You ignore the main point of my argument, namely that the binding being static for a local variable simply is a result of the fact that there can't ever be any alternatives in that case. Or put another way, the question whether the binding is static or not is moot for local variables; one can just as well regard it as non-static and arrive at exactly the same result. In the case of class declarations that's clearly no longer true.
As for the looks of the constant construct, I don't think the syntactic difference is really relevant as to whether it should be orthogonal wrt to binding or not. But anyway:
I my view "constant" is a modifier. Then the type is left out altogether from a constant declaration. I believe the reason for that has been that it can be inferred from the value. That approach is however not without problems since the type can get overly narrow (my original example in this thread shows one problematic case, but there are others). Due to those problems, it's just a matter of time before constant declarations will allow explicit typing.