please the court i'm julian henryk aside represent the city of chicago the city's amusement tax helps pay the substantial services that the city provides for the venues in chicago at which sporting events theater productions concerts and other amusements are held such city services include police and fire protection emergency response and building inspections the city's ordinance taxes the admission fees or other charges paid for the privilege to a hand amusements in chicago the ordinance imposes the tax on the persons who pay for that every reseller of tickets and every resellers agent this morning ali explain first that the city has authority under illinois law to tax payments for the privilege to attend  including ticket sales and resales second that the city also has authority under illinois law to require resellers agents to collect and remit the tax from those required to pay it and third that stubhub is a resellers agent as defined in the city's amusement tax ordinance and thus is among the persons and entities that the our ordinance lawfully requires to collect and  it the tax about statute to of to allow what used to be ticket scalping used it amended the statute to allow the resale of tickets at amounts higher than the face amount of the tickets under certain circumstances one of those circumstances concerns internet auction listing services the subsection c of the statute that your honor is it is addressing that provision allow those tickets to be sold at higher than their face  value provided that they are sold on an internet auction listing service website and meet various requirements but those requirements again only concerned the circumstances under which a a and internet auction listing service or a seller from susan in right auction listing service from any requirement to collect the tax for any purpose other than whether ticket options then the transaction is not an unlawful ticket schell it's a little bit no one violates the criminal law of ticket scalping but that section doesn't even purport to excuse the collection of tax for purposes of that is required by some other statute or ordinance that that the only import of the section is for purposes of ticket scalping now i'd like also to mention here dorothy to require an internet auction looks listing service just to collect the tax that would have to be expressed mind with saying from the general assembly saying that the tax requirement is that a municipality are prohibited that we express fully preempt the authority of municipalities to collect the tax this statute doesn't come that kind of of a preemption required preemption language so stephen if the language of the statute were in tension with a collection requirement the city's ordinance would prevail over the language of the ordinance under the  standard requirements of the standard but the standards that apply to home rule to home rule authority stubhub argues that that cases say that it's not necessary to have language in the statute to slee pre amps that there are other elements that the court could look to determine whether or not the legislature structured this to be a state why policy in fact a direct as to extensively  to legislative debate on the statute to argue that that in fact was the intention of the legislature why shouldn't we look at that those debates were the legislators seem to be implying that this was meant to be a requirements that a home or mr paladin must satisfy in order to enact a humble provision that complies with the constitution one of those is that it must be within the government and affairs of the home rule you know and the other one is that it that the matter is not expressly preempted by the general assembly there is no express preemption language in this in this statute that would senate by the sixty percent that is required in order to have hope of preemption so there's no surprise that these that the statute lacks preemption language but to address your question which which i a i interpret to mean that the question is whether or not the ordinance is within the city's government and failures which is necessary for home rule and they argue among other things that that there's extra territorial reach that that ordinance has extraterritorial reach because the parties who purchased or sell tickets might both be outside of the city of illinois wine and spirits case in which the court held that distributors of liquor better that are to do business that are located outside of the county that's doing the taxing apologies we think that our situation is perfectly analogous here every single venue that we estimate that are subject to our tax or the city of chicago we don't tax ticket sales or the payments for the privilege to attend any amusements that are anywhere other than in the city of chicago so if two people outside of the city of chicago contract to purchase a ticket or sell a ticket that is then th  aspect of government in affairs whether or not ordinances within the city's government affairs the other aspect of that is whether the matter is considered of state wide concern but  but that's not the end of the matter the wind when two different units of government both have an interest and that in the in a subject in a particular problem the question then becomes a traditionally been involved most in the solution to the problem in this case we've got two different the problem is sort of do faceted one is revenue for a m the other one is the other facet is what about ticket sales internet auction listing services well with respect to missile revenue the city obviously has the primary interest in that matter has far more