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Kane doesn't have a case

Attorney General Kathleen Kane's dubious argument against the effort to remove her from office does little to restore her credibility as a legal practitioner.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane leaves the courtroom at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown on Nov. 10, 2015.
Attorney General Kathleen Kane leaves the courtroom at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown on Nov. 10, 2015.Read more(DAVID MAIALETTI / Staff Photographer)

Attorney General Kathleen Kane's dubious argument against the effort to remove her from office does little to restore her credibility as a legal practitioner.

At issue are two means of removing elected officials from office under the Pennsylvania Constitution: impeachment, which begins with charges in the House followed by a Senate trial; and direct removal, which is carried out by the governor and Senate. Gov. Wolf and Senate leaders have agreed to pursue the latter, a simpler and presumably quicker process, to dislodge the attorney general. Kane has refused to cooperate, asserting that she can be removed only through impeachment.

The constitution says rather plainly that direct removal applies to all elected officials except the governor, lieutenant governor, state legislators, and judges. But in a letter to a Senate committee considering her removal, Kane argued that because her office is "high-ranking" and elective, it "surely is impliedly included" in the exception. In other words, as Duquesne University law professor Bruce Ledewitz put it to The Inquirer, "She is taking the position that the provision doesn't mean what it says."

Kane has taken a similarly surreal stance on the question before the committee: whether she can do her job without her law license, which the Supreme Court unanimously suspended after she was charged with perjury and other crimes. Despite occupying an office that begins with the word attorney and constitutionally requires bar membership, Kane argues that practicing law is all but irrelevant to her largely "administrative and ministerial" duties.

That was news to the three district attorneys who testified to the Senate committee this week. They said their jobs as top county prosecutors depend heavily on practicing law. Kane's top four deputies offered a similar assessment last month in a letter urging her to delegate her duties.

The trouble with Kane goes well beyond the license suspension and the charges that led to it, which stem from alleged leaks of grand jury information to smear her nemesis and former subordinate Frank Fina. Most disturbingly, The Inquirer revealed that she aborted an investigation of fellow Democrats in the legislature who were caught taking money from an informant posing as a lobbyist. The newspaper also reported that she interfered with another corruption investigation involving a suspected mob associate.

Impeachment would have the advantage of providing a forum for these and other charges against Kane. But she has already squandered numerous opportunities to answer them, instead releasing a series of offensive emails linked to officials such as Fina, now a Philadelphia prosecutor, and Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin.

Both Fina and Eakin have undeservedly escaped sanction for the emails. But the gravity of Kane's transgressions and the single-handed power of her position make her removal particularly urgent. The evidence of a mutiny among Kane's top lieutenants is one sign that her agency is in disarray.

Direct removal is a legitimate constitutional means of addressing the problem that would require broad bipartisan assent, including from Kane's fellow Democrats in the legislature and governor's office. While direct removal hasn't been employed for more than a century, impeachment has been used only once in that time. Fortunately, the commonwealth just hasn't had many officials like Kane.