NC House Committee Considering Impeachment Proceedings Against Elaine Marshall

A committee in the North Carolina House of Representatives will consider legislation that would begin impeachment proceedings against North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall on Wednesday.

The House Rules Committee will consider two resolutions related to a possible impeachment during a meeting Wednesday morning.

One resolution will establish rules and procedures for impeachment proceedings in the House and the other resolution would establish a committee to investigate allegations of misconduct made against Marshall.

The legislation will be considered as a proposed committee substitute, a process that allows lawmakers to introduce legislative proposals long after the deadline to file bills has passed.

Rep. Chris Millis (R-Pender) will introduce the resolutions. The move comes months after he called attention to the fact that Marshall was commissioning notaries public who are not legal residents of the United States.

Millis demanded Marshall’s resignation in March, after her office commissioned people holding DACA cards, a program started by the Obama administration that allows certain illegal aliens who entered the U.S. as minors to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit.

A notary public witnesses and certifies the signing of important documents, including birth certificates and absentee ballots.

In March, Millis said he would move to impeach Marshall if she did not voluntarily leave office.

A copy of the draft legislation reviewed by WBTV outlined four areas that the proposed investigative committee would examine:

• “That Secretary of State Elaine F. Marshall granted notary public commissions to several hundred persons who did not ‘(r)eside legally in the United States’ in violation of G.S. 10B-5, and who were not ‘qualified aliens’ in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1621.”
• “That Secretary of State Elaine F. Marshall granted said notary commissions to ineligible aliens surreptitiously, without means for the public or the General Assembly to have knowledge of such action.”
• “That Secretary of State Elaine F. Marshall made untrue statements to the press and public involving the grant of these notary commissions to ineligible aliens.”
• “That senior staff of the office of the Secretary of State, in furtherance of Secretary Elaine F. Marshall’s actions, misrepresented the facts surrounding the granting of these notary commissions to ineligible aliens to the Joint Legislative Oversite Committee on General Government of the North Carolina General Assembly.”