Impeach Rounds?

Even the local Republican party cheering section -- also known as the Madison Daily Leader -- recognizes Governor Mike Rounds has gone too far in assuming the power of the Legislature to fund an expansion of his classroom laptops program. Writes publisher Jon Hunter in Tuesday's MDL:

Gov. Mike Rounds extended his laptop program for another year, after the legislature rejected the idea in February, using state money the legislature didn't know existed.

Rounds should not have funded the program this way....

During the most recent legislative session, Rounds asked for another year's worth of funding but lawmakers declined. Disappointed, Rounds said he would like to find "private" sources to fund the program for another year. Most observers believed that meant a corporate sponsor.

Instead, the Rounds administration announced last week that it would use $770,000 left over from a settlement with Citibank. The settlement fund began in 1999 with $4.2 million, and had worked down to $1.2 million by January, when administration officials testified before the Joint Appropriations Committee. But Department of Education officials said all the money was already committed to continue previous obligations.

So two questions arise:

1) Did the money always exist and information was withheld from the legislature?

2) Did the administration bypass the will of the legislature by funding a program lawmakers defeated? [Jon Hunter, "Rounds Shouldn't Have Extended His Laptop Program This Way," Madison Daily Leader, 2008.05.27, p. 3]

Mr. Hunter has advertisements to sell to local Republican donors, so his editorial dissolves into a gentle call for the Governor and the Legislature to "get together and work things out." Hunter suggests this flap, along with the tussle over Governor Rounds's attempt to increase the ethanol tax by executive fiat, is just a failure of communication.

Failure of communication? Try breach of the state constitution. Try grounds for impeachment. We don't need the Dems to take over the House this fall to make this happen; Governor Rounds has angered enough Republicans with his imperial reign that a majority vote for impeachment might not be hard to obtain. If Rounds insists on further expropriation of legislative power, it might not be hard to find two-thirds of our Senators willing to make a stand for constitutional government.

Heck, even Lt. Gov. Daugaard might see some benefit for his 2010 gubernatorial aspirations. Daugaard may want to distance himself from Rounds's falling star as much as possible. Upon impeachment by the House, a governor is immediately suspended from his office until and unless the Senate acquits him. Impeachment would give Daugaard a couple weeks or more of practical on-the-job experience!