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Committee advances bill to bar simultaneous service in two elected offices
Summary
The House Calendar and Rules Committee advanced a bill that would permit a person to hold only one elected office at a time going forward, while grandfathering current dual-officeholders. Committee members debated whether the measure would force costly special elections when officials win a second office.
The House Calendar and Rules Committee advanced a bill that would prohibit a person from serving in more than one elected office at the same time, moving the measure to the consent calendar for the Monday, Feb. 24 floor session.
The bill’s sponsor and supporters said the measure would allow candidates to seek multiple offices but limit service to a single seat. “The intent of the bill is to require a person only serving 1 office at a time, except this is grandfathering those that are currently members of 2 offices. So going forward, you can run for as many offices you want, but you can only serve 1,” a committee member explained during discussion.
The bill drew a substantive concern from Reverend Clemons, who said it would impose unplanned costs on counties. “My concern there is if a sitting county commissioner or somebody wants to run for the state legislature, for example, and they win that seat, and then they may have a year remaining in that other term, we'd be requiring that county to have the expense of having a special election,” Clemons said.
Representative Wright responded that a special election is not the only outcome if an official leaves an office. “Unless the person resigns the office… there is an appointment process if someone leaves office,” Wright said.
After discussion the committee called the question; members voted “aye” and the bill was placed on the consent calendar for Monday, Feb. 24.
The committee record shows the measure would grandfather current dual-officeholders; no change to that grandfathering was adopted in committee. The transcript does not specify the bill number within the discussion text; the item was introduced in committee as “House Bill 618.”
Committee action was procedural: motion and second were recorded, no named roll-call votes against the motion were recorded in the transcript. The measure will next appear on the House calendar on Feb. 24.
