The Kentucky House of Representatives formed an impeachment committee and met for the first time to discuss rules it will use to review petitions filed by the public against elected officials for their removal.

In the committee’s first meeting on Jan. 21, it accepted petitions filed during the interim and posted them online, including one against Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Pamela Goodwine and two other elected officials.

According to the rules of the committee, if the group recommends impeachment, the entire state House could approve it with a majority vote. Articles of impeachment would then be sent to the Senate where it would take a two-thirds vote to remove the elected official from office.

Goodwine — who was elected in November 2024 and became the state’s first Black female justice — was the swing vote to rehear a case last spring related to the Jefferson County Board of Education’s attempt to challenge a 2022 law that would limit its power.

Goodwine was elected from the 5th Supreme Court District, which include Fayette and its surrounding counties.

Goodwine was not on the bench when the case was first brought before the court that decided the bill could be upheld. She voted with the majority last December in overturning the previous ruling that deemed the bill unconstitutional.

In the petition against Goodwine, filed by attorney and former chair of the Jefferson County Republican Party Jack Richardson, he alleges the justice had a conflict of interest in the case since the Jefferson County teachers’ union had given large contributions to a political action committee that bought ads supporting her in her election.

Goodwine’s attorney, Carmine Iaccarino from Lexington-based Sturgill, Turner, Baker & Moloney PLLC, said in a statement the justice was aware of the petition and would respond to it if asked to do so by the committee, “but the petition has no merit and should be dismissed.,”

Iaccarino continued in the statement: “Justice Goodwine takes seriously her obligations to the Court, the Rule of Law, and the People of Kentucky, as well as her personal and professional reputation, and rejects the baseless allegations in the petition.”

Iaccarino has also represented embattled London Mayor Randall Weddle during his impeachment, removal from office and subsequent reinstatement last year.

The committee is chaired by Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Middletown, who will recuse himself from reviewing Goodwine’s case because he’s taken campaign contributions from Richardson. The committee’s vice chair Rep. John Blanton, R-Salyersville, will preside over the inquiry into Goodwine.

Nemes told reporters Tuesday each impeachment petition will be handled based on its own merits.

“We could dismiss it outright, because we think that the grounds in the petition are not founded. We could ask for a response,” he said. “There’s all kinds of things that will be done. Each of the petitions will be handled differently, or maybe not differently, but separately.”

The impeachment committee will also review petitions asking for the removal of Marshall County Family Court Judge Stephanie J. Perlow and Ballard County Jailer Eric Coppess.

The Perlow petition was filed last month by a Paducah resident who claims the judge exhibited a “sustained pattern of jurisdictional violations, financial misconduct, and obstruction of appellate review” related to his case when it was in her court.

The petition to remove Coppess was sent last fall by the county’s Judge-Executive Todd Cooper.

In the petition, Cooper notes the county fiscal court previously voted for his resignation but Coppess has since refused to leave his position.

The jailer has also, according to the petition, denied claims made by a county ethics committee that his leadership and lack thereof is the reason for misconduct by his staff at the local jail.

Democratic representatives from Lexington, Anne Donworth and George Brown Jr., are on the 11-member committee alongside Republican Reps. Jennifer Decker, Kim King, Steve Doan, Robert Duvall and Mike Clines, as well as fellow Democrat Reps. Pamela Stevenson and Mary Lou Marzian.

In a previous impeachment committee formed in 2021, Nemes was chair when the group reviewed petitions filed to remove Gov. Andy Beshear, former Attorney General Daniel Cameron and former Rep. Robert Goforth from office. The committee did not recommend impeachment for those officials.

In 2023 however, the Senate voted in favor of removing former Commonwealth’s Attorney Ronnie Goldy for Bath, Rowan, Menifee and Montgomery counties.

He had asked a defendant for sexual favors in exchange for a potentially better outcome in her case. Goldy was later convicted on more than a dozen federal charges related to the misconduct and was sentenced to more than three years in prison.

The Goldy impeachment hearing and trial was the first the Kentucky Senate had conducted in 135 years.

The House impeachment committee meets again Jan. 22 after the chamber adjourns for the day.

©2026 Lexington Herald-Leader. Visit at kentucky.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.