By Anna Staver Republican gubernatorial candidate Dennis Richardson asked Thursday for a federal criminal investigation into whether Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber and his fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, violated federal law in what Richardson called a pay to play scandal. In a 13-page letter sent to Oregon's U.S. Attorney, S. Amanda Marshall, Richardson and two county sheriffs asked the FBI and the Department of Justice to investigate the couple on charges of honest services fraud, bribery and conspiracy. The allegations stem from a series of news articles that accuse Hayes of using her position as first lady and her proximity to the governor to secure lucrative contracts for companies that hired her as a consultant. For example, Demos paid Hayes $25,000 to be an "active liaison" with state officials, and she helped Demos secure $100,000 in funding for a project in 2013 to create an Oregon GPI. "She has used that official position with the governor's consent and his permission to provide financial benefit to her client," said Charlie Spies, an attorney retained by the Richardson campaign to help draft Thursday's letter. Spies compared the allegations against Kitzhaber and Hayes to the ones former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife were recently convicted of in federal court. In September, a jury found McDonnell guilty on 11 of 14 corruption charges for gifts and sweetheart loans his wife accepted from a Richmond businessman. The main difference between the McDonnell case the accusations levied against Hayes and Kitzhaber, according to the letter, is that it wasn't clear how Jonnie Williams Sr. benefited from the gifts he bestowed on the McDonnells. "If you were to take the McDonnell standard, this is a slam dunk against Kitzhaber," Spies said. Kitzhaber has maintained that he and Hayes violated neither state nor federal ethics laws. On Oct. 10, he called the allegations ludicrous and implied that perhaps certain people were threatened by a woman who continued to pursue her own career. "Dennis Richardson is wasting the U.S. Attorneys' time and taxpayer dollars with an obvious political stunt," Kitzhaber campaign spokeswoman Amy Wojcicki said in a statement. "He is not a serious candidate for governor." Richardson said he asked the U.S. attorney to step in because Kitzhaber refused to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate. Kitzhaber has asked the Oregon Government Ethics Commission for an advisory opinion. "Win or lose in this election, this is going to proceed," Richardson said. "It is not about the campaign, it's about free and honest government." It's unlikely that Richardson will get a response to his letter before the election anyway. Spies said the Justice Department has a policy of not handing down indictments prior to an election and that it could take up to six months before Oregonians know whether the agency has decided to move forward.

By Jonathan Cooper A year ago, John Kitzhaber looked invincible. Having just cut public pensions to sew up perhaps the biggest victory of his three decade political career, the Democratic governor was setting his sights on what looked to be an easy glide to re-election. But Kitzhaber's pedestal was already beginning to fracture last October under the weight of the failed Cover Oregon health insurance website. Rather than the triumphant victor, Kitzhaber now finds himself running for re-election as the battered incumbent, on the defensive about Cover Oregon, education and even his fiancee. He's still the front-runner over Republican state Rep. Dennis Richardson, but the campaign has been a slog. When he began his third term in 2011, Kitzhaber became Oregon's longest serving governor, returning to public office after eight years sitting on the sidelines. And he came with baggage. Before leaving office, Kitzhaber had famously quipped that Oregon was becoming "ungovernable." He held the record for the largest number of vetoes, earning the nickname "Dr. No." And the bitter partisanship that led to both those facts threatened to rear its head again. By cutting deals with both parties, he managed to coax an ambitious agenda through the Legislature over the next three years, focusing on structural overhauls of the bureaucracies that oversee health care and education. He's frustrated public-employee unions -- typically a reliable Democratic constituency, and one that spent handsomely to get him elected -- and built a friendly relationship with centrist business groups. In his third term, he's wielded the veto pen just five times. He said he matured and learned better how to use the power of the governor's office to achieve his goals. He persuaded lawmakers to change the system of delivering health care under Medicaid, the state's health insurance plan for the poor. Rather than having doctors work independently from each other and paying them for each procedure they perform, the state forced them to work together and tied payments in part to the health of their patients. He also convinced President Barack Obama's administration to give Oregon nearly $2 billion in startup costs, promising an equal amount of savings later. The state saw early success in reducing the number of emergency room visits and increasing primary care utilization, although patients are reporting long wait times in some areas. With a fourth term, Kitzhaber says he'd like to expand the care model to teachers and public employees. On education, Kitzhaber pressed to expand his own power. He eliminated the elected position of superintendent of public instruction and created a new oversight board -- which he appoints and chairs -- to manage education policy and funding from preschool through college. But there were stumbles. The first education czar that he appointed, Rudy Crew, came with high hopes and a big salary, but