Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan has stepped down shortly after apologizing for accepting a payment of $10,000 per month from a consultancy firm for a marijuana company. While Fagan initially resisted state Republicans' calls for her to resign, she conceded on Tuesday that the situation was distracting from her work.
“While I am confident that the ethics investigation will show that I followed the state’s legal and ethical guidelines in trying to make ends meet for my family, it is clear that my actions have become a distraction from the important and critical work of the Secretary of State’s office,” Fagan said in a statement. “Protecting our state’s democracy and ensuring faith in our elected leaders — these are the reasons I ran for this office. They are also the reasons I will be submitting my resignation today.”
In a statement Sunday, the Atlanta-based Fearless Fund said it would comply with the order but remained confident of prevailing in the lawsuit, which was brought by conservative activist Edward Blum’s American Alliance for Equal Rights.
Federal health advisers voted overwhelmingly against an experimental treatment for Lou Gehrig’s disease at a Wednesday meeting prompted by years of patient efforts seeking access to the unproven therapy.
