Startled me too when I found this out: I was looking up how the Oregon legislature could initiate impeachment proceedings against recalcitrant Democratic Governor John Kizthaber, only to discover that apparently they cannot. It seems that there’s no provision in the state constitution for such a thing – the only state in the Union that doesn’t have that, in fact.  So it’s either Kitzhaber resigns, or they try to do a recall.

Which leads to the question: what happens if John Kitzhaber simply refuses to resign? Will Oregon Democrats really support a recall, given that the odds of them retaining the governorship in the resulting election will be slim, at best? As it stands they’re obviously going with resignation, because that allows them to replace Kitzhaber with a progressive Democrat, no fuss, no muss.  But what if Kitzhaber keeps kicking up a fuss?

Interesting days in Oregon.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: He’ll probably still resign. I just wonder why John Kitzhaber hasn’t done it yet.

[UPDATE: He may have already resigned by the time you read this. Because John Kitzhaber is why we can’t have nice things, like posts that aren’t already obsolete before their turn comes up in the publishing queue.]