This is just speculation, but from what I’ve heard…
A) According to latest polls, Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist are now tied in polls for the Republican Senatorial Primary. I attribute this primarily to Crist’s attempts to pass himself off as a fiscal conservative, his radio adds can be considered at best “misleading.” I believe that all attempts by Crist to appeal to the conservative Republican base actually serve to turn conservatives against him. If this is the case, then Crist must use another tactic to garner votes.
B) In a special session, the Florida legislature voted to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase tracks for Sunrail. Because a state-run passenger train service is unlikely to be profitable, the state has probably committed to hundreds of millions in future expenses.
C) Governor Crist is the one who called the legislature into special session.
D) This legislation seems to have been rammed through. Not only did it pass by a large margin, an unusual procedure was used to move the legislation out of a hung committee.
E) Governor Crist is bragging about Sunrail in his campaign e-mails.
When I connect these dots, the picture I see is that maybe, just maybe, a bunch of Florida politicians got together and voted to spent hundreds of millions of dollars of our money on a boondoggle project because they think it will help the head Florida politician get elected to the Senate.
Think about it. Only the most grossly uninformed would buy Crist’s spiel about being a conