The headline isn’t really what’s news here. What’s news are the comments from the Democrat state senator who sponsored the bill. While not quoting verbatim here, she basically says – to heck with the constitution – she thought her bill was a good idea. That’s not really how laws, bills, and the State Constitution are supposed to interact. Now that’s what we call real Democrat leadership – Constitution schmonstitution. Sure the law makes good sense, but come on – do your homework better so others don’t have to come up behind and clean up the mess. From The Arkansas News Bureau:

A 2005 state law permitting local governments to issue revenue bonds to finance energy-saving projects may conflict with the state constitution, according to state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel.

The state senator who sponsored the legislation said Tuesday she still believes the law makes good sense.

In an opinion requested by Washington County Prosecutor John Threet and state Rep. Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, McDaniel said Act 1980 of 2005 is “constitutionally suspect” to the extent the act can be construed as authorizing the use of tax dollars to repay bonds issued for efficiency projects.

The act added “performance-based efficiency projects” to the list of projects that counties and cities can finance with revenue bonds. Under the act, a county or city could issue bonds to hire an engineering company to develop and help implement cost-saving measures such as energy-efficient lighting fixtures and heating and cooling systems.

Savings resulting from such a project would not be new revenue, McDaniel said in the opinion released Monday.

Assuming a local government pays its energy bills with funds that include tax revenue, then using that money to repay bonds would violate Amendment 65, which prohibits the use of tax dollars for the repayment of revenue bonds, the attorney general said.

“The act never expressly states that the ‘efficiency savings’ may be used to repay the bonds. That appears to be the clear implication” in the wording of the act, however, McDaniel said in the opinion.

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