It's not a question an elected official wants to hear at a widely broadcast news conference about his official conduct, but it was one of the gentler ones thrown at Oregon's embattled Gov. John Kitzhaber last week: 
 
 "Have you been blinded by love?" 
 
 His answer was almost beside the point, because on Wednesday, the largest newspaper in the Beaver State called on Kitzhaber to resign. 
 
 Tawdry allegations about his fiancee, Cylvia Hayes — that she had falsified tax forms and been paid consulting fees to influence her future husband, among many other charges — have dogged Kitzhaber. Now the Democratic governor faces the heat of a political firestorm that only seemed to grow as he kicked off his fourth term at Oregon's helm. 
 
 "More ugliness may surface," the Oregonian declared on its website, "but it should be clear by now to Kitzhaber that his credibility has evaporated to such a degree that he can no longer serve effectively as governor." 
 
 More ugliness may surface, but it should be clear by now to Kitzhaber that his credibility has evaporated to such a degree that he can no longer serve effectively as governor. — Editorial in Oregonian newspaper 
 
 Yet this is the same man who was reelected in November despite 11th-hour revelations that his fiancee had entered a fraudulent green-card marriage in 1997, receiving $5,000 to wed an Ethiopian national so that he could stay in the country. Hayes said in October, "He needed help and I needed financial support." Of Kitzhaber, she said, "I will be eternally grateful for the beautiful, loving way he has supported me in this." 
 
 Three months later, Kitzhaber's political survival is no longer a given. 
 
 He has acknowledged that the allegations — and the state Ethics Commission investigation that they prompted — are a serious "distraction." And he has vowed that Hayes "will have no policy role and no political role in the administration during the remaining four years of [his] term." 
 
 William Lunch, a professor emeritus of political science at Oregon State University and long-term Oregon capital watcher, said that Kitzhaber's current debacle was indeed "relevant to public policy," but that it was also "the soap opera version of politics." 
 
 "It's mostly a story about his difficulties with her, and her failure to understand the limits of political spouses," Lunch said of Oregon's not-very-happy first couple. The situation, he added, "is not unique" to Kitzhaber. 
 
 That very point was raised at last Friday's cringe-worthy news conference, which was called so that Kitzhaber could lay the public's questions to rest. 
 
 "Governor," said one very deep-voiced journalist, "less than a month ago the former governor of Virginia went to prison along with his wife for what seem like very similar reasons — taking favors from somebody in private business in an apparent attempt to influence the governor or to use the governor's aura to be able to get more money. This seems very similar. What's the difference?" 
 
 That in-your-face question was a reference to Republican Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, who were convicted in federal court in Virginia on a plethora of corruption charges in a made-for-TV-movie of a trial. The ex-governor was sentenced to two years but remains free pending appeal; the former first lady is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 20. 
 
 Among the arguments in their defense? That they hated each other so much by the time the crimes took place that they never would have talked enough to commit conspiracy. 
 
 Which makes some of the other questions put to the beleaguered Kitzhaber at that news conference a little more understandable. 
 
 "Governor, this has to be really hard on your relationship, because you're getting constant allegations and accusations," one reporter noted. "How do you keep it together, and do you have any regrets about entering into a relationship knowing what you know now?" 
 
 Asked another: "Is the marriage still on?" 
 
 And finally, to Kitzhaber's back as he strode angrily out of the room: "Do you think you've been used?" 
 
 Obviously, that last one got no response. 
 
 On the other matters, however, Kitzhaber said he had "no regrets" about entering into "a personal relationship" with Hayes more than a decade ago. He loves her, he told reporters, she is "wonderful," and "the marriage is still on, yes." 
 
 But while the 67-year-old pol and the 47-year-old environmental consultant have lived together for several years, Kitzhaber told reporters that he was not really sure whether she was legally a member of his household. 
 
 Considering the allegations, that is more than just a quibble. 
 
 As the Oregonian said in its scathing editorial, "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." 
 
 Among the main allegations reported in the Oregon media: 
 
 • That from 2011 to 2012, Hayes received $118,000 through the Clean Economy Development Center in Washington, D.C., while serving as an unpaid energy advisor to her then-boyfriend. 
 
 • That Hayes did not account for that income on tax forms. And that Kitzhaber did not account for that money on his required ethics filings. 
 
 Kitzhaber said Friday that he reported all income properly, that he neither prepared nor reviewed Hayes' tax forms, and that all questions about those forms should go to his fiancee, an "independent woman" currently traveling in Europe. 
 
