the court now calls case number one one nine seven all formally unschooled moline school district number forty board of education versus the honorable pat quinn at all are you ready to proceed if we rea in order to give a longstanding illinois family business an incentive to expand its operations and moline illinois and bring millions of dollars of revenue and dozens of jobs into this state instead of expanding  and hold the district court had not met its very high burden to demonstrate that this act was unconstitutional the third district overlooked the district's lack of evidence and addressed only one constitutional argument holding special legislation was article nine section six and uniform uniformity was i want us each in turn the special legislation clause this court is held as the purpose of preventing the legislature arbitrarily discriminating in favor of one person or group to the exclusion of others who are similarly situated just the district was required to prove that the circuit court level two things that the african first a special benefit upon an f b o a fixed base operator in rock island and excluded other f b o those that were similarly situated and then choose if they can clear that hurdle the district was required to demonstrate that the x classification was arbitrary have addressed in our brief and cited the cases that provide this court certainly can address the subsequent arguments because i think all parties would agree they have been fully briefed at the circuit court level third district level so from our standpoint your honor we were encouraged to forego address all three issues you know firming the circuit court's decision the circuit court held in this case that there was no evidence presented by the district and its challenge to demonstrate there is simply no evidence in the record below this was decided or prosecutions for summary judgment everybody had the opportunity to present affidavits exhibits so there was no evidence in the record below that any other  ethics based operator who does business in multiple states there's no evidence that there were any other fixed base operators in the state of illinois the do business in multiple states and in fact there was no evidence whatsoever identifying any other fixed base operators in the state of them all there was in the districts violence was a reference in an argument that there are a number of other airports in this state that showed that l a actually had a need and an opportunity to experience business as i said earlier the study showed dozens of new high paying professional jobs as well as eighty four million dollars of revenue to the state of illinois over approximately a ten year period that's significant because there was no evidence any other f b o in the state was trying to decide do i bring these jobs and this revenue into my state my home state or do i take them somewhere else do i take a look at what elliot is actually doing or do we look at the legislation which makes no reference to the fact that  it would create money or jobs are that it that they do business across state lines as you look at these the act it seems to me is to say whether chelios or whether it's another f b o that does the act as written at this point does that go now what's important to consider is the legislative history and the fact that representative or shore and senator jacobs and the others who spoke to this issue during the four debates specifically relied upon the and sponsoring and also in passing this act overwhelming they discussed the great impact this would have on rock island county on the state of illinois so they did in fact that's a good justification so there's no evidence in the record whatsoever that any other f b o across the state was considering expanding was considering whether to do so in a state that taxes  leasehold or a state that doesn't that's a significant difference here because a business has to look in illinois prior to the act being passed as leasehold interest was taxed in iowa where only it also does business it was not it's a significant financial impact to a company in deciding am i going to expand in illinois or by the way eliot has done business for several years longer than i've been or are we going to take the business to another state those are considerations that the court the circuit court of law and determined there is no evidence whatsoever that any other f b o in the state was similarly situated because it provides what we'll talk about later as it was like public utility services at the airport basically what it does is you provide services to private airlines that the commercial airlines have on their own absent an quad cities is a tight close community or community easy to get from one airport to the other easy for commuters or excuse me airline airlines private airlines and people that use private planes to make the discussed so because of this this court is for help previously many times that last can be enacted to address a uniquely situated individual or a business that's what we have the was not in even if it was even if you determined that there was evidence that elliott was similarly situated with others that doesn't and the analysis you don't get to the rational basis analysis but this court has recognized is clearly the most deferential lowest hurdle in the constitutional and the circuit court recognized and we believe this court has a prior decisions that economic development economic only became taxable because the legislature decided it would be many years the property is owned by the gun by the metropolitan airport authority a governmental entity that property is not  the property was taxable the legislature never ever changed its mind i don't believe under this court's precedent that's correct under this course precedent it's black letter law but real estate taxes are a matter only against the the legislature today and be bound by what happened ten twenty fifty years times change circumstances change situations change and that's what the legislature is doing here it was using its best judgment and its discretion to address