Request By:
Mr. Edgar B. Samples
Pryse
Kentucky 40471
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of January 6 in which you indicate that you plan to become a candidate for the office of magistrate and raise the question as to whether or not your present position as a teacher in the Estill County School System would be jeopardized in the event you became a candidate and were elected.
There is no constitutional or statutory provision that would prevent you from becoming a candidate for magistrate while continuing your position as school teacher.
Next concerning a possible local school board regulation requiring a school teacher or employee to either resign or take a leave of absence upon becoming a candidate for public office, we refer to the recent case of Allen v. Board of Education v. Jefferson County, Ky., App. 584 S.W.2d 408 (1979). This case held that a policy of the board of education requiring teachers to take a leave of absence in order to become candidates for public office without any individual determination as to whether political activity on the part of said teachers would adversely affect the performance of their duties, violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States.
If you are elected to the office of magistrate, we do not believe that there would be any incompatibility between your position as teacher and that of magistrate under § 165 of the Constitution and KRS 61.080 since a person may hold state employment, such as school teacher [Board of Trustees of Graded Common School District v. Renfroe, 259 Ky. 644, 83 S.W.2d 27 (1935)] and at the same time hold a county office, such as magistrate [§ 99 of the Constitution].