The Pennsylvania House expects to vote in September on a resolution to reauthorize an investigation to determine whether to pursue the impeachment of Schuylkill County Commissioner George F. Halcovage Jr. for alleged sexual misconduct.

The House reconvenes at noon on Sept. 26, about 14 weeks before Halcovage, who lost his bid for election to a fourth term, leaves office.

The initial resolution, sponsored by Republican Schuylkill County state Representatives Tim Twardzik, Joanne Stehr, Jamie Barton, and Dane Watro, was passed by the house Judiciary Committee on July 7.

It will be brought up for a vote by Democratic House Speaker Joanna E. McClinton and Majority Leader Matthew D. Bradford, said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Tim Briggs.

From there, the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts will relaunch the investigation, which began last year.

“We need to finish what we started,” Twardzik said last week, “The victims haven’t had their resolution and he hasn’t been able to clear him his name, if that’s the resolution. We’re serious about holding the rules for elected officials.”

The investigation will build on evidence gathered by the previous subcommittee, including testimony that was given last fall.

The subcommittee is to report its findings to the judiciary committee within nine months of the resolution’s adoption, or, if an extension is needed, by the end of this year’s legislative session in November.

If the subcommittee recommends impeachment, the matter will be sent to the Senate for a trial.

Impeachment is a rare solution, and the sole way to unseat an elected official.

Whether impeachment would affect his pension is unclear. The state statute says public officials are not entitled to receive any retirement or other benefit or payment of any kind except a return of the contribution paid into any pension fund without interest, if found guilty of a crime related to public office or public employment or pleads guilty or nolo contendere to any crime related to public office or public employment.

In 2020, Halcovage was found to have violated three county policies concerning sexual-harassment, conduct and disciplinary action, and physical and verbal abuse, by its Human Services Department.

The move to impeach Halcovage stems from an ongoing federal lawsuit filed in March 2021 by four women who work at the courthouse.

Identified in the suit as Jane Does 1,2,3, and 4, the filing accuses Halcovage of sexually harassing them from the time when he was first elected in 2012.

An addition to the suit was filed in October 2021, alleging the women were retaliated and discriminated against for filing the first suit.

Two of the women were in September 2021 demoted and suspended without pay for allegedly doing unauthorized searches of people using county software.

The county hired the Harrisburg law firm of Eckerd Seamans to conduct an investigation, the results of which have never been made public.

Two attempts to fire them failed. They subsequently received unemployment compensation for 26 weeks.