State AG Opinions
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Did Maryland's 1970 school staffing integration rule require racial hiring quotas, and was it still valid?
The Attorney General concluded in 2014 that Maryland's Integration Rule did not require racial quotas or preferences in individual school employment decisions. It remained valid when read as an aspira…
Can a city withhold internal-investigation records about a supervisor where the supervisor was investigated but neither suspended nor terminated, even when the complainant herself requests them?
Yes. Recordings, notes, and interview questions created by or at the employer's behest to investigate a complaint are employee-evaluation records, and FOIA bars disclosure absent suspension or termina…
Can a Florida town control traffic on a highway just outside its town limits?
No. The AG advised that under section 316.006(2), a municipality's traffic-control jurisdiction reaches only streets and highways within its boundaries (state roads aside). A town has no authority ove…
Does a Florida property appraiser have to keep a protected officer's home address confidential even if that officer does not own the property?
The AG advised yes on both points. The home-address exemption in section 119.071(4)(d) protects listed officials (law enforcement, judges, prosecutors, code officers, and others) regardless of whether…
Does ending deferred adjudication early remove the duty to register as a sex offender in Texas?
The AG concluded that getting deferred adjudication community supervision terminated early does not free a person from the duty to register as a sex offender under chapter 62 of the Code of Criminal P…
Did Arkansas's 2014 ballot push to legalize medical marijuana clear the AG's ballot-title gatekeeper?
Yes, for the popular name (certified as submitted); the AG substituted a refined ballot title and certified that. The measure cleared this stage with a cautionary note about ballot-title litigation ri…
Can a Tennessee special school district lower its property tax rate below what the private act says, and can the legislature delegate rate-setting flexibility to the district?
No on both counts. A special school district has no authority to vary from the rate set in its private act, except for State Board of Equalization adjustments after a reappraisal under § 67-5-1704. An…
Can married parents in Tennessee give their child a 'mashed-up' surname combining parts of each parent's last name on the birth certificate?
No. The statute lets married parents use the father's surname, the mother's surname or maiden name, or those names combined (typically hyphenated), but does not permit a hybrid like 'Johnister' built …
Can a Texas county use tax increment financing to fund energy-area road projects?
The AG warned that the way a county energy transportation reinvestment zone (CETRZ) is funded may be unconstitutional. CETRZs, created under 2013's Senate Bill 1747 (section 222.1071 of the Transporta…
Can a West Virginia municipality apply its sales tax to transactions that happen outside city limits, just because the buyer's zip code overlaps the city?
No. The AG concluded that the West Virginia Constitution and W. Va. Code § 8-13C-4 limit a municipality's sales-and-use-tax authority to transactions within municipal boundaries. The Town of Harrisvil…
Can a homeowners or property owners association in Virginia pull over drivers on its private streets and issue traffic citations?
No, not on its own. Under the opinion, a property owners' association may not use its own safety patrol to compel a vehicle to stop or to write citations for state or local traffic violations. The POA…
Can a city withhold a 23-page applicant 'Integrity Interview' from a public-records request when most of its 349 questions are about deeply personal matters?
Yes. When highly personal questions predominate (about 70%) and are interspersed line-by-line throughout the document, the exempt information is 'inextricably intertwined' with the non-exempt, and the…
Can a Colorado school district that teaches reading in both English and Spanish identify a 'Significant Reading Deficiency' under the READ Act using a Spanish-language assessment, instead of being forced to test the child only in English?
Yes. The AG concluded that the READ Act focuses on the skill of reading, not on reading the English language. The Act's list of approved interim assessments under § 22-7-1209(1)(b), C.R.S., includes S…
Can a Florida county tax property owned by another county that sits within its borders?
No. The AG advised that property owned by a county is immune from taxation, including when one county owns land located inside a second county. County immunity rests on fundamental principles of gover…
Can an elected Arkansas Court of Appeals judge also serve as a part-time elected district court judge, and does the answer change if the city and county pay the salary?
No. Amendment 80 § 16(F) bars circuit, district, and appellate judges from holding any other 'office of trust or profit under this state,' and that ban runs regardless of who pays. Teaching as an adju…
Can the Idaho Department of Lands pay the costs of selling state endowment land out of the proceeds of the sale?
