our fourth and final case on the docket today is agenda number twelve case number one eleven nine zero three words versus quinn counsel may please the courts i am assistant attorney general richard has a counsel for the defendants in this case and i urge the court to reverse the appellate court's judgment and to hold that each of the acts challenged by the plaintiffs in this case satisfies the single subject cla the only constitution this is in fact an issue that the appellate court did not address along the lines that we are asking the court to reverse that judgment focusing on this subject of the capit program and that was not only the subject of the the bill that the appellate court declared unconstitutional but essentially all of the other challenge acts as part of that as part of a comprehensive package to implement the governor's capital budget and then to provide revenues for the new programs included in that budget the increased funding for financing to support both those programs and other pre authorized programs and then the first year's fiscal years appropriations for that the first issue of course one of the two step analysis for the single subject clause is whether the two thousand and nine capital program is a valid subject under the constitution if it's not a valid subject the court needn't go no further ninety six three four is invalid in its entirety we respectfully submit that that is not the conclusion that this court should reach  court addressed whether some other subject would be a valid one and whether the provisions of ninety six thirty four relate to that subject the subject of revenue we are defending the statute on the ground that the relevant valid subject assembly can only make little plans and that if there is a capital program that is comprehensive along the lines that is reflected in these bills in a particular ninety six thirty four that is too broad that is too comprehensive it negates the purpose of the single subject clause we respectfully disagree we think that the single subject clause under this court's precedent should be liberally construed it does not unduly restrict or handicap  legislative scope of action and it is comprehensive in its scope provided however a vat the subject does not become so meaninglessly broad and nebulous that it renders the constitutional protection  meaningless and i think that the best example of that is when the court i believe in the johnson case struck down a statute where the defended justification or subject for it was governmental matters under that rubric essentially everything goes anything goes and the provisional longer has any teeth to it how much weight should we give to the title that the legislature gives us i don't think it's given any legal weight it should be given it should be looked to sort of some guide post as to what the legislative intention was it used to be that the title of the subject was controlling under that eight hundred seventy constitution in jurisprudence are related to it but that's no longer the case in the court has said that  permissible subject subject can be sustained if it if the substantive provisions of the act relate to that subject and so i think that was in part where the appellate court may have focused and we believe excessively on the stated subject of public act ninety six tears thirty four which says it's an act relating to revenue clearly the vast majority of us provisions do relate to revenue but that's not all it does it also without addressing that is the the constitutional line drawing here as a pragmatic matter it also established the capital projects fund in the state treasury under the state finance act and it provided for the governor to provide periodic reports with respect to the programs that were being implemented unauthorized under public act ninety six thirty seven for example which authorized a number of program programs within the scope of the two thousand and nine capital program we believe that the air in gold case is faithful to the principles that we back to q later it supports our position which is that the subject of a capital program here is a valid one and now appellate court without explicitly saying so seemed to indicate that hearing gold is sort of a one off so we generous exception to the single subject clause pursuant to which budget implementation acts alone are allowed to have a broad scope with many programs and many many other acts we don't read the case that way we read it is being faithful to the principles that the subject portion of the test should be liberally construe yes no i think what it says is that they all have to be pointed towards a similar goal which is reflected in that subject and so in that case the subject was implementation of the of the budget for that fiscal year but the court's decision reflects the many many many programs that were added to expanded change reduce not just in ways that totaled up increased funding were reduced funding or increased expenditures but really made major program magic changes as well and so our view of their own gold is that that this subject can be quite broad provided doesn't become meaninglessly nebulous and that if you do have a valid subject then the real test becomes whether the all the individual provisions have a logical and natural relationship to that valid subject in the court has struck down some stairs or it's that that run afoul of that principle because the provisions you know relating to hospital liens and and amendments to the criminal code for example just don't possibly relate to a single valid subject i think it's worth noting that the that the only statutes include a capital budget act that directs the governor to prepare a capital budget separate from just the end will operations budget in to compile the state agencies request for capital expenditures to look at the programs to make an estimate of what the revenues necessary lottery the well to to implement a capital program in this case the legislature did something that we believe is not only sensible from a from a commonsense perspective but also appropriate constitutionally which is to say we're not going to spend a whole bunch of money on all these new programs without revenues for them and so