COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina legislators upset with Gov. Mark Sanford’s summer disappearance to see his lover in Argentina began a monthslong process on Tuesday that could ultimately remove the two-term Republican from office.

The panel of the House Judiciary Committee that’s debating impeachment discussed his five-day absence in June and problems related to it, including the failure to put someone in charge of the state while he was gone.

At an hourlong meeting, the panel’s seven members also talked about how they would proceed with at least three more hearings in early December. The next one is scheduled for next Tuesday, and a vote by the panel is expected by the second week of December.

“All he had to do was tell the lieutenant governor that he was going away,” said Rep. Greg Delleney, RChester, one of the sponsors of the impeachment resolution. “He didn’t even have to tell him where he was going. He just had to tell him that he was going away.”

The four Republicans and one Democrat who cosponsored the impeachment measure say Sanford was derelict in his duty and wrong to mislead staffers into thinking he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. The measure says in part that Sanford’s “conduct under these circumstances has brought extreme dishonor and shame to the Office of the Governor of South Carolina and to the reputation of the State of South Carolina.”

If the impeachment measure passes the panel, it would head to the full Judiciary Committee. From there it would need a majority vote of the 25 members to get it to the House floor in January for debate. A two-thirds vote in favor would result in Sanford’s suspension.

The Senate, acting as jury, then would decide whether Sanford would be removed from office, which would also require a two-thirds vote. His second and final term ends in January 2011.