HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Pennsylvania State Representative from Butler County and 24 co-sponsors filed a resolution Tuesday calling for the impeachment of Governor Tom Wolf.
House Resolution 915, introduced by Republican Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, contains five articles of impeachment against Wolf.
The first article of impeachment introduced in the resolution accuses Wolf of violating the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution by violating the prohibition against unlawful seizures and the right not to be deprived of property without due process of law or compensation with his order to close all non-life-sustaining businesses in his March 6 COVID-19 emergency declaration. He also violated Pennsylvanians' rights to equal representation guaranteed by the 15th Amendment, the impeachment article said.
The second article of impeachment said the waiver program Wolf introduced for businesses looking to stay open under the stay-at-home order was "applied in an arbitrary and capricious manner, leading to inconsistent and unjust results which determined the fate of the livellhoods of many citizens of this Commonwealth."
The third article accuses Wolf of failure to properly prepare the Department of Labor and Industry for the new wave of unemployment claims his stay-at-home mandate created.
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"Governor Wolf should have known well in advance and begun (sic) preparing for the massive influx of unemployment compensation claims after he issued the mandated business closure orders," the article said. Governor Wolf's failure to direct the Department of Labor and Industry and the Office of Unemployment Compensation to appropriately staff and administer unemployment compensation offices further contributed to the suffering of the citizens of this Commonwealth initially created by his mandated business closure orders."
The fourth article accuses Wolf of failing to adequately protect residents of Pennsylvania nursing homes from the COVID-19 outbreak.
"Although Governor Wolf had ample notice that residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities were at severe risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19, Governor Wolf failed to direct the Department of Health to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to protect them," the articles says. "More than two-thirds of all COVID-19-related fatalities in this commonwealth have occurred in nursing homes and long-term care facilities."
The fifth article says Wolf has actively withheld information from the public, press, and General Assembly regarding issues pertaining to the COVID-19 outbreak, as he is bound to do under Right-to-Know laws.
"The Governor has refused for months to release requested information related to the waiver program for reopening businesses shuttered by Governor Wolf's mandated business closure orders established under the Department of community and Economic Development," the article states. "While Governor Wolf has finally begun to release some of the relevant information regarding the waiver program, his delays and obfuscation have been and continue to be entirely unacceptable."
Metcalfe said in a statement it is time to hold the governor accountable for his actions, which Metcalfe said has harmed many of Pennsylvania's citizens and violated their rights.
"Wolf's unconstitutional dictates and Orwellian overreach into our lives and the marketplace has caused immeasurable harm and hardship for far more Pennsylvanians than the virus," Metcalfe said.
