Opinion ID: 2411780
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: application of balancing test

Text: Application of the Anderson balancing test establishes that the anti-nepotism statutes impose only incidental burdens on appellants and voters. The statutory obstacles posed to appellant board members who are seeking re-election are impermanent. Thus, any perceived burden to them as candidates is de minimus, particularly since the status of candidacy does not preclude reasonable qualification requirements. Storer v. Brown, supra . Likewise, voters' rights to associate and to cast their votes effectively are burdened, if at all, minimally. Appellants argue that unlike the temporary bar from candidacy found in resign-to-run statutes, as we interpreted in Yonts v. Commonwealth, Ky., 700 S.W.2d 407 (1985), the challenged statutes permanently foreclose their future access to the ballot as candidates to serve on the school board. As we have just observed, the statutes in question provide minimal and impermanent bars to the appellants' candidacy for the school board. Therefore, under the Anderson balancing test, we find no substantial infringement of appellants' or voters' First Amendment rights, necessitating our invalidating the challenged statutes.