HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania lawmakers made a hasty return to the state Capitol from their summer recess on Tuesday as they prepared to rush through a replacement for the state’s convicted ex-attorney general.
The scheduled confirmation vote on Bruce Beemer comes nearly two weeks after Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf nominated him to head an office racked by infighting and scandal under Kathleen Kane.
Beemer was in the Capitol meeting with senators and was to be sworn in later Tuesday in Wolf’s offices after a Senate vote. Under Senate rules, senators were required to wait until at least Sunday to vote on Beemer’s nomination.
Kane was convicted of abusing the powers of the state’s top law enforcement office by leaking secret grand jury information to smear a rival and lying under oath to cover it up. She resigned Aug. 17, two days after her conviction, and faces prison time.
Beemer, the former top deputy to Kane, was promoted into the post by Kane, but he later clashed publicly with her and provided testimony that helped prosecutors to convict her.
Beemer left his post as Kane’s top deputy last month to become Wolf’s inspector general, an office that investigates complaints about fraud, waste and misconduct in state agencies.
He is expected to fill the remaining five months of Kane’s term until a successor picked by voters in the November election is sworn in Jan. 17.
Beemer, 47, took on some of the office’s major legal decisions and openly confronted Kane over the agency’s operations after the state Supreme Court suspended her law license last fall.
He also gave unflattering testimony about Kane at her trial earlier this month, including the contention that Kane told him it was “no big deal” when he told her a 2014 article in the Philadelphia Daily News contained information he deemed to be protected by investigation secrecy laws.
The information in the article was leaked by Kane, prosecutors said.
