Sarah has written extensively about it in her books but there were so many lawsuits filed against her as Governor, mostly by outside agitators but some Alaskan libs as a way to shut her up and shut her down.
That was not the only problem but was the emphasis, as she put it, that serving as Governor, a mere state employee, the State of Alaska was forced to hire legal defense for each and every trivial thing - and they were all ultimately thrown out of court but not before they were adjudicated (meaning going through the motions, hearings, evidence taking, depositions taking and finally briefs filing) that it was beginning to look as though these lawsuits could potentially bankrupt the State of Alaska, a state that had been heavily in debt, which was why Sarah ran for Governor in the first place.
Her work was not only to get the state out of debt but to get a surplus for when hard times hit.
Sarah was proud of her state no longer being in debt an she was also proud to being reelected by an 80% approval rating, try that on Obama!
She made the personally painful decision to step away as Governor so that the state was no longer responsible to defend her as an state employee, if she weren't Governor, thus no money would be spent because she became a target for every kook.
She also needed a job paying more than Governor paid to help pay her family's portion of some of these trivial lawsuits, to supplant the income she and Todd's fishing business could afford, without bankrupting their family.
She was able to do just that by writing and speaking engagements but only after leaving as Governor.
Lastly, some of the first things that Sarah did upon becoming Governor, was to sell the state plane that cost the state thousands and had been for the use for the Governor only. She said that the state couldn't afford it, afford to fly one person around to speaking engagements within the state.
Secondly, she let the full time chefs go telling the people that her family had been preparing their own meals and could simply continue to do so but hire extra help when official state dinners would be served but that she wouldn't keep a full time staff devoted to preparing and serving to her and her family - that they were no better than the other citizens in her state and the citizens didn't need to be taxed to have someone cook for just her and her family.
Sarah's sense of pride of accomplishment would have been tarnished had she stayed and fought on as Governor, knowing all the while, the very people she had desired to serve were having their taxes squandered to fight frivolous lawsuits against her merely because she had decided to run for the position of Vice President.
I, for one, admire anyone who steps away from a position when they realize that they are a target for every kook to sue, only to make the taxpayers defend them against every kook's lawsuit.
Hope this settles some of your questions about the real reasons for Sarah's decision to leave as Governor of Alaska.
So in today’s political world, you can just sue an officeholder to death and get away with it, is that it? You don’t think that this goes on with others but is dealt with behind closed doors? If this was so effective at getting Sarah out of office, why isn’t there more evidence that it works with other in similar circumstances?
“Lastly, some of the first things that Sarah did upon becoming Governor”
None of those things you list has anything to do with the discussion. I applauded Sarah for her approach to governing. (BTW Ronald Reagan sold Jerry the Fairy’s father’s plane when he became governor. He moved into a home that was provided by some of his donors rather than spend money rehabbing the crappy old governor’s mansion in downtown Sacto.) Now the precedent is set, if you want to try and run the Governor of Alaska out of office, you FOIA him or her to death and force the state to pick up the legal tab. Wonder how the founding of the USA would have gone if the Founding Fathers had yielded to this kind of blackmail?