Lawmakers support impeachment changes
Posted: Friday, March 07, 2008
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- State senators want campaign misdeeds to be grounds for impeachment, but a disagreement over how much to tinker with the state Constitution threatens to ground the proposal.
"There was a lot of misinformation in that debate," Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln said after the Legislature changed his proposed amendment to the state Constitution and then gave it first-round approval.
Avery's disagreement with the change may cause him to pull his proposal completely off the table.
As approved on a first-round vote, the measure (LR4CA) would make wrongdoing that showed "moral turpitude" either during a campaign or after taking office impeachable offenses. The term is often used to describe intentional wrongdoing.
The current language in the state Constitution that Avery wants to also apply to political candidates makes elected officials liable for impeachment for "any misdemeanor in office."
But if the constitution is amended so campaign violations can lead to impeachment, supporters say, the term is needed to assure that minor campaign infractions don't make elected officials liable to impeachment.
Elected officials who accidentally file late campaign reports "should not even have to worry about the specter of impeachment," said Sen. Tom White of Omaha, who pushed for the change so that impeachable misdemeanors be ones that show moral turpitude."
"This allows us to remove from office those who are morally unfit to serve," he added.
To be removed from office, officials must be found guilty by the state Supreme Court of impeachment charges levied by the Legislature.
Avery and Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who successfully led the charge to impeach David Hergert in 2006, said the change would unnecessarily erase decades of legal precedent establishing what offenses warrant impeachment.
"The standard is well known, it is well established, in the law," said Chambers.
Minor, unintentional infractions do not meet that standard, even if they are technically misdemeanors, he said.
Courts have said "over and over that the word 'misdemeanor' is not limited to the meaning it has in criminal law," Chambers added.
In its 2006 ruling that removed Hergert as a University of Nebraska regent for manipulating campaign-finance laws and lying to cover it up, the state Supreme Court called the term "misdemeanor in office" a "term of art."
"Whether Hergert should be impeached does not depend upon whether he could be convicted of violating a criminal statute, but upon whether his alleged conduct is 'in its nature or consequences subversive of some fundamental or essential principle of government or highly prejudicial to the public interest,"' the court said in its ruling.
Avery introduced his proposal because the state Supreme Court, in the Hergert case, did not have to answer the question of whether wrongdoing during an actual campaign warrants removal from office.
The infractions the court found him guilty of were campaign-related, but they occurred after he took office, when he was trying to cover his tracks.
On the Net:
Nebraska Legislature: http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov
"There was a lot of misinformation in that debate," Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln said after the Legislature changed his proposed amendment to the state Constitution and then gave it first-round approval.
Avery's disagreement with the change may cause him to pull his proposal completely off the table.
As approved on a first-round vote, the measure (LR4CA) would make wrongdoing that showed "moral turpitude" either during a campaign or after taking office impeachable offenses. The term is often used to describe intentional wrongdoing.
The current language in the state Constitution that Avery wants to also apply to political candidates makes elected officials liable for impeachment for "any misdemeanor in office."
But if the constitution is amended so campaign violations can lead to impeachment, supporters say, the term is needed to assure that minor campaign infractions don't make elected officials liable to impeachment.
Elected officials who accidentally file late campaign reports "should not even have to worry about the specter of impeachment," said Sen. Tom White of Omaha, who pushed for the change so that impeachable misdemeanors be ones that show moral turpitude."
"This allows us to remove from office those who are morally unfit to serve," he added.
To be removed from office, officials must be found guilty by the state Supreme Court of impeachment charges levied by the Legislature.
Avery and Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who successfully led the charge to impeach David Hergert in 2006, said the change would unnecessarily erase decades of legal precedent establishing what offenses warrant impeachment.
"The standard is well known, it is well established, in the law," said Chambers.
Minor, unintentional infractions do not meet that standard, even if they are technically misdemeanors, he said.
Courts have said "over and over that the word 'misdemeanor' is not limited to the meaning it has in criminal law," Chambers added.
In its 2006 ruling that removed Hergert as a University of Nebraska regent for manipulating campaign-finance laws and lying to cover it up, the state Supreme Court called the term "misdemeanor in office" a "term of art."
"Whether Hergert should be impeached does not depend upon whether he could be convicted of violating a criminal statute, but upon whether his alleged conduct is 'in its nature or consequences subversive of some fundamental or essential principle of government or highly prejudicial to the public interest,"' the court said in its ruling.
Avery introduced his proposal because the state Supreme Court, in the Hergert case, did not have to answer the question of whether wrongdoing during an actual campaign warrants removal from office.
The infractions the court found him guilty of were campaign-related, but they occurred after he took office, when he was trying to cover his tracks.
On the Net:
Nebraska Legislature: http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov
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