No. V-0063 (1947).

• Case Date: February 05, 1947
• Court: Texas

Texas Attorney General Opinions 1947. No. V-0063 (1947). 1February 5, 1947Hon. T. M. Trimble, First AssistantState Superintendent of Public InstructionDepartment of EducationAustin, TexasOpinion No. V-63Re: County Commissioner, authority to serve as trustee of independent school district.Dear Sir:We refer you to your letter of recent date wherein you requested an opinion of this department on the following submitted question:

May a County Commissioner serve at the same time as trustee of an independent school district?

Article XVI, Section 40, Constitution of Texas, reads as follows:

2"No person shall hold or exercise, at the same time, more than one civil office of emolument, except that of ... county commissioner ... "

Dual office holding is expressly forbidden by Section 40, Article XVI of the Constitution where both offices are civil offices of emolument. Dual office holding is forbidden to an extent at least by Section 33 of Article XVI wherein the accounting officers of the State are forbidden to issue or pay a warrant upon the Treasurer for the payment of salary or compensation to a civil officer, who at the same time holds another office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States or the State of Texas. The Constitutional prohibition against the holding of more than one office of emolument (Article XVI, Section 40) is inapplicable to the question under consideration for two reasons: (1) The office of County Commissioner is expressly excepted; (2) As the^^^2office of emolument. State v. Martin, 51 S. W. (2d) 815; Attorney General Opinion 0-3308. And since neither a County Commissioner nor a trustee of an independent school district are officers to be paid out of the State Treasury, we do not believe Article XVI, Section 33 of the Texas Constitution is violated under the facts submitted. Attorney General Opinion No. 0-3308 and 0-3352. However, it is also a fundamental rule of law that one person may not hold at one time two offices, the duties of which are incompatible, and this principle applies whether or not the office is named in the exception contained in Article XVI, Section 40, Biencourt v. Parker, 27 Texas 558; State v. Brinkerhoff, 66 Texas 45; Thomas v. Abernathy County Line Independent School District, 290 S. W. 152; Attorney General Opinions Numbers 0-4957 and 0-5145. Pruitt v. Glen Rose Independent...