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GOP Lawmaker Makes Moves To Impeach DeWine
By: Glenn Forbes | WCPN, Karen Kasler | Statehouse News Bureau
Posted on:
Updated: 12:12 p.m., Monday, Aug. 24, 2020
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse) — For the first time in more than a century, Ohio lawmakers have filed articles of impeachment against a sitting governor.
State Rep. John Becker (R-Union Township) is putting the matter forward over fellow Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s response to the coronavirus.
“I kept holding out hope that we wouldn’t get to this place,” Becker said in a statement Monday. “For months and months, I’ve been hearing the cries of my constituents and of suffering people from every corner of Ohio. They keep screaming, ‘DO SOMETHING!’ They are hurting. Their businesses are declining and depreciating. Their jobs have vanished. The communities that have sustained their lives are collapsing, and becoming shells of what they once were.”
“It is long past time to put an end to government gone wild,” Becker said.
Becker said DeWine violated the Ohio and United States constitutions and the Ohio Revised Code and numerous points in the statewide coronavirus response. Becker cited DeWine’s actions to postpone the March primary, business closures, the statewide mask mandate and its extension to elementary students.
Becker said DeWine committed “a usurpation of power” by delaying Ohio’s March primary just hours before in-person voting was to begin and right before the first statewide stay-at-home order was issued. But Becker said the problems go beyond those two incidents.
“The governor is not working with the General Assembly,” Becker said. “He is, you know, some would say governor gone wild and he needs to be stopped. And the people of Ohio are demanding that he be stopped. And we can’t seem to stop him with legislation because he keeps vetoing it. Well, it only takes a simple majority to get an impeachment resolution through the House. So that’s why we have finally gotten to this point.”
Gubernatorial recall elections are not permitted in Ohio and “the only other option is impeachment. Articles of impeachment cannot be vetoed, and require a majority (50 votes) in the Ohio House of Representatives and then a two-thirds majority (22 votes) in the Ohio Senate for conviction and removal from office,” according to Becker’s press release.
Becker, who launched the impeachment effort Monday morning, said he is not sure of the number of his colleagues who might support the move.
DeWine, has been criticized by several members of the House, including former Speaker Larry Householder, who said
Members of a task force that pushed for businesses to reopen also raised concerns about the speed of reopening. And some have been vocal in their opinions of DeWine’s orders – one calling former Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton “a dictator.”
Some Republican lawmaker also have championed bills to require lawmakers vote to extend public health orders after 14 days, a plan to require written permission for contact tracing, and a measure that its sponsor said would require the state and local health departments to change the types of coronavirus data they collect.
DeWine’s first non-budgetary veto was on a bill that would have lowered fines for violating orders issued by him, his health director or local health departments.
While Becker said only a simple majority is needed to get his impeachment resolution through the House, he admitted
the votes aren’t there right now. Becker has set up the website impeachdewine.com and is urging those who support the proceedings to contact their state representative.
“We’re going to find out how engaged the people are going to be contacting their state representatives and ratcheting up the pressure that the people put enough pressure on their state representatives will have the votes,” he said. “So it’s up to the public.”
A Quinnipiac poll in June showed DeWine’s approval rating at an all-time high of 75 percent.
“Gov. DeWine is focused on saving lives during the pandemic,” said DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney in a Monday press release. “He is focused on helping the economy and getting Ohioans back to work. That is what he is focused on. Not this.”