No. Sale proceeds in the land bank fund can only be used to buy replacement endowment land. The Department's costs of running the sale are administrative expenses paid from its earnings reserve fund a…
Could Oregon State Treasurer Ted Wheeler run for re-election in 2016 given the eight-years-in-twelve term limit, after serving an appointment in 2010 and an elected fill-in term?
No. The opinion concluded Wheeler could not run in 2016 because the two years he served after winning the 2010 election (filling Treasurer Westlund's remaining term) counted toward Article VI, section…
Does a Florida university's private support foundation get sovereign immunity under section 768.28?
The AG declined to answer. Because the FAMU Foundation is a private nonprofit corporation rather than a government agency, the office said it has no authority to issue it a formal opinion, and the que…
Can a West Virginia county commission pay more than the required employer share of PEIA retiree health insurance premiums, and can a future commission later cut those extra payments back?
Yes to both. The AG concluded that the Public Employees Insurance Act sets only a minimum employer contribution and lets counties voluntarily pay a larger share of retiree premiums. Because those extr…
Can a sheriff's office release disciplinary records of a former deputy under Arkansas FOIA when the misconduct involved interactions with the public?
Yes, with one redaction. Disciplinary records of law enforcement misconduct that affects the public typically carry a compelling public interest sufficient to satisfy the four-part FOIA test, but a fa…
Can two Arkansas counties join together to build and operate a single jail located in only one of the counties?
Yes. State law authorizes regional jail facilities created by interlocal agreement, and that authority qualifies the older requirement (from 1838) that every county build a jail within its own borders…
If an Arkansas regional intermodal authority leases facilities to a private business, does the private lessee inherit the authority's tax exemptions?
No. The tax exemptions under A.C.A. § 14-143-121 attach only to the regional intermodal authority itself and to its property used exclusively for public purposes. A private lessee enjoys no inherited …
Can a Texas hospital district board member also hold another county office?
The AG concluded that because a Maverick County Hospital District board seat is unpaid, it is not an 'office of emolument,' so the Texas Constitution's ban on holding two paid civil offices did not st…
Is the Texas Lottery's Triple Chance game with a preset prize legal?
The AG concluded that a court would probably uphold the Texas Lottery Commission's Texas Triple Chance game. The game still meets the three legal tests for a lottery (a prize, awarded by chance, in ex…
Can a Connecticut school district hire a retired educator as superintendent for one year, with the retiree continuing to draw teachers' retirement benefits, when the position sits in a central administrative office rather than in a school building?
Yes, in a priority school district. The AG concluded that the statutory definition of 'teacher' in § 10-183b(26) included superintendents, and a state-funded central administrative office in a priorit…
If a regional airport authority sits on the line between two states under an interstate compact, which state's open-meetings law governs its meetings?
The AG concluded that West Virginia's open-meetings law applied to the Potomac Highlands Airport Authority. The 1998 federal compact creating the authority did not pick a state law, so the AG analyzed…
Did the Arkansas AG certify a 2014 constitutional amendment legalizing cannabis statewide with a 1% THC dividing line between hemp and cannabis?
Yes for the popular name (certified as submitted). The AG substituted a refined ballot title to fix language about regulation versus prohibition of plant numbers and product manufacturing, and certifi…
Can a Florida mayor and city commissioner sit on a municipal charter school's governing board without violating the dual office-holding ban?
The AG gave informal, general guidance because the city had not yet drafted the ordinance or defined the board's powers. As a rule, Florida's constitutional dual office-holding prohibition does not ba…
Can a Texas home-rule city require a vote before raising property taxes?
The AG concluded that a court would likely uphold a home-rule city charter provision requiring voter approval before the city imposes ad valorem (property) taxes. Chapter 26 of the Tax Code sets out h…
Did the Sebastian County Board of Election Commissioners need a unanimous vote to close polling sites, and was its 2-to-1 vote unlawful?
Yes, unanimity was required. The AG refers legislators to his prior Opinion 2014-068 (issued one week earlier to the prosecuting attorney), which holds that any polling-site alteration is a 'designati…
Under Arkansas FOIA, must a county disclose a former employee's settlement agreement and emails but withhold the termination letter when the termination was later vacated and the employee resigned by agreement?
