Gov. Tina Kotek addressed questions swirling around Secretary of State Shemia Fagan and her consulting work for a cannabis company at a press conference in Portland Saturday, and said, “I’m very dismayed.”
But she stopped short of calling for Fagan to resign, as Republican leaders in Oregon did Friday. “I think it’s premature for me to comment on that,” Kotek said. Both she and Fagan are Democrats.
News broke Thursday that Fagan took on a side job in February as a paid consultant for an affiliate of the troubled La Mota cannabis dispensary chain. The next day her office released an audit of Oregon’s cannabis regulatory system.
Fagan recused herself from the audit in February, but it was largely completed by that point. And she has declined to release any details about her contract with the cannabis company.
In a statement Friday evening, Kotek said, “It’s critical that Oregonians trust their government.” She asked the Oregon Government Ethics Commission to investigate the situation and asked the Oregon Department of Justice to examine the audit of the OLCC from Fagan’s office.
Saturday, Kotek said that she spoke with Fagan on Friday. “I let her know that I was concerned,” Kotek said, and “Oregonians deserve to know the details.”
She did not ask to see a copy of Fagan’s contract with the outside group, saying “I don’t think I’m the one to investigate that.”
Fagan has declined to answer questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive but issued a statement late Friday saying she was contracted by the Oregon-based cannabis company to review the landscape for expanding their operations outside of Oregon. She wrote “the nature of the contract and the work does not create a conflict of interest under Oregon law or ethics rules. However, as soon as I contemplated the contract and learned that recusal was an option (it is not for legislators), I recused myself from my only work as a public official that touches the cannabis industry, the OLCC audit.”
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