The House Turns on Its Insurance Commissioner

OLYMPIA—By unanimous vote and without comment or debate, the lower house of the legislature adopted a resolution impeaching James H. Schively, state insurance commissioner, and authorized the appointment of a committee of seven members to formulate the charges.

This action was taken after it was learned that the house bill abolishing the office of insurance commissioner had not succeeded in passing the senate and was likely to be defeated in that body.

The impeachment resolution was introduced in the house by Slayden, of Pierce; Renick, of King, and Lambert, of Whatcom. Warm personal friends of Schively who had stood out in the regular session against an investigation voted silently and deliberately for impeachment.

After the charges against Schively have been formulated and accepted by the house and presented to the senate by the house committee appointed as managers of the impeachment proceedings, the house as a body will have nothing further to do with the impeachment trial. A quorum of the senate membership is necessary at all sessions during the impeachment trial, and a two-thirds vote of the entire membership will be necessary to convict.

Penalty Is Removal. The penalty for impeachment is removal from office and the emoluments thereof. The senate sits as a court of exclusive jurisdiction and there is no appeal from its decision.

Sensational disclosures are expected when the hearing of the impeachment proceedings take place. Schively has openly announced that he will make a clean breast of many things which have been in doubt when he shall come face to face with the loss of his citizenship and the besmirching of his name for all time.

The appointment of committees to prepare charges in the house and draft rules for the guidance of the senate indicate the determination to at once get down to work and make the greatest possible haste in clearing the statehouse of the rumors and charges which have been connected with the different state departments by probing to the bottom the charges made against Schively in the open senate sessions.

Appropriates $40,000. Estimates expressed in debate placed the length of the session from three weeks to three months, and one of the first moves made after it became known that impeachment would prevail as the course of action was the increase by the senate of the appropriation of $2,000 passed by the house for legislative expenses to the sum of $40,000, and the house concurred in this amendment.

In addition to the length of time required for the impeachment trial, there is nothing to prevent further prolongation in miscellaneous legislation. Bills are appearing in both houses. Two have been introduced in the lower branch and five in the senate, none of which deal with matters of investigation.

Both houses passed a bill making the state treasurer custodian of all the funds of the state colleges. The bill received but two opposing votes in the house and passed unanimously in the senate.

Bills Introduced. Bills were introduced in the senate repealing the Wenatchee bridge appropriation, amounting to $210,000, including interest; repealing the upper Columbia river improvement appropriation of $50,000; repealing the exemption of supreme judges from the primary law provisions; repealing the Metropolitan Park bill—all measures of the last session—a relief bill for the Olympia National Park and the Duwamish waterway bill.

The senate unanimously passed the Nichols resolution, continuing its present investigation committee. It reads: "That the special committee appointed at the last general session of the legislature for the purpose of investigating state officers and institutions is hereby authorized to continue said investigation and to report their findings to the governor not later than April 1, 1910. Said findings shall be made public within fifteen days after the report of said committee to the governor."