State Executive Impeachment – We Need to Know More

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State Executive Impeachment – We Need to Know More

Gerald L. Neuman*

Impeachment in the legislature provides an important method of accountability for the abuse of executive office in the states, although the political character of the forum also creates risks. At the highest level of state government, impeachment enables state legislators to oust a transgressive governor. Over the years, eight state governors have been impeached and removed,[2] and others have resigned to avoid impeachment.[3] Resignations can be as important a result of an impeachment inquiry as a completed conviction.

Impeachment also reaches lower levels of the executive branch, most importantly the various executive officers who are independently elected and not freely subject to removal by the governor during their terms. State government structure contrasts with the federal government in the multiplicity of elected executive officials. No federal executive officer has ever been impeached and convicted, while quite a few state officers have been.[4] Kentucky recently witnessed its first impeachment conviction in over a century, of an elected prosecutor who extorted nude photos from a criminal defendant.[5] The last preceding conviction involved state treasurer James W. “Honest Dick” Tate, who embezzled vast sums and fled the country.[6] Other Kentucky officials have resigned after efforts began to impeach them.[7]

Consistent with the focus in the Journal’s recent Symposium on legislative/executive interactions, I emphasize here impeachment of executives, not judges. Impeachment does apply to judges, and in fact the only federal officers whom Congress has removed by impeachment have been life-tenured Article III judges.[8] However, impeachment of judges raises distinct issues of judicial independence, and the need for impeachment of state judges has decreased with the advent of modern systems of judicial discipline.[9]  Nonetheless, threats of impeachment and occasional removals do still occur.[10]

Impeachment talk is notoriously common. Reportedly, the past few decades saw a rise in demands for impeachment and the current extremely polarized political environment has resulted in a further increase.[11] Nonetheless even today the impetus for impeachment of an abusive official may come from the official’s own party.[12] We need more data to understand better the factors that make impeachment efforts at the state level succeed, and how the relevant factors may change over time.

Unfortunately, scholars have not given commensurate attention to the operation of state legislative impeachment, particularly on a nationwide comparative basis. The documentation of these lower profile events is dispersed, even for actual convictions, let alone for impeachment efforts that produce resignations. In 1895, the prolific treatise-writer Roger Foster included an avowedly incomplete survey of state impeachment trials in his Commentaries on U.S. constitutional law.[13] He also observed that the “fear of the disgrace [of impeachment] has caused the resignation of many corrupt judges, State and Federal, who shall here remain nameless.”[14] Just over forty years ago, Professors Peter Charles Hoffer and Natalie Hull published a volume analyzing the origins of U.S. impeachment practice and its application in the early Republic.[15] There are occasionally studies of particular states or of particularly significant state impeachments.[16]

Fuller knowledge of the facts could facilitate comparative studies of the dynamics of impeachment efforts and their effects. Impeachment now exists in all the states, after a 2024 ballot measure adopted it for Oregon.[17] Modern impeachment procedures in most states resemble the federal model, with accusation voted in the lower house, and trial in the state senate.[18] The percentage of legislators required at each stage can vary from the federal practice. Several states (now including Oregon) require 2/3 of the lower house to vote for impeachment instead of a majority.[19] Massachusetts requires only a majority of the upper house to convict instead of two-thirds, and has actually removed an official using this rule.[20]  One might expect that the varying percentages of votes required at each stage of impeachment proceedings affect the likelihood of initiation or of conviction, but there appears to be no study examining this question.                                                                                                                                              

In normative terms, it must be recognized that the impeachment process is subject to abuse for purposes foreign to its ostensible rationale. Allowing groups of politicians to judge claims of misconduct by a government official opens opportunities for partisanship and arbitrariness. Nonetheless, legislative authority provides an ultimate check on official wrongdoing that executive authority cannot or will not prevent. The need for running the risk may depend on the availability of other methods of removing the officials who are subject to impeachment.

Undoubtedly, impeachment has been abused in the past. A notorious set of examples arose after the Civil War, when the resurgent ex-Confederates used various types of law and violence to drive Blacks and their allies out of state governments. The impeachment of North Carolina Governor William Woods Holden, and the resignations of Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames[21] and of the distinguished Black jurist Jonathan Jasper Wright,[22] are prominent illustrations. The early 20th century impeachment of New York Governor William Sulzer, as the Tammany Hall machine’s revenge after he turned to reform, offers another object lesson.[23]

In empirical terms, it seems reasonable to assume that impeachment competes with other removal options, and that one of the factors making impeachments or convictions less likely to occur would be the availability of easier alternatives. On the other hand, in most states (as in the federal government) impeachment can lead not only to removal but to disqualification from future office, which may be important to legislators in particular cases.[24] Without better data, the interaction among alternatives is difficult to explore.

