It has become more and more common across the United States: state legislation designed to prevent games with inappropriate content from being sold to minors that end up being declared unconstitutional.  Often, the court cases which result in the deeming of these bills as illegal ends up costing taxpayers a lot of money, as seen in the recent fiasco in Louisiana.

Louisiana lawmaker Roy Burrell's failed bill cannot begin to compare to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's under-the-table waste of almost $1 million in taxpayer money.  Blagojevich, a Democrat, took money from various state agencies to pay for the legal fees of both the state of Illinois and the video game industry. 

According to a report from GamePolitics, two of the agencies affected were the state's welfare system and the public health agency.  When the time came to pay the state's legal bill (including $510,000 to cover the video game industry's legal fees), Blagojevich (above, at microphone) simply raided the coffers of any state agency with extra funds.

Blagojevich's actions came to light after members of his staff testified to the State Government committee that the governor siphoned money from other state agencies to foot the legal bill.

The bill's passage and subsequent death in the courts seems to be another case of clueless legislators latching onto a political freebie.  In the Illinois Senate, only five senators voted against the bill while 52 voted in favor, according to Quad Cities Online.  The majority was overwhelming in the House, as well.  One of the dissenting senators, Democrat John Cullerton, warned his fellow legislators that the bill would fall easily in a court challenge.  The president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association (an organization that was one of the parties in the suit against the bill), David Vite, also warned that the bill would be declared unconstitutional.