Thinking it Through - Part III. Impeachment

PART III. IMPEACHMENT

Another article proposed for the May Annual Town Meeting calls for an impeachment process to be established in town.  

The guidelines for impeachment:  charges of malfeasance, which can only be brought by the ethics committee against any elected official or anyone appointed to serve on a town committee (but fear not, it would take a unanimous vote of the ethics committee before one would be subjected to an impeachment hearing before town meeting).

No definition of malfeasance, so essentially one has to proceed under the assumption the intent is to use the commonly accepted definition (wrongdoing or misconduct), presumably an illegal act.  Something tells me, however, the intent is to be even more general.

It would take a 4/5 vote of town meeting to impeach the town official.

I am not going to spend any time on the charges brought by the ethics committee.  I have given you my opinion on that committee in a prior post (Fairhaven, The South Coast and More: Thinking It Through - Part I. Intro; Part II. Ethics Comm.).  I will at some point probably add to that because I still can't stop scratching my head over it.

Now someone seems to have done a bit of homework as the original impeachment proposal as was posted on the web has been altered somewhat for the article to be submitted in May (and no more impeachment by petition of 10% of the voters).

The article now provides, "The person accused of wrong doing will have the opportunity to present any and all documents, witnesses or any other information before the Ethics committee and before town meeting."

Might have made a bit of sense to put this in the ethics committee article also, but...

So, town meeting will have to provide a full blown trial for the"accused", to  determine whether to convict  (by a 4/5 vote), as recommended unanimously by the ethics committee.

Who presents the case for impeachment?  Where does the money come from to prosecute the case?  Obviously we need to have someone prosecute the "accused".  Or is it to be left to the three member ethics committee?

Want to see an outline of what should be involved?  Check out CRS Report for Congress, An Overview of the Impeachment Process, prepared by T.J. Halstead.

Am I the only one who thinks this article is complete overkill?  Does anyone see the danger in allowing a three person committee the authority to dictate such an action take place, especially when one review the procedure which should be followed?

The biggest question, truly, is just why do you think we need an impeachment article?  Right on its heels is the why do you think an elected three member committee should be the one empowered to trigger this process?

I imagine someone has the answers to these questions, as someone had to think up the article.

There will come a point in time when someone will in fact have to stand up and explain the rationale behind the article.  Why wait till May?

Let us know now.

Someone is going to have to at some point in time.  Someone is going to actually have to stand up and explain this article.  

Someone should be compelled to do so.