One alternative mechanism for removal is a recall election. Nineteen states (not Kentucky) provide for recall of statewide officials.[25] Successful recalls of governors are rare – only two so far, one in North Dakota in 1921, and Gray Davis of California in 2003, who was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.[26]

In a small minority of states certain executive officials may also be subject to removal by legislative “address,” a procedure originally created in England for removal of royal judges by Parliament, and adapted in state constitutions as a form of removal for state judges or executive officials or both. (Kentucky’s 1792 constitution authorized address for removal of state judges,[27] and the 1891 constitution extended it to railroad commissioners,[28] but these provisions have since been repealed.) As the Delaware Supreme Court explained in a 2022 opinion, removal by address can respond to less serious causes of unfitness for office than impeachment would legally require.[29] Different state constitutions frame the legislature’s address as a request to the governor to remove the individual, or as obliging the government to remove the individual.[30] Depending on the purpose of the analysis, the obligatory version of address might be viewed as a variant form of impeachment, while the nonbinding version of address might be viewed as a separate procedure that makes impeachment unnecessary if a larger set of actors agrees on removal.

Unlike U.S. presidents,[31] state governors who commit crimes, including some forms of corruption, may be subject to federal prosecution while in office. Independent state attorneys general or prosecutors may also be able to investigate or indict governors in ways that provoke resignation. State constitutions or statutes often provide that an executive official who is convicted of certain crimes shall be removed from office, or that the office automatically becomes vacant.[32] Nonetheless, the state legislature may be unwilling to leave an abusive official in power while awaiting the outcome of the criminal process, especially if the office remains occupied pending appeal.[33]

Thus, the greater independence that elected state officials have creates more occasions for state legislative intervention, and to varying degrees the need for intervention is counterbalanced by the availability of other methods for removal.

In short, the prevailing concentration of scholars on federal impeachment has distracted from a larger body of evidence regarding state-level impeachment. Our understanding of state practice would benefit from a variety of qualitative and quantitative studies, and to that end from the collection and publication of relevant data for all states. Both historical and contemporary projects would be useful here. As a starting point, I provide below a listing of the state-level impeachment convictions from 1776 to 2023 that I have found in the course of my own reading and research. We need to know more.

List of State Executive and Judicial Impeachment Convictions

(not necessarily complete) 