when they outlined all the programs they had to add to it sources new funding not just you know tacking on new debt without any money to pay for it and in essence then you have a the coming together of the new revenues established by nine hundred thirty four the new programs in ninety six thirty seven which includes the first program you mentioned the university program for expanding a lot and a lot of these different that is really a revenue program the idea being that existing lottery revenues adjusted for inflation would continue to go to the same purposes to which they were previously devoted which includes funding for the state schools the public schools but that there was going to be a partial privatization of the day to day management not overall control of the lottery but the day to day management of the program and that five percent of the net state lottery revenues would go to the private manager of the idea being that privatization sometimes makes sense it's good to bring in sort of fresh blood and fresh ideas and entrepreneurial spirit but the concern here is if you're referring to the study by the university about the lottery effect on families it dead does bear a logical and natural relationship to this new revenue raising mechanism because the legislature was concerned that if you get sort of this entrepreneurial spirit carry a little too far and they start to promote and market the lottery in ways that encourages people perhaps to do things that are that are unhealthy for them financially they could have a negative effect on i know my families and so the idea was let's try and raise new revenues in this fashion but let's not do it in a in a reckless fashion and so the study is intended to ensure our position is that the plaintiff has sort of taken a myopic view look at one provision in isolation focus on it exclusive of the rest of the enactment and then claim that it cannot possibly have a natural and logical relationship to the rest of the statutory program but we disagree and in that case it's important to realize that one of the major news sources of revenues for the capital program was increases in the fees in fines under the motor vehicle code but those revenues were in and at risk roads and bridges and highways we also and we're going to be charging people you know higher fines for violating the weight limits if we're improving those roads and bridges then it makes sense especially if we're going to nail somebody with a higher fine for violating the weight limits to give them also a little bit the benefit of those infrastructure improvements you're going to prove the roads and bridges you can increase the weight limits modestly and i think the statute reflects that these are modest increases too and that corresponds with this overall goal of raising the revenues using those revenues to do the work but also making sure that the work has a public benefit collectively and in this case it's better roads and bridges so the weight limits were gone up a slight bit not in their brief and we're not sure why they dropped them off the table we would submit that that the court need not then resolve them but obviously you know the forfeiture issues are ones for the court to resolve but the two that they do specifically attack in their brief  the claim that some of the revenues some small portion of the revenues from increases in the taxes on candy soft drinks hygiene and grooming products is just go into the general revenue fun for whatever purpose the government wants to spend it on and they make the same claim with respect to some of the money is that come into the capital projects fund let me address those separately the first one is one that we've never seen before it arises for the first time in th and we would submit that not having been raised below or addressed by the appellate court that really has been forfeited but in any event it really has no merit v goal of raising the taxes on this short list of products clearly was to use the additional revenues generated by those to go into the capital projects fund and that's exactly what happens to pay for the programs that this package of bills implements but they had to work against an existing  template for the tax structure for imposing sales and use taxes or retailers occupation and use taxes in under that template there are two tax levels and retailers in the department of revenue within those two tax levels don't make a product by product differentiation with a master computer that then tracks which penny from which product goes to which destination they are done in the larger baskets and that's a logical and pragmatic way of doing it and so in this case the state was already getting a nickel out of the sales tax and the a local governments were already getting a penny but when you shift from a penny to six and a quarter percent the additional quarter percent for products that were already subject to that taxation was going to the counties in mass transit fund which pays for the r t a in chicago and their surrounding area and and then it goes to the counties that's a very small portion but the important point is that that can't have been anything other than an incidental byproduct and a small one at that of implementing this goal of generating additional revenues for the capital projects funding these new projects in the most sensible and even the only pragmatic way that that could be done which is to move these products from one category to the other category provide that an estimate of the five percent that the state gets on these new products would then go to the capital projects fund because there isn't a product by product sale by sale tracking of it and then let the rest be implemented according to the preexisting statute that is so far afield from violating the single subject rule by lacking a necessary logical connection i think the court can you know readily occlude that this was done in a way that easily satisfies that standard and the other challenge is to the twin that both terminate road fund diversions that historically had gotten to two hundred forty five point two million dollars to the secretary of state and to be on state police simultaneously terminating the elves and then also providing