Jim Irvin is not the first Arizona corporation commissioner to resign when faced with the possibility of impeachment. Amos Betts did it in 1933.

Mr. Betts, who had been serving on the commission since 1917, resigned after the House passed a resolution calling for his impeachment along with fellow commissioner Charles Howe “for felonies, high crimes, misdemeanors and malfeasance in office.”

The story of Mr. Betts and Mr. Howe along with E.T. “Eddie” Williams and A.P. “Jack” Buzard, two commissioners who were the targets of impeachment proceedings in 1964, is outlined in a document prepared in 1987 for House members as background for the impending impeachment of Governor Evan Mecham.

Until then, the four corporation commissioners were the only state officials to have faced impeachment.

Of the four, Mr. Betts was the only one to resign and therefore did not have to undergo a trial in the Senate. The other three did go to trial, but the Senate acquitted them.

Mr. Mecham is the only state official ever to have been convicted after impeachment, in 1988, though the Senate did not take the additional step of forbidding him from ever holding office again.

For the 1933 trial, Mr. Howe was initially accused of “misapplication of state monies, fraudulent claims to state monies and misappropriation of travel monies.”

“Later, amended and supplemental articles of impeachment were filed with the Senate listing 13 other counts in an 80-page document,” says the House report.

“Respondent Howe entered pleas contesting the articles based on the fact that they were not approved by the full House and contesting jurisdiction because several of the House managers had been active in a pre-impeachment investigation of the commission,” it continues. “Neither plea was sustained.”

However, Mr. Howe was acquitted on all counts in a trial that ran from July 18 to Aug. 4. He remained in office and served out his term.

Meanwhile, Mr. Betts, having avoided trial by resigning, bided his time and ran for the commission again in 1936. He was elected and served through 1943.

1 Trial Featured Future Justice

The 1964 trial of Mr. Williams and Mr. Buzard featured, as prosecutor, a young lawyer named William Rehnquist, today the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Mr. Williams and Mr. Buzard were impeached by the House on charges of soliciting bribes, owning stock in regulated corporations and improper campaign contributions.

Their Senate trial lasted six weeks, starting April 27 and ending June 9. Both were acquitted.

Mr. Williams’s lawyers were not as successful in a maneuver to get the Senate to authorize payment of defense costs from the state treasury.

“This (impeachment trial) will pauperize me,” Mr. Williams reportedly said. “I have a $30,000 legal bill.”

He continued to serve on the commission until 1968. —