State and Year	Name	Office (or former office)
New Jersey 1778	Thomas Denny	Judge
New Jersey 1779	William Miller	Judge
New Jersey 1784	Peter Hopkins	Judge
Vermont* 1785	John Barret	Judge
Vermont* 1785	Matthew Lyon	Clerk of Court
Massachusetts 1788	William Greenleaf	Sheriff
Georgia 1791	Henry Osborne	Judge
South Carolina 1793	Alexander Moultrie	Attorney General
Massachusetts 1794	William Hunt	Judge
New Jersey 1799	Elijah Godfrey	Judge
Massachusetts 1800	John Vinal	Judge
Kentucky 1803	Thomas Jones	Surveyor
Ohio 1805	William Irvin	Judge
Pennsylvania 1805	Alexander Addison	Judge
Tennessee 1806	Isaac Philips	Judge
Ohio 1807	Robert Slaughter	Judge
South Carolina 1807	Daniel D’Oyley	Treasurer
South Carolina 1812	John Clark	Sheriff
Tennessee 1812	William Cocke	Judge
South Carolina 1814	Matthew O’Driscoll	Clerk of Court
Massachusetts 1821	James Prescott	Judge
Indiana 1821	Aaron Vandever	Judge
Tennessee 1822	Samuel Williams	Surveyor
Indiana 1825	Isaiah Cooper	Judge
Indiana 1826	Nathaniel Marks	Sheriff
Missouri 1826	Richard Thomas	Judge
New Jersey 1830	Henry Miller	Judge
Indiana 1832	Young Hughes	Judge
Louisiana 1844	Benjamin Elliot	Judge
California 1857	Henry Bates	Treasurer
California 1862	James Hardy	Judge
Kansas 1862	George Hillyer	Auditor
Kansas 1862	John Robinson	Secretary of State
Missouri 1867	Walter King	Judge
Tennessee 1867	Thomas Frazier	Judge
Louisiana 1870	George Wickliffe	Auditor
North Carolina 1871	William Woods Holden	Governor
Nebraska 1871	David Butler	Governor
New York 1872	George Barnard	Judge
Minnesota 1853	William Seeger	Treasurer
West Virginia 1875	John Burdett	Treasurer
Mississippi 1876	Alexander Kelso Davis	Lieutenant Governor
Georgia 1879	Washington Goldsmith	Comptroller General
Minnesota 1881	E. St. Julien Cox	Judge
New Jersey 1886	Patrick Laverty	Prison Warden
Kentucky 1888	James Tate	Treasurer
New Jersey 1895	Patrick Connelly	Judge
New York 1913	William Sulzer	Governor
Oklahoma 1915	A.P. Watson	Corporations Commissioner
Tennessee 1916	Jesse Edgington	Judge
Tennessee 1916	Z. Newton Estes	District Attorney
Texas 1917	James Ferguson	Governor
Montana 1918	Charles Liebert Crum	Judge
Oklahoma 1923	John Walton	Governor
Montana 1927	Charles Stewart	Secretary of State
Oklahoma 1929	Henry Johnston	Governor
Massachusetts 1941	Daniel Coakley	Governor’s Council
Michigan 1943	Michael Nolan	Judge
Tennessee 1958	Raulston Schoolfield	Judge
Oklahoma 1965	Napoleon Johnson	Judge
Texas 1976	O.P. Carrillo	Judge
Florida 1978	Samuel Smith	Judge
Arizona 1988	Evan Mecham	Governor
Pennsylvania 1994	Rolf Larsen	Judge
Missouri 1994	Judith Moriarty	Secretary of State
Nevada 2004	Kathy Augustine	Controller
Nebraska 2006	C. David Hergert	Regent
Illinois 2009	Rod Blagojevich	Governor
South Dakota 2022	Jason Ravnsborg	Attorney General
Kentucky 2023	Ronnie Goldy Jr.	Prosecutor

(*Vermont was not admitted as a state until 1791)

* J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law, Harvard Law School.

[2] The eight were William Woods Holden, North Carolina (1871); David Butler, Nebraska (1871); William Sulzer, New York (1913); James Ferguson, Texas (1917); John Walton, Oklahoma (1923); Henry Johnston, Oklahoma (1929); Evan Mecham, New Mexico (1988); and Rod Blagojevich, Illinois (2009). See Becky Little, 8 US Governors Who Were Impeached and Convicted, History (Aug. 16, 2021), https://www.history.com/news/us-governors-impeached-convicted-left-office [https://perma.cc/9F9T-G659].

[3] Such as Andrew Cuomo in New York (2021), and John G. Rowland in Connecticut (2004). See Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Jeffery C. Mays, Cuomo Is Resigning, but Some Legislators Still Want to Impeach Him, N.Y. Times (Aug. 12, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/nyregion/cuomo-impeachment-investigation.html [permalink unavailable]; Office of the Governor v. Select Committee of Inquiry, 858 A.2d 709, 712 n.1 (Conn. 2004). At the federal level, Richard Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment. See Ron Elving, Half a century ago, Nixon became the only president to resign, NPR (Aug. 9, 2024), https://www.npr.org/2024/08/09/nx-s1-5068704/nixon-resign [https://perma.cc/93RP-PFLX].

[4] How federal impeachment works, USA.Gov (last accessed Feb. 24, 2025), https://www.usa.gov/impeachment [https://perma.cc/7ADF-AHKR].

[5] See Kentucky Senate convicts ex-prosecutor in impeachment trial, Associated Press (Mar. 20, 2023), https://apnews.com/article/impeachment-prosecutor-nude-photos-kentucky-senate-f5e6774d8622739e8842ede5777a431e [permalink unavailable]. The prosecutor, Ronnie Goldy, Jr., had resigned amidst the impeachment proceedings, but the legislators still went forward, and Goldy was convicted and disqualified from future office in Kentucky. See In re Articles of Impeachment against Ronnie Lee Goldy, Jr., 2023 Sess. (Ky. 2023) https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/23rs/RLGJ_ImpeachmentResult.pdf [https://perma.cc/NB3M-QMBJ].

[6] See Robert Schrage & John Schaaf, Hidden History of Kentucky Political Scandals, ch. 3 (2020).

