Gov. John Kitzhaber, in one of his first interviews since his re-election Tuesday, said he will move forward with public business despite lingering personal questions about the role of fiancée and first lady Cylvia Hayes.

Kitzhaber, a Democrat elected to a fourth nonconsecutive term, said he will be able to work with lawmakers on economic, education and health care priorities in the session opening Jan. 12.

“I guess it depends on how you define my current difficulties,” he said Thursday night in a telephone interview.

“There are complaints (filed) with the Ethics Commission to which I eagerly await the outcome. But I don’t think that in itself is going to affect my effectiveness… or my ability to move an agenda.”

He declined to go into further detail before a Friday meeting of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission.

The commission also has pending complaints from state Rep. Vicki Berger, R-Salem, and the Oregon Republican Party about whether Hayes used her position as first lady — which is unpaid — to boost her consulting business.

The commission is not expected to have completed its inquiries into those complaints.

Among the other news disclosures were that Hayes, while a college student in 1997, entered into a sham marriage with an 18-year-old Ethiopian immigrant to enable him to stay in the United States. They were divorced in 2002, when Hayes began dating Kitzhaber, then in the final year of his second term.

Asked whether there were other disclosures in the offing, Kitzhaber replied: “Not that I am aware of, but I’ve been surprised before.”

Kitzhaber said previously he did not know of the sham marriage until the day before Hayes went public with it in response to a news account in Willamette Week.

Kitzhaber gave a victory statement to a Democratic Party crowd at the Portland Hilton Tuesday night, but hasn’t done interviews until now.

Despite the news disclosures, Kitzhaber was re-elected by 49.7 percent to 44.4 percent for Republican Dennis Richardson, a six-term state representative from Southern Oregon. The balance of votes was split among four minor-party candidates.

Richardson repeatedly assailed Kitzhaber and Hayes, and toward the end of the campaign, described his third-term administration as corrupt. Kitzhaber defended his record, but also said Richardson’s opposition to abortion rights, marriage by same-sex couples and environmental protection put him out of step with Oregon.

“I do think this was a bruising campaign, not only at the gubernatorial level but up and down the ticket,” Kitzhaber said. “I do think we need to heal a bit, and that it’s important that we make an intentional choice not to carry the campaign into the legislative session. We are perfectly capable of doing that.”

For only the second time in his tenure as governor, Kitzhaber will work with Democratic majorities in both chambers. Democrats added one seat in the House to expand their majority over Republicans to 35-25, and at least one seat in the Senate to make it 17-12. One race remains unresolved; the seat is held by a Republican.

His victory Tuesday was greater than in 2010, when he won by 22,238 votes over Republican Chris Dudley of 1.5 million cast.

Kitzhaber, 67, is a former emergency room physician who was in the Legislature 14 years, eight of them as Oregon Senate president. He was elected governor in 1994 and 1998, the latter by the largest margin in 48 years.

“This was a really different campaign cycle than I have ever been through,” Kitzhaber said. “I think it’s the effect of social media and what it has done to print journalism. It concerns me a bit in terms of what it has done to civic engagement. But it’s a different world, that’s for sure.”

As in 2010, he won just seven of Oregon’s 36 counties, but he carried Multnomah County, Oregon’s most populous, by a majority of 70 percent. Others were Washington and Hood River counties, Lane and Benton counties — home to the University of Oregon and Oregon State University — and the coastal counties of Lincoln and Tillamook. He carried Clatsop County in 2010, but lost it this time.

Although there have been governors with longer tenures in other states — Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad was re-elected Tuesday to a sixth term — Kitzhaber has set an Oregon record unlikely to be equaled anytime soon.

Kitzhaber acknowledged he has not been accessible to reporters during stretches of his tenure as governor.

“I just want to start off this last term on the right foot and make sure I am readily accessible to you and your colleagues,” he said.