Kentucky House forming panel to consider impeachment petition filed against Beshear
The Kentucky House of Representatives will set up a committee to determine whether Gov. Andy Beshear should be impeached after four citizens filed a petition seeking the Democratic governor’s removal from office.
Jacob Clark of Grayson County, Tony Wheatley of Mercer County, Randall Daniel of Bullitt County and Andrew Cooperrider of Fayette County submitted a petition with the House of Representatives on Friday, calling for Beshear to be impeached on eight counts. They cited the restrictions Beshear put in place to slow the spread of COVID-19 in March, which the Kentucky Supreme Court has upheld as constitutional.
“The main reason we filed the petition,” Clark said, “is because we don’t really think the legislature is going to do the job properly without a push from the citizens.”
About 50 people signed affidavits supporting the petition.
House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, said the constitution is vague about impeachment, but that the House is obligated to take the petition seriously. He said he hasn’t read it, so he doesn’t know if the claims are serious, but that he has to take the accusations seriously.
“It doesn’t even require a vote or anything,” Osborne said. “It just requires the committee act. And the committee’s action can be to do nothing.”
Crystal Staley, Beshear’s communication director, called the committee “silly and unjustified,” pointing out that the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled in November that Beshear’s COVID-19 restrictions were constitutional.
“This is the type of dangerous, angry rhetoric and disinformation that led to Wednesday’s attack on the U.S. Capitol and our very democracy,” Staley said. “People are watching and listening. Everyone has a duty to be responsible.”
Cooperrider, one of the four men who filed the petition, is the owner of a Lexington coffee shop that defied Beshear’s COVID-19 restrictions in late November and early December. The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department sued to shut the business down, but the case was dismissed after Beshear’s order expired.
Clark, a 38-year-old machinist who unsuccessfully ran for the House of Representatives as a Libertarian this year, said he doesn’t think much will come of the committee because he doesn’t have faith that lawmakers will take action.
“I hope they do their due diligence,” he said.
Last year, the America Family Association of Kentucky, run by conservative activist Frank Simon, circulated a petition calling for Beshear’s impeachment.
There also has been talk this week among some Republican House members about filing articles of impeachment against Beshear, but no sitting lawmaker has formally called for Beshear’s impeachment.
Osborne said impeachment of a state executive has only been proposed four times in Kentucky history and that only one has actually resulted in a conviction.
Clark said he was at an “Impeach Beshear” rally at the Capitol on Tuesday and that he and others collected affidavits at the event.
Also at that event: a yard sign saying “make hanging traitors great again.”
This story was originally published January 9, 2021 at 5:42 PM.
