The Pennsylvania State Senate begins its post-Thanksgiving session at 2 p.m. on Tuesday.
The body is expected to move forward with its constitutional obligation on the impeachment articles from the State House on Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. The Senate will consider action on three resolutions which are procedural steps to begin the impeachment process.
The first resolution is to set the rules of impeachment. The rules are modeled after the Congressional rules of impeachment and reflect the precedent set in the 1993 Commonwealth impeachment of Justice Rolf Larsen.
The second resolution is to invite the House impeachment managers and Sergeant at Arms to officially present the articles of impeachment to the Senate. The resolution will be put forth by newly elected Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) and seconded by State Senator Lisa Baker (R-Luzerne).
Upon adoption of the first two resolutions, the House impeachment managers and Sergeant at Arms will officially present the articles of impeachment to the Senate on Wednesday at which time an oath will be taken by all members of the Senate to officially begin the process.
Following these procedural measures, the final resolution – a writ of summons to be issued to Krasner requiring him to come before the Senate to answer to impeachment – will be put forth for a vote.
Upon adoption of the third resolution, the Senate will recess until mid-January with the impeachment trial on the books to begin on Wednesday, January 18, at 11:30 a.m. Krasner would be required to file an answer no later than December 21 and appear before the Senate on that date.
As outlined by the Pennsylvania Constitution in Article VI, Section 5: “All impeachments shall be tried by the Senate.” The role of the Senate is to sit in judgement and review the evidence presented by the House as noted by Article VI Section 4 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Today’s session will be streamed and can be accessed at the following links:
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3 Responses
“Text of Section 5:
Trial of Impeachments
All impeachments shall be tried by the Senate. When sitting for that purpose the Senators shall be upon oath or affirmation. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present. ”
TWO-THIRDS.
You left out the MOST important clause: Conviction only happens on a 2/3 vote to convict, which will NEVER happen.
This whole thing is a Charade, and happening only because Cutler is too weak to stand up to the Crazies.
Most ridiculous “impeachment” in the history of PA. If doing a bad job was grounds for impeachment of an elected official, over half the legislators and judges would be at risk.