What’s The Process To Impeaching A Governor?

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI)-The news and controversy surrounding Alabama’s Governor Robert Bentley is continuing to heat up.

Republican leaders in the state aren’t shy about voicing their opinions, and calling for the governor’s impeachment.

“Basically you’re trying to make up something that says he shouldn’t have been making those kinds of funny phone calls, and that he wasn’t doing his job, and from a legal standpoint, that’s not strong enough,” said Dennis Harmin.

Harmin practices law in both Mississippi and Alabama and he said it’s very rare to see a governor impeached.

“Normally, if it’s bad enough they just go on a resign,” said Harmin.

But if it were to happen Harmon explains how that process would go.

“You start in the house of representative and that would be like a grand jury where the indictment is issued and then you send it up to the senate where there’s the actual trial,” saidHarmin.

The house has to receive four fifths of the vote calling for an impeachment and the senate must receive two thirds.

However, Harmin said just because a governor is impeached, doesn’t mean he has to leave office.

“Impeachment is just saying we’re pressing charges,” he said.

Harmin said the governor would have to be convicted of the crimes that are alleged against him in the impeachment.

“So the senate would serve the function of a jury in a court room, and then you bring in a case, you have a prosecution and a defense,” he said. “The house would send up somebody to be the persecutor and the governor would offer a defense lawyer and they’d present the case to the senate.”

In total, Harmin said the process could take as little as a month, and as long as a year.

However, if the governor is convicted, the lieutenant governor would be next in line to fill the position.

 
The Alabama house of representatives will create a commission to explore the impeachment charges against Bentley.

Bentley has stated numerous times, that he does not plan to resign.