State AG Opinions
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Did the Missouri AG approve the fiscal note for Winston Apple's 2019 Article III initiative petition on protecting voter-approved statutes from legislative repeal (file 2020-103)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the State Auditor's fiscal note summary for Apple's Article III petition 2020-103 (a proposal addressing protecting voter-approved statutes from …
Did the Missouri AG approve the fiscal note for Winston Apple's 2019 Article III initiative petition on proportional representation for state legislators (file 2020-102)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the State Auditor's fiscal note summary for Apple's Article III petition 2020-102 (a proposal addressing proportional representation for state le…
Did the Missouri AG approve the fiscal note for Winston Apple's 2019 Article VIII initiative petition on ranked-choice voting (file 2020-101)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the State Auditor's fiscal note summary for Apple's Article VIII petition 2020-101 (a proposal addressing ranked-choice voting). The AG's review …
Can a Virginia sheriff assign deputies to act as full-time security at a private school?
Not while on duty. The Virginia AG concluded a sheriff cannot dedicate on-duty deputies to permanent security for a private school, but the locality may adopt a § 15.2-1712 ordinance letting off-duty …
Can a Virginia city or county use zoning to keep a gun shop from opening next to a school?
Yes. The Virginia AG concluded that Va. Code § 15.2-915, which generally bars localities from regulating firearms, does not stop a locality from using its zoning power to control where firearms-sales …
Did the Missouri AG approve the form of Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 8, file 2020-112)?
Yes, as to form. AG Schmitt approved the legal form of Sedey's voting-access petition 2020-112 (version 8) to amend Article VIII of the Missouri Constitution. Form approval under § 116.332 RSMo is pro…
Did the Missouri AG approve the form of Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 7, file 2020-111)?
Yes, as to form. AG Schmitt approved the legal form of Sedey's voting-access petition 2020-111 (version 7) to amend Article VIII of the Missouri Constitution. Form approval under § 116.332 RSMo is pro…
Did the Missouri AG approve the form of Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 6, file 2020-110)?
Yes, as to form. AG Schmitt approved the legal form of Sedey's voting-access petition 2020-110 (version 6) to amend Article VIII of the Missouri Constitution. Form approval under § 116.332 RSMo is pro…
Did the Missouri AG approve the form of Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 5, file 2020-109)?
Yes, as to form. AG Schmitt approved the legal form of Sedey's voting-access petition 2020-109 (version 5) to amend Article VIII of the Missouri Constitution. Form approval under § 116.332 RSMo is pro…
Did the Missouri AG approve the form of Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 4, file 2020-108)?
Yes, as to form. AG Schmitt approved the legal form of Sedey's voting-access petition 2020-108 (version 4) to amend Article VIII of the Missouri Constitution. Form approval under § 116.332 RSMo is pro…
Did the Missouri AG approve the form of Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 3, file 2020-107)?
Yes, as to form. AG Schmitt approved the legal form of Sedey's voting-access petition 2020-107 (version 3) to amend Article VIII of the Missouri Constitution. Form approval under § 116.332 RSMo is pro…
Did the Missouri AG approve the form of Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 2, file 2020-106)?
Yes, as to form. AG Schmitt approved the legal form of Sedey's voting-access petition 2020-106 (version 2) to amend Article VIII of the Missouri Constitution. Form approval under § 116.332 RSMo is pro…
Did the Missouri AG approve the form of Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 1, file 2020-105)?
Yes, as to form. AG Schmitt approved the legal form of Sedey's voting-access petition 2020-105 (version 1) to amend Article VIII of the Missouri Constitution. Form approval under § 116.332 RSMo is pro…
Can a Florida water control district let its landowners vote by mail (absentee ballot) for the three landowner-elected seats on its Board of Supervisors at the annual landowners' meeting?
AG Moody concluded in 2019 that there is no language in the District's charter or in Chapter 298, Florida Statutes, that authorizes voting by mail in district landowner elections. Section 298.11(2) ex…
Can a Florida public agency hire a third-party cybersecurity firm to do penetration testing on its computers, knowing that during the test the vendor might see records (like Social Security numbers and law enforcement officers' home addresses) that are confidential or exempt under Florida's public records law?
Yes, with conditions. The AG concluded that incidental access to confidential or exempt records during properly scoped penetration testing under a confidentiality agreement does not violate Chapter 11…
If a Florida city had a pre-2011 ordinance regulating vacation rentals (which is grandfathered from the state's preemption statute), can it amend that ordinance to allow vacation rentals in additional zoning districts without losing its grandfathered protection?
AG Moody concluded in 2019 that amending a pre-June 1, 2011 ordinance does not, by itself, destroy grandfathering for the unchanged provisions, but any new provision that prohibits vacation rentals or…
When a Florida municipality owns and operates an airport and leases hangar space to private aircraft owners purely for non-commercial storage, are those leasehold interests exempt from county ad valorem property tax?
