Request By:
Mr. Paul R. Hughes
P.O. Box 5
Tolu, Kentucky 42084
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
As a member of the Crittenden County Board of Education, you are thinking about running for sheriff on the Democratic ticket. Your term expires at the end of calendar 1978.
You ask whether or not you would have to resign from the school board before you file as a candidate for sheriff, looking toward the May primary, or before the November election, or before you are sworn in [should you be elected].
KRS 160.180(1)(d) and (2) read:
"(1) No person, shall be eligible to membership on a board of education:
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"(d) Who holds or discharges the duties of any civil or political office, deputyship or agency under the city or county of his residence; or
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"(2) If, after the election of any member of the board, he becomes interested in any contract with or claims against the board, of the kind mentioned in paragraph (e) of subsection (1) of this section, or becomes a candidate for nomination or election to any office or agency the holding and the discharging of the duties of which would have rendered him ineligible before election, or if he moves his residence from the district for which he was chosen, or if he does anything that would render him ineligible for re-election, his office shall without further action be vacant."
The court, in Commonwealth v. Miller, Ky., 272 S.W.2d 468 (1954) 470, wrote that:
"'. . . KRS 160.180(1) (d), in prohibiting a school board member from holding any office "under the city or county of his residence," indicates the legislative intent that school board members shall not take part as officers in local government affairs.'"
The court in Miller, above, held that a school board member, in merely becoming a candidate for the office of tax commissioner, vacated his office under KRS 160.180. The court held in effect that KRS 160.180(2) precludes a school board member from becoming, at the same time, a candidate for another office, county or state, which new office would be, under common law principles, politically incompatible with the old one [educational and political entanglements are to be avoided].
Under the above analysis and authority, it is our opinion that if you want to run for sheriff, you will have to resign from the school board membership prior to your becoming a candidate for the May primary.