Request By:
Honorable G. Stephen Manning
Attorney at Law
P.O. Box 566
227 Sutton Street
Maysville, Kentucky 41056
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of April 25 in which you raise the following question:
"May a merit employee of the Commonwealth of Kentucky attend the State Convention of a political party as a voting delegate? "
Our response to your question would be in the negative. KRS 18.310(4) reads in part as follows:
"No employe in the classified service shall be a member of any national, state, or local committee of a political party, or an officer or member of a committee of a partisan political club, or a candidate for nomination or election to any paid public office, or shall take part in the management or affairs of any political party or in any political campaign, except to exercise his right as a citizen privately to express his opinion and to cast his vote. . . ." (Emphasis added.)
The above quoted excerpt clearly prohibits a merit employe from becoming an officer of any political party or take part in the management of the affairs of any political party, or in any political campaign.
Delegates to the state convention are elected from local districts as party representatives pursuant to party rules. As such, they hold, in effect, a party office, and, as such, participate in the management and affairs of the political party they represent; in this case, at its state convention which has been called primarily to select representative delegates to the national convention.
It should also be noted that the State Department of Personnel has, with reference to KRS 18.310 (4), listed as one of the prohibited activities with respect to merit employes, their serving as a delegate or alternate to a caucus or party convention.
The above position is distinguishable from a recent Supreme Court decision, City of Louisville v. Fitzgerald (not yet reported) in which KRS 90.220 (2) was interpreted as not prohibiting a classified employe from serving as a delegate to a political convention in that KRS 90.220 (2) contains no restrictive language similar to that found in KRS 18.310(4) prohibiting a merit employe from taking ". . . part in the management or affairs of any political party . . . ." Also, the personnel department's position that such activity is prohibited is significant and should not be overlooked.
Under the circumscances, any merit employe selected to be a delegate to the state party convention would be in violation of the referred to statute and subject to forfeiting his merit position under KRS 18.990.