Section 4 includes a provision that mirrors the Impeachment Disqualification Clause in the federal Constitution: "Judgement in cases of impeachment shall extend only to removal from office, and disqualification from holding any office of honor, trust or profit under this State." However, Section 5 provides a unique wrinkle: after an article of impeachment is "preferred" to the Senate, the impeached officer "shall be suspended from the exercise of the duties of their office, during the pendency of such impeachment." In other words, an impeached official is temporarily removed from office. (The same threshold is used in the federal Constitution). Sections 2 and 3 provide that the impeachment shall be tried by the Senate, and 2/3 of the Senators "present" are required to impeach. Section 1 states that the House of Representatives has the "power of impeachment." Presumably, a simple majority is enough to impeach, but that threshold is not clearly spelled out. In this post, I will provide a high-level overview of the impeachment process in Texas, with a focus on the particular issues that may arise in the Paxton case.Īrticle 15 of the Texas Constitution governs the impeachment process. And in 1975-76, a district judge was convicted, removed, and disqualified. In 1917, a governor was impeached, but resigned before the Senate convicted him. It seems there have been only two impeachments in Texas history. On Thursday, a committee of the Texas House of Representatives recommended twenty articles of impeachment against Attorney General Ken Paxton.
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