[JURIST] A committee in the lower house of the Brazilian legislature [official website, in Portuguese] voted 38-27 on Monday to recommend the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff [BBC profile] over corruption and budget violations before her 2014 re-election. The full lower house must pass the recommendation by a two-thirds majority vote [BBC report] to send the provision to the Senate. The voting committee was set up secretly in December and stacked with proponents of Rousseff’s impeachment.

Last week the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court ordered [JURIST report] the legislature to commence impeachment proceedings against Vice President Michel Temer. In December the Supreme Court of Brazil ruled [JURIST report] on two measures to set the stage for impeachment proceedings against Rousseff: one requiring the re-formation of a congressional committee set up to guide Rousseff’s impeachment through Congress, and the other giving the Senate power to review a lower house vote for impeachment. Rousseff’s opposition claimed [Reuters report] that she doctored documents to hide the size of the national deficit in order to spend more government funds as her re-election neared. It is also believed she continued to forge documents in her second term and spent over USD $210 million without the legislature’s approval. Rousseff argued that the opposition is trying to impeach her to hinder government actions.