left after less than a year. The board was supposed to press school districts to improve on a variety of metrics from 3rd grade reading scores to graduation rates, but it's showed little capacity to force districts to change their behavior. In an interview, Kitzhaber said education doesn't improve overnight, and it will take time for changes to reverberate, particularly because he's focused on improving factors that affect students early in elementary school. "The framework's there, now we've got to build it and scale it," Kitzhaber said. His hardest-fought legislative victory came last year. He persuaded Democrats to vote against public-employee unions and Republicans and raise taxes in order to cut benefits for retired government workers. The move diminished a massive unfunded liability in the state's pension fund and saved billions for state and local governments, but it means retirees will see their incomes struggle to keep pace with inflation. That success was quickly overshadowed by the failure of Cover Oregon, the state's health insurance exchange. The state received $300 million from the federal government, much of which was to be used to build a website that would allow people to shop for health insurance and enroll online. It never worked. Republicans pounced, blaming Kitzhaber for failing to keep tabs on the progress. More recently, Kitzhaber has spent more than a week battling reports about his fiancee's past. Cylvia Hayes acknowledged that she accepted money to enter a fraudulent marriage with an immigrant seeking to remain in the United States, and later was involved in a plan to grow marijuana. More politically perilous for Kitzhaber, however, were reports that she's used her position as first lady to advance her private consulting business. Kitzhaber's rival, Richardson, says the Cover Oregon failure, the lack of education progress under Crew and the allegations against Hayes all point to a need for someone new. He says Kitzhaber has a tendency to push through lofty ideas but remains aloof from the details of implementing them. "The governor wants a fourth term, but he hasn't earned it," Richardson said in a recent debate.

By Nigel Jaquiss Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber and his Republican challenger, state Rep. Dennis Richardson (R-Central Point), faced off in a tense debate today at the City Club of Portland. Moderator Dave Miller of Oregon Public Broadcasting, which carried the debate live, opened the event with a series of direct questions to Kitzhaber about the controversy wirling around Kitzhaber's fiancée, first lady Cylvia Hayes. Hayes has faced a series of ethical questions this week. She has for years served as a policy adviser to Kitzhaber, but WW reported she has used her position in the governor's office to land at least $85,000 in consulting contracts for herself and then used taxpayer-paid staff to aid her private business. In addition, Hayes yesterday admitted to violating federal law when she entered into a sham marriage for pay in 1997 to help an immigrant gain a green card. WW disclosed the sham marriage Wednesday. The questions bear directly on Kitzhaber's role as governor: Hayes is a public official who is subject to ethics law, and Kitzhaber is accountable under those laws to make sure she is not involved in conflicts of interest or using his office for her personal gain. Kitzhaber said he was "taken aback and hurt" when he first learned of the fraudulent 1997 marriage that Hayes entered into with an 18-year-old Ethiopian immigrant, Abraham B. Abraham. Kitzhaber said he and Hayes "have some work to do" on their relationship. Kitzhaber tried to assert that his relationship with Hayes was a personal matter, but Miller pushed him, noting questions that WW raised earlier this week about Hayes' dual roles in the governor's office--she has served as both a policy adviser to Kitzhaber and has also operated a private consulting business from his office. Richardson pushed hard on the potential conflicts of interest those dual roles pose. "You have the first lady tripling her income in one year from companies that want access to the governor's office," Richardson said. (Records show that in 2012, Hayes reported income of $27,000, and in 2013, she signed private consulting contracts worth at least $85,000 with companies seeking to influence policy in the same areas in which Hayes serves as a Kitzhaber adviser.) Kitzhaber defended Hayes and his office's handling of potential conflicts. "We put proper protocols in place, and we welcome all scrutiny," Kitzhaber said. Richardson said that as Hayes' fiancé, Kitzhaber could not be expected to assess Hayes' situation objectively and asked for an independent investigation. "I call on the governor to call for a special prosecutor to do an investigation," Richardson said. OPB's Miller pushed Kitzhaber for a response. "Would you push for a special prosecutor?" "No," Kitzhaber said. The governor said he disagreed with any assertion that Hayes had done anything wrong in her role as his adviser or first lady. He characterized WW's reporting as an attack on a "modern professional woman and first lady." In their closing statements, Kitzhaber and Richardson returned to familiar themes. Kitzhaber said the choice for voters comes down to values and "the ability to deliver." He listed social issues, including reproductive choice, gay rights and tuition equity for undocumented immigrants, on which he and Richardson differ. "Oregon is a vastly better place than it was four years ago," Kitzhaber said. "We have delivered for Oregon." Richardson stumbled through his closing statement but accused Kitzhaber of presiding over "the most unethical and inept administration in the history of Oregon." Afterward, Kitzhaber declined to answer a reporter's questions, and his security detail hustled him out of the Sentinel Hotel ballroom.