interest than than than than the state in the matter it's due to the city's direct revenues that are at stake with respect to the regulation of internet auction listing is the state has an interest but the city has an interest as well there's no predominant interest with respect to who has a with respect to the regulation of internet auction listing services  to take to the internet auction listing services so far it's it would be improper i think to conclude that there is any traditional regulation it's just too brief a time to talk about anything that's traditional on the other hand the regulation of or the taxation municipal taxation is as old as there have been municipalities i mentioned earlier that that that city  authority of the city to collect taxes to require internet auction listing services to collect the tax another requirement would be another prohibition would be the city cannot enact occupation taxes  delegates favored attacks such as the one which was amusement taxes it's a lawful tax as long as the legal incidence is on the purchaser and not on the seller it's not an occupation tax if the legal incidence on the purchaser not the seller so it's not on the occupation here are ordinance expressly declares that the legal incidence is on the on the purchaser not the seller so it's not an unlawful occupation tax  as long as we have authority even pursuant to statute to mean to impose the tax we also have authority pursuant to home rule to require appropriate to use to collect the tax for people people who craigslist we don't have any case at this point against a pub we understand that the different there's a different model that stubhub follows and it's participation with respect to the tax is not nearly as certainly express that view and this point we certainly have never taken a contrary view but we haven't i haven't been required to at this point the the now we also explain that hub this case is not despite what you have heard about chicago's ability to click tax revenue chicago can collect amusement tax that it's owed on ticket notify users of the website of potential local tax obligations second the ticket act provides that upon request and without subpoena stubhub has to supply the city with information about ticket bias ticket resellers and the transactions on the website stubhub cooperates with other cities around the nation in supplying such information the g provided the city in the ticket act with the tools that it needs to collect the revenue chicago has readily within its grasp the information that it needs to collect the amusement tax from those who have not paid it  and it can impose penalties on those who do not comply rather than litigating this case for years for chicago could have been collecting the tax as the general assembly assume that it would the ticket expenses anticipated that chicago's tax revenue would increase as a result of the scheme in the ticket act and that's because ticket transactions rather than occurring as they did before the act in a totally unregulated environment in which tax collection was extremely alternative argument that these tickets a tangible personal property now these are these tickets we're talking about tickets or resale there's no doubt this court has held the tickets sold by the operator of a venue are in cluded in addition to the ticket itself with what's being sold as a a license we are one or two steps removed from from that we are the operator of a marketplace in which people resell the tickets all those resellers have they are not the operators of the venue they have no control over the seat license who'll they have to sell is the ticket itself mean behind the ticket there is an intangible license yes but that was true in exxon it was true in france where where this court found the cold in the electrons to be tangible personal property despite the fact that there's the intangible energy behind it and you know i don't think it's a a strange concept to think that it's both but the property is a bundle of rights and the tickets represent both a seat license  and that piece of paper that you have to present to the venue to to getting to the to get into the venue but imagine you buy a ticket you go to the venue and someone is sitting in your seat that is not a problem for the ticket reseller that you bought the ticket from because they have no control over the seat it's a problem for the for the venue they have to deal with the terms of the license on the other hand if the ticket is fake then it's the reseller who has the problem and not the venue the person that you brought it from as another example of the difference between the seat license and the ticket and how during the resale process they one becomes dominant the ticket itself becomes more dominant but chicago taxes each resale regardless of whether or not the person who buys the ticket actually goes to the event the focus of  tickets the brokers would have nothing to sell the citizen used and tax is therefore a tax on the tangible item of personal property the ticket would they sell that's a quote from chicago's reef in this to be signed by city council who sitting here today  if i can turn from the the tangible personal property back to  this i explained it to begin with justice berkeley but the general assembly gave the city the way to get the text they said that we can pounce it is request to supply the city with specific information about transactions about the seller identifying information about the seller about the bio and about the transaction we work with cities all over the country in supplying this sort of information the city says can send a letter