SPRINGFIELD—Road crews have already started some of the work included in Illinois' 10-year, $31 billion construction plan that Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law in 2009.

And while this summer's projects are guaranteed, the Illinois Supreme Court heard arguments this week that could put the rest of the projects on hold.  

The Illinois Supreme Court heard arguments on the scope and focus of the state’s capital construction program. State lawyers were appealing a lawsuit filed by W. Rockwell Wirtz, president of Illinois' largest liquor distributor, and his company Wirtz Beverage of Illinois LLC.

Public Act 96-34 increased taxes on items such as liquor and candy, allowed for the privatization of the state’s lottery and legalized video gaming in order to pay for road, school and bridge construction.
 
Lawyers for Wirtz argued that the law violated the state Constitution’s single-subject clause, which requires any laws dealing with appropriations be limited to one subject.
 
“Doing studies on the fairness of taxes, the appropriateness of taxes … it's not an amendment directly connected to the question of a capital project,” said Sam Vinson, Wirtz’s lawyer.

Bolingbrook's projects are safe, said village attorney Jim Boan.

Boan said the village has already received the $760,000 it was promised for designated projects.

Still, Boan said it would be interesting to see what the state would do if the high court wiped out the state's largest construction plan in its history.
 
In addition to raising revenue, the law also requires the University of Illinois to study the effect of buying lottery tickets on Illinois families.
 
Assistant Attorney General Richard Huszagh insisted that the study “thematically” correlated with the goal of raising revenue to fund capital projects. He said it makes sense to study the effects of the lottery tax on those who will be affected by the hike. 
 
“(The Wirtz lawyers) have sort of taken a myopic view. They look at one part of the provision in isolation and focus on it exclusive of the rest of the enactment and claim that it cannot possibly have a natural and logical relationship with the rest of the statutory program. But we disagree,” Huszagh said.

Although she couldn’t predict how the judges would rule, Dawn Netsch, a law professor at Northwestern University Law School, said the courts have become stricter with cases concerning the definition of single-subject clause.

“The primary purpose (of single-subject) always was to prevent the … overloading (of) a single piece of legislation with all kinds of different things (and have lawmakers) get one provision passed that might not be able to stand on its own,” Netsch said.
 
The state's 1st District Appellate Court issued a stay on the capital plan in January, citing that no “natural and logical connection” existed between the construction and the taxes to pay for them.

The state of Illinois disagreed with that ruling.

“Our position is that … the permissible single subject of (Public Act) 96-34 and all these other bills is the capital program. The fact that all of these bills do have provisions that relate to the same subject (makes them valid),” Huszagh said.

Illinois Supreme Court Justice Bob Thomas pushed the Wirtz's legal team to provide the “smoking gun” that would prove their case.

“This is a once-in-a-decade capital works bill. By its very nature, it's going to be enormous … It contains a lot of creative means to finance it. So why would the financial part not be a necessary element of the capital projects bill?” Thomas asked.
 
Lawmakers could vote for the entire measure — even if they disagreed with portions of the law — to keep capital projects they supported, Vinson said.

“It means that every legislator who has a project in the appropriations bill or who has something in the revenue bill — if he cares about that, he's compelled to vote for both bills … We don't think that should be done,” Vinson said.

Justice Rita Garman questioned Vinson further on what would happen if the entire law was thrown out.

"You submit that if there is a single-subject violation with regards to any of these bills, they all go down?" Garman asked.

Vinson concurred, and said the state would no longer be authorized to spend that amount on construction plans.

Even without the decision, the state expects to spend billions of dollars this summer on construction, which transportation officials insist they will have enough money to fund either way the court decides.

“We appreciate the court hearing this important matter on an expedited basis and look forward to its decision,” said Brie Callahan, spokeswoman for Gov. Pat Quinn.

The Illinois Supreme Court has not announced when the court will rule on the case.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in Illinois Statehouse News and was written by Melissa Leu. Illinois Statehouse News Bureau Chief Benjamin Yount and Bolingbrook Patch Editor Brian Feldt contributed to this report.