LINCOLN — Embattled University of Nebraska Regent Elizabeth O’Connor, who increasingly faced likely impeachment proceedings, announced Tuesday that she is resigning her post. O’Connor, 35, faces a felony charge of drunken driving causing bodily injury from a Douglas County crash that police say totaled two vehicles and broke the back and pelvis of a passenger.

Authorities allege the Omaha-area regent and former student regent tested with a blood alcohol content of 0.321% after the May 21 crash in the Benson area, in her eastern Douglas County district. That’s four times the legal limit.

The father of three young children injured in the crash had lobbied the NU regent to resign and called on lawmakers and other politicians to ramp up the pressure on O’Connor to resign.

State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha, a Republican in the officially nonpartisan Legislature, had pledged to pursue impeachment if O’Connor, a Democrat, didn’t resign. Impeaching her would require at least 25 votes and the approval of her removal by the Nebraska Supreme Court. The Nebraska Legislature last impeached a state official in 2006, then-NU Regent C. David Hergert.

O’Connor, who has served as an elected member of the NU board since 2019, said in a statement that she did not want to “become a distraction to the Board’s important work.”“I am choosing to resign now because I want to do the right thing for our great university,” she said in a statement.

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