders of the state House and Senate said he had to go. Other top officials in the overwhelmingly Democratic state also said Kitzhaber should resign.
“I finally said, ‘This has got to stop,’” Senate President Peter Courtney said after he met with Kitzhaber. “I don’t know what else to do right now. It seems to be escalating. It seems to be getting worse and worse.”
Kitzhaber handily won re-election in November to a fourth term after surviving the botched rollout of Oregon’s online health care exchange, which turned into a national embarrassment.
But the allegations surrounding the work of his fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, were more harmful, dominating headlines in the state following his victory.
A series of newspaper reports since October have chronicled Hayes’ work for organizations with an interest in Oregon public policy. At the same time, she was paid by advocacy groups and played an active role in Kitzhaber’s administration, a potential conflict of interest.
The spotlight on Hayes led her to reveal that she accepted about $5,000 to illegally marry a man seeking immigration benefits in the 1990s. Later, she admitted she had bought a remote property with the intent to grow marijuana.
Though questions about Hayes have swirled for months, the pressure on Kitzhaber intensified in recent weeks after newspapers raised questions about whether Hayes had reported all her income on her tax returns. She has not publicly addressed the allegation and Kitzhaber has declined to. Earlier this week, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said she was launching a criminal investigation.
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