changes and the need to bring these jobs in this r get by just having united or american flying in the quad cities for example we know john deere airplanes this is in their own private airplanes come in for the john deere classic they bring a lot of big name golfers television news meet the whole works that's what an f b o services without an f b o there's no one to provide those services that's because of that there are a virtuous across like public until little different when you're flying here you can't simply land an airplane at your waists or a gas station or i you need to go to an airport that has an f b o that's why as we've discussed under was i public your honour's with respect to the uniformity clause argument basically this court is told us that the uniformity clause provides that taxing officials may not value the same kind of property within the same not it was clearly within the legislative legislature's discretion to make that decision and again this is subject only to the rational basis test the economic impact the economic benefits that  this provides the incentive this act provides to a long standing all oil business survives that test and survives constitutional street vendors are questions i'd be happy to address them otherwise we would ask that you this is a this is this case really focuses on the special legislation provision of the appellate court didn't deal with the other two and i believe if if the court the court could send console listed out here is the points that he thought should be be argued here he said this is about revenue well when you heard it it's about elliott's revenue now now i don't disagree that bringing jobs illinois is something that every illinois and cares about our legislature cares about everybody and it's the important question across the whole country but we're talking here about  constitution and the provisions there and about whether a special law that gives special benefits to one group and not to other similarly situated where they can stand in quite frankly the facts are here that you can only place to tell you about itself it's telling us in it put into the record that it says it will expand it will do things it says well it might but the law doesn't require them not even bound by what it claims it will do and it's promising to do things in the future so when it says or effects in the record about that it's it said here's what we propose and speaking of facts the record or their facts a entities that are similarly situated your honor we had a verified complaint in our complaint we list that that there are twenty of these municipal airport across the state we list that them out as consul explain feel and quite frankly even if there wasn't airports can have f b o it's in the future so all of you know all airports are going to have the opportunity in the future to have an f b o or rock island could have others so it's it's there's no there's no unique nature about what elliot said elliott happens to be an f b o at this particular airport that the facts when you look at the statute it says if you're an f b o at this airport you get this unusual exemption to a for profit business and that is something that one night when i addressed the other part of the constitution i think it's quite quite unique but with regard to special legislation the issue is is it is is it a matter of classification that's rational for the purposes of the statute that's involved here the  be available to f b i as at other airports why why if it's a matter of lowering taxes to bring jobs why wouldn't the general law provide that kind of benefit to all employers on the border that's that's the debate going on across the whole state of picking on somebody who says if you give me this tax benefit i'll expand you know that's that's an interesting interesting proposition but that should be opened up to others who might be in that same spot not to just elliot and others who happen to want to go to this one place in illinois why why in illinois would that be those employers for that particular spot be any different than the rest of the borders of illinois and that's what this law's about it's picking out somebody who was able to get the ear of their legislators when you look at the the debate lansing was going to be included and then than it was not so there's there's certainly an opportunity for others to be a feels and others who if they got an exemption with these jobs in place in the peoria the board of ed peoria case this court recently one of the most recent cases on special legislation out of this court said that if that the law there provided a change to whether the police police security forces there if they had a dispute would go to one board in the law changed it to another board and but it it said that it would only apply to of an existing police force at a school at a point in time in this court made great point in in was clear that what would happen is maybe in the future another school board would come along and have a police force and this would law this law that changed where that or it would go to where that where the police issue would go to wouldn't be available to the new school board in its police force and in this course this court set up because it's so restrictive because it doesn't allow somebody in the future who is going to do anything but if the tax break and the end or there are other f b i those across the state who might be exactly like elliot in the future wanting to compete f b o those in airports they're really in a kind of and regional at least the regional competition there is no real thing about a particular state boundary that limits that the competition of the airport or an f b o so somebody a couple hundred miles away fifty miles away across the border  is going to be in competition with any illinois airport or any illinois so when we talk about the rational basis tests here it's whether the classification is rational whether the classification to pick up only this one place in this one set of f b o and and of course these are fields are leasehold interests so the property belongs to the airport