i mean they haven't talked to us about what information they want to how this would work but i see no difficulty whatsoever in the city sending a demonic letter to a seller from the website saying you owe us money on these transactions if they don't comply the city has penalties that they can impose paid we are going to have compliance issues we're going to end up paying penalties we better send a check when the when we get a notice from stub hub which we supply upon the transaction we send them a notice saying on the website saying you have to the general assembly specifically thought about that issue and they gave us the option not to pay the tax and instead to do what we have chosen to do which is to provide a notice to use of the website of the tax obligations to the between the statute and this ordinance right the statute says that brokers do have to collect or met the local taxes they have they are owners of the ticket it's not difficult for them to do but it treats differently state registered internet auction listing sites like stop pub which provide provide a marketplace on which others can carry out transactions they give us the option the option either to collector or instead to notify and to supply information and that is a carefully craft to its own affairs and government and it's our position that this carefully ridiculous regulatory scheme set forth in the ticket act makes the issue of internet auction listing site regulation  corral the ticket business which had previously been operating in the wild west corral the ticket business on the internet to provide a regulated environment in which consumers could safely transact business  and benefit from consumer protections like refunds for canceled events so for fraudulent tickets they wanted to encourage web based platforms to register as internet auction listing sites and thereby subject themselves to maintaining business standards that are dictated by the state and part of it scheme an integral part of that scheme is that this the general assembly gave i am less is the option not to pay the tax but instead to cooperate with local tax authorities so that they could collect the tax that is a state wide approach to the regulation of the online ticket business which is a statewide issue register as an internet option listing  site this legislative bargain goes thereby agree to a considerable degree of state regulation and then you can conduct your business free of ticket scalping restrictions and you can choose whether to collect amusement t bargains at the heart of the general assembly scheme to regulate internet taken resells and it's not as if the city was silent during the  passage of a second wasn't a bystander when the ticket was adopted the city was a central participant in the negotiations over what the act would look like and some senators supported an amendment that would have required internet listing services like step up to collect the tax the city tax just like broca's but that proposal was defeated and it wasn't defeated in the way that just suggest oh well they  didn't bother with that amendment because that was something the stampede already did know it was defeated because as the chief senate sponsor the senate hamann said that amendment will kill the bill it will kill the bill because it doesn't recognize the distinction the business the fundamental business distinction between ticket brokers who own the tickets and internet auction listing sites that provide a web platform for others to sell the tickets and so the city did not object to the final bill as it was passed because its negotiators understood that the general assembly had given chicago a means to collect from resellers and here is what house sponsor the chief ho sponsor representative savion zero said in the committee on consumer protection and this is quoted in our brief page twenty five the agreement quote he agreed and we made with the city of chicago is that it will collect the taxes from the sellers of those tickets the agreement we made with the city of chicago is that it will collect the taxes from the sellers of those tickets having negotiated for six months over the statute having told legislate is that it will collect the tax from resell chicago should not now be able to renege on that deal litigating its way through the very amendment that the general assembly rejected because it was incompatible with the bill and that the city at that time did not even support appendix it was accepted by the seventh circuit and in terms of looking at legislative history are you saying the statutes and the u s and that's why we need no not at all i don't think the statute is ambiguous i think that one point five c is absolutely playing on face it gives us it gives us an option and for the city to take away that option is plainly incompatible with what the general assembly decided what i think the legislative history is is useful for is just in this is a new business the internet business provision giving us the option important what the s jemele what the legislative history shows it is the context if you like the general assembly wanted to regulate this new business that carried a lot of risk for consumers and so it set up a regulatory scheme it said we will not we will we will we will make you set you free of the criminal restrictions on sales of resellers of tickets above face value but only if you register as an internet auction listing site which is now the statute that's in our in our appendix has a lot of provisions things that we have to do and then the ticket act itself sets out way that the general assembly got the consumer protections was by saying you can conduct this business free of the criminal law but you have to agree to all of these regulatory requirements to bring competition into the ticket market so the brokers no longer have a monopoly and you can and have to provide these protections against fraud or cancellation so i think the utility of that legislative history and utility of the fact that that the amendment that would have put us on the same footing with regard to collecting the text is the broker's the bet was defeated and it was defeated with the explanation from senator holman that this was utterly incompatible with the regula scheme of the bill the importance of that is it i think you could decide this case in our favor based on the plain language of one point five c without looking at the legislative history i think when you do look at the legislative history it makes absolute plain was i in this context this is a matter of intense state interest to buy the interest of the state if you pull out from this scheme the option you have taken away the incentive that the general assembly understood was necessary to have folks register as internet auction listing sites and submit themselves to this very intensive degree of regulation  whole thing collapses it doesn't work anymore as the but not the case which he cited now a brief and highland park where you remember trying to legislate its way out of the state's prevailing wage act for local public works projects clearly there's a local interest  interest is we're going to spend less money on on local public works because we won't pay the minimum wage and this court said no you can't do that this is a balanced and carefully crafted economic scheme statewide scheme and the effect of allowing home rule opt outs of that would be quote a chaotic and ultimately ineffective state labor policy that would be the impact here of allowing chicago to claim it would from a municipality cross municipality has an intense interest in whether parts of the municipality can disconnect and its tax revenue therefore go down and so the city of matal have put another set of procedur requirements on top of the ones laid down by the statute this court said no you can't do that this is a this is a matter of vital state concern with which the city cannot interfere and there are plenty of that simple why we don't sue each reseller of tickets on the website there are thousands and thousands and thousands of them most of them are only people who sell one set of tickets once in a blue moon we couldn't possibly expend city resources going after those people the reason that the city did not oppose the enactment of this ordinance the statute the ticket sale and resale act was because we didn't have to it was not preempted there it includes no preemption running which was not preempted by the general assembly in the way specific language saying that home rule authority is preempted there is no language in the ticket sale in resale act we had no reason to object to that statute because it doesn't include that language and the statute by the way barely passed it didn't pass by the sixty percent that was necessary even if it had include that language moreover as as i mentioned at the outset of my initial no remarks in response to judge thomas as question justice thomas questions on this statute that the ticket sale and resale act by its express language plain language only addresses the circumstances under which the of the offense of ticket scalping is committed nothing that the general assembly can say about we intend this to be a regulatory measure matters it it's excuse plain language specifically says only that these are the circumstances under which the the offense of ticket scalping is if it isn't is not committed so when a a an internet auction listing service arm ends up not collecting taxes but posting the wording that is the other alternative all it means is that the but the that the statute the criminal violation didn't occur it doesn't address at all it doesn't excuse at all a municipality or the state from from sanctioning the failure to collect we can we still have the right to insist on collection even though the the absence of collection means that there is no violation of the criminal law of ticket scalping that's that's all that it means so all the discussion that stubhub has presented concerning an reliance on the ticket out is completely beside the point  there was some discussion of the tangible personal property but a ticket as justice burke mentioned conveys a license to attend an amusement and it conveys that a license whether it's purchased a nationally from the venue itself or whether it's transferred from one seller to another every time it's sold the purchaser purchases from the seller the ticket license it's true but it will ultimately only one person will attend and actually exercise that license but each time it sold a person gains the value of that of that license  attempt to override the prevailing wage act those have extraterritorial effect both of those cases concerned extraterritoriality and have been already case the the the prevailing wage accepts out eighteen t v fiberoptic cable the this court specifically concluded that the fiber optic cable did not affect at all any of the municipalities through which the if there if there are no further questions we ask the court to decide the certified course the question that the seventh circuit certified to it which is whether or electronic intermediary is may require internet auction listing services to collect hummel municipal taxes thank you thank you case number one eleven one twenty seven city of chicago