Request By:
Mr. Wayne J. Clarke
Radio Dispatcher
Kentucky State Police
RR#1 Sullivan Lane
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of recent date in which you, as a state merit employe with the Kentucky State Police, raise a question regarding your possible involvement in a political campaign in violation of KRS 18.310(4). You relate that you have been selected as a possible deputy sheriff of Franklin County in the event the candidate for sheriff is elected this coming November. Your activities with respect to the candidate's campaign for sheriff are as follows:
". . . I have not openly endorsed any candidate for any election. I have not actively engaged in any campaign function, nor will I do so. The extent of my political activities has simply been the use of my name and qualifications on campaign literature. There have been two political advertisements in the Frankfort State Journal that have included my picture, name, and general qualifications for the position. However, these advertisements have not in any way showed any attempt to utilize my present position with the State Police to the advantage of the campaign. There have also been two other advertisements that mentioned me by name only. I also have a bumper-sticker on my personal automobile, and a sign in my front yard."
You state that you have received tentative approval of the above activities from Mr. Lewis of the Department of Personnel.
KRS 18.310 (4) reads in part as follows:
"No employe in the classified service shall be a member of any national, state, or local committee of a political party, or an officer or member of a committee or a partisan political club, or a candidate for nomination or election to any paid public office, or shall take part in the management or affairs of any political party or in any political campaign, except to exercise his right as a citizen privately to express his opinion and to cast his vote. . . ."
Under the terms of the above statute you cannot, of course, take part in any political campaign or actively engage in a political campaign. The Department of Personnel has published certain guidelines for merit employes as to what they can and cannot do under the terms of the referred to statute which we believe expresses a proper interpretation of said statute. Among the things permitted is the right of any merit employe to display political stickers in his home or on his automobile and wear political badges or buttons. Thus, we agree with Mr. Lewis of the Department of Personnel that these activities on your part would not constitute a violation of KRS 18.310 (4).
The added circumstances where your name and picture has appeared on a political advertisement inserted by the candidate or his political committee indicating that you would be appointed to serve as one of his deputies, if he is elected, would not in our opinion constitute on its face a violation of the merit statute as engaging in the political activity on behalf of the candidate, assuming of course that the facutal circumstances you have related and we have quoted above, constitutes your total involvement with the advertisement and in the candidate's election campaign.
Of course, the question would be subject to litigation.