23-405. Commission; members; qualifications; number; election; vacancy; how filled.

(1) The commission shall consist of five members who shall be in sympathy with the application of merit principles to public employment. No member of the commission shall be a member of any local, state, or national committee of a political party or an officer or member of a committee in any partisan political club or organization.

(2) The members of the commission shall be as follows: (a) Two elected officers selected from the offices of and elected by the county commissioners, clerk, assessor, treasurer, public defender, register of deeds, clerk of the district court, engineer, and sheriff, being of opposite political parties if possible, and each party shall separately select its own member, (b) two full-time permanent county employees, and (c) one public member holding no public or political office. The initial two such employees shall be selected by the two elected officers referred to in subdivision (a) of this subdivision as follows: Any such employee who is at least twenty-one years of age may submit his or her name as a candidate to the elected officer of the political party with which the employee is registered who shall then select one commission member from such list of names. The four members of the commission shall then select the public member. The commission shall establish employee election procedures which shall provide that all county employees subject to the County Civil Service Commission Act may vote and, if not less than twenty-one years of age, be candidates for a member of the commission. One employee member of the commission shall be a Democrat elected by the Democrat-registered employees subject to the County Civil Service Commission Act and one employee member of the commission shall be a Republican elected by the Republican-registered employees subject to the County Civil Service Commission Act. An employee otherwise eligible to vote and be a candidate for the office of employee member of the commission, but who is not registered as either a Democrat or a Republican, may become eligible to vote, and become a candidate for the office of employee member of the commission by making a declaration that he or she desires to vote for such a member of the commission, or be a candidate for such office, and, in the same declaration, designating the party, Democrat or Republican, with which he or she desires to be affiliated for this purpose. After making such declaration, that employee shall have the same right to vote for a candidate, and be a candidate for the office of employee member of the commission as if the employee were a registered member of the party so designated in the declaration. The manner, form, and contents of such declaration shall be initially established by the two elected officials referred to in subdivision (2)(a) of this section, subject to modification by the commission after it has been fully formed.

(3) The initial term of office of (a) the two elected officers shall be three years from May 21, 1971; (b) the initial term of office of the county employees shall be two years from May 21, 1971; and (c) the initial term of the public member shall be three years from May 21, 1971.

(4) At the expiration of the initial term of office, a successor member shall be elected or appointed as provided in the County Civil Service Commission Act for a term of three years. Membership on the commission of any member shall terminate upon the resignation of any member or at such time as the member no longer complies with the qualifications for election or appointment to the commission. If a member's term terminates prior to the expiration of the term for which the member was elected or appointed, the commission shall appoint a successor complying with the same qualifications for the unexpired term.

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