Richards to push for Pence's pardon power limit idea.

Reacting to Steve Pence's call for the limitation of the Governor's pardon power, the Speaker of the House, Jody Richards, says he "strongly supports [the idea that] ... "a governor should have the power to pardon, but only be able to pardon persons who have first been convicted" and predicted that "there's support for it and there's real rationale to do it this session". No word yet on how the Senate feels about the issue as David Williams, Senate President, could not be reached for comment. Gov. Fletcher wants the "extremely, extremely important [pardon power]... for reasons that may occur such as prosecutorial abuse". Pence, however, disagreed and suggested instead that unless the power was curtailed, it would be used to derail the prosecution of public corruption cases. A constitutional amendment would require the approval of two-thirds of the members of the Senate, and of the House, and then a majority vote by the voters at the 2008 general election. You can read the rest of the story here.