Yes to both. The settlement agreement and related documents are personnel records that pass the privacy balancing test. The termination letter is an employee-evaluation record, and because the termina…
Can an Arkansas school district still proceed with a superintendent's termination recommendation when the legally required hearing wasn't held within the five-to-ten-day window?
The AG declined to answer because the questions go to remedies the employee will likely argue at the upcoming hearing, and the AG cannot offer what amounts to private legal advice to one side of a pen…
If Congress lets federal highway authorization expire, does Tennessee still get its share of federal gas-tax money, and can the state intercept it directly?
Yes for projects already obligated before October 1, 2014, because the federal commitment is contractual. No to all the workarounds: there is no legal mechanism for Tennessee drivers to remit federal …
When the Colorado High Performance Transportation Enterprise (a TABOR-exempt entity) finishes rebuilding a stretch of highway and hands the lanes back to CDOT, does the increased book value of those lanes count toward CDOT's TABOR spending limit?
It depends on whether the asset can easily be converted to cash. The AG concluded that 'fiscal year spending' under Article X, § 20 of the Colorado Constitution captures expenditures and reserve incre…
Are electronic cigarettes (vape pens) taxed as tobacco products in Arizona, and can they be used in places where smoking is banned?
No on both. Electronic cigarettes (vapor products) do not contain rolls or pieces of tobacco, so they fall outside the categories of taxable tobacco products in A.R.S. title 42, chapter 3. They also a…
Can a Texas city or county keep the mineral rights when it resells tax-foreclosed land?
The AG concluded that a court would likely say no. Section 34.05 of the Tax Code lets a taxing unit (a city, county, or other entity that foreclosed for unpaid taxes) resell property it took at a tax …
Is a hospital district's charitable affiliate a 'political subdivision' in Texas?
The AG could not give a definitive answer. A charitable organization created by a hospital district under section 281.0565 of the Health and Safety Code (here, the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovat…
When does Arkansas legislation passed in a special session take effect if there's no emergency clause or specified effective date?
Ninety days after sine die adjournment. For the Second Extraordinary Session of the Eighty-Ninth General Assembly (adjourned July 2, 2014), that put the effective date at October 1, 2014. The 90-day w…
Can an Arkansas county board of election commissioners close polling sites and reassign voters to neighboring sites by majority vote, or does it require unanimity?
Unanimity. Any alteration of a precinct's preexisting polling site is a 'designation' under A.C.A. § 7-5-101(a)(2), which requires a unanimous vote of the commissioners present. The Sebastian County 2…
Does an Arkansas city have to file a municipal-election filing-deadline ordinance with the county clerk?
No. No state law requires filing of municipal ordinances with the county clerk, and the specific statute authorizing cities to set earlier filing deadlines for independent candidates does not require …
When a drug dealer's customer fatally overdoses in Tennessee, what mental state must the prosecution prove to convict for second-degree murder?
Intent, knowledge, or recklessness suffices, but in practice recklessness is the working standard. The 'conscious indifference' test from the 1984 Randolph decision no longer applies because malice is…
Can a county school board reroute a Superintendent into a part-time role to qualify her for a school early-retirement plan, and can the Board of Supervisors cut off future funding?
The opinion reached two conclusions. First, the former Powhatan County Superintendent of Schools was not legally eligible to participate in the Supplemental Retirement Program (SRP) by working part-ti…
Why did the AG reject the July 2014 version of the Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act before later certifying a refined version in Opinion 2014-086?
Because the underlying text had multiple ambiguities: missing punctuation, incoherent sentences, undefined terms, internal definition conflicts, and a 'test all' rule that would make all cannabis unav…
Can someone who owns 5% of a property (with an LLC owning the rest) claim Florida's owner-builder permit exemption?
The AG gave informal comments, since this is partly a question of fact it cannot formally decide. An LLC, like a corporation, cannot use the owner-builder exemption in section 489.103(7) because it ca…
Can a state agency withhold how much money telecom companies pay into a public fund by calling that information a trade secret?
No, not here. The AG found that the amounts two telecom carriers, AT&T and Sprint, paid into Delaware's Broadband Fund were "financial" and "commercial" information but not protected trade secrets or …
Can a Virginia city council expel one of its own members under its city charter, or does the state court-removal statute take over?
