Kathleen Kane

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s attorney general battled on two fronts to keep her job Monday, telling the Senate it can’t remove her on its own and asking the Supreme Court to reinstate her law license. Attorney General Kathleen Kane asked the high court to reverse its September order putting her on temporary, indefinite suspension a month after she was charged with leaking grand jury information.

The first-term Democrat also wrote to a Senate committee a day before its final meeting, saying the chamber can’t kick her out of the elected job unless the House first acts to impeach her.

Her lawyers told the court, which swore in three new Democrats last week, that Republican Justice Michael Eakin should not have voted to suspend her because of his own participation in trading bawdy and otherwise objectionable e-mails with lawyers, prosecutors and others.

Kane “has never had a hearing,” her lawyers wrote. “She has never been found guilty of anything. Justice can only be served and injustices can only be prevented by her immediate reinstatement to the practice of law.”

They said Eakin’s role in her suspension gives an appearance of impropriety and raises questions about his impartiality.

Eakin awaits trial by a judicial ethics court over his role in exchanging offensive e-mails.

Meanwhile, a judge ruled that the attorney general’s office has the authority to continue trying cases.

A Pittsburgh newspaper reported Monday that Armstrong County President Judge Kenneth Valasek rejected two defense lawyers’ arguments that the suspension of Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s law license precludes her office from trying criminal cases.

Judge Valasek’s ruling comes before the Senate committee’s final meeting on Kane’s possible removal from office.

In a seven-page letter to the Special Committee on Senate Address, Kane argued the Senate does not have authority to remove her from office under an obscure constitutional provision now being considered for use against her.

The committee will hold its fourth and final hearing today about the direct removal proposal and whether Kane can do what the job requires with her law license under suspension. She declined the committee’s invitation to appear in person.

“This Senate committee is subverting the process of impeachment and/or trial by jury and attempting direct removal based upon an administrative action that largely relied upon newspaper articles, with no rules of evidence imposed, and an allegation of a crime,” she wrote to the chairman, Sen. John Gordner, R-Columbia.

She said the Senate procedure under discussion would “circumvent the proper procedure and deprive the citizens, and the office holder, of the constitutional guarantees adopted by voters.”