[7] In 1991, Commissioner of Agriculture Ward Burnette resigned after impeachment and before Senate trial. See Jailed Kentucky Official Quits, N.Y. Times (Feb. 7, 1991), https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/07/us/7-arizona-lawmakers-charged-with-corruption.html [permalink unavailable]. Also in 2023, prosecutor Richard Boling resigned after the introduction of an impeachment resolution against him. See Andrew Wolfson, Western Kentucky prosecutor to resign rather than face impeachment, Louisville Courier J. (Jan. 9, 2023), https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2023/01/09/rick-boling-resignation-kentucky-commonwealth-attorney/69792238007/ [https://perma.cc/C7SU-QHJP].

[8]  See List of Individuals Impeached by the House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives Archive, https://history.house.gov/Institution/Impeachment/Impeachment-List/ [https://perma.cc/8HNY-VV2F] (listing all impeachments passed by the House and their outcomes).

[9]  See, e.g., Hon. R. David Proctor, An Overview of Judicial Independence from Impeachment to Court-Packing, 47 U. Mem. L. Rev. 1147, 1152-59 (2017); See also Gerald L. Neuman, Impeachment as Cause or Cure of Human Rights Violations, in Impeachment in a Global Context: Law, Politics, and Comparative Practice 3 (Chris Monaghan, Matthew Flinders & Aziz Z. Huq eds. 2024).

[10] See, e.g., Miriam Seifter, Judging Power Plays in the American States, 97 Tex. L. Rev. 1217, 1229-30 (2019) (discussing 2018 impeachment of the entire supreme court of West Virginia); In re Larsen, 812 A.2d 642, 644-46 (Pa. Spec. Trib. 2002) (discussing 1994 impeachment and removal of Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen).

[11] See, e.g., Peter Baker, Inside Impeachment’s Rise as a Weapon of Partisan Warfare, N.Y. Times (Feb. 1, 2024) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/us/politics/impeachments-weapon-partisan-warfare.html. [permalink unavailable]; Bruce Schreiner, Impeachment fever hits Kentucky with efforts to oust leaders, Associated Press (Jan. 31, 2021) https://apnews.com/general-news-f9ebaa25985fee93634e1f28500536c1 [permalink unavailable].

[12] Recent examples include the impeachment and removal of South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, and the impeachment but acquittal of Texas Attorney General Robert Paxton. See Julie Bosman, South Dakota Removes Its Attorney General After Fatal Crash, N.Y. Times (June 21, 2022) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/us/jason-ravnsborg-impeachment-south-dakota.html [permalink unavailable] (discussing the impeachment and conviction of South Dakota’s Republican Attorney General, Jason Ravnsborg, by a Republican dominated state Senate); Zach Despart, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton acquitted on all 16 articles of impeachment, The Tex. Tribune (Sept. 16, 2023) https://www.texastribune.org/2023/09/16/ken-paxton-acquitted-impeachment-texas-attorney-general/ [https://perma.cc/JC9N-NSW9] (discussing the impeachment of Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton by House Republicans and acquittal in state Senate). As prominent examples from earlier times, Governors Butler, Sulzer and Ferguson were removed by opponents from their own party. Supra note 2.

[13] See 1 Roger Foster, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Historical and Juridical, with Observations upon the Ordinary Provisions of State Constitutions and a Comparison with the Constitutions of Other Countries 633-713 (Boston, The Boston Book Co.1895) (describing acquittals and abandoned proceedings as well as convictions).

[14] Id. at 630.

[15] See Peter Charles Hoffer & N.E.H. Hull, Impeachment in America 1635-1805 (1984).

[16] See, e.g., Cortez A.M. Ewing, Early Tennessee Impeachments, 16 Tenn. Hist. Q. 291 (1957) (surveying Tennessee impeachments); Impeached: The Removal of Texas Governor James E. Ferguson 14 (Jessica Brannon-Wranosky & Bruce A. Glasrud eds. 2017) (chronicling the impeachment of Texas governor James E. Ferguson); Hannah Haksgaard, Tyler Moore, & Gabrielle Unruh, Making South Dakota History: An Introduction to the Special Impeachment Issue, S. D. L. Rev. 159 (2023) (issue focused on the impeachment of Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg).

[17] See Dianne Lugo, 3 of 5 statewide ballot measures fail in Oregon, Salem Statesman J. (Nov. 9, 2024), https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/09/oregon-election-results-2024-ballot-measures-approve-fail/76091373007/ [https://perma.cc/687D-GKAY] (discussing the passing of Ballot Measure 115, granting Oregon lawmakers impeachment power); Or. Const. art. IV, §34. Previously the Oregon Constitution had dispensed with impeachment. See Foster, supra note 13, at 528; Or. Const. 1857, art. VII, §19.