Yes, when the hangars are leased to private aircraft owners purely for non-commercial storage. The AG read § 196.199(2)(a) as exempting those leaseholds; hangars leased to commercial, for-profit opera…
Can a Florida community development district divide itself into voting zones, with each zone electing one board member to ensure each subdivision within the district gets representation?
No. The AG read Chapter 190 as requiring board members to be 'qualified electors of the district' rather than of a zone; the Legislature, not the district, would have to authorize zoned elections.
Are heavily-armed private militia members who patrol around a Virginia government building breaking the law?
Yes, potentially. The Virginia AG concluded the described conduct (showing up armed, in fatigues, patrolling a line of citizens at a state government building) can violate Va. Code § 18.2-174, which m…
Does the Williamsburg-area tourism council that spends Historic Triangle sales tax have to follow Virginia open-records, procurement, and conflict-of-interest laws?
Yes to all of them. The Virginia AG concluded the Tourism Council of the Greater Williamsburg Chamber and its Historic Triangle Office of Marketing and Promotion are 'public bodies' under the Virginia…
Can the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology use state funds to buy stock in private startups without violating the Virginia Constitution?
Yes. The Virginia AG concluded that equity investments by the Center for Innovative Technology using Growth Accelerator Program funds, made for the public economic-development purposes set out in the …
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Sara Baker's referendum petition seeking to put HB 126 (the 2019 'heartbeat' abortion law) before the voters?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved (as a re-issued, typo-corrected version) the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sara Baker's petition 2020-R001, a referendum on Senate S…
Can one person serve as both city manager and police chief in a Texas home-rule city?
It depends on how the city sets it up, the AG advised. A district attorney asked, for the City of Ranger, whether one person could hold both the city manager job and the police chief job in a home-rul…
Does a Texas criminal district attorney's office have to follow the county purchasing agent's rules?
Only some of them, the AG advised. The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney asked whether her office had to comply with purchasing procedures and rules adopted by the county purchasing agent. The…
Can a Delaware journalist FOIA the raw traffic-stop database used by State Police?
No. The Delaware AG ruled that the Delaware State Police properly withheld 10 years of raw traffic-stop data. The data is derived from police reports and accident reports, which are exempt as investig…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Winston Apple's 2019 statutory initiative on a $5 income-tax checkoff to publicly fund clean-money campaigns (file 2020-099)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Apple's petition 2020-099 to amend Chapters 130 and 143 RSMo. The petition would create the Missou…
Do Arizona counties have to count their public-pension catch-up payments toward the constitutional expenditure limit, or are those payments excluded as 'long-term obligations'?
Count them. The AG read 'long-term obligations' in Article 9 § 20(3)(d)(i) to mean bond-like instruments where the county received money or property up front. Pension catch-up payments fail every pron…
Can multiple Illinois state agencies share a single chief internal auditor through an intergovernmental agreement instead of each appointing their own?
No. The AG concluded that the Fiscal Control and Internal Auditing Act required each designated state agency (the Department of Insurance, the Departments of Agriculture, Corrections, Labor, and other…
If a Virginia nonprofit school sets up a single-member LLC to hold property, does that property still qualify for the property-tax exemption for institutions of learning?
No. A single-member LLC (SMLLC) is a separate legal entity from its owner. Property owned by an SMLLC does not qualify for the Virginia property-tax exemption for nonprofit institutions of learning un…
If a state legislator sits on the board of a state-created nonprofit that is exempt from FOIA, does the legislator still have to hand over records about that role when the public asks?
Yes. AG William Tong concluded that even though the Partnership for Connecticut, Inc. itself was statutorily exempted from Connecticut FOIA, House Minority Leader Themis Klarides remained subject to F…
Did the Missouri AG approve the form of Winston Apple's 2019 Article III initiative petition on protecting voter-approved statutes from legislative repeal (file 2020-103)?
Yes, as to form. AG Schmitt approved the legal form of Apple's Article III petition 2020-103 to amend the Missouri Constitution. The petition would have prohibited the General Assembly from altering, …
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Winston Apple's 2019 statutory initiative creating a state-run health insurance cooperative through the Department of Health and Senior Services (file 2020-096)?
Yes, as to legal content and form (re-issued August 5 to fix a typographical error). AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Apple's petition 2020-096 to amend Chapter 192 R…
Who controls how Texas pretrial intervention fees are spent, and can they pay staff salaries?
The commissioners court controls the spending, the AG advised, and the fees can pay staff who run the program but only for that purpose. A county auditor asked whether a prosecuting attorney could use…
Did the Missouri AG approve the form of Winston Apple's 2019 Article III initiative petition on proportional representation for state legislators (file 2020-102)?
Yes, as to form. AG Schmitt approved the legal form of Apple's Article III petition 2020-102 to amend the Missouri Constitution with a proportional-representation system for state legislators. Form ap…
Did the Missouri AG approve the form of Winston Apple's 2019 Article VIII initiative petition on ranked-choice voting (file 2020-101)?
