Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in Oregon called for Secretary of State Shemia Fagan’s ouster, following revelations that she’d been consulting a licensed cannabis business. On Tuesday, Fagan resigned.
Earlier this year, she had worked for two months as a paid consultant to Veriede Holding LLC—an affiliate of La Mota, which is one of the largest cannabis companies in Oregon. That contract clocked in at $10,000 per month with a bonus of $30,000 for each new licensed Fagan helped secure for the business in Oregon or New Mexico.
At the same time, the Secretary of State’s office was finishing work on an audit of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, which oversees the licensed cannabis industry. Fagan had recused herself from the audit, but not before she’d urged her office “to incorporate La Mota CEO Rosa Cazares’s [business] concerns into their work and after the audit was all but finished,” as Willamette Week first reported. According to emails released to WW, Cazares had nudged Fagan to direct the audit toward specific and personal complaints she had with the OLCC’s regulatory regime.
After this news came to light in WW, Fagan defended the contract, insisting that the work provided hands-on experience that she could apply to her publicly held office. Colleagues in state government didn’t buy it; calls for her resignation swiftly followed the news. “It is essential that Oregonians have trust in their government. I believe this is a first step in restoring that trust,” Gov. Tina Kotek said.
