Washington’s Insurance Commissioner Fights Impeachment With 60 Pages and a Statute of Limitations

Olympia — J. H. Schively, insurance commissioner, filed 60 typewritten pages in his answer to the impeachment proceedings, which was served Friday afternoon on Attorney General Bell. Pleading not guilty to each and every one of the 26 counts; claiming that the Senate court of impeachment is without jurisdiction to try the charges; entering a demur to each count; invoking the statute of limitations in 24 instances; denying that he has been absent from his office for extended periods or that he has brought the office into disrepute; and throwing all the blame onto Sam H. Nichols, ex-secretary of state, for acts committed during the time Nichols was ex-officio state insurance commissioner, Schively filed answer to the 26 impeachment charges preferred against him with the Senate by the House of Representatives.

In addition, Schively asks that 17 senators be barred from sitting at the trial. The first thing set forth in the answer is the request for the barring of Senator Paulhamus. Schively claims that Paulhamus is biased and holds a personal enmity toward the accused.

With relation to the charge, he says it is a private matter outside of the insurance department; that it is pending in the state courts at Spokane, where he is under indictment; that such courts have jurisdiction and the legislature should not interfere with that jurisdiction. The statute of limitation is pleaded as against some counts, and all of the counts are declared to charge no crime and that no issue can be joined thereon.