Kentucky House Republicans formed an impeachment committee Tuesday to consider removing a Supreme Court justice and two other elected officials, all of whom were the subjects of petitions submitted to the chamber during the interim period last year.
Republican House Speaker David Osborne says the General Assembly is required by law to form such a committee whenever citizen petitions are submitted to the House clerk. While the GOP leader has not directly commented on the merits of the petition to remove Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Pamela Goodwine, he has also heavily criticized her role in a decision that is the subject of that petition.
Goodwine was the target of an impeachment petition filed last year by Louisville attorney and GOP official Jack Richardson, who alleged she had a conflict of interest and should have recused herself from a case involving the Jefferson County Board of Education’s challenge of a law limiting the elected board’s power.
If the newly formed committee recommends impeaching any of the three officials, the full House chamber can approve articles of impeachment with a majority vote. The articles would then move to the Senate chamber, where a vote of at least two-thirds of senators to convict would cause the public official to be removed from office.
Elected in November 2024, Goodwine was the swing vote of a 4-3 majority decision last April to rehear a previous ruling of the court from just before she took office, which had upheld the law in a 4-3 decision. Richardson’s October petition alleged Goodwine had a conflict of interest due to the Jefferson County teachers union giving large contributions to a PAC that purchased ads supporting her election.
The Supreme Court’s decision to rehear the case in April elicited a critical statement from Osborne, and another when the court issued a final 4-3 decision last month to reverse course and strike down the law.
Osborne said in December that the court’s reversal “raises serious and unavoidable questions about the legitimacy of an independent judiciary,” adding that justices “should hang up their robes and run for the legislature if they want to make policy, rather than masquerade as impartial judges.”
Though he said the court’s reversal was political, Osborne and other GOP leaders have repeatedly declined to weigh in on the merits of the petition to remove Goodwine.
The new impeachment committee will also consider submitted petitions seeking the removal of Marshall County Family Court Judge Stephanie J. Perlow and Ballard County Jailer Eric Coppess.
The petition to remove Perlow was submitted last month by Paducah resident Ron Rock, who alleged a pattern of violations and misconduct related to his case that was before her court.
The petition to remove Coppess as jailer was sent in October from Ballard County Judge-executive Todd Cooper, which noted that the Ballard Fiscal Court voted for a resolution in July that called for his resignation. Coppess has refused efforts to force his resignation, denying allegations by the county ethics committee that his mismanagement of the local jail is to blame for serious incidents of misconduct by staff.
The House impeachment committee will be chaired by Rep. Jason Nemes, a member of GOP leadership from Middletown. However, Nemes said Tuesday that he will recuse himself from consideration of the Goodwine petition, as he has taken campaign contributions from Richardson in the past. That Goodwine inquiry will instead be led by GOP Rep. John Blanton, the committee’s vice chair from Salyersville.
Nemes said that each petition will be handled separately, based on its own merits.
“We could dismiss it outright, because we think that the grounds in the petition are not well founded. We could ask for a response,” Nemes said. “There's all kinds of things that will be done. Each of the petitions will be handled differently, or maybe not differently, but separately.”
The 11-member impeachment committee is scheduled to have its first meeting Wednesday afternoon and will be made up of seven Republicans and four Democrats. In addition to Nemes and Blanton, they include:
- Rep. Jennifer Decker (Republican)
- Rep. Kim King (Republican)
- Rep. Steve Doan (Republican)
- Rep. Robert Duvall (Republican)
- Rep. Mike Clines (Republican)
- Rep. Pamela Stevenson (Democrat)
- Rep. Anne Donworth (Democrat)
- Rep. Mary Lou Marzian (Democrat)
- Rep. George Brown Jr. (Democrat)
Osborne and the House GOP supermajority also created an impeachment committee in 2021, responding to several petitions that were submitted by the public seeking to remove Gov. Andy Beshear, former Attorney General Daniel Cameron and former state Rep. Robert Goforth. The committee, which was also led by Nemes, met several times and took testimony from witnesses, but did not recommend impeachment for any official.
The House can also initiate its own impeachment proceeding against a public official, as it did in 2023 with the impeachment and unanimous Senate conviction of former state prosecutor Ronnie Goldy Jr., who was accused of trading court favors for nude images of a defendant in his court. The following year, Goldy was convicted on 14 federal charges related to his misconduct toward the defendant and sentenced to 41 months in prison.