that the same amount of money would go out of the capital projects fund to the general revenue fund and even in one of the appropriation bill items subsequent to that the legislature makes it clear that there are appropriate action to one of those two state agencies out of the general revenues is to make up for the money that used to be coming out of the road five now the road front is largely used for transportation products including construction capital infrastructure but also some operations related to the road and that was the historic justification for the state police and for the secretary of state that promoted safety on the roads to have some of the  road fund but if they were going to try and make sure the road fund monies in the future would be used for capital projects and a major use of the road fund is to repay or service the debt on road bonds used for road construction and in fact since this a program took effect there's been one point six billion dollars in road funds issued and that's getting paid out transportation bonds that are being paid out of the road fine so if they're if they're going to try and secure these revenue sources for the by terminating the diversions elsewhere those operations elsewhere didn't stop so they needed to find some other way of covering that and the way they did that was i think a reasonably logical unnecessary way of doing it just saying no more diversions but some of the money that it is now going to go into the general revenue fund it's tantamount to saying this amount of money goes straight to the road fund although they did it in a two step in direct approach the plaintiff's argument in this court now is finally that those numbers which are virtually identical the the money that goes to the general revenue fund and is i think of few thousands less than the two hundred forty five point two million diversions that are ended swell the diversions were previously maxed out by statute and so you should really count some lower number than the one that the legislature used and our response to that is a very practical one they had been maxed out by statute previously repeatedly and the legislature had repeatedly overridden those limitations and what he did done was appropriate two hundred forty five point two million out of the road fund for these purposes and in doing this sort of equivalency transfer it was appropriate for the legislature to say let's look at what we've been doing rather than what we said we would do but never really did year after year so those are the those i think are the main focuses of the natural logical connection test that the that the plaintiffs focus on in this court and we think that each of those satisfy that it satisfactorily meets the constitutional test of there being a natural and logical connection specific providing provisions the end of sweeps from the underground storage tank leaking trust fund you know that type of thing i'd certainly be glad to address them but we believe that we have included in our briefs before the court assess  satisfactory description or explanation of those before you move on and then we can back up to a just as percs earlier question about the latter restudy i think that's the provision that's in section nine thirty five of the omnibus act is that  families was there a tie in somehow that the lottery would pay in part some of this the capital project because i don't see any language if that's your argument in section twelve twenty five that's part of one hundred thirty five thematic sense to this extent if he if this new change in the way the lottery is operated with partial private eyes management of the day to day operations was intended to generate additional revenues and those additional revenues over the inflation adjusted baseline were going to going to going to go to capture projects funding this provision relates to it in substance by trying to make sure that the legislature in the government know whether of a regressive tax on the poor the people who play the lottery are the ones who have the least means and can least afford it but that's their choice in our society and the legislature has allowed them to do that but at the same time while that that choice is being put out there and much of the money goes to the school system they want to reassure themselves that they're not eroding the integrity of illinois families and i think that's both an important value and one that does have a sufficient relationship to the to the modifications to a lot itself so the funding component is elsewhere it is located not in that same section yes correct that's what i wanted to know oh i'm sorry your honor yes it's in a different section of the same of the same  i don't know what else to say about the appellate court's decision that we asked this court to reverse be on the constitutionality of ninety six thirty four you know police we've submitted that nobody has argued that there was a nine constitutional basis to invalidate these other acts the pellet court seems to have seized upon that by itself and concluded as a matter of statutory interpretation that the contingent effectiveness clauses in those other acts somehow mean that if one if one hundred thirty four was declared unconstitutional that the legislature intended all of those other acts to fall and we have have submitted an argument that that's not a correct conclusion as a matter of statutory interpretation the plaintiffs have not disputed that they've simply said incorrectly but the appellate court declared all those other acts unconstitutional and it did not do so it specifically said it was not declaring those other acts unconstitutional but that does bring us to the question of whether those other areas and i'm sorry delayed you a little there but your time has expired you want to taxes raising video poker and expanding the revenue on both capital and operational concerns for state government in mid july the governor approve them within thirty two days on the august twenty fifth fair filed a petition with a complaint challenging for those five actually those exile a three fundamental rules of our constitution our constitution prohibits substantive language and appropriation bills questions you can incorporate