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If impeached, Dann would make history
YOUNGSTOWN — Attorney General Marc Dann, who captured the attorney general’s seat two years ago on a platform of cleaning up corruption, could make Ohio history by being the first elected executive statewide officeholder to be impeached.
Top Ohio Democrats, including Gov. Ted Strickland, wrote a letter Sunday to Dann telling him to resign because of a scandal in the attorney general’s office. Dann refuses to resign, saying he didn’t do anything to prompt that action.
In the letter, the Democratic officials wrote that if Dann refuses to quit, “Democratic members of the Ohio House of Representatives will immediately introduce a resolution seeking your impeachment.”
The resolution is expected as early as today.
The state added Article II, Section 24, to the Ohio Constitution addressing “officers liable to impeachment; consequences” in 1851 that addresses governors, judges and all state officers.
The state had a few judicial impeachments early in its statehood around 1809, said Thomas Suddes, an Ohio historian who also is an Ohio University professor and a member of The Plain Dealer’s editorial board.
There were other inquiries, but Suddes didn’t believe any of them led to impeachments.
Ohio Democratic Party officials say a judge was impeached in 1832.
But Ohio political observers and officials don’t know of any elected statewide executive officeholders who were impeached.
The 1851 law states a person “may be impeached for any misdemeanor in office.”
The word misdemeanor is somewhat deceptive, said Paul Sracic, chairman of Youngstown State University’s political science department.
It doesn’t refer to an actual crime, he said. It’s meant to refer to “inappropriate acts,” he said.
“The state inherited the language” from England about “inappropriate acts” even though misdemeanor crimes existed in 1851, Sracic said.
Dann hasn’t been charged with a crime. There are outside investigations into improper events at the attorney general’s office.
A report released by the office after an internal investigation led to the firing of two top office administrators, including one for sexual harassment and improper use of state vehicles, as well as the resignation of another and sharp criticism as to how the department operated.
Added to the state Constitution in 1912 is a provision for the “removal of officials for misconduct.”
That calls for laws to be “passed providing for the prompt removal from office, upon complaint and hearing, of all officers ... for any misconduct involving moral turpitude or for other cause provided by law.”
It took until 1953 for the state Legislature to spell out that “misconduct.”
Ohio Revised Code describes “misconduct” as someone “who willfully and flagrantly exercises authority or power not authorized by law, refuses or willfully neglects to enforce the law or to perform any official duty imposed upon him by law, or is guilty of gross neglect of duty, gross immorality, drunkenness, misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance.”
Once a resolution is introduced in the House for impeachment, the 99-member body votes on it. A simple majority is needed to move it to the 33-member state Senate.
The Senate holds a trial and two-thirds of its members must vote to convict.
There is another, much more time-intensive option, Sracic said.
A complaint would be written with signatures needed from at least 15 percent of the total vote for governor in 2006, Sracic said. That number is 603,413.
From there, if the complainant is a state officer, such as attorney general, the complaint goes to that person’s home county’s court of appeals.
In Dann’s case, that’s the 11th District Court of Appeals, which serves Trumbull County. Dann lives in Liberty.
The matter would be heard by the court unless the official wants a jury trial.
“He feels there’s nothing he did to make him resign,” said Ted Hart, Dann’s spokesman, about his boss. “That carries over to any suggestion of impeachment.”
If Dann resigns or is impeached, timing is an issue.
If Dann resigns before Sept. 25, the governor can select his replacement until a Nov. 4 special election for the seat to fill the unexpired term is held.
If Dann resigns or is impeached on or after Sept. 25, a special election would be avoided. The person selected by Strickland would fill the unexpired term, which ends in early January 2011.
“The Democrats would like to appoint someone for the entire unexpired term but to drag it out over the summer would be a slow bleed” and not advisable, Sracic said.
skolnick@vindy.com