RSS
Kotaku
From GamePolitics comes a news article stating that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich blew through a million dollars of taxpayers' money trying to fight "a 2005 federal court ruling that a state law banning the sale of violent or sexual-explicit video games to minors was unconstitutional."
From the Quad-Cities Online:
The governor raided funds throughout state government to pay for the litigation. Some of the areas money was taken from included the public health department, the state's welfare agency and even the economic development department.... the governor's staff, testifying before the committee, admitted they just stuck state agencies that had available funds with the bills ....
GP notes that "the amount Illinois owed to the video game industry in legal fees was $510,000. We assume that the balance ... relates to legal costs Illinois incurred in unsuccessfully defending against the industry's First Amendment challenge."
Politicians spending funds earmarked for public use on pet projects is hardly anything new, but it's still appalling to see the numbers in print when it comes to frivolous appeals on legislation that shouldn't have been put into place to begin with.
Blagojevich's quest to ban violent video games cost nearly $1M [Quad-Cities Online via GamePolitics]
