Opinion ID: 2411780
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: underinclusiveness

Text: Appellants assert that KRS 160.180(2)(i) is underinclusive because it does not apply to board members serving on July 13, 1990, whose relatives were not initially hired while they were in office. Appellants argue that KRS 160.180(2)(i) leaves open an entire class of relative-employees who are just as open to conflicts of interest and favoritism as those covered by the statute. The Fourteenth Amendment allows legislatures wide leeway to enact laws that appear to affect similarly situated people differently. McDonald v. Board of Election Comm'rs., supra, 394 U.S. at 807, 89 S.Ct. at 1408. It is clear that relatives hired before board members were elected, will pose much less suspicion of favoritism, and thus they will be much less likely to affect the morale of their co-workers, an implicit intent of anti-nepotism statutes. The statutory classification that KRS 160.180(2)(i) creates between board members with relatives hired during their tenure in office, and board members with relatives not hired during their tenure in office, thus has a reasonable basis, and therefore is not violative of equal protection principles. Estridge v. Stovall, Ky. App., 704 S.W.2d 653 (1985).