them into your argument if you want any way you want yes or would seem to at least make this a little bit different than the typical single subject challenge yeah i think that will become apparent in the questions and tell me what difference this makes if any and i'll go through quickly the first as this is the once in a decade capital works bill i mean by its very nature it's going to be enormous right i mean there's no dispute as to that and it can contains a variety of creative legislative means to finance it so the first question is why would the financial part not  a necessary element of the capital projects bill the second these these are somewhat related the the legislative history apparently contains not a single accusation of log rolling which we typically see in single subject and back it appears that the history reveals a real level of bipartisan unity all all around drafting and and passing this know you figured out the three most important questions on the case for sure and let's go at those i'd like to go at them if you will in reverse order the smoking gun there's an absolute smoking gun there  smoking guns in fact the first smoking gun is the two hundred forty five million dollars diverted from capital projects to general revenue and that two hundred forty five million dollars is by no means offset by an equivalent two hundred forty five million dollars backed out of road funds that have gone previously for operations first pardon me road funds can be paid for operations in the state has not told you funds are going for capital in the state has not told you that the road funds are not going for operations they can be used for operations it says so precisely and eight point three of the state's finance act the you can identify have only permitted thirty million dollars to be is for the secretary of state in fiscal year two thousand and ten and fifty million dollars to be yours but the secretary of state by the state police in two thousand  there are masses in the statute the past so in order to get to the argument that the state makes about a two hundred forty five million dollars back out you have to turn legislative history or the law intent on of snows what you have to decide who you have to reason that legislative intent is not something that you get from a bill but something that you get from what the legislature might have time or had done in the past not something from a bill there is no two hundred forty five million dollars transferred out third the state the touch feel about the public act ninety six forty two in their final brief and the fact that there bills later in ninety six forty six an appropriation bill signed into law by the governor there are numerous appropriations very steps substantial amounts to the secretary of state and through the state police that mostly on the bus and the appropriations bill contained clauses in them that required that they would not go into effect at all unless the other bill went into effect that is a lot well and in the worst in the worst and as for instance this court failed in the cook first lindbergh case the worst situation you can face is late in the budget year where the things are put into he could not exercise the line item veto he could not exercise the reduction veto and he could not exercise the amended current veto to get rid of that language in the appropriations bill you held that  further if he wanted to get the general revenue money the two hundred forty five million dollars were conceivably it says as little as one hundred sixty million dollars if you do my eighty million dollars number legislator on the floor that with both of those bills going into effect they'll get every project they asked for in the appropriation bill let me quote to you just briefly what the sponsor the sponsor said the former leaders have got together and worked out funding for capital it's not easy voting for taxes quite frankly there are parts in here i don't want their parts in here i would there are certainly situations where people reach compromises and in our society they have to reach compromise was but a compromise where you have to vote for things that are unpopular in order to get things that are popular is a mistake what is what ruling was the fact that no required financing it raised the taxes in order to pay for transportation but it didn't funnel money off away from transportation to other projects  certainly not something and especially when those taxes flow not only to capital projects but also flow to operations of government public aid children and family services agencies we're all familiar with desirable things but when when that amendment deals with the fairness of tax much of which goes to operations it's not an amendment  and certainly the appropriation bill goes down because it's tied to the omnibus in the very language of the omnibus and the appropriation bills it says that if one goes down the other goes down i don't so says that impracticality ninety six thirty seven what the legislature called the budget implementation act or the bell it would go down as well and it would go down because  retraces many of the provisions in the omnibus it changes the the implementation of the tax dates it has a series of of its own special problems in that it creates a  consumer protection provision for consumers who deal with rental car companies completely unrelated to this  map operations spending capital spending as well as these numerous other things we've cited that are really rather small things probably designed to get individual votes mr vincent would it be difficult for little bill of this magnitude to ever be paralysed it would not be in violation of singles of the wealthy and nineteen seventy one i believe seventy one i believe making the money available and including mellow and i think nine hundred ninety one you approved another very major transportation program that you appealed on single subject and it can find of self to raising taxes for transportation and distributing the money to transportation agencies the yes i think it can be done i think you can pass a bill that raises the taxes i think you can pass a bill creates the project i think you can pass a third bill that does the appropriations