MOUNT VERNON — It wasn’t until after an hour of testimony that Justice Judy L. Cates asked a lawyer for the attorney general’s office to make a long story short.“Give me just a short line of what it is that you are arguing,” said Cates with the Southern Illinois-based 5th District Appellate Court.“Absolutely,” responded Brett E. Legner, the deputy solicitor general who took on numerous questions from the three-judge panel on Tuesday. “The short line is the failure of the …