authority the fee is exam but it's the lease hold and and right at the moment and as the facts in this case show eliot before this the other the other two constitutional arguments are article nine section six which is up the limitation on giving exemptions in the in the constitution on real estate taxes in a number of cases even cemetery pace makes it very clear that when the legislature tries to even define charity in a different way that it has to abide by what this court decides those uses are and what what those persons are so the law is pretty locked down that for profit businesses aren't able to get real estate tax exemptions for themselves and the issue in this situation is strictly are these less  own pin number in their taxes and that's generally the situation there is a section in the code that puts out certain provisions if the government leases it to a charity or to another government those are exempt the meaning the lessees interests but profit businesses there are entitled to exemption it's contrary to that provision in the constitution and so we we've set forth a number of cases when they talk about the toll highway case a case that discussed constitutional limitations and talked about what the statutory provisions were with regard to those ways so when you read that case it never got into the constitutional limitations i don't know why but it didn't address that and so we're in a situation where article nine section the third argument we raise is with regard to uniformity which is article nine section four a uniformity a real estate case and counsels somewhat right i think classification is generally by area and so the limitations of the on what classifications can be done in a particular area have to have to look at that but could it be refined down to picking out f b o lessees as opposed to of government i think that the classification here if there's some benefit in rock island to giving certain people tax exemptions wouldn't wouldn't it be wouldn't  required that the uniformity provision in the in the constitution require that all lessees of government in that area if there's some reason for them not to pay taxes that it be extended to them in so that part really is perplexing in terms of how that could be uniform and in addition why would f b o those in one part of the state be able to get this exemption if there's a uniform  requirement on real estate taxes i mean that i know a lot of the cases talk about that regionally but it really seems that in legislature picking out and giving some just little set of parcels somewhere  that are that are not unique in that regard there's lots of people there are lots of entities that lease from government and are paying taxes why would these particular lessees be given a zero eight assessment basically an exemption and so we believe that it really does show that if there is if it doesn't violate be real estate limitation on exemption then this is a violation of uniform first when you read the legislative history that cited and believed this was a good judgment business decision stated on this court has repeatedly given deference to those decisions and with all due respect we should do so here  gas assets to do as to what other f b i s are out there they talked about lansing for example lansing being taken out to the legislators look at this and decide we're going to limit this tax plans or any opportunity to speak we don't want to have a cookout here or any others of the very end in this state when there's no indication or no representation that there f b o is in the process of making a decision of whether to expand there or in another state the legislature decided we're going to limit this to the county that awfully stands to benefit the most we don't know that from the legislative history but again they're entitled to that deference of the judge with the burden is on the district to rule out every possible conceivable rational set of facts and every possible rational basis that's what they have done a lot of reasons to limit it to rockdale county including the proposed expansion and the incentive to do so you are asked to the very pointed question what evidence is there in the record that other  similarly situated and the response you got was well there's other airports that have f b o yes there's a big difference there are a lot of businesses in the state of illinois that are not similarly situated to each other in this case that he only has the act was designed to give an incentive to a business that has the immediate need to expand and bring dozens of jobs and millions of dollars of revenue into the state instead of taking a dive there is no evidence that any other f b o in the state of illinois has a location in another state they haven't given you any evidence to demonstrate that there's no evidence that any other  considering expanding anywhere let alone trying to decide whether to do it here or in another state that's the evidence they could have tried to bring forward if it's out there we don't know what's out there but at the summary justice page it was clearly the respect to the article nine section six argument that the law is locked down private businesses don't get real estate tax breaks i disagree the owner state toll highway case we discussed at that very property taxes perhaps for a period of time on a contingency basis of using whether eliot using the tax savings to expand in illinois whether they actually would go ahead with it  business reasons that's separate so they could he take they could have this exemption for a long period of time the way it's written yes they could and that's the judgment the decision the legislature made based on all of the evidence that was presented and i think it's fair to say that we would not would have not had and over well i mean this was two three to one vote i mean this was over but this wasn't a fifty one forty nine percent overwhelmingly pas bipartisan decision i don't think the legislature would have done this if they didn't honestly believe that this was going to happen they're not going to let company walk away from a significant