COLUMBIA, S.C.
South Carolina legislators plan to formally consider impeaching Gov. Mark Sanford for the first time next week, the chairman of the committee beginning that work said yesterday.
Jim Harrison, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he is appointing an ad-hoc committee of four Republicans and three Democrats who will begin meeting on Tuesday. He said that before Christmas, he expects to have a resolution to impeach ready for the full Judiciary Committee to consider.
Sanford spokesman Ben Fox declined to comment.
Sanford attorney Butch Bowers said that his firm is representing the governor in the impeachment hearing, and "we look forward to cooperating with the House throughout this process."
Sanford, a Republican, left the state for five days in June to rendezvous with his Argentine lover. Since he returned and tearfully confessed the affair, he has faced questions about his travel and whether he should be removed from office for misconduct. He has resisted calls for him to resign.
The meeting is to take up the issue at the heart of an impeachment resolution that four Republicans filed this week. It says that Sanford left no one in charge of the state, a dereliction of duty, while he "directed members of his staff in a manner that caused them to deceive and mislead the public officials" about where he was. His staff told reporters that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Harrison, R-Columbia, announced his plans two days after the State Ethics Commission said it would move forward with charges against the two-term governor. The commission spent three months investigating Sanford's use of state planes for personal and political purposes, unreported trips on donors' and friends' planes, pricey commercial travel despite a state low-cost travel rule, and personal reimbursements from his campaign account.
The Ethics Commission could release details of those charges as soon as Monday, but Harrison said that the ad hoc panel would begin work without that information.
Harrison will lead the panel, which will include state Rep. Walt McLeod, a Prosperity Democrat who irked others in his party by moving to block an impeachment resolution last month.
McLeod said he was doing so only because the resolution wasn't appropriate during a special session to deal with unemployment benefits and economic-development incentives.
Harrison said that a majority vote of the 25-member judiciary committee is needed to get the impeachment resolution to the House floor in January for debate. To pass there, it would require a two-thirds vote, which would result in Sanford's suspension.
The Senate, acting as jury, would then decide whether Sanford would be removed from office, which would also require a two-thirds vote.
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