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Measure To Create Impeachment Process Advances In Oregon Legislature

M.O. Stevens
/
Wikimedia

Oregon would no longer be the only state without an impeachment process if some state lawmakers get their way.

The Oregon House voted Tuesday to advance a measure that would ask voters to create a way for the state legislature to remove the governor and other statewide elected officials from office. It comes in the wake of the February resignation of Governor John Kitzhaber amid an ethics probe.

House Democratic leader Val Hoyle says lawmakers need every tool available to deal with potential wrongdoing by top officeholders.

"All of my constituents and people that I talked to about this bill thought we already had it,” Hoyle said. “And I do feel that most people in Oregon feel that we already have this power. We do not."

Hoyle says the impeachment process would be rigorous enough to prevent it from being used frivolously.

The measure now advances to the Oregon Senate. If it's approved there, it would go before Oregon voters in November 2016.

Copyright 2015 Northwest News Network

Chris Lehman graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1997. He landed his first job less than a month later, producing arts stories for Red River Public Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Three years later he headed north to DeKalb, Illinois, where he worked as a reporter and announcer for NPR–affiliate WNIJ–FM. In 2006 he headed west to become the Salem Correspondent for the Northwest News Network.