House leadership put forward Amendment 1A to H.3579 and called it a "reform bill," but they left out the reform part. Somebody had to call them on their hypocrisy.
This is reform: power changes hands, bad behavior gets to be punished, records are made public.
- Abolish the Transportation Commission, which insulates DOT from you, the voting public. DOT should be a cabinet agency under the Governor.
- Abolish the Infrastructure Bank, which is a 5-member board that puts your kids on the hook for another $500 million every year, just to help their political allies. (The legislature should vote if large sums need to be borrowed.)
- Expose DOT's internal operations. Corruption cannot survive in sunlight.
Here's all that in legalese: Amendment 5A and H.5204. Guess what? The House voted it down 101-16.