Request By:
Mrs. Anne Perkins McBee
500 Florence Pike
Burlington, Kentucky 41005
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of September 2 in which you relate that you are serving as Chairperson for the Crime Victims Compensation Board and as a member of the Board of Claims. Both positions are of nonmerit status. Under the circumstances you desire to know whether or not you could continue to hold the two nonmerit positions referred to and be appointed as a paid co-ordinator of the Carter/Mondale Presidential Campaign for the First District of Kentucky.
Our response to your question would be in the affirmative. The position of co-ordinator for the Carter/Mondale Presidential Campaign is purely political in nature and would not constitute a public office or form of public employment within the meaning of either § 165 of the Constitution or KRS 61.080 which prohibit individuals from holding certain offices and forms of employment that are considered incompatible with each other. Since you are a nonmerit state employee there would be no violation of the merit statute prohibiting such employee from engaging in political activities, namely KRS 18.310. Also, since the two boards on which you serve receive no federal funds, the Federal Hatch Act, USCA Title 5, § 1501 to 1503, would not be involved.
Under the circumstances, we are therefore of the opinion that you may continue to hold the two state positions mentioned and at the same time serve as a paid co-ordinator with the Carter/Mondale Presidential Campaign.