i don't think you have to type those things together i recognize that if there were spatial circumstances that surrounded the passage of this bill the governor had been impeached and removed a new governor had taken office he may well be a elements of trust were missing across the street it would typically be in place and because of that perhaps people wanted to be able to vote not just for the taxes but for the projects at the same time and they one of the provisions in the bills that guaranteed everything to them but i'd submit to you very spectrally honor that the most disastrous thing that can occur in our society is not that a particular program be delayed and it can certainly be recovered by the legislature repassing the thing with care of legislation overnight in a factor is cured of legislation just passed the senate it's in the house and it's out of house committee and in a substan is a much more substantial issue at stake here and that is the single something grow the appropriations no substantive language in appropriations those kinds of rules are so fundamental to making the legislature and our society operate appropriately that the bigger catastrophe would be for the court to skimp on the enforcement of those rules when you tell the legislature they need to do the sanction they do them they do them carefully and it's not a case of you having to intervene and go over there and vote and police the legislature it's a case of you finding exorbitant examples of legislative convenience and convenience isn't the best way to run of legislature or to run a government around the society constitutions are here's the question if we were to disagree with you if we were to would certainly hope that you would find that the liquor tax is not uniform because the state has not survived the burden shifts in the look or tax so you believe that then we would have to go forward and address the other issues that  raised in the post complaint i believe that you shouldn't yes a case of this stage is that the legislature raised the tax on beer four point six cents a gallon and it's actually not a tax on beer it's a tax on the occupation of distributing beer they raise the tax on the occupation of distributing wine sixty seven cents a gallon and they raise the tax on the occupation of distributing spirits four dollars and five cents a gallon let those are vastly disproportionate taxes and that those taxes are inappropriate and don't meet the standard and the standard is everybody knows is that there have to be clear it please the court i want to respond to some of the points made by closing counsel and certainly i want to answer any questions the court has even if they are not related to oppose the council's arguments i think it is important to focus on the contingency clauses but the characterization of the contingency clause is certainly the one in the appropriation bill as a rider that incorporates substantive law into that appropriation bill is incorrect it is not a rider the effect of that contingency clause is not like a rider where if you pass the appropriation bill this other substantive law takes effect the contingency cause says if that other bill doesn't become law this appropriation doesn't go forward and money isn't spent there's a logical reason for that and that is that as the legislative history discloses it's sometimes easy to vote for spending and hard to vote to raise taxes but if the legislature decided that this capital program was necessary and they want to just pile on additional billions of debt to fund those programs they needed new revenues those were the hard votes and the appropriations bill century says if there are revenues there because you didn't vote for them this spending isn't going to happen that makes perfect sense now it's a case of first impression in this court and the extent  goes beyond the single subject clause and it relates to the substantive law in appropriation claim that they have that wasn't addressed by the appellate court we believe that they're there their prayer and their complaint to enjoin appropriations under the fiscal year of ninety six thirty five is moot because that's happened there's no movement exception that would apply to their claim to try and pursue that theory here but i want to submit to that if the court finds that it wants to address and will it this phase of this case address that issue i urge you to examine the florida supreme court's decision although it may be a case of first impression in this court cited page sixteen about reply brief it addresses this exact issue and it says for reasons that i think just the lindbergh decision makes clear that it is not in permissible to have a contingency for an appropriation clause provided that contingency is related to the subject of appropriation and further provided if that contingency is another bill that there be a direct and relative independent interdependence between the two why is that important because it prevents the type of wall rolling rider type problem the just the schaefer referred to when the legislature needs to fund its operations you don't want somebody should corning in a substantive provision that is not related to the subject of appropriations but if as in this case you have a capital program where the appropriations are put out and you need the revenues to pay for them there is a direct and logical relative interdependence between those it's common sense you can't spend the money unless you have these bills and that contingency clause essentially made exquisite what was already implicit the appropriations were going to go anywhere if the legislature didn't pass the revenues so on that issue i urge the court if it reaches that question to look carefully at that decision it has been approvingly cited by every other jurisdiction that seems to a focused on the issue i have not seen any contrary authority and it is i believe i'm only us with the decision to to know that included both revenues and projects as part of a single subject analysis here again we have multiple components of a large capital program you've got to have the revenues you've got to have the programs authorized you've got to have the financing mechanism and you've got to have the