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HARRISBURG &#8212; Pennsylvania state senators are launching a process that could end in the removal of embattled Attorney General Kathleen Kane from office, Senate officials said Friday, a day after the suspension of her law license took effect.The move had been expected ever since Montgomery County authorities charged Kane, of Scranton, on Aug. 6 with felony perjury and other counts, accusing her of leaking secret investigative information to a newspaper and lying about it. The Supreme Court voted to suspend the Democrat&#8217;s law license last month, and the suspension took effect Thursday.The Senate will form a special committee and appoint members on Monday, Senate officials said. It will examine whether she can perform the functions of the office while her law license is suspended.&#8220;Our folks will come back and tell us yes or no,&#8221; said Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Allegheny.Kane has said she is innocent and is fighting the charges. She remains in office and has said she will continue to perform most of her official duties.Her spokesman, Chuck Ardo, said Friday that she believes it would be premature for the Senate to take any action before her criminal case is resolved in court.The six-member, bipartisan committee will have 30 days to issue a report to the full Senate with its findings, officials said. If it determines she cannot fully perform her duties, it could recommend that it take up a process under a never-used constitutional provision to remove her from office.&#8220;This is, I think, a very serious, grave and unprecedented action that the Senate is embarking on,&#8221; said Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson.Under the constitution, certain elected officials can be removed &#8220;for reasonable cause&#8221; by the governor and a two-thirds vote of the Senate, but the constitution does not spell out the process other than saying a full hearing and due notice are required.Ardo said the process, called &#8220;direct removal,&#8221; should not apply to Kane&#8217;s case and was attempted once, unsuccessfully, in 1891, under a prior version of the constitution. He said the provision was meant to deal only with issues of incapacity, such as long-term illness.Scarnati said the Constitution gives the Senate full authority to look at removing Kane.&#8220;I believe we&#8217;re on firm footing,&#8221; Scarnati said.After she was charged, Gov. Tom Wolf, a fellow Democrat, called on Kane to resign. His office said Friday the administration has talked with Senate leadership about &#8220;ensuring that the citizens of Pennsylvania have an effective and properly functioning Office of Attorney General.&#8221;The five Supreme Court justices &#8212; three Republicans and two Democrats &#8212; voted privately last month to suspend Kane&#8217;s license and allowed 30 days for the move to take effect. Their decision came after state ethics lawyers accused Kane of admitting in grand jury testimony that she had authorized the release of information that allegedly should have been kept secret.That allegation is also central to the criminal case against her. Kane&#8217;s lawyers have argued that she did not disclose grand jury material or information kept secret under state criminal records laws.Kane, the first Democrat and first woman elected to the job, has 14 months until the end of her term in January 2017. Kane, 49, a former Lackawanna County prosecutor, won the office in a landslide election in 2012.<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Marc LevyAssociated Press</bylineMeta></div>

Pennsylvania Senate looking into removing attorney general