Court Opinion

ID: 9667210
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:38:34.083334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:48.011105
License: Public Domain

Supplemental Opinion on Denial of Rehearing delivered April 15, 1986 George Rose Smith, Justice, on rehearing. The petition for rehearing must be denied, but certain questions raised in it and in several supporting petitions require comments about a few points that are closely related to the issues actually before us when this case was first decided. Fears are expressed that the court’s opinion creates doubts about the validity of revenue bonds that were issued, without an election, before the date of the court’s opinion, March 3, 1986. Not one of us had or has the remotest intention of invalidating bonds that were issued in reliance on the court’s earlier decisions. Nor was it the court’s intention to hold that the Constitution does not permit the use of revenue bonds by counties and cities. Like other interest-bearing securities, however, revenue bonds must be approved by the electorate. In general, our opinion is prospective, but there is an exception as to the bonds involved in this case — the Magic Springs bonds issued by the Hot Springs Advertising & Tourist Promotion Commission. Under our prior decisions an exception is made with respect to the particular case in which earlier cases are overruled. That is necessarily true, for otherwise there would be no reason for a litigant to devote the required time, effort, and money to an attack upon existing unsound precedents. Parish v. Pitts, 244 Ark. 1239, 429 S.W.2d 45 (1968). The cities of Plainview and Eureka Springs request directives about their special problem. They say they have gone so far toward entering into contracts and committing funds for capital-improvement bond issues that they should be allowed to proceed, else they will suffer penalties. The Plainview petition is contested by citizens who say related litigation is in progress. Serious questions of fact may exist or may arise. In a rare situation it is possible that the rights of the public may have vested to such an extent that the bond issue could be approved by a declaratory judgment. Such cases, however, cannot be passed upon in the first instance at the appellate level. A petition filed by the Little Rock Municipal Water Works argues that our original opinion had no constitutional basis, because Section 1 of Article 16 of the Constitution, which provides that no county or municipality shall ever issue interest-bearing evidences of indebtedness, was repealed by Amendment 62. The theory is that Amendment 13 amended Section 1 “to read as follows,” and therefore when Amendment 62 repealed Amendment 13, the result was to strike out Section 1 as well. This argument has no substance. Amendment 13 recopied Section 1, which was only a single paragraph, and then added an 11-paragraph proviso detailing how cities, but not counties, could issue tax-supported bonds for some 20 different capital improvements. Thus Section 1 continued in full force, with a proviso. When Amendment 62 repealed Amendment 13, obviously the intent was to repeal only what had been added by the Amendment, not the original Section. In fact, Amendment 62 contains substitute provisions by which the power of cities to issue tax-supported bonds for the making of capital improvements is preserved. If the authors of Amendment 62 meant to repeal Section 1 of Article 16, they should and would have said so. In no other way could the voters have been put on notice that by adopting Amendment 62 they were destroying a safeguard that had existed for more than a century. Finally, a number of the petitioners ask us to suspend the operation of the Constitution to allow for the passage of enabling legislation and the possible adoption of a constitutional amendment. Ever since Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, was decided in 1803, the Supreme Court has had the responsibility of interpreting the United States Constitution and the state courts that of interpreting the state constitutions. But the judicial authority does not extend beyond interpretation. The courts do not have the power to hold a constitutional mandate in abeyance; they should not have that power. The constitutional way of doing things may be slow at times, but it is the right way. If a county or city urgently needs a capital improvement, additional legislation is not required; for Amendment 62 is self-executing and provides in Section 6 that in the absence of laws implementing the Amendment, elections may be called and conducted under the laws governing elections generally. As for revenue bonds, nothing stands in the path of their availability except the need for an election. The framers of the Constitution and of the pertinent amendments did not share the apparent reluctance of the amici curiae to resort to popular elections. The petition for rehearing is denied. Holt, C.J., concurs. Dudley and Hays, JJ., concurring. Purtle, J., not participating.