Gov. John Kitzhaber declared at a press conference Jan. 30 that he and fiancee Cylvia Hayes would fully cooperate with a review of corruption allegations by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission.

He didn't mention that, behind the scenes, their attorneys had been fighting for weeks to spare Hayes from any ethics inquiry.

Kitzhaber and Hayes' two attorneys at the time - she has since hired a separate criminal defense attorney -- responded to ethics complaints Dec. 8, arguing that the review should be dismissed because the commission has no jurisdiction over Hayes.

"The title 'First Lady' does not refer to an official office within Oregon state government or an officer of Oregon state government," they wrote. "Ms. Hayes is not a public official."

Not only did the governor keep that to himself, his attorneys' arguments fly in the face of the image he and Hayes created and maintained.

Hayes incorporated the title of first lady into her state role as well as her private consulting work. She sought state reimbursement for more than $3,600 she spent on travel and meals while conducting first lady business. She once used a desk in the governor's office suite, and had a state-paid assistant.

As for whether she was a public official, she subbed in for the governor at public events. She orchestrated meetings with senior state officials. She served as the governor's unpaid adviser on energy and economic policies - by the governor's reckoning, contributing thousands of hours.

She also signed disclosure forms labeled "Guidelines for Outside Employment of Public Officials." In 2011, she registered as a lobbyist for the governor's office.

Document: Hayes' conflict of interest forms

The governor's office acknowledged both roles in a letter last Oct. 13 to the Ethics Commission, saying the office "has treated Cylvia Hayes in her First Lady role as a "public official" in order to ensure compliance with state ethics statutes."

Last summer, before the scandal unfolded, Hayes and Kitzhaber strolled in the Portland AIDS Walk as the governor campaigned for his fourth term. There, they also seemed clear on their roles - and their shared mission.

They talked about how difficult the campaign would be, Kitzhaber said at the time. "We thought a lot about that," he said.

"But where else," Hayes added, "could we find such a forum to make such fundamental changes?"

The first lady title

Kitzhaber and Hayes' lawyers argue in legal filings that Hayes was never formally named first lady. They say reporters picked up the title after Kitzhaber, asked how Hayes should be addressed, said she was 'certainly my first lady.'"

Yet Hayes regularly used the title. She kept it on her business website, on blogs she wrote for clients, for biographies submitted to conferences she keynoted, and to sign off on emails.

Until recently, the official state website, Oregon.gov, had a page titled "First Lady: A biography" above her smiling portrait.

The governor's staff attorney warned Hayes about crossing ethical boundaries by using the title in her private work, although the attorney later loosened the rules to let Hayes use the title as long as it came after her title as CEO of Bend-based 3E Strategies.

Still, "first lady" often appeared first on business-related documents.

In 2012, Hayes told National Public Radio she was out jogging one morning not long after Kitzhaber was elected in 2010 to his third term. "And I just said out loud, 'Oh, my gosh, I'm going to be the first lady.' Then I got to thinking: What does that mean exactly?"

Kitzhaber, too, made clear that Hayes wasn't around to simply cut ribbons and host tours of Mahonia Hall.

The governor appointed her to the influential Oregon Energy Task Force in October 2011. There, Hayes joined state and industry leaders in giving Kitzhaber recommendations on energy policies to help shape a 10-year budget.

Listed as the First Lady of Oregon on the task force roster, Hayes worked with Kitzhaber's then chief-of-staff, two of his policy advisers and state agency representatives.

Hayes' state role

Correspondence between Hayes and some state employees show she sometimes stood in for the governor when he couldn't make an event. For instance, the leaders of the Professional Engineers of Oregon say they asked for Kitzhaber to address a 2012 gathering in Eugene but ended up with Hayes giving the keynote speech.

On other occasions, Kitzhaber's senior aides offered Hayes to promote state programs.

In an Aug. 9, 2012, email, the governor's then-senior policy adviser Cameron Smith told the Oregon National Guard of an event highlighting its energy conservation work.

"The First Lady is participating and we are hoping General Caldwell can participate as well," he wrote. "It will be a good chance to connect with the First Lady and business community to further plug the Guard's vision for net zero energy."

The attorneys also assert Hayes was not under state or governor's office control, though Kitzhaber has said his office instructed Hayes to submit her consulting contracts to his office for review of potential conflicts of interest.

Hayes followed up with an email to the governor's in-house attorney, Liani Reeves, on one of those contracts -- with the New York advocacy group Demos.

"We have amended my contract with Demos to be a little more open-ended," Hayes wrote on July 18, 2013. "Please let me know your legal opinion on this. Also, would it be possible to get something in writing from you that says you do not see a problem with this (unless of course you do!)."

Document: Hayes' lobbyist form.

In 2011, Hayes registered as a lobbyist for the governor's office, listing hunger and poverty as her issues. The state requires lobbyists to file expenditure reports, and Reeves signed Hayes' that year -- on the line "client/employer representative."

Representing the state

Hayes took her work for Oregon seriously. Kitzhaber said she put in "thousands of hours" on projects, including poverty, clean energy and economic development. Discussing state policies publicly, Hayes often said "we" - meaning her and the governor.

In the early years of Kitzhaber's third term, Hayes shared a desk part time with a state official in the governor's office, according to a 2011 story by The Oregonian/OregonLive. "She uses it when she's doing official first lady work," said Christine Miles, the governor's spokeswoman at the time.

Hayes often mentioned that defining her role as first lady wasn't easy.

"It hasn't caught up to accepting a professional, policy-driven woman," she was quoted as saying in an article titled "Oregon's groundbreaking first lady" in Evergreen College's alumni magazine. "It's been harder to do substantive work than I expected."

She mentioned in other speeches that she was gaining ground, though.

"Once I got my feet underneath me in what is a very admittedly awkward position of first lady -- especially for a professionally engaged, politically engaged-in-her-own-right person -- but once I realized it was a platform," she said in a 2013 speech, "I definitely wanted to use that platform directly on behalf of the environment."

Hayes eventually abandoned the desk in the governor's office, choosing to do much of her work in the state-owned governor's mansion, Mahonia Hall. Yet she continued to hold regular meetings at the Capitol, often in Kitzhaber's ceremonial office or his conference room.

Over the past three years, Hayes scheduled at least 475 meetings with state employees, senior governor's office staff and other state leaders.

Hayes also directed senior state employees. In May 2013, she emailed Michael Jordan to remind him to attend a meeting she set up. Jordan, one of the state's highest officials, responded that he had a conflict and couldn't attend.

In less than an hour, Hayes replied: "Not good. We went forward with this date because you had committed to attending." Jordan wrote back to say he'd be there.

Hayes also traveled extensively. She sought reimbursement over the past three years for $3,686 spent on trips and lunches that she cited as part of her first lady business. (The costs don't include the hundreds of dollars she expensed for travels with the governor to events such as National Governors Association conferences.)

After a trip last May, for instance, she was reimbursed $1,475 for speaking at an Association for Enterprise Opportunity conference in New Orleans. Mary Rowinski, her state-paid assistant, justified the cost by writing: "This conference is related to the Governor and First Lady's Prosperity Agenda."

The prosperity initiative is central to Kitzhaber's platform and flows across nearly every agency in state government. Hayes said publicly that she launched the anti-poverty program.

It was even featured on her web page - before the page and nearly every other sign of Hayes vanished recently from the state website.

-- Laura Gunderson and Nick Budnick

Lgunderson@oregonian.com

503-221-8378 @lgunderson