 "We knew there was a gray area," Kitzhaber said during last Friday's grilling, "and we took intentional steps to try to clearly separate her volunteer activities as first lady from her paid professional work. And we're fully cooperating with the Ethics Commission." 
 
 Oh, and about that resignation question? Don't hold your breath. 
 
 "I'm not going to consider resigning," he said. "Of course not. I was elected by the people of this state to do a job, and I intend to do it." 
 
 maria.laganga@latimes.com 
 
 @marialaganga 

 The seed for this crawl was a list of every host in the Wayback Machine 
 
 This crawl was run at a level 1 (URLs including their embeds, plus the URLs of all outbound links including their embeds) 
 
 The WARC files associated with this crawl are not currently available to the general public. 

 Gov. John Kitzhaber provided a lucrative job in his administration to an longtime associate who found work for Kitzhaber's fiancee, Oregon first lady Cylvia Hayes. 
 
 
 
 In 2011, Dan Carol, a veteran political consultant, arranged a high-paying assignment for Hayes, Oregon's first lady. 
 
 
 
 Starting in July or August of 2011, Hayes began a fellowship Carol arranged with the Clean Economy Development Center, a Washington, D.C. non-profit. That fellowship would pay her $118,000 over 18 months, for work that Hayes and Kitzhaber's office have yet to describe in any detail. 
 
 
 
 Right after Carol arranged that work for Hayes, Kitzhaber hired Carol to be his director of multi-state initiatives, a job that today pays Carol $165,720, according to state figures. 
 
 That's far more than anybody else on Kitzhaber's staff and nearly twice Kitzhaber's salary of $98,600. 
 
 Carol says Kitzhaber hired him because of the skills he brings to state work, not to repay a favor. 
 
 
 
 In a Feb. 3 email to WW, Carol describes what happened. 
 
 
 
 "Like many other people and many Oregonians, Cylvia Hayes sought my help to get advice, policy ideas and funding connections especially after I came back to Oregon after being in a senior role in the 2008 Obama campaign," Carol writes. "It was common knowledge in early 2011 that her role/her consulting practice created complications and at the same time I gather that there was careful consideration in the Governor's office about how to properly handle this challenge." 
 
 Hayes had been working in the first half of 2011 at Rural Development Initiatives, Inc., a Eugene non-profit that saw its state funding spike while Hayes was on the payroll. 
 
 
 
 But that job didn't work out and Carol came to the rescue. He connected her to Clean Economy Development Center, a Washington, D.C. non-profit formed in 2010 by Jeffrey King, a former Portland resident. 
 
 
 
 "I came up with the idea of the CEDC fellowship," Carol writes. "All parties liked the idea, including the Governor's office which reviewed the proposed structure and agreed that having Cylvia focus on replicating policies outside Oregon was a solution set for her role as a consultant." 
 
 In his email to WW, Carol emphasized that he was a "private citizen" when he came up with the idea to connect Hayes and the Clean Economy Development Center. 
 
 
 
 "No one in the Governor's office or the Governor ever asked me to do anything for Cylvia," Carol writes. 
 
 Hayes got paid handsomely by CEDC in 2011 and 2012. As WW reported last week, it does not appear that she declared the 2012 income of $88,000 on her federal tax return. 
 
 Although Hayes moved on to other contracts with non-profits, who like CEDC worked in areas that overlapped with her official duties as first lady and adviser to KItzhaber, Carol is still in his state position, where he earns far more than anybody else on Kitzhaber's staff—including Kitzhaber' chief of staff, who is paid $147,324.first reported the assistance Carol provided Hayes and has more news today on Kitzhaber's associates finding work for her. 
 
 Carol says his finding Hayes work had nothing to do with Kitzhaber hiring him. 
 
 "The reason I was hired because I had worked for the Governor and with his first chief of staff several times before and because I had the right skills and national connections which among other accomplishments have helped the state obtain its unprecedented $1.9 billion federal waiver to drive community health innovation," Carol writes in a Feb. 4 email 
 
 
 
 Kitzhaber's spokeswoman, Amy Wojcicki, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Additional stories on Gov. Kitzhaber and Cylvia Hayes: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Jan 30, 2015: Gov. Kitzhaber holds a press conference saying Gov. Kitzhaber holds a press conference saying Cylvia Hayes will have no further role in his administration 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Oct. 8, 2014: First Lady, Inc., WW's cover story on Cylvia Hayes' questionable public and private business dealings. WW's cover story on Cylvia Hayes' questionable public and private business dealings. 
 