Yes, as to form. AG Schmitt approved the legal form of Apple's Article VIII petition 2020-101 to amend the Missouri Constitution. The petition would establish ranked-choice voting for federal and stat…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition with 16-year-old pre-registration (version 2, file 2020-098)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's Article VIII petition 2020-098 (version 2). Like its sister version 2020-097, the petition…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition with 16-year-old pre-registration (version 1, file 2020-097)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's Article VIII petition 2020-097 (version 1). The petition would establish automatic voter r…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Winston Apple's 2019 initiative letting Missouri cities and counties set local minimum wages above state and federal floors (file 2020-093)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Apple's petition 2020-093 to amend Mo. Const. art. III, § 39. The petition would have given any co…
Did the Missouri AG approve the fiscal note for Winston Apple's 2019 statutory initiative on a $5 income-tax checkoff to publicly fund clean-money campaigns (file 20-099)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the fiscal note prepared by State Auditor Galloway for Apple's petition 20-099 to create the Missouri Elections Trust Fund. The fiscal note proje…
Can a Washington county refuse to release electronic property tax records to a commercial requestor because the records can be sorted to display owner names?
Yes. The Public Records Act bars an agency from giving access to 'lists of individuals' for commercial purposes (RCW 42.56.070(8)). The AG concluded that this prohibition reaches electronic records th…
Can a homeless shelter or other nonprofit in Arkansas keep its zero-tolerance drug policy under the state's medical marijuana law?
The medical marijuana amendment generally lets a nonprofit "in lawful possession of property" refuse to allow guests to use marijuana on the premises or admit visitors who are inebriated from medical …
How did Arkansas Act 1077 of 2019 change the way a fire department converts to a fire protection district?
Act 1077 made the conversion almost automatic. The fire department's governing body files a petition; the quorum court has 60 days to grant it; and there is no public hearing requirement and no need t…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 2 of the second wave, file 2020-089)?
Yes, as to legal content and form (re-issued July 31 to fix a typographical error). AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-089 (version 2 of a second …
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 1 of the second wave, file 2020-088)?
Yes, as to legal content and form (re-issued July 31 to fix a typographical error). AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-088 (version 1 of a second …
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 12, file 2020-083)?
Yes, as to legal content and form (re-issued July 31 to fix a typographical error). AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-083 (version 12). The petit…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 11, file 2020-082)?
Yes, as to legal content and form (re-issued July 31 to fix a typographical error). AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-082 (version 11). The petit…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 10, file 2020-081)?
Yes, as to legal content and form (re-issued July 31 to fix a typographical error). AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-081 (version 10). Same pack…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 9, file 2020-080)?
Yes, as to legal content and form (re-issued July 31 to fix a typographical error). AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-080 (version 9). Same packa…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 8, file 2020-079)?
Yes, as to legal content and form (re-issued July 31 to fix a typographical error). AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-079 (version 8). Same packa…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 7, file 2020-078)?
Yes, as to legal content and form (re-issued July 31 to fix a typographical error). AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-078 (version 7). The petiti…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 4, file 2020-075)?
Yes, as to legal content and form (re-issued July 31 to fix a typographical error). AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-075 (version 4). The petiti…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 3, file 2020-074)?
Yes, as to legal content and form (re-issued July 31 to fix a typographical error). AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-074 (version 3) to amend Ar…
Can a 17-year-old in Arkansas file to run for justice of the peace if they will turn 18 before taking office?
Yes. A minor's name can appear on the ballot if the minor will be 18 at the time of taking office. The candidate becomes a "qualified elector" at age 18, but Ark. Code Ann. § 7-5-207 lets a candidate …
Does Tennessee's requirement that each political party have a state primary board, with members elected from each senatorial district, violate the parties' First Amendment freedom of association?
No. The AG concluded that Tennessee's primary-board statutes impose only a modest burden on associational rights because they assign the boards limited election-administration duties. The state's inte…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Shetova Hayes's 2019 statutory initiative cutting the dangerous-felony first-time minimum prison term from 85% to 50% (file 2020-092)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Hayes's petition 2020-092 to amend Chapter 558 RSMo. The petition would reduce the mandatory minim…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 6, file 2020-077)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-077 (version 6) to amend Article VIII of the Missouri Constitution. Same pac…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 5, file 2020-076)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-076 (version 5) to amend Article VIII of the Missouri Constitution. The peti…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 2, file 2020-073)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-073 (version 2 of a 12-version slate). Same package as version 1: 16+ automa…
Did the Missouri AG approve the ballot summary for Mary Anne Sedey's 2019 Article VIII voting-access initiative petition (version 1, file 2020-072)?
Yes, as to legal content and form. AG Schmitt approved the Secretary of State's summary statement for Sedey's petition 2020-072 (version 1 of a 12-version slate). The petition would establish automati…
Can an Arizona county get state education money for non-disabled adult inmates ages 18-21 who attend a jail education program?
No. Under A.R.S. § 15-913.01, state education funding only follows two groups of jail inmates: anyone under 18, and inmates with disabilities up to age 21. A non-disabled 19-year-old inmate enrolled i…
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