Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York announced his resignation Aug. 10 amid allegations of serial sexual harassment and an aggressive attempt to discredit the nearly one dozen women who accused him of abuse.

The three-term Democratic governor was first defiant, saying he wouldn’t give in to “reckless and dangerous” claims against him.

“I never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances,” Cuomo said Aug. 3. “Politics and bias are interwoven throughout every aspect of this investigation.”

A week later, Cuomo resigned. In the seven days in between, Cuomo found his support among onetime Democratic allies had evaporated. The legislature was moving toward impeachment which could lead to his removal from office.

In the end Cuomo had two choices: He could step down voluntarily, or be forced out in a public political trial in Albany. He could leave sooner on his own accord or be forced out later.

Cuomo chose resignation.

It’s a scenario that is impossible in Oregon.

Oregon is the only state that doesn’t allow the impeachment of a governor.

As recently as 2015, the hole in the state constitution left Oregon’s political future at the whim of Gov. John Kitzhaber, who faced allegations he knew of influence-peddling in his office.

In February 2015, Kitzhaber said he would step down, changed his mind  and announced he would stay.

“This is clearly a bizarre and unprecedented situation,” said Secretary of State Kate Brown.

The constitutional trap the legislature was in attracted national attention.

“It’s theater of the absurd on the level of Portlandia,” David Graham wrote in the Feb. 12 issue of Atlantic Monthly. ‘A picaresque tale of ethics, money, romance, and betrayal, plus good old-fashioned power politics.”[

In the end, Kitzhaber changed his mind again.

On Friday the 13th, Kitzhaber announced he would leave office on Feb. 18.

Had Kitzhaber opted to stay, the legislature could not vote to remove him from office through impeachment, as lawmakers could in the 49 other states.

The House and Senate could only begin the long, twisting, and expensive process of a referring a recall by voters.

On top of that, state law bars any recall in the first six months that a governor is in office. Kitzhaber had been sworn in on Jan. 12, 2015. A recall effort couldn’t even start until mid-July.

Even then, the Oregon process had practical and political potholes.

In New York, when the governor leaves office for whatever reason, the elected lieutenant governor assumes the job.

Oregon is one of seven states without a lieutenant governor. Succession to the governorship has moved over the decades from the secretary of state to the senate president and back to the secretary of state.

When Kitzhaber resigned in 2015, Brown became governor. Under the constitution prior to 1971, it would have been Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem moving into the job of Oregon’s chief executive.

With some variation, legislatures in every state but Oregon follow a two-step process to remove a governor.

The legislative assembly brings charges — “impeachment.” The Senate then holds a trial.

If the Senate votes in favor of the impeachment, the governor is immediately removed from office.

If Cuomo had decided to stay, impeachment could have removed him from office in a month or two.

In Oregon, the recall can take several months. There are legal stops and starts that likely would end up in court. If and when it got to the ballot, the recall would be akin to an election.

Voters in 2020 approved a constitutional amendment to allow for campaign contribution limits. That filled in another pothole in the state constitution: court interpretations of Oregon’s broad “freedom of speech” rights were interpreted to include campaign contributions. Any amount from anyone — a person, business, union — was OK as long as it is reported.

The 2020 campaign financing reform ballot measure was a step towards reform – but left a half-baked result.

To simplify the ballot measure and increase its chance of passing and withstanding court challenger, it simply clarified that limits on campaign spending limits were not violations of free speech.

But the 2021  legislature stalled on negotiations of how much was too much, leaving the issue dangling into the 2022 election year. 

Another bit of political discomfort was who oversees the recall process in Oregon. Election law is handled by the secretary of state.

The secretary of state also become governor if a recall is successful.

The 2015 constitutional close call with Kitzhaber’s wobbling worked itself through in a relatively short time.

But it unsettled many lawmakers in both parties who became starkly aware of the systematic dysfunction of the constitution.

An obstinate, crazy or even criminal governor could retain power for several months, with no clear and final resolution leading to their removal guaranteed.

A bipartisan group of reformers quickly sought to change the constitution to allow for impeachment.

In 2015, a House Joint Resolution was introduced that would have put a constitutional amendment before voters in November 2016.

“The sad fact is, the people of Oregon are losing faith in their leaders, and it’s up to us to build their trust,” said Rep. Jodi Hack, R-Salem, one of the chief co-sponsors, during debate on the legislation.

Since the constitution did not allow for impeachment of any executive officeholders, the legislation was written to include not just the governor, but the secretary of state, treasurer, attorney general, and labor and industries commissioner.

Gov. Kate Brown, who as secretary of state took over when Kitzhaber resigned, remained officially neutral.

The legislation won bipartisan support, with then-House Majority Leader Val Hoyle, D-Eugene, in favor.

Both Republican and Democratic backers of the bill repeatedly said the effort was not about any specific governor. Democrats had won every election for governor since Republican Gov. Vic Atiyeh was re-elected in 1982.

The House passed the resolution 47-12. It stalled in the Senate. Assigned to the Senate Rules Committee chaired by Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, it was never brought up for a vote.

The House tried again in 2017, with another resolution to put the question to voters in the 2018 general election.

Brown had won a special election in 2016 to fill the remaining two years of Kitzhaber’s term. No longer a temporary replacement, Brown felt free to endorse the legislation.

Hack and new House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson, D-Portland, were chief co-sponsors. They were joined by House Republican Leader Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte.

Hack again framed the issue as a bi-partisan good government effort.

“I am, of course, hopeful that we would never need to pursue an impeachment proceeding, but we should not pretend that Oregon is immune to potential political scandals,” she said at the time.

Williamson, who left the Legislature in 2020, said in an interview last week that she was proud of the work with Hack to move the resolution to a vote without the tinge of partisanship.

“It wasn’t about Kitzhaber, or one governor or another,” Williamson said. “It was about giving Oregon something every other state had — a tool for holding elected officials responsible for their actions.”

The 2017 legislative history was a re-run of 2015. It passed the House 51-6 vote. It died in the Senate Rules Committee, which took no further action.

“We can always improve things,” Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, told the Oregonian of the inaction. “But I don’t see a crying need for sweeping reforms (at) this time.”

Williamson said the outcome was frustrating.

“I don’t know for sure why it died in the Senate,” she said. “No one takes changing the constitution lightly or quickly.”

It was difficult to shake the opinion among some Democrats that the resolution was a reaction to the Kitzhaber situation, which his allies called over-reaching if not an outright witchhunt.

“It was a big change in what felt like a pretty short period of time,” Williamson said. “That it was a response to a specific circumstance.”

The state and federal investigations of Kitzhaber were closed without any charges. In 2018, he negotiated to pay $20,000 in civil fines for violations of state ethics laws. 

Both Hack and Williamson have left the Legislature. Impeachment has been seen as a Republican issue tied to dislike of Brown’s policies.

But there has been change on the Senate side, too. Burdick retired after the 2021 session to take an appointment from Brown to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

The new Senate Majority Leader Robb Wagner, D-Oswego, joined the Senate in 2018, after the last push for an impeachment resolution. He’s now also chair of the Senate Rules Committee. 

Cuomo’s resignation has resurrected memories of the debate over the “only in Oregon” lack of the legislative power to impeach.

Williamson said she hoped for resurrection of a truly bipartisan effort to get a resolution passed.

She noted that over the history of Oregon, both Democrats and Republicans have held the governorship and large majorities in the House and Senate. Either should have the ability to remove a governor for wrongdoing.

“The political pendulum swings,” Williamson said. “You don’t know who will be in the majority and who will be in the minority in the future.”