This question came to me when thinking about recent events in Eliot Spitzer’s life, but if anyone wants to cite other officials, that’s fine.
Eliot Spitzer is the Governor of New York State. He recently got mentioned in a scandal, and today he resigned from his position (effective a few days from now).
My question is this: When this sort of thing happens to someone in business, resigning is often a way to salvage some benefits (such as pension or other things) which would be forfeited in the case of getting fired. Is this also true of elected officials? Are there benefits which are given to a former governor, which Spitzer will be entitled to, because he resigned voluntarily?
For public relations purposes, the reason usually given for these resignations is often the idea of sparing the public the pain and ordeal of a long drawn-out impeachment process. Spitzer did not mention anything like this, but President Nixon certainly did.
So: will Spitzer be getting anything as a former governor? And would he have gotten it if he was removed from office forcibly?
I don’t know the answer to the question (and it probably varies from state to state), but I have a guess on the general guidelines:
Impeached/Convicted – you lose everything
Resign – you keep your benefits, but you could probably still lose it if the circumstances of your resignation result in a criminal conviction.
According to this article Spitzer’s pension is safe even if he’s convicted of a crime. It doesn’t say what would have happened if he had beenimpeached.
Here’s an article describing the situation in Oklahoma.
I believe that was one of the factors in Nixon resigning when he did. Congress was about to introduce Articles of Impeachment against him. By resigning when he did, he was able to keep his lifetime pension, office budget, Secret Service protection, etc.