Lawmakers voted 107-85 to impeach District Attorney Larry Krasner, setting the stage for what would be the first impeachment trial in the Pennsylvania Senate in nearly three decades. Republicans currently hold a 29-21 majority in the state Senate, up from 28-22 early next year, and it would take a two-thirds vote of senators present to remove Krasner. Krasner, who was overwhelmingly re-elected by Philadelphia voters last year, is not accused of breaking the law. Instead, Republicans argued that he should be removed from office for a variety of reasons, including his failure to prosecute certain minor crimes and his bail policies, his oversight of his staff and reports that his office did not adequately notify victims crimes on certain subjects. They also alleged that Krasner obstructed a House investigation of his office. Krasner said in a statement that the vote was the only time the state House has “used the drastic measure of impeaching an elected official because they don’t like their ideas.” “In the hundreds of years the Commonwealth has existed, this is the only time the House has used the drastic solution of impeaching an elected official because they don’t like their ideas. These ideas are exactly why the voters of Philadelphia elected and re-elected me to serve as Philly DA – in two landslides. These ideas include doing more and doing better for victims and survivors, solving crime through modern science enforcement, and investing deeply in violence prevention. And it’s why elected officials who don’t live or vote in Philadelphia are trying so hard to erase the votes of Philadelphians: because they preferred the status quo. They accused me without presenting a shred of evidence linking our policies to any rise in crime. We were never given a chance to defend our ideas and policies – policies I would be proud to explain. That Pennsylvania Republicans willfully avoided hearing the facts about my office is shameful. Each voter of Philadelphia is not only 3/5 of the voter. Philadelphia is not the colony of Pennsylvania. Philadelphians get taxation AND representation. Philadelphian votes and Philadelphian voters should not be deleted. History will judge this anti-democratic authoritarian attempt to erase the Philly vote – the votes of Black, brown and damaged people in Philadelphia. And the voters will have the last word.” Democrats said lawmakers have removed only two officials — both judges — by impeachment: the first in 1811 and state Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen in 1994. State Rep. Martina White, R-Philadelphia, a lead sponsor of the impeachment resolution and a political ally of the city’s police union that clashed with Krasner, said: “This man has denied that there is even a crime crisis on our street.” “No public official is above accountability, and if not for us in this parliament, there would be no oversight,” White said. Former U.S. Attorney Tim Bonner, R-Mercer, said “anarchy and violence will prevail” if elected leaders can choose which laws to obey or enforce. “No one person has the right to set aside laws of Congress or the General Assembly because they just don’t like the law. No one has that degree of absolute power,” Boehner said. Democrats have argued that Krasner has been a scapegoat for broader crime problems, that the case against him is weak and that his removal would be an abuse of legislative power. They said impeachment would defeat the will of voters and that House Republicans themselves have failed to act to address gun violence. “You’re doing the wrong thing,” said state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia. “I’ll be generous and say you might be wrong. But if you look at what we have before us, and when we think of the sacred obligation we have as members of this august body, it is not what we should do. to do”. State Rep. Mike Zabel, a Philadelphia Democrat who served as an assistant city attorney under Krasner’s predecessor in office, said Krasner was unfairly accused of things that weren’t entirely his fault. “The truth is, prosecuting crimes in one of the nation’s largest cities is a complex task with a never-ending parade of challenges,” Zabel said, urging fellow lawmakers to “take a break from the political cliff.” It is unclear when the state Senate will begin a trial. The two-year legislative session ends in two weeks, but the chamber’s top Republican, state Sen. Kim Ward of Westmoreland County, said this week she plans to add days to the session to deal with the issue. If the Senate returns before the end of the year, it will have to figure out next steps, likely setting the rules first and then formally accepting the articles of impeachment from the House. The process is not expected to be completed quickly. In a lengthy report Oct. 24, the Republican House Select Committee on Law and Order Restoration, which was authorized to examine Krasner’s tenure as prosecutor, said that in the previous 21 1/2 months, there had been 992 homicides in the city, compared to 551 in 2015-16. The report also found that 18-20% of gun crimes were dismissed by Krasner’s office, compared to 8-10% statewide. However, Krasner’s office responded that 20 of the 54 US cities with at least 10 murders in 2019 saw larger increases in homicides than Philadelphia did in 2019-21. And Krasner has noted that homicide rates during those years were higher in five of the state’s 13 largest counties — Allegheny, Berks, Chester, Lehigh and Luzerne — than they were in Philadelphia. The resolution directed House Speaker Brian Cutler, R-Lancaster, to name two Republicans and one Democrat to handle the Senate case.
