# State Board of Workforce Education v. King

> Supreme Court of Arkansas · February 18, 1999 · 336 Ark. 409

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7826889

## Case

- **Full name:** The STATE BOARD of WORKFORCE EDUCATION and Career Opportunities and The Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission v. Miles KING
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Arkansas
- **Decided:** February 18, 1999
- **Citations:** 336 Ark. 409; 985 S.W.2d 731; 1999 Ark. LEXIS 99
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Glaze
- **Judges:** Brown, Corbin, Glaze, Robert, Thornton
- **Cited by:** 16 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7826889

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that a sitting legislator is ineligible to hold another "civil office" under Article 5, § 10 of the Arkansas Constitution

## Opinion text

Tom Glaze, Justice, concurring. I agree with the majority opinion, but majority opinion, but write to point out that the dissent totally misses the issue when it expresses the view that General Assembly members can serve on legislative-created boards that have nothing to do with the discharge of legislative duties. This court prohibited such an unconstitutional practice in Fulkerson v. Refunding Board of Arkansas, 201 Ark. 957 , 147 S.W.2d 980 (1 941). That constitutional concept was, is, and remains the law and cannot be avoided by saying that General Assembly members can serve on such boards or commissions when a member’s service “would benefit the legislature.” This is the very conflict the separation-of-powers doctrine is to guard against.
Here, the boards and commissions are laden with persons from the executive branch, and these members are empowered to discharge executive duties. These boards and commissions are not created for the purpose of discharging legislative duties. Pure and simple, it is the General Assembly member’s appointment as a member of the commissions and boards that is unconstitutional, and that unlawful appointment cannot be legitimized by placing a General Assembly member on the board or commission without giving him or her voting powers.
In conclusion, while this court was not presented with whether a General Assembly member could constitutionally serve on the other two commissions — the State Commission on Child Support and the Workforce Development Commission — that were in issue below, I see those positions no differently than the ones decided in this appeal. In short, the General Assembly members’ appointments to those two commissions violated the separation-of-powers doctrine, and in my view were unconstitutional.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7826889. Public record. Not legal advice.