Oregonians Will Vote to Give Lawmakers Powers of Impeachment

A measure to amend the constitution allowing Oregon lawmakers powers of impeachment over five of the most high-profile office bearers statewide – the Governor, the Secretary of State, the Treasurer, the Attorney General, and the Labor Commissioner – will be put to public vote in the 2024 election.

Oregon is the Last State in the Country with No Impeachment Powers

Measure 115 will make Oregon the last state in the U.S. to give its Legislature the power to oust five statewide officials and will be put to public vote on November 5.

If approved, Measure 115 will allow the Legislature to impeach any one of the five office bearers if it found malfeasance, corrupt conduct in office, willful neglect of duties, felony, or other “high” crimes.

At Present the Removal from Office is Complicated and Expensive

Presently, the elected officials can only be removed from their office by recall, a protracted, complicated, and expensive process. Never in the history of Oregon has a recall succeeded in removing a governor or other statewide elected official from office.

Two high-profile elected officials who resigned amid scandals in the past decade were Gov. John Kitzhaber in 2015 and Secretary of State Shemia Fagan in 2023. Neither was removed from office by the recall.

Kitzhaber resigned during a criminal investigation into whether he had profited from his role in office together with First Lady Cylvia Hayes. Fagan resigned when it was discovered that she had accepted a lucrative consultancy position with a marijuana company while her office was auditing the cannabis industry.

Encouraging legislators last year to forward Measure 115 to voters, Rep. Jami Cate (R-Lebanon) said the measure would be a tool to use in ‘the most egregious circumstances’ instead of relying on media pressure to result in the resignation of a statewide official.

How Measure 115 Works

If approved, a two-thirds majority vote enables Measure 115 to give the state House the ability to send impeachment charges to the Senate.

Impeachment trials will be presided over by the state Chief Justice.

The Senate will have to obtain a two-thirds vote for the successful conviction and removal from office of a statewide elected official.

Granting impeachment powers to the Oregon Legislature is not something new, but over the last decade, attempts to introduce the measure have failed. However, the idea has gained popularity recently, with a majority vote from every senator and representative during the 2023 floor session.

While some lawmakers have raised doubts about the efficacy of Measure 115 which they say could be used for political gain, the Oregon measure is far more lenient than those of the other 49 states that give their Legislature both impeachment and removal powers.

Some states even empower Legislatures to impeach and eject all judges and state officials – not just the five statewide elected officials.

In Oregon, the only way to remove a circuit court judge in any of its 36 counties is via a Supreme Court ruling.

The removal of judges has rarely occurred in Oregon, although the Supreme Court did suspend Judge Vance Day, a Marion County circuit judge for three years in 2018, for refusing to marry same-sex couples and other ‘exceptionally serious acts of misconduct.’

Takeaways

Impeachment powers are seldom used in other states and, if they are they generally make national headlines.

Examples are the 2022 case of the removal from office of South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg. The Senate removed him from office after disbelieving his account of a crash in which a man died.

A year later, the Texas House sent impeachment charges to the Senate against Attorney General Ken Paxton. The Senate, however, refused to convict him based on the allegations that Paxton had abused his office to protect a donor.