Alabama’s state auditor is on a mission ahead of November to ensure that voters don’t make it any harder than it has to be for legislators to impeach Governor Robert Bentley.
Auditor Jim Zeigler is sounding the alarm over Amendment 6, which will appear on the general election ballot. Should voters approve the language, it would make it tougher to impeach an elected official in Alabama.
Currently, state law only requires a simple majority of legislators (fifty percent plus one) to successfully impeach a lawmaker. Under the amendment, it would raise the standard to a two-thirds vote.
Zeigler calls it “the Bentley Get Out of Impeachment Free Card”, and says he’s concerned that ballot language does not mention a two-thirds vote.
“It simply places the bar of impeachment at two-thirds for conviction in the state Senate, and voters do not know that. believe if they did know that they would soundly vote no on Amendment 6,” Ziegler said, according to AL.com.
Ziegler has been one of Bentley’s toughest and most vocal critics since he first took office. In March, he filed an ethics complaint against the governor when indiscretions surfaced involving Bentley and his top aide, Rebekah Caldwell Mason. At the time, he called on Bentley to appear before him and answer questions related to the ordeal. Bentley never showed up.
“The governor continues to disgrace the state of Alabama, and in my official capacity as state auditor, I am required to report these suspected violations,” Zeigler said at the time.
Currently, the House Judiciary Committee is moving forward with impeachment proceedings against the governor. Bentley has continued to asset that he has done nothing wrong and believes that his removal from office would be unwarranted.
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