Bid to Impeach Alaska Governor All but Dead

A state Senate committee Saturday all but guaranteed that Gov. Bill Sheffield will not be impeached for allegedly steering a lucrative state lease to a political supporter and lying about it to a grand jury.

By a 4-1 vote, the five-member, Republican-dominated Senate Rules Committee sent to the Senate floor a report sharply critical of the first-term Democrat’s actions but did not recommend his impeachment.

Republican Senate President Don Bennett said the report could be amended into an impeachment motion Monday on the Senate floor, but the veteran lawmaker said he was certain such an amendment would not succeed.

“I think ultimately the people will be the judge in the 1986 elections,” Bennett said.

As it emerged after committee revision, one section of the report said: “It is the personal opinion of a majority of the Rules Committee that the evidence that an impeachable offense occurred, though substantial, does not rise to the level of ‘clear and convincing evidence.’ The rules committee also believes that sufficient support to approve one or more articles of impeachment is not available to the Senate.”

Fourteen of 20 Senate votes would be needed to send articles of impeachment to the House for trial.

The report recommended formation of committees to study state procurement procedures, ethics legislation and proper powers of grand juries.

Sheffield spokesman Bob Miller described the governor as “relieved the ordeal is almost over and looking positive for us.”

But Miller criticized the draft report’s accusatory tone, saying the committee “is suggesting the governor is a little bit pregnant.” The legislative action was initiated after the grand jury recommended July 2 that the legislature consider impeaching Sheffield for allegedly manipulating lease specifications and lying about his role.

The committee’s action followed 11 days of testimony. On Friday, the panel heard summations presented by Senate attorney Samuel Dash, former counsel to the U.S. Senate Watergate committee, and Philip A. Lacovara, Sheffield’s lawyer and a former Watergate prosecutor. They focused exclusively on perjury allegations.

Dash said there was “clear and convincing” evidence that Sheffield lied to the grand jury about his role in narrowing specifications to steer a $9.1-million Fairbanks state office lease to labor leader Joseph (Lenny) Arsenault. The lease later was canceled.

The governor told the grand jury he could not recall conversations and meetings that would have put him at the center of moves to steer the lease to Arsenault.

Lacovara contended that Sheffield’s cloudy memory was due to a crowded schedule and that the governor took little interest in the lease negotiations.