Request By:
Mr. Vic Hellard, Jr.
Director
Legislative Research Commission
Capitol
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
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 seek further clarification of OAG 81-424 by raising the following additional questions:
"Assuming that a legislator whose district is to be transferred elsewhere, neither resigns from nor vacates his seat before the end of his current term, and further assuming that the Redistricting Bill, SB 57, passes in its current form, on the effective date of the bill, would the senator represent:
a) The old district, i.e., his original constituency;
b) The new district in some other region of Kentucky, or
c) Some third alternative."
As pointed out in OAG 81-424 and the case of
Anggelis v. Land, Ky., 371 S.W.2d 857 (1963), a legislator cannot be legislated out of office by virtue of a redistricting act changing boundary lines that place him in a district other than the one from which he was elected. The Anggelis case declared that in spite of the fact that the legislator no longer lives within the boundary of the district as newly constituted and as a consequence was not elected by the people who do live within the said district, nevertheless, once elected, he represents all of the people of the state and specifically all of the people of his district as it exists during his tenure of office. The Court, in citing the case of
Selzer v. Synhorst, 253 Iowa, 936, 113 N.W.2d 724, quoted therefrom in part as follows:
"'* * * The idea that we are personally represented and represented only by officials for whom we have voted stretches too far the theory of representative government."
The Court further stated in the Anggelis case, and we quote:
"Although a Senator is required by Section 32 of the Kentucky Constitution to be a resident of the district from which he is elected, once he is elected he represents generally all the people of the state and specifically all the people of his district as it exists during his tenure in office. Certainly no one would suggest that a Senator represents only those persons who voted for him. The fact that the persons who are represented by the Senator from the Twelfth District are no longer the ones who elected him indicates there is a hiatus following a redistricting of the state. However, this situation is comparable to that which results when persons move from one district to another.
Senator 33 of the Kentucky Constitution provides inter alia that the Legislature shall redistrict the state every ten years. The framers of the Constitution must have realized that for two years after each redistricting there would be some persons in the state who would not be represented in the Senate by a Senator of their own choosing. . . ."
As indicated in the Anggelis case and in answer to your questions, the legislator in question would basically represent all of the people of the state, including, of course, those who elected him as well as those who did not. More specifically, however, he represents "the people of his district as it exists during his tenure," which would be the people of the new district in which he is placed following the effective date of the redistricting act.