While not saying so, the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled Gov. Pat Quinn's capital bill is just too big to fail.

Gov. Pat Quinn and state legislative leaders breathed a sigh of relief Monday when the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of their $31-billion public works spending program designed to get people back to work.

It surely will come as good news to many that a unanimous Supreme Court rejected a state appeals court ruling issued in January that threatened to derail or delay a spending bill that already has been implemented.

A three-member appeals court struck down the legislation because it concluded that state legislators had violated the Illinois Constitution's single-subject rule, which requires that legislation "be confined to one subject." Unfortunately, in striking down the appeals court ruling, the high court has so loosely interpreted the single-subject rule as to render it practically moot.

By eviscerating this important constitutional restraint on legislative monkey business, the high court has opened the door further to just the kind of chicanery that authors of the Illinois Constitution were trying to discourage.

Most people are unfamiliar with the one-subject rule or why it matters. Indeed, many will applaud the court for not getting hung up on constitutional niceties when the state's economy needs a boost.

That, indeed, was part of Attorney General Lisa Madigan's legal argument. She noted that the capital bill was passed "when the state's economy was suffering the effects of the severe recession gripping the entire nation" and unemployment had increased from 6 to 10 percent.

True enough — but that's a policy argument, not a legal argument.

The appeals court struck down four pieces of legislation that encompassed what was called the capital bill. But three of the bills that fell went down because they were dependent on the survival of Public Act 96-34, which was entitled "an act concerning revenue."

Included in this bill was the legalization of video gambling, increased sales taxes on candy, beverages and hygiene products, hikes in fines and fees related to truck loads and weight restrictions, provisions for hiring a private manager to run the Illinois Lottery and even the commission of a study by the University of Illinois concerning how the purchase of state lottery tickets affects families.

The appeals court noted that while the one-subject rule is designed to establish an "orderly and informed legislative process," it is entitled to be "construed liberally." But it concluded that this legislation included so many disparate provisions that it "cannot be considered to possess 'a natural and logical connection.'"

The Supreme Court reversed that finding, but not without some fancy legal footwork. The high court concluded that the General Assembly mislabeled the legislation by calling it "an act concerning revenues" because the real single subject was "capital projects."

"On the Act's face, all of the provisions have a natural and logical connection to the single subject of capital projects," Justice Anne Burke wrote for the court.

The high court concluded that since all the legislation's pieces were in pursuit of the greater goal of building capital projects, the legislation was consistent with the one-subject rule.

Who's right or who's wrong on issues like this is irrelevant to almost everyone but law professors. What really matters is who has the last word. A unanimous Supreme Court has overruled a unanimous appellate court, so the bloated omnibus capital bill survives. It is, however, hard to imagine just how unwieldy future legislation will have to be to persuade a trial or appellate judge to again enforce the one-subject rule.