Supreme Court grants stay on capital plan ruling

Illinois state capital construction projects, and all the mechanisms used to fund the borrowing to pay for them, will continue as planned for now.

The Illinois Supreme Court granted the state's request to put a hold on the effects of a lower court decision that ruled the capital bill unconstitutional. That means projects will go on, and the state will continue to collect the higher taxes and fees that were included in the legislation until the Illinois Supreme Court rules on the case.

An appellate court ruled the bill violated the Illinois Constitution's "single-subject rule," which requires that one piece of legislation can deal only with issues under one topic. If the Supreme Court agrees with the lower court, legislators could still pass all the components of the plan in new separate bills.(For more details on the appellate court ruling. see this previous post.)