[18] Alaska Const. art. II, § 20 (The Alaska Constitution reverses the roles of the house and senate); Mo. Const. art. VII, § 2; Neb. Const. art. III, § 17 (Missouri and Nebraska provide for trial in the state supreme court, after accusation by the house in Missouri, and by the unicameral state legislature in Nebraska).

[19] E.g., Fla. Const. art. III, §17; Utah Const. art. VI, §17.

[20] See Mass. Const. of 1780, part II, ch. I, §2, art. VIII; 1941 Mass. Sen. J. 1535-52 (1941) (giving count-by-count votes on conviction and removal by majority of Daniel Coakley, an elected member of the Governor’s Council).

[21] See Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, 441, 562 (1988) (on Holden and Ames).

[22]  See Richard Gergel & Belinda Gergel, “To Vindicate the Cause of the Downtrodden”: Associate Justice Jonathan Jasper Wright and Reconstruction in South Carolina, in At Freedom’s Door: African American Founding Fathers and Lawyers in Reconstruction South Carolina 36 (James Lowell Underwood & W. Lewis Burke Jr. eds. 2000).

[23] See e.g., Matthew L. Lifflander, The Only New York Governor Ever Impeached, 85(5) N.Y. State Bar Assn. J. 11 (2013).

[24] See Gerald L. Neuman, Impeachment, Disqualification, and Human Rights, 54 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 627, 652 (2023); In re Goldy, supra note 5; John R. Lundberg, The Great Texas “Bear Fight”: Progressivism and the Impeachment of James E. Ferguson, in Brannon-Wranosky & Glasrud , supra note 16, at 44-45.

[25] Recall of State Officials, National Conference of State Legislatures, (last updated Sep. 15, 2021) https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/recall-of-state-officials [permalink unavailable].

[26] See Shaun Bowler, Recall and Representation: Arnold Schwarzenegger Meets Edmund Burke, 40 Representation 200 (2004); Id. at 207-08 (Bowler also reported a figure of 15 successful recalls of statewide officials (not including Davis), and many more at the municipal level).

[27]  Ky. Const. of 1792 art. V, para. 2; see also Ky. Const. §§ 112, 129 (repealed 1975).

[28]  Ky. Const. § 209 (repealed 2000).

[29]  Opinion of the Justices, 274 A.3d 269, 278-79 (Del. Supreme Court 2022) (Although the opinion was sought and given in general terms, the legislature’s request was prompted by improprieties attributed to the elected state auditor, Kathy McGuiness, who subsequently resigned after being convicted of misdemeanors); Melissa Steele, General Assembly Seeks Guidance on Removing Elected Officials, Cape Gazette, (Nov. 5, 2021) https://www.capegazette.com/article/general-assembly-seeks-guidance-removing-elected-officials/230000 [https://perma.cc/W23C-KQ49]; Ryan Mavity, Del. Auditor McGuiness Sentenced to Probation, Fined, Cape Gazette, (Oct. 19, 2022) https://www.capegazette.com/article/del-auditor-mcguiness-sentenced-probation-fined/247818?source=rs [https://perma.cc/WSB9-768Y]; See N.H. Const. art. 73 (In some states, the constitutional provision on address expressly targets the process at causes that would not be sufficient to justify impeachment).

[30]  See S.C. Const. art. XV, § 3 (obligatory: “shall” remove); Del. Const. art. III, § 13 (discretionary: may remove).

[31]  See Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024).

[32] See , e.g., Cal. Const. art. XX, § 11; Del. Const. art. XV, § 6 (“The Governor shall remove…”); for Kentucky, see Troy B. Daniels, Dawn L. Danley-Nichols, Kate R. Morgan, & Bryce C. Rhoades, Kentucky’s Statutory Collateral Consequences Arising From Felony Convictions: A Practitioner’s Guide, 35 N. Ky. L. Rev. 413, 425-28 (2008) (for Kentucky); Ky Const. art. 150.

[33] See State ex rel. Olsen v. Langer, 256 N.W. 377 (N.D. 1934) (finding that office of governor was immediately vacated upon federal fraud conviction, despite pendency of appeal); City of Pineville v. Collett, 172 S.W.2d 640 (Ky. 1943) (finding that office of city clerk was not vacated upon conviction for voluntary manslaughter until appeal had been decided).