Mississippi Advisory Opinions July 11, 1995: AGO 000009961 (July 11, 1995)
Collection: Mississippi Attorney General Opinions
Docket: AGO 000009961
Date: July 11, 1995
Advisory Opinion Text
AGO 000009961.
DOCK 1995-0422
AUTH Anita Clinton
DATE 19950711
RQNM Edmand Pace
SUBJ Elections - Qualifications to Vote
SBCD 72
TEXT J. Edmand Pace, Esquire
Stewart, Burks, Pace and Carroll
Post Office Box 269
Picayune, Mississippi 39466
Dear Mr. Pace:
Attorney General Mike Moore has received your letter of request and has assigned it to me for research and reply. In your letter you pose the following question:
Students are bussed from a portion of Pearl River County to the Lumberton County School in Lamar County. The school district was formerly the Lumberton Line School District and Pearl River County's financial obligations as far as transportation, etc. were administered by Pearl River County School Board. After the change from Lumberton Line School District to Lumberton Public School District, the Pearl River County School Board has no further responsibilities as far as administration. The residents of the former Lumberton Line School District, now Lumberton Public School District, have always elected a trustee to the Lumberton School Board and consider their superintendent to be the Lumberton School Superintendent.
Since the office of the superintendent of their school is appointive, do the residents of the Lumberton County School District vote in the election of the Superintendent of the Pearl River County Schools?
What effect, if any, does Section 37-5-71 of the Mississippi Code of 1972 have on those residents of the Lumberton Public School District? I understand that subparagraph(2)(f) applies to Pearl River County.
Your question concerns the Lumberton Public School District which was organized as a line consolidated school district. Your inquiry is answered in an opinion issued to Claude A. Chamberlin, Esquire dated February 1, 1995 which I attach hereto and incorporate herein. Briefly stated, this opinion held that residents of Monroe County who lived in the Nettleton Line Consolidated School District were eligible to vote for the Monroe County Superintendent of Education; the reference to Monroe County in 37-5-71 subsection (2) applied only to residents of municipal separate or special municipal separate school districts and not to county residents within a line consolidated school district.
In accord with this prior opinion, there is no prohibition against residents within the Lumberton Public School District voting in an election for the Pearl River County Superintendent of Education.
I hope that this answer has been responsive to your question.
Sincerely,
MIKE MOORE ATTORNEY GENERAL
BY: Anita C. Clinton Special Assistant Attorney General