 
 
 

 Two longtime associates of Gov. John Kitzhaber helped create jobs for first lady Cylvia Hayes with groups hoping to influence Oregon's state energy policy, The Oregonian/OregonLive has learned. 
 
 
 
 Hayes, the governor's fiancee, held the paying jobs even as her role inside Kitzhaber's office as an unpaid energy adviser geared up in 2011, her state calendar shows. 
 
 
 
 One paid her $5,000 a month for five months just after Kitzhaber started his third term as governor. Greg Wolf, currently Kitzhaber's deputy chief of staff for field implementation, was key in creating the job and recommending Hayes for it just before he joined the administration, according to key participants including Wolf. 
 
 
 
 Another paid her $118,000 over two years, a fellowship orchestrated by Dan Carol, a Kitzhaber campaign adviser. He joined Kitzhaber's staff the same month Hayes started collecting on her fellowship. 
 
 
 
 Both arrangements involved foundations and organizations that had direct interests in influencing state policy in Oregon. 
 
 
 
 Wolf and Carol, who were both involved with Kitzhaber's 2010 campaign before joining the governor's office, told The Oregonian/OregonLive by email Tuesday that they did nothing improper helping Hayes find work. 
 
 
 
 Kitzhaber told The Oregonian/OregonLive by email Tuesday that it's possible he mentioned to his associates that Hayes was seeking employment. 
 
 
 
 "It would not surprise me that in conversations with either or both of them, that Cylvia looking for work would have come up," he wrote. The statement was among the first Kitzhaber has provided in response to media inquiries since the scandal broke last October. 
 
 
 
 "I've known Greg for over two decades, and Dan for over 10 years," he said in his statement. "And the idea that either one of them would need to 'curry favor' with me is silly." 
 
 
 
 Kitzhaber declined to address whether the payments to Hayes from two nonprofits hoping to affect Oregon policy presented a conflict of interest for him or his fiancee. He declined to comment about it, citing a pending review by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. 
 
 
 
 Hayes, traveling in Europe, did not respond to questions about her work. 
 
 
 
 One key Oregon political observer said the newly disclosed details about the jobs present a new dimension to the controversy. 
 
 "They're just digging themselves deeper," said Jim Moore, a Pacific University government professor who heads the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation. He likened it to past revolving-door scandals where lobbyists enter and leave government. 
 
 
 
 "On its face it appears like she was getting some of these positions because she was first lady," Moore said. "And she's actively playing both sides of the revolving door at the same time." 
 
 
 
 Help our investigations team Our investigations team wants to hear from you. We rely on people like you to report fraud, waste and abuse and to help make Oregon a better place. E-mail your tips for investigative stories to tips@oregonian.com You can send documents by mail to 1500 SW 1st Ave. #400, Portland OR, 97201. 
 
 Hayes' hunt for a salaried job started after she was embroiled in a state criminal investigation that focused in part on how her own company won a slice of a state energy contract. Hayes was not charged in the matter, but the case put into sharp focus potential conflicts of interest as Kitzhaber campaigned in 2010 to return to the governor's office. 
 
 
 
 After his election victory, Kitzhaber named Hayes first lady. Carol, the campaign adviser who now is part of the Kitzhaber administration, said the dual roles "created complications." It was then that Hayes tried to move from consulting to salaried work. 
 
 
 
 "At the same time I gather that there was careful consideration in the governor's office about how to properly handle this challenge," Carol told The Oregonian/OregonLive by email Tuesday. 
 
 
 
 Kitzhaber's office announced in February 2011 that Hayes would set aside her consulting work to take a job at Rural Development Initiatives, a nonprofit promoting rural jobs. 
 
 
 
 "I have stepped back from my consulting work and chosen to route my work through this really credible not-for-profit organization to avoid any potential conflict of interest -- and as many of the perception challenges as possible," she told The Bulletin newspaper of Bend. 
 
 
 
 Wolf, the Kitzhaber aide, had a direct role in her employment. He worked in Kitzhaber's first administration and on his 2010 campaign. He also served on the board of Rural Development Initiatives, where in late 2010 he supported creation of a new job to pursue grants to expand the nonprofit's work. 
 
 
 
 Wolf told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he alerted the nonprofit's executive director, Craig Smith, that Hayes was looking for a job. Wolf said he mentioned Hayes to help the nonprofit, not Kitzhaber. He called Hayes "a good person to support the organization's work." 
 
