Ohio House Republicans aren’t united behind a plan to impeach Gov. Mike DeWine over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. And if those pushing impeachment want support of Democrats to do that, they might be disappointed.
While Democrats have been critical of DeWine in some policies, Rep. Kristin Boggs (D-Columbus) says there’s no appetite among them to impeach him.
“We want to focus on getting recovery passed from this COVID-19 crisis, getting people back to work, creating jobs and getting kids back to school in a safe way. This in-fighting between Republicans is their mess, their problem and I don’t think any of my colleagues in my caucus want to touch it," Boggs says.
Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp (R-Bluffton) issued a written statement, calling it "an imprudent attempt to escalate important policy disagreements with the Governor into a state constitutional crisis."
A spokesman for Senate President Larry Obhof says the impeachment process rests completely with the House. "Our members won’t spend time reacting to something that hasn’t happened, and at this point represents nothing more than political posturing by less than a few members of the other chamber," John Fortney said.
At this point, backers of the effort say they lack the votes needed to impeach.
This story was updated at 5 p.m., August 24, 2020 to reflect new information that came in after the story was initially written.
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