Illinois Supreme Court green lights red-light cameras
The Illinois Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to the state law that allows for red-light cameras, allowing the eyes in the sky to remain.
A case before the high court focused on a challenge to the ordinance allowing the cameras in Chicago.
But attorneys also argued the state law that allows for the cameras in the suburbs was unconstitutional.
Two justices - Anne Burke of Chicago and Lloyd Karmeier from southern Illinois - recused themselves from the case, and the remaining five were split. So the court was unable to muster the four votes needed for an opinion.
A lower court ruled the cameras could stay, and that opinion now stands.
In oral arguments this year, attorney Michael Reagan called the law "nakedly local" because it only applies to a handful of Illinois counties. That's unfair, he said, because every county in Illinois has stoplights, cars and drivers.
An attorney for the city of Chicago, though, said state lawmakers had reasons to limit the cameras to counties that have the most traffic.