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That old Supreme Court refrain Sunday, Dec 25, 2005 By John Brummett If there's a subject more tiresome in our colorful little state this Christmas Day than whether a boy in Springdale will hurl a pigskin for the soap opera at Fayetteville or someone else, it's surely that the Arkansas Supreme Court keeps issuing rulings about how our governor and legislators aren't doing what the state constitution commands them to do for public schools. The court put out another one the other day. This was the 114th or 115th, I think. It was in a case the court previously had closed. This reminds me of Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction." You think she's dead in the bathtub, bludgeoned and, for good measure, drowned. All of a sudden, the crazy outfit splashes up out of the water. She's kind of zombied. She keeps chanting, over and over, "adequacy, adequacy." You see, here's the thing: The state constitution doesn't mandate prisons or Medicaid or the State Police. But it does mandate "general, suitable and efficient" public schools. Somehow, the courts have come to transform "general, suitable and efficient" into "adequate." How that happened, I'm not sure. What this means is that the Legislature is supposed to determine as the first order of business at its regular session every two years just what an "adequate" education amounts to, then take that money off the top of the budget before it does anything else. That's a hard thing to do when you've got street lights you want to erect in Bigelow. A special Supreme Court justice, appointed to this latest go-round because one of the seven regulars had bowed out perhaps from boredom, wrote a concurring opinion. That's what you do when you agree with the majority but have some special eloquence you simply must share. She wrote that when the governor and legislators finally get this schooling thing right, Arkansas' youngsters will shout their happiness from the valleys and the mountains. I suspect she'll be correct only if the Legislature happens to get this right on a snow day. Each time, the court stops short of presuming to tell the governor and legislators specifically what to do, because, frankly, there is no provision in the constitution or common law saying the judicial branch is a bigger shot than the executive or legislative branches. Each time, the court says what's been done hasn't been good enough and gives the governor and legislators a period of time - a year in this latest go-round - to do better. Each time, the governor and legislators kind of grumble, though they're actually relieved that the court didn't presume to issue direct procedural and policy instructions. Soon enough, they'll come together in vaunted "special session" on some kind of response - a few more millions here, a few more millions there, and, for fun, an unsettled culture war about consolidating small schools and making superintendents state employees. Maybe David Matthews, the lawyer up at Rogers who runs public education, and, it appears, the Supreme Court, will sign off on it. Maybe not. But it probably won't matter. The court has demonstrated that just because it closes this case is no reason to consider the case closed. The Legislature will meet again in regular session soon enough. Maybe they won't do enough for schools. Probably they won't do enough. Well, let's get serious: Almost assuredly they won't do enough. Matthews will call the Supreme Court to order up in his office in Rogers, and newspapers will pull that old banner headline out of their archives: "Court declares school funding unconstitutional/huffy governor calls for consolidation." ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
