Prohibition against a district attorney running for another office whose term would overlap the district attorney's. Statute attached an impediment to the office, not to the officeholder
How later courts described this case
- Prohibition against a district attorney running for another office whose term would overlap the district attorney's. Statute attached an impediment to the office, not to the officeholder
- court upheld restriction preventing district attorney from running for office whose term would be at all concurrent with their present office
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
SIMMS, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The statute in question, 19 O.S.Supp.1974, § 215.8, imposes additional qualifications on candidates seeking nominations for the United States Congress. A state may not through its Constitution or statutes, add to or take away from the qualifications for a member of Congress prescribed by the Constitution of the United States.
We have already passed on this question. In Riley v. Cordell, 200 Okl. 390 , 194 P.2d 859 (1948), the first syllabus by the Court provides:
“The provisions of Article I, Section 3, of the Constitution of the United States prescribing the qualifications of United States Senators are exclusive, and 20 O.S. 1941 , § 5, providing that ‘no justice of the Supreme Court shall become, during the term for which he may be elected or appointed, a candidate for any office other than a judicial position’, does not prevent a justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma from becoming a candidate for the nomination for United States Senator.”
Other courts have reached the same result when presented with the question, see e. g., Stockton v. McFarland, 56 Ariz. 138 , 106 P.2d 328 (1940); State v. Crane, 65 Wyo. 189 , 197 P.2d 864 (1948); Wettengel v. Zimmerman, 249 Wis. 237 , 24 N.W.2d 504 (1946).
The fact that we may have other statutes which also impose similar unconstitutional restrictions upon other officers of the state who choose to run for federal office, affords no support for upholding this statute.