General magistrates do not have to resign when they become candidates for a judicial post nor does it create an appearance of impropriety if they campaign while continuing to fulfill their magistrate duties, according to the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee.

A general magistrate who has filed for a judicial seat where the incumbent will not seek reelection next year posed the resignation and campaign questions to the committee. In this case, the inquiries recently were answered by the JEAC’s Election Practices Subcommittee, established to give immediate responses to campaign-related questions where the normal committee procedure might not provide a timely response.

The opinion noted that the committee had previously held that a traffic hearing officer did not have to resign when running for a county judgeship and was not covered by a provision in Canon 7A(2) that requires sitting judges to resign if they run for a non-judicial office. That provision has been held to require a traffic hearing officer to resign if the officer wanted to run for sheriff, the committee said.