The latest House Republican to file articles of impeachment against Governor Jay Nixon (D) says he is “appalled” his majority party’s leadership has not advanced any proposals to impeach the Governor since their filing.
Representative Rick Brattin (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel; Missouri House Communications)
Representative Rick Brattin (R-Harrisonville) has filed two articles of impeachment against Nixon. He says Nixon violated the state Constitution by not disciplining or firing members of the executive branch for their roles in the scanning and retention of concealed carry endorsement documents by the Department of Revenue, and the release twice of personal information related to those documents to federal authorities.
Brattin says Nixon should be held accountable. His filing is HR 923.
“When you’re in charge,” Brattin says of Nixon, “the buck stops with you and we’ve had thousands of people’s important documents being scanned and sent over to another state and now are no telling where and I think it’s ridiculous and egregious.”
Brattin follows fellow Republicans Nick Marshall (R-Parkville) and Mike Moon (R-Ash Grove) who have also filed articles of impeachment against the Governor. He co-sponsors their efforts as they do his and one another’s.
Marshall filed two articles saying Nixon’s executive order instructing the Department of Revenue to accept joint tax returns from same-sex couples violated the state Constitution. Moon says in one article that Nixon violated the Constitution by not acting fast enough to set special election dates to fill vacant seats in the House and the Senate.
No action has been taken on those articles since they were filed a month ago.
Brattin says those legislators raise important issues and he hopes their filings and his will be allowed to move through the legislative process.
“We swore an oath to uphold, defend the Constitution before any type of legislative agenda … before anything. When we have somebody acting out of the Constitution and out of their authority, then they should be held to account,” Brattin tells Missourinet. “I think it should move and I’m appalled that it really hasn’t, unfortunately.”
Brattin says it is a political decision not to take up the arguments against Nixon.
“It’s an election year and we have a lot we want to do legislatively for jobs and things like that, and I’m right there too,” says Brattin, “and I have constituents all the time saying, ‘We see Barack Obama doing all this type of stuff and why isn’t anybody doing anything?’ We here at the state level wonder why isn’t the federal government doing anything? Well, we right here at the state level have the same thing going on with our governor. Are we not going to stand up and do what we’re calling the federal government to do?”
House Speaker Tim Jones (R-Eureka) says the three filings are still being studied.
“We want to make sure we move them forward in the right way,” Jones says. “We’re going to have to go back and look what was done with the previous articles and I think they were moved to a committee for study, and so we’ll have to look at that prior determination and move along that same track.”
Articles of impeachment move through the legislative process in the House similarly to the way a bill would. They would have to be first referred to a committee. If the articles are passed in the House, Nixon would be tried by a commission of seven eminent jurists elected by the Senate.
Related stories:
Another Article of Impeachment filed against Governor Nixon
Two Articles of Impeachment filed against Governor Nixon (AUDIO/COPY OF THE ARTICLES)
Articles of Impeachment filed against Governor Nixon over action on same-sex tax filing
Openly-gay lawmaker discusses impeachment effort over same-sex tax filing (AUDIO)