Request By:
Mr. James P. Dady
Reporter
The Kentucky Post
421 Madison Avenue
Covington, Kentucky 41011
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of October 23, in which you raise the following question:
"Can mayors in cities of the second class, through some act of the 1980 session or the General Assembly or a previous session, now legally succeed themselves?"
KRS 84.280(3), providing that the mayor shall be ineligible for the term succeeding the term for which he was elected, was repealed by S.B. 26 enacted in 1980, Chapter 235 of the Acts, Section 20.
The new Municipal Code, effective July 15, 1980, setting forth the qualifications for the office of mayor and membership on the legislative body, contains no restriction on such officers being elected to succeed themselves. Reference KRS 83A.040, 83A.050 and 83A.150.
However, Section 160 of the Constitution does prohibit mayors of first and second class cities from succeeding themselves where it provides the following:
"No mayor or chief executive or fiscal officer of any city of the first and second class, after the expiration of the term of office for which he has been elected under this Constitution, shall be eligible for the succeeding term."
Therefore, under the present Constitution, mayors in first and second class cities cannot succeed themselves in office.