Impeachment in the United States a single vote in 1912. Several others, most recently Missouri's Eric Greitens, have resigned rather than face impeachment, when events seemed to make it inevitable. The most recent impeachment of a state governor occurred on January 14, 2009, when the Illinois House of Representatives voted 117–1 to impeach Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges; he was subsequently removed from office and barred from holding future office by the Illinois Senate on January 29. He was the eighth U.S. state governor to be removed from office. The procedure for impeachment, or removal, of local officials varies widely. For instance, in New York
2009 New York State Senate leadership crisis fellow Democratic Senator Ruben Diaz, walked out on the Democrats; the two stated that they were not abandoning the Democratic Conference, but that the power struggle must end. Shortly following the attempted change in Senate leadership, Governor David Paterson announced that he would avoid out-of-state travel, saying "the best thing for me to do is to stay here." The New York Constitution states that whenever the governor is out of state, the lieutenant governor becomes acting governor. Since there was no clear line of succession, it was unclear who would have become acting governor, which is a situation the Governor