Mississippi Advisory Opinions August 30, 2002: AGO 000015201 (August 30, 2002)

AGO 000015201.

Dear Dr. Truly:

Attorney General Mike Moore has received your request for an official opinion and has assigned it to me for research and response. Your letter is quite lengthy, and is not reproduced in its entirety, but is attached for reference.

The election at issue in your request are the municipal elections for Mayor and Board of Aldermen, postponed from their statutorily scheduled times by Order of the Chancery Court of Madison County. The reason for the delay of the election was to enable the governing authorities to redistrict the municipal wards. On June 7, 2002, the Chancellor entered a final order setting the municipal election, and establishing a schedule for the election, including party primaries.

Your questions to this office related to this election are as follows:

1. Whether the election is handled as a regular election, entitling the respective party committees to operate the primaries, or whether it is to be treated as a special election, leaving the authority to operate the primaries to the municipal election commissioners; and

2. Whether those individuals who have lawfully qualified for the municipal elections prior to the delay of the election remain qualified for the newly scheduled election, or whether it would be necessary for those individuals to re-qualify by the new qualification deadline as established in the Order of the Chancery Court?

* * * * *

First, we must preface our opinion by commenting that Attorney General Opinions are limited to interpretations of state law, and we cannot comment or interpret the terms of a court order. Additionally, Attorney General Opinions operate prospectively only, and cannot validate or invalidate any action which has already occurred.

In response to your first question, it is the opinion of this office that the court-ordered election is not a "special election" for purposes of determining which election officials are responsible for its operation. The regularly scheduled municipal elections were postponed by court order, and that court later established a new date for that regular election. Other than the time frame being altered, there is nothing which renders the upcoming elections "special." Thus, the responsibility for managing and operating the primary elections scheduled by the Court for September 24, 2002, lies with the party executive committees, and not the municipal election commission, pursuant to Section 23-15-263. The municipal election commissioners would be responsible for operation of the general election on October 22, 2002.

With regard to candidate qualification, the court order, in addition to setting a new date for the elections, sets a qualification deadline of August 15, 2002. The question presented to our office is whether those candidates who qualified before the municipal elections were enjoined and delayed can be counted as "hold-overs," and exempt from the necessity of re-qualification in accordance with the court-ordered schedule. Our office is of the opinion that the court-ordered schedule supersedes the statutory schedule for the election, including the time for qualification. Any number of contingencies could have occurred between the time of original qualification and the newly scheduled election, especially considering the fact that a redistricting occurred in the interim. We are of the opinion that any candidates seeking to run in the court-ordered election should qualify in accordance with that court order.

If our office may be of further assistance, please advise.

Sincerely,

MIKE MOORE, ATTORNEY GENERAL

By: Heather P. Wagner

Assistant Attorney General