 
 
 Smith hired Hayes but said her connection to Kitzhaber played no role in his choice. 
 
 
 
 The plan was for Hayes to help raise $450,000 for a clean economy project - including $50,000 from Oregon that would require the support of her fiance. The project was intended to align climate and energy policies in Oregon, California and Washington. 
 
 
 
 That effort was supported by a spin-off of a left-leaning think tank called the Center On Wisconsin Strategies. The center didn't fund any of Hayes' RDI salary, but did provide technical support for her work and for the pitch for foundation funding. 
 
 
 
 At the time, the center had its own agenda in Oregon, not disclosed publicly, that involved Kitzhaber. Working with national Service Employees International Union, the center supported 2011 legislation that would create a new state bank to advance public policy and local business goals. The legislation would have required Kitzhaber's endorsement. 
 
 
 
 Hayes worked at her $5,000-a-month job for five months before it became apparent funding wasn't flowing as expected for the project. 
 
 
 
 Sam Munger, the point person for the Wisconsin center, denied the Hayes support had any connection to the state bank effort. But he said Hayes' role as first lady influenced the center's decision to work with RDI. 
 
 "It was clearly a significant part of the reason" to support Hayes' new job, Munger said in an October interview. "There's no question that being first lady opens doors and gets people to answer your calls that they might not otherwise." 
 
 
 
 When Hayes left Rural Development Initiatives, she soon found more lucrative consulting work - with the help of another key Kitzhaber adviser. 
 
 
 
 That adviser was Carol. Like Wolf, he had worked in the first Kitzhaber administration and on the 2010 campaign. He said when the campaign ended, he discussed with Kitzhaber's chief of staff, Curtis Robinhold, coming back into government service in the governor's office. 
 
 
 
 Carol is a former Democratic opposition researcher who worked on behalf of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He's also a nationally known clean energy expert known as a rainmaker, with the connections to foundations, nonprofits and government agencies, said Len Bergstein, an Oregon lobbyist who has worked for the solar industry. 
 
 
 
 Carol's job in the current administration as director of multi-state initiatives didn't materialize until September 2011. 
 
 
 
 Meantime, he helped arrange funding to create a fellowship for Hayes with the Clean Economy Development Center. The fellowship would eventually pay Hayes $118,000 into 2012 - income received while she was first lady that she only recently publicly disclosed. 
 
 The clean economy center did not respond to questions about the fellowship which was funded with $75,000 from the Energy Foundation. A foundation spokeswoman said Hayes' job was to develop communications strategies and build support for clean energy policies in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. 
 
 
 
 The foundation does not engage in lobbying but promotes federal and state policies to reduce global warming by cutting down on fossil fuel emissions. In June 2011, records show, Kitzhaber spoke on the phone and also met with an Energy Foundation manager to discuss aligning state energy policies in Oregon, California and Washington. 
 
 Carol said he brought the Energy Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund together to fund the fellowship for Hayes. He said he intended to advance his long-held idea of accelerating clean economy advances. The fellowship rested on Hayes' proven ability as an "evangelist" for clean energy. 
 
 
 
 "When it fits and the work makes sense, I connect good people, groups and projects together to advance policy outcomes and innovation," he said. "No one in the governor's office or the governor ever asked me to do anything for Cylvia." 
 
 -- Nick Budnick and Laura Gunderson 
 
 nbudnick@oregonian.com lgunderson@oregonian.com 
 
 503-294-5083 
 
 @nickbudnick @LGunderson 

 "I'm not going to consider resigning," said Gov. John Kitzhaber at a disastrous press conference held Friday following revelations about the apparently borderless world of public policy and private gain in which he and fiancee Cylvia Hayes exist. "I was elected by the people of this state to do a job, and I intend to do it." 
 
 No doubt, the governor does intend to do the job Oregonians gave him, which, simply put, is to pursue the interests of his constituents. That intention, however, is no match for an ugly reality of his own making, whose sordid elements keep surfacing with dispiriting regularity, most recently this week thanks to the work of Nick Budnick and Laura Gunderson of The Oregonian/OregonLive. Two people involved in Kitzhaber's 2010 campaign helped Hayes find paid work with groups interested in Oregon policy, Budnick and Gunderson reported. Both have landed in Kitzhaber's administration. 
 
 More ugliness may surface, but it should be clear by now to Kitzhaber that his credibility has evaporated to such a degree that he can no longer serve effectively as governor. If he wants to serve his constituents he should resign. 
 
