Shemia Fagan

The ignominious end to Shemia Fagan’s tenure as Oregon Secretary of State has prompted state lawmakers to consider two changes.

One is good.

One is not.

The first idea is to revive an idea that hasn’t gained traction in Salem — a law requiring public officials to disclose income from any source that works with the government or “has a legislative or administrative interest.”

House Speaker Dan Rayfield, a Democrat from Corvallis, told The Oregonian that he’s committed to passing ethics and campaign finance reform laws in the wake of Fagan’s resignation. Fagan, who was elected in 2020 to the state’s second highest office, resigned after revelations that she had taken a $10,000 per month consulting job with a marijuana company while her office was finishing an audit related to the cannabis industry.

Rayfield is sponsoring House Bill 2038, which would require public officials to admit when they receive income from sources with government ties. The bill hasn’t advanced from the House Committee on Rules. It should become law.

The second idea is to boost salaries for the Secretary of State and other statewide elected officials.

Although that’s a legitimate topic for lawmakers to consider — Oregon’s top officials earn less than their counterparts in Washington and California — it’s not a pressing matter.

And the Fagan debacle is a decidedly bad reason to broach the topic.

Although Fagan conceded that she should not have accepted the consultant contract, she tried to deflect some of the criticism by saying that her annual salary of $77,000 left her struggling financially.

This is unconvincing, to say the least.

Fagan must have known what the job paid before she decided to seek the office. If she didn’t, she should have.

The $77,000 salary is almost $16,000 more than the average pay in Oregon, according to the Oregon Employment Department.

While it’s reasonable that the secretary of state, who has considerable responsibilities and is second in line to the governor’s desk, makes more than the average Oregonian, $77,000 is hardly a pittance.

Were the legislature to boost the salary for the secretary of state and other statewide elected officials at least in part as a reaction to Fagan’s resignation, that would be tantamount to conceding that her complaint about insufficient pay is legitimate. And notwithstanding Fagan’s admission that she made a mistake, a subsequent pay raise for her successor would imply that Fagan’s ethical failings were, if not acceptable, then at least understandable given her financial situation.

The lawmakers who have made statements about elected officials’ salaries — Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber, a Democrat from Beaverton, called the salaries “extraordinarily low” — would probably deny that connection exists.

But any reasonable person would conclude that, denials aside, salary hikes soon after Fagan’s resignation would lend credence to her complaints.

And doing that, at any level, is not appropriate.