Richard L. Neuberger famously said that Oregon politics was so clean “it squeaks.” The prodigious writer and Democratic U.S. senator from our state may have been overly optimistic in the 1940s, when he uttered that line. But Neuberger’s characterization certainly doesn’t fit today’s statehouse.

Gov. John Kitzhaber’s third term was ruined by his financially compromised girlfriend, Cylvia Hayes. She ran her own subsidiary business from an office down the hall from Kitzhaber’s chamber.

Kate Brown understood the need to scrub the governor’s suite when she suddenly took the oath of office in January 2015, upon Kitzhaber’s resignation. If the new governor announced one thing in her hastily prepared inaugural address, it was transparency. She wanted to enact rules that would insure against the kind of conflict of interest and self-dealing that Hayes exemplified in the Kitzhaber administration.

Sadly, Gov. Brown doesn’t seem to get it. Willamette Week last Wednesday published a revealing report by Nigel Jaquiss that describes key Brown subordinates who are clearly compromised.

Kristen Leonard, Brown’s chief of staff, and her husband own the company Election Solutions, which provides software to state agencies through Oregon Department of Administrative Services, which reports to the governor’s office. The contract, worth north of $200,000 over two years, was approved before Leonard joined Brown’s staff, but the conflict wasn’t disclosed.

Abby Tibbs, Brown’s deputy chief of staff, has worked for both the governor and as an OHSU lobbyist for the past three months, according to the Willamette Week’s reporting. Tibbs has had a hand in crafting the state budget, which includes a big chunk of funding to the university.

In the simplest words, these Brown lieutenants are working for the governor and the state while also serving the financial interests of other entities. Neither Gov. Brown nor the employees have acknowledged this. The full article can be found at www.wweek.com.

If you are familiar with the questions being raised about President-elect Donald Trump’s private holdings, you will get what’s disquieting about the predicament that Gov. Brown refuses to see. The problem Jaquiss describes is much smaller than Trump’s, but it is as plainly obvious.

Appearances are everything in politics and government. By ignoring the relevance of her inaugural proclamation, Gov. Brown seems to be telling the rest of us that she knows she can skirt the rules and win reelection simply because she’s a Democrat and backed by the public employees unions.