 
 
 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. 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. 
 
 Consider, instead, what Oregonians have learned during only the last couple of weeks. First, Hayes received a combined $118,000 in 2011 and 2012 through the Washington, D.C.-based Clean Economy Development Center even as she served as an unpaid energy adviser to Kitzhaber. This income is not fully accounted for on tax forms Hayes provided to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Neither has the governor fully accounted for the money in ethics filings. 
 
 A big chunk of Hayes' fellowship money, $75,000, came from the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation, a nonprofit that funds clean-energy initiatives such as the low carbon fuel standard. Implementing a low carbon fuel standard is a priority for both Kitzhaber and Democratic leaders in the Legislature. The session's first public hearing on a bill to that end happened on Monday. 
 
 How did Hayes end up with a fellowship funded by an organization with an interest in clean-energy policy in Oregon? A Kitzhaber campaign adviser, Dan Carol, helped arrange the funding following Kitzhaber's election in 2010, Budnick and Gunderson reported. Carol subsequently landed a position within the Kitzhaber administration. That position, Willamette Week has reported, pays more than $165,000, making Carol Kitzhaber's highest-paid aide. 
 
 Who knew following the trail of "clean energy" money could make you feel so dirty? 
 
 Another campaign adviser, Greg Wolf, helped land Hayes a position with the Rural Development Initiatives. The nonprofit, Budnick and Gunderson reported, wanted Hayes to help raise money for a clean economy project - including tens of thousands for which Kitzhaber's support was needed. Wolf, like Carol, later secured a position in Kitzhaber's administration. 
 
 Is it any wonder Kitzhaber now finds himself stranded in an ethical swamp? To understand the full extent of his predicament, consider his inability to answer one simple question during his press conference Friday: Is Hayes a member of your household? He answered this question in the affirmative on multiple occasions in ethics filings. But on Friday, following the discovery of apparently unreported fellowship income, he said, "I have no idea whether she is 'legally' a member of my household." 
 
 The governor has not yet quibbled about the meaning of "is," but Friday's evasions were almost Clintonian. 
 
 The questions about Kitzhaber's judgment and competence ask themselves. Is he so oblivious that he had no idea that campaign advisers were helping his girlfriend line up employment marked by ethical red flags? Is he really so clueless that he had no idea how much money Hayes collected through her fellowship, which would explain his apparently incomplete ethics filings? Or, alternatively, did he know and fail to act? Both possibilities are damning, and it's difficult to imagine alternatives that are not. 
 
 Whether through gross inattention or complicity, Kitzhaber has broken faith with Oregonians. His career in Oregon politics is one of great accomplishment, but his past success does not excuse the mess he has made of the office with which Oregonians entrusted him. He is now less a governor than a source of unending distraction. He can no longer lead Oregon effectively and should resign. His constituents deserve better.
– First, Oregon's first lady admitted to an "illegal" previous marriage, then to planning a marijuana grow operation and running a consulting business out of the governor's mansion. Now, Gov. John Kitzhaber's fiancee Cylvia Hayes faces claims that she was paid consulting fees to influence her future husband. The Oregonian finds two Kitzhaber associates, who later joined his administration, connected Hayes with jobs that landed her $143,000, including $118,000 from a clean-energy group from 2011 to 2012, while she served as an unpaid energy adviser to Kitzhaber. She allegedly failed to report the income on tax forms, nor did Kitzhaber account for the money on his ethics filings, the Los Angeles Times reports. While Kitzhaber has said Hayes "will have no policy role and no political role in the administration" for the rest of his term, "Kitzhaber is already enacting policies Hayes was paid to promote," the Oregonian reports. Dan Carol, the man who got Hayes the gig with group Clean Economy Development Center, was soon after hired by Kitzhaber. He now makes $165,720 a year, almost twice as much as Kitzhaber himself and significantly more than anyone else on his staff, the Willamette Week reports. "No one in the governor's office or the governor ever asked me to do anything for Cylvia," Carol says. "When it fits and the work makes sense, I connect good people, groups and projects together." He adds he was hired because he had previously worked with Kitzhaber and "had the right skills and national connections." The Oregon Government Ethics Commission will vote March 13 on whether to launch an investigation, but the Oregonian has already called on Kitzhaber to resign, noting his "credibility has evaporated." Last week, Kitzhaber said he wouldn't even consider resigning from his post. He added he had "no regrets" about his relationship with Hayes and "the marriage is still on."