Ignoble ‘principles’
The gold standard for constitutions is our national one, mainly for the array of simple yet profound concepts it advances.
It soars as mostly a set of noble principles, eschewing details and leaving interpretations and applications to courts.
In the rare instance when our U.S. Constitution became narrowly regulatory—such as when we amended it to say something so silly as that you couldn’t buy an alcoholic beverage— we ended up taking that back.
The U.S. Constitution also is gloriously strong and effective because it makes itself highly difficult to change, amend, tinker with, defile or prostitute.
By its most conventional method, a federal constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress for referral to state legislatures, and then ratification by 38 of those. Two-thirds of Congress and 38 states could not currently coalesce on anything, which is generally a tragic polarization but is specifically fortuitous when it comes to keeping the latest blather out of our glorious Constitution.
Speaking of the latest blather, we have in Arkansas the example of one of the worst state constitutions.
Where the U.S. Constitution is general and noble and principled, our state tome is laden with special-interest minutiae more appropriate for statutory or regulatory law or the trash heap, such as in regard to interest rates and property taxes.
Where the U.S. Constitution makes itself remotely difficult to change, the state one provides that you may hire a canvasser and get signatures and take a chance on getting a simple majority of Arkansas voters to say “yes” at the next general election to whatever selfservice nonsense you deem worthy of a wild stab. Such as Issue 5. This is a proposed constitutional amendment for the November ballot by which a couple of guys in Missouri looked south and thought they detected opportunity amid a high concentration of gullible yahoos.
So they hired a canvasser and got signatures to qualify for the ballot a proposed amendment that specifically names corporations they have established, or their subsequent “assignees,” as monopolies to operate gambling casinos in Washington, Boone and Miller Counties.
Then the proposal has these audacious Missourians implanting in our state constitution the tax rate they would pay the state and affected counties and cities.
The Missourians’ campaign slogan is “Arkansas wins.” That’s better politics than the truthful “two old boys from Missouri win.”
If we want to legalize casino gambling in Arkansas, then we should write our own generally authorizing proposal saying casino gambling is permitted only as defined, designed, located and taxed by the state Legislature, and only as subject to the ongoing administrative oversight and regulation of a commission the Legislature would establish and fund and hold accountable.
We should generate our own constitutional law in the general interest, rather than let two guys in Missouri generate it in their specific interest.
What if lawyer David Couch, who has spearheaded the proposed constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, had included in his text a provision granting to a corporation that he had established the full monopoly control over medical-marijuana sales and proceeds and taxes?
The only difference is that marijuana is better for you than a slot machine.
Then there’s the consideration that Couch is an Arkansas guy.
At this point I hear some of you saying and asking: We give the Oaklawn Jockey Club, also owned by Missourians, monopoly control of horse racing in Arkansas. What’s the difference?
The difference is that the voters, decades ago, approved an amendment specifically permitting in the city of Hot Springs pari-mutuel wagering on horse races. But that amendment did not write Charles Cella into the state Constitution or include Cella’s personal dictation into our constitutional law of the taxes he’d pay.
Here’s what that amendment said: “Horse racing and pari-mutuel wagering thereon shall be lawful in Hot Springs, Garland County, Arkansas, and shall be regulated by the General Assembly.”
That’s how you do it—short, sweet, clear and absent constitutional status for some joker’s limited liability corporation.
Greyhound racing exists by a statute supported by case law about the legality of pari-mutuel wagering in the state.
The subsequent statutory gymnastics by which we have allowed Oaklawn and Southland to operate casinos—ahem, “racinos”—under the guise of “games of skill” rather than “chance” … well, that’s another outrage altogether and no reason to prostitute our state Constitution.
We actually need state constitutional amendments from time to time, such as this one: No person or corporation or commercial enterprise or assignee thereof may be named in the Constitution or otherwise granted therein any specific economic benefit or commercial power or privilege or exception.
And we need another to say the document could not be amended except by a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate for referral to the 75 county quorum courts and ratification by, oh, let’s say 60.
John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was inducted into the Arkansas Writers’ Hall of Fame in 2014. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.