Impeachment, How Do You Do It?
The Illinois Constitution is as hazy as can be on the subject of impeachment. One might ask: Hey, what's an impeachable offense? Well, Go Fish.
The state Constitution specifies, in the lone paragraph addressing the matter, that the state House of Representatives has the sole power to conduct an investigation to determine "the existence of cause for impeachment" for Executive and Judicial officers. A majority vote of the House is required to launch impeachment proceedings. If the House votes as such, the state Senate would then bring an indiviudal to trial and "do justice according to the law."
"If the Governor is tried, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside," the Constitution says.
A two-thirds vote of the Senate, or 40 of 59 members, is required for impeachment. Judgment should not extend beyond removal from office and disqualification to serve. However, an impeached individual is liable "to prosecution, trial, judgment and punishment according to law."
"You don’t have to have been guilty of a crime to be impeached," said Dawn Clark Netsch, Northwestern University professor of law emerita.
Netsch, a 1994 Democratic candidate for IL governor and a former IL state senator from Chicago, also noted that the House can "set up any kind of rules and procedures" it sees fit to explore the merits of impeachment.
That's it. The sum total explanation of why and how an elected official, or justice, can be impeached in Illinois. Might be the reason why so few individuals have been impeached in Illinois history. Not one of them was a governor.
Supreme Court Justice Theophilus Smith holds the distinction of being the only IL official to be impeached, according to Raymond Collins, a reference librarian with the Illinois State Library. Smith was impeached in 1832 for a series of infractions, but he was never convicted. He served from 1825-1842.
In 1997, Chief Justice James Heiple was arrested for resisting arrest during a traffic stop. But after many weeks of hearings, the House declined to impeach him.
So if Blagojevich is impeached and convicted, he could stand alone in IL history.
(JENNIFER SKALKA)
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