As a House subcommittee meets today to consider whether or not Gov. Mark Sanford’s trips to Argentina warrant impeachment, censure is also on the table as a punishment option.

Censure would amount to a public rebuke instead of removal from office. Unlike impeachment, censure would require only a majority vote in the House instead of two thirds majority, and would not require a trial in the Senate.

Judiciary subcommittee Chairman Jim Harrison filed the censure resolution.  “I wanted to have that there in case this doesn’t move forward,” says Harrison.  “It’s not that I’ve made a decision that this is the proper remedy at this point.  I haven’t made a decision on whether the governor’s leaving the state for five days constitutes serious misconduct.” 

Clemson University professor Dave Woodard says censure is nothing compared to impeachment.  “I think what the legislature is looking for is a way of ending this journey of impeachment,” said Dr. Woodard.  “If you don’t go through impeachment with a trial and conviction, you’re looking for a way to end the investigation.  Once you start down this road, it’s kind of hard to find an exit strategy.  And this is one of them.  If you vote censure, you’re ending the process, or sorts.  I think that’s probably what they’re looking for.” [Read more...]

Today the impeachment panel of seven House members will look at the governor’s trip to Argentina last June, and try to determine if it constitutes serious misconduct in office. Chester Representative Greg Delleney, who drafted the impeachment resolution, asserts that the governor’s disappearance was dereliction of duty. Panel members will also hear the details of the 2008 Argentina business trip, which was included as a leg of a development trip to Brazil. After his affair with an Argentine woman was revealed in June, Sanford reimbursed the state more than $3,000 for that part of the trip.

Subcommittee Chairman Jim Harrison says even though the bulk of charges were dismissed by his panel Thursday, the most important questions will be answered today.  “We will take up the information that the Department of Commerce and Governor’s office sends us to those inquiries,” says Harrison, ”primarily about the trip to Argentina in 2008.  Then we’ll have our final discussion among the members as to whether all the information we’ve heard and considered rises to the level for us to impeach.  We’ll take a vote and send that decision to the full committee.” 

The impeachment subcommittee’s council, Patrick Dennis, on Thursday read out a list of questions about the trips that the panel sent to the Department of Commerce, which arranged plans for the trade mission.   This is what the panel wants: [Read more...]