State ethics commissioners on Thursday unanimously rejected a proposed settlement with ex-First Lady Cylvia Hayes, said Commissioner Dan Mason.

Hayes had agreed in January to a $44,000 fine for breaking ethics laws 22 times. But the settlement needed final approval from the Oregon Government Ethics Commission.

Hayes did not attend the commission’s meeting Thursday, and her absence was a factor in the vote against the settlement.

“All of us felt offended that she would not appear in person,” Mason said.

Ethics investigators concluded last year that Hayes abused her access to Gov. John Kitzhaber, her longtime fiancé, to land consulting work that paid more than $200,000.

Federal and state prosecutors in 2017 declined to seek criminal charges against Hayes and Kitzhaber. But the couple’s actions sparked an influence peddling scandal that led to Kitzhaber’s resignation at the dawn of his fourth term and Hayes’ bankruptcy.

Thursday’s vote sends Hayes and the state back to the drawing board, leaving her ethics case pending as officials and Hayes’ lawyers renegotiate a potential settlement.

If and when one is reached, said Michael Fuller, Hayes’ bankruptcy attorney, the former first lady’s fines would likely be forgiven because she has filed for bankruptcy.

Hayes has to make a good-faith effort to pay her debts, Fuller said. Even so, what she pays of an eventual ethics fine would be “pennies on the dollar,” he said.

“The vast majority of the fine would be forgiven, if not all of it,” Fuller said.

That fact didn’t set well with the ethics commissioners.

“The discussion among all of us led to wondering if she would even pay anything,” Mason said, “which tipped the scale on rejecting the agreement, in my opinion.”

Kitzhaber settled his own ethics case last year, agreeing to a $20,000 fine for 10 violations.

An element of Hayes’ bankruptcy proceedings involves a debt of about $125,000 owed to The Oregonian for attorney fees stemming from a court case in which the newspaper prevailed in its attempt to access Hayes’ emails.

Fuller said he and the newspaper’s attorneys have been negotiating for months and have reached a tentative settlement which will soon be presented to the court. The newspaper’s attorney in the matter, Brad Daniels, was not immediately available for comment. Willamette Week first reported the negotiations.

“We have a deal hammered out,” Fuller said, “and it’s a fair deal.”

-- Gordon R. Friedman

GFriedman@Oregonian.com

Jeff Manning of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed reporting.