More officials have been impeached this year than ever before. Will this trend continue? An update as to what's going on below the fold.
I was watching New York One this morning when they mention that impeachment proceedings against Mark Sanford were going to start on tuesday. I was kind of shocked by this as some Democrats had blocked an attempt last month, figuring that keeping him and his stench around as long as possible would help their cause in next year's election.
But no, the South Carolina Ethics commission had issued a report, and the House Judiciary Committee had appointed an ad hoc subcommittee to look into the matter now that the Democrats had unblocked it. The Committee is going to draft articles of impeachment, possibly, and send them to the full judiciary committee, which will vote on whether or not to send them to the full House early in January. It's going to be lots and lots of fun. According to Wikipedia, this year is the first since 1929, and only the third in history, to have more than one governor face impeachment therein. (remember Rod Blagiovitch? That was THIS year).
Also, last week, the Federal House Judiciary Committee's Task Force on Judicial Impeachment finally held it's long-delayed hearings on the matter of C. Thomas Porteous, a federal judge who's case had been hanging around stinking up the halls of congress since 2007. Granted, the entire legal staff had to resign due to a conflict of interest, and they had to impeach another judge first, but the whole thing was a complete embarassment to all involved. The Task force is scheduled to have further hearings in December, during which they will vote on whether to actually impeach the dude or let him go.
Then there's Texas State Judge Sharon Keller's impeachment trial, held over the summer by a special commission. they still haven't had a public decision one way or the other on that one. The case against Appelate Judge Jay Bybee is going nowhere, as the HJC has to get the Porteous case out of the way first.
Perhaps this will get more common.