For the first time in state history, the Delaware Senate voted on Monday to take the initial step to remove an elected official from office.
Yet the resolution against embattled auditor Kathy McGuiness effectively has no bite because House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf said in a statement after the vote that he will not bring the House of Representatives back into session to vote on this resolution.
This means the resolution is dead and further emphasizes a dynamic that has been brewing for weeks: Democratic leaders in Delaware are at odds with how to handle the fallout of McGuiness’ guilty verdicts.
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“This isn’t taking decisive action: it’s political theater,” Schwartzkopf said in a statement after the Senate vote. “I have no intention of calling the House into session to consider this resolution at this time. The Senate’s resolution would simply start a lengthy process to ultimately ask the governor to remove the state auditor from office – a request he’s not required to fulfill, and a request he’s indicated that he wouldn’t carry out at this time anyway.”
After the statement was released, Drew Volturo, spokesman for the House Democrats, said the statement also includes House Majority Leader Valerie Longhurst and House Majority Whip Larry Mitchell. House leadership and lawmakers have previously urged Carney to remove McGuiness once a conviction is upheld.
Schwartzkopf has had longtime ties to the auditor, as do other lawmakers in Dover.
In response to the House’s statement, Senate President Pro Tempore David Sokola, Majority Leader Bryan Townsend and Majority Whip Elizabeth “Tizzy” Lockman said the chamber on Monday “moved to hold an elected official accountable for official misconduct by fulfilling its Constitutional obligation under Article 3, Section 13.”
“By his own words,” they said in a statement, “the Speaker is choosing a different course of action – one that both abdicates the Legislature’s Constitutional responsibility to a wholly separate branch of government, and also allows the Auditor to continue collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck while she awaits her sentencing.”
McGuiness was found guilty of criminal corruption charges last month, but has refused to step down despite her losing support from nearly every major Democratic politician in Delaware. She is still planning to run for reelection.
The convictions stemmed from her hiring her daughter and giving her special privileges in her office, and payments to a political campaign and policy consultant.
Each guilty verdict carries the potential for one year in prison. McGuiness was acquitted of felony theft, which was tied to her daughter’s employment, and felony witness intimidation for monitoring employee whistleblower emails.
She is the first statewide elected official in Delaware to be charged with, and convicted of, a crime while in office. McGuiness has maintained her innocence throughout, and her lawyer Steve Wood last week filed two motions, one to acquit her and the other seeking a new trial.
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The state formally responded to those motions on Monday, arguing that the motions should be denied.
During the vote on Monday, only one Democrat, Sen. Darius Brown, D-Wilmington, voted against the resolution, along with the entire Republican caucus. Sen. Spiros Mantzavinos, McGuiness’ former chief of staff, looked solemn as he voted for the resolution, just as his former boss sat yards away from him.
McGuiness said, in a brief interview after the vote, that she found Mantzavinos’ vote “disturbing” because he was a witness in the trial, but said she didn’t feel betrayed by him.
“I understand politics a little bit and some folks might have to feel that they have to vote a certain way for certain reasons,” she said.
McGuiness traveled to Legislative Hall on Monday and listened as her fellow Democrats spoke of the need for the Senate to act in this unprecedented moment.
“Liberty itself is a birthright, but loss of liberty is determined through a judicial proceeding. The loss of office is not the same thing,” said Sen. Sarah McBride, D-Wilmington.
“The Constitution,” she added, “provides us an obligation. … It’s not to engage in baseless conspiracy theories about motivations. It is not an obligation to allow someone else to do our job. The constitutional obligation is to act.”
Senate Republicans came to McGuiness’ defense. The caucus said in a statement that they are against the timing of this resolution because a judge has yet to uphold the auditor’s conviction.
Sen. Colin Bonini, R-Dover, was one of the lawmakers who spoke out against the resolution, as McGuiness sat nearly feet away from him. She smiled as he spoke.
“This is wrong,” he said. “The people are going to tell us. I have faith in their judgments. There’s an election in seven weeks.”
Moments later, Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend said he “did not believe that a free and fair election result creates an absolute shield from accountability.”
The Senate resolution ultimately requires two-thirds support of both General Assembly chambers in order to petition Carney to remove her from office. This process is separate from impeachment, which starts in the House of Representatives.
The first vote, which happened on Monday, was about whether to hold a hearing in a joint session. It needed a simple majority vote. The next would establish the rules of this hearing. The final vote, once a hearing has been held, requires a two-thirds vote in order to petition the governor to take action and remove her.
The House speaker has the power to call House members back into session. And with Schwarzkopf unwilling to do so, the resolution goes nowhere.
But some House lawmakers strongly disagree with this approach and believe the General Assembly needs to take some type of action.
Earlier this month, nearly the entire House Democratic caucus sent a letter to Gov. John Carney, urging him to use his constitutional powers to remove McGuinness once her conviction is upheld.
Rep. Paul Baumbach, a Newark Democrat, did not sign this letter, telling Delaware Online/The News Journal at the time that he felt the General Assembly needed to take its own action. He is a co-sponsor of the resolution.
“Legislators should look at legislative action,” he said, “and we’ll let the governor worry about the governor’s actions.”
He tweeted on Monday night that it was “good to see one chamber acting on its constitutional responsibilities…”
Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton, a Newark Democrat, said she is not shocked to see Schwartzkopf’s decision to not vote on a resolution that would urge the governor to “remove his friend from office.” She described the House’s leadership deference to the governor as “unsettling.”
“This is just the same way we run stuff in Delaware: The Speaker has an ironclad grip with what happens in the House,” she said. Wilson-Anton added that “it’s a very disappointing display of lack of courage, lack of accountability on legislators.”
Just after the vote, McGuiness said she believes she still has the public’s support and trust despite her guilty verdicts. She also emphasized that she had not been convicted as she has yet to be sentenced.
McGuiness, like she has throughout her trial and after the guilty verdicts, said other Delaware politicians have engaged in the same type of nepotism.
“I am innocent,” she said. “If I was not innocent, I would bow my head and tuck my tail between my legs, and I would go away. But I am innocent and I will fight this to clear my name.”
Contact Meredith Newman at (302) 256-2466 or at mnewman@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MereNewman.
