Governorship of Sarah Palin December 4, 2006, and maintained a high approval rating throughout her term. On July 3, 2009, Sarah Palin announced her resignation as governor of Alaska. She stepped down on July 26, 2009, being replaced by Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell. Palin had championed ethics reform throughout her election campaign. Her first legislative action after taking office was to push for a bipartisan ethics reform bill. She signed the resulting legislation in July 2007, calling it a "first step" declaring that she remains determined to clean up Alaska politics. However, Palin was also the subject of an ethics probe concerning her brother-in-law,
Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal for a time, the acting city manager, of Kenai. She had previously nominated Kopp in March 2007 to the Alaska Judicial Council, to which he was later confirmed. (He resigned on July 13, 2008.) The Alaska Judicial Council recommends judges for selection in the state. According to the "Anchorage Daily News", Kopp "was a rising star in Alaska's Christian conservative movement." In Kenai, Kopp had been previously suspended and investigated for sexual harassment of an employee. Palin said she believed, when she named him on July 11, that the investigation had cleared him, and that she learned that Kopp had