appropriations and although capital projects require multiple years of appropriations this appropriations bill appropriately was limited to the first fiscal year beyond that those appropriations are there fiscal year was expired even when the appellate court issued his decision so if there's a new this issue would also applied at the time of that decision as well on the statutory interpretation issue i would disagree with the notion that if if ninety six thirty four goes down that as a matter of statutory interpretation the other bills go down i think that the language used was not like us severability clause that is intended to deal with the question of a finding of unconstitutionality it uses the language essentially of the constitution with respect to the passage of a bill and that is what the language each of those bills was in fact passed and that was standing the fact that if the court declares ninety six thirty four there may be curative legislation for it and we'll have to see whether that's necessary and what that would look like it doesn't carry with it the invalidity of all of the other bills that have contingency provisions in them with respect to whether ninety six thirty four or the house bill to fifty five became law the veto problem i submit is nonexistent in this case the governor's veto powers we just as preserved as they were without these contingency clauses both a line item veto and a reduction in appropriation veto when the general veto power were all rough respect in this case so that that addresses the second smoking gun argument that was that the transfer of the contingency cross provision services that there's two smoking guns there logging log rolling problems and i believe he said the one where the appropriations is linked  and but that's also true i think with respect to all the other provisions in under a single subject clause analysis our position is that if the permissible single subject of ninety six thirty four and all these other bills is the capital program fact that all of these bills do have provisions that relate to that same subject doesn't render them them invalid on a single subject theory either question was is that your response is his example of what's one of the most extreme problems you're saying that the same will that single but the landed veto under your reading still this preserved what was preserved he both urged it is a smoking gun with respect to the single subject clause analysis but he also said that it somehow violates the governor's veto powers and i answer that it does not in substance violate the single subject clause but likewise i add that it does not violate the veto provision of constitution which is one of the other claims the appellate court did not address i also want to briefly touch upon the uniformity of taxation clause to answer just as governments question a trial is not required to address the wisdom of the legislative judgment that higher per drink taxes at the wholesale level i'm stronger alcoholic beverages promotes the stated goal in the liquor control act of temperaments the differential is approximately two and a half in four and a half on the per drink taxes at the wholesale level between beer wine in whisky two point two cents a drink for beer five point four cents for wine and ten cents for whiskey and the the idea that they're going to call their first witness in try and disprove the legislative judgment and the test for that is could the legislature reasonably have conceived of facts pursuant to which that judgment was permissible this is a question of law for the court to decide we're not going to have witnesses get up on the stand and say all of the legislature's clearly wrong about you know higher taxes getting passed through to the retail level they couldn't reasonably of conceive that that was possible and that higher taxes translating into a higher retail prices reduce the consumption of those things that are tax the most this is within the legitimate well move legislative judgment you don't assume legally the that taxes imposed on the wholesale level are borne by a downstream consumer giving them standing as a tax payer on the protest when you say that doesn't translate into a finding that the legislature couldn't reasonably believe that a wholesale taxes trickle down through the chain of distribution to higher taxes at the retail level i think i've i've answered the major questions  that the legislature should ignore what it actually was doing and pay attention to what it said it should do and repeatedly changed and didn't do year after year that's probably one of the argument prong toward your argument is that money isn't the road fund can be used for any purpose including operations and therefore it doesn't properly relate to capital programs i simply think that that's wrong the court can disagree although road fund monies do sometimes are used for planning and design and related operations with respect to transportation the primary function of the road fund which includes revenues that come from the federal federally imposed tax on gasoline is related to transportation facilities and operations and the reality is that the vast majority of that relates to building maintaining an operating the roads and bridges and highways in the state that's within the purview of the capital program ever since these billboards bills were passed there's been one point six billion dollars in bonds payable  out of the transportation bond fund that is paid for directly out of the road fund to say that the legislature was engaged in some type of shell game manipulation to try and just generate revenues for the general revenue from they could be used for any purpose i think is contradicted by the by the face of the statute as well as the pragmatic history of the operations of these various farms and i urge the court again to reverse the appellate court's judgment to hold that all these statutes satisfy the single subject clause and if the court  beyond those issues and reach the other claims by the plaintiffs i urge the court to affirm the decision of the circuit court concluding that as a matter of law they have not stated reasonable grounds for proceeding on those claims thank you your honors thank you