Yes, and the court-removal statute is a separate, additional remedy, not a replacement. The opinion concluded that § 2-5 of the Petersburg City Charter, which authorizes the City Council to expel a me…
Can a Virginia town council expel one of its own members by a two-thirds vote under its town charter, and how does that count work?
Yes. The opinion concluded that the Haymarket Town Charter provision allowing the Town Council to expel a member by a two-thirds vote was a constitutional exercise of legislative power. The general-la…
Does Tennessee's 'any willing pharmacy' law force TennCare and CoverKids to admit any licensed pharmacy to their networks?
TennCare was expressly exempt from the any-willing-pharmacy law, but CoverKids was not. The AG concluded that insurers can impose neutral contract terms but cannot use them to disqualify willing licen…
Could a Tennessee government record's sex designation be changed after sex-reassignment surgery, per the AG's 2014 reading?
No, according to the 2014 opinion. The AG read Tenn. Code Ann. § 68-3-203(d) (which barred changes to the sex designation on a birth certificate after sex-change surgery) to also block changes to poli…
If my business is inside a Virginia town, can both the town and the surrounding county each charge me business personal property tax?
Yes. The opinion concluded that a Virginia county and an incorporated town within that county may each separately assess tangible personal property taxes on business property located within both juris…
If my spouse works for the Arizona fire district where I serve on the board, does one of us have to resign? What about non-spouse relatives, and what training do board members need?
If a fire district board member is married to an employee of that fire district, one of them must immediately resign because the spouse-employee combination is a class 2 misdemeanor for the board memb…
When does the 30-day clock start for an Arkansas teacher to sign and return a teaching contract under the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act?
When the district notifies the teacher the contract is reasonably available, not when the teacher physically receives it. A district can email the teacher that the contract is in the superintendent's …
If an Arkansas small-claims judge enters a default judgment for a collection agency that wasn't supposed to sue in small claims, is the judgment void for lack of jurisdiction?
No. Administrative Order 18 explicitly says the small-claims division designation is administrative, not jurisdictional. The judge has jurisdictional but not administrative authority to enter the judg…
Were a custodian's FOIA decisions to release written reprimands and promotion-related letters from a former employee's file consistent with Arkansas FOIA?
The release decision was ultimately right, but the classification mistakes had to be corrected, and White-Out redaction was improper. Some records were evaluation records, some personnel records, and …
If I want to be a Virginia police officer but I pled guilty or no contest to a disqualifying misdemeanor and then had it dismissed or expunged, am I still barred?
Yes, you are disqualified, but the bar can be waived. The opinion concluded that § 15.2-1705 disqualifies a prospective law enforcement officer from service if the individual has been convicted of, or…
When a juvenile is sentenced as an adult under § 16.1-284 to local jail time, does the prisoner get standard good conduct credit?
Partial yes. The opinion concluded that a prisoner charged as a juvenile but sentenced under § 16.1-284 (when the offender was a juvenile at the time of the offense but had turned 18 by sentencing) is…
Can a small Virginia town (under 3,500 population) take over maintenance of its own streets that are part of the state highway system and get reimbursed by VDOT?
Yes, with limits. The opinion concluded that § 33.1-42 allows a town with population of 3,500 or less, with the consent of the Commissioner of Highways, to maintain those of its streets that are incor…
Where do you appeal a Tennessee general sessions court's order of protection: the Court of Appeals or the local circuit/chancery court?
To the circuit or chancery court, not the Court of Appeals. The 2001 amendment to Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-3-601(3)(F) made this explicit: appeals from general sessions orders of protection go to the loca…
How does West Virginia's Emergency Ambulance Service Act of 1975 actually constrain how a county ambulance authority's board operates: appointments, terms, proxies, officers, billing, and ambulance management?
The AG worked through six questions for Mineral County. Only the county commission can appoint board members (the Act gives no role to squads or hospitals beyond recommending candidates). Members must…
Who controls Arkansas county roads, the county judge or the quorum court, and can a court order either of them to act?
The county judge controls county-road operations as an executive function under Amendment 55, with discretion that is generally not reviewable by writ of mandamus. The quorum court can adopt official …
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