Texas Attorney General Opinion: WW-516 Page: 2 of 6
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EH. John R. Coffee, page 2 (WW-516)
sal assuMinJ the duties of their respective
offices on the first day of January following
the last general election, or as soon there-
after as possible. * * *"
We are of the opinion that this statute applies only to the
opamencement of regular terms of office and does not apply
to the date on which persons elected to fill unexpired terms
may assume offioe.
Article 17. is a codification of an act of the
Legislature passed in 1921 (Acts 1921, p. 96), which was a
re-enactment of a prior act passed in 1917 (Acts 1917, p.
351) with a change in the date on which the electees were to
take office. While the 1921 act does not expressly refer to
the 1917 act, it is in identical language except for changing
the date from the first day of December to the first day of
Jan~iy and making one or two minor changes in wording. Both
in 1917 and 1921, as well as in 1925 when Article 17 was en-
acted as a part of the Revised Civil Statutes, the regular
term of elective county and preoinct offices was two years.
Prior to 1917 there had been no constitutional or statutory
provision fixing the date on which the regular term was to
commence. The absence of any provision fixing the commence-
ment of the term was discussed in Tom v. Klepper, 172 S.W.
721 (Tex.Civ.App. 1915, error ref.). In that case the court
noted two possible dates which eight be taken as the time at
which the regular term oommenced, one being the date of the
* officer's qualification and the other being at the time the
returns of the election were canvassed. The court stated that
it believed the better rule to be the date of canvassing the
returns but did not take a firm holding on the question. .
Neither of these twb dates was completely satis-
factory for the beginning of a regular term. If the date of
qualification was to be taken as the commencement of the term,
the commencement and termination of succeeding terms could be
deferred by the newly elected officer's delaying to qualify
as soon as he was entitled to do so, thereby successively and
cumulatively deferring the commenoement of subsequent te*Ps.
On the other hand, adoption of the date of completing theb
election as the beginning of the term would result in in-
creasing or decreasing the two-rear term by a few days, de-
S pending on the date of the election, which could range from
November 2 through November 8, and the correspondng date of
canvass.
This was the state of the law when the Legislature
passed the 1917 act. There was a need for a statute fixing the
beginning of regular terms on a definitely stated day not only- diO
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: WW-516, text, October 23, 1958; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth267128/m1/2/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.