Request By:
Mr. Mark Farrow
114 West Main Street
Georgetown, Kentucky 40324
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of September 6 in which you seek an opinion concerning the following:
"I am the state representative-elect from Scott and Harrison Counties. I was recently appointed by the Scott County Fiscal Court to serve on the Georgetown-Scott County Human Rights Commission, a commission created by local ordinance. I am seeking an opinion as to whether an elected state official may serve on a body such as this."
Our response to your question as to whether or not you could serve as state representative and at the same time serve on the Georgetown-Scott County Human Rights Commission would be in the negative. The joint city-county human rights commission, established pursuant to KRS 344.310, would be considered a hybrid agency which means that it is neither a city, county nor state agency as such but which contains elements of all three, similar to a housing commission as held in the case of City of Louisville Municipal Housing Commission v. Public Housing Administration, Ky., 261 S.W.2d 286 (1953). In this respect, we are enclosing a copy of OAG 66-777.
Even though there would be no direct conflict under either § 165 of the Constitution or KRS 61.080 prohibiting a state officer from holding a county or municipal office, we are faced with the separation of powers doctrine under Sections 27 and 28 of the Constitution wherein it is provided that no person in one of the three branches of government shall exercise powers in another which, as you know, involves the executive, judicial and legislative branches. By way of illustration, we refer you to the case of Meagher v. Howell, 171 Ky. 238, 188 S.W. 373 (1916), wherein the office of banking commissioner, being a state office, was held to be incompatible with the position of state senator under the referred to sections of the Constitution.
It would thus appear that you, as state representative, being in the legislative branch of government, would in all probability be prohibited from holding an executive position on a local administrative board even though such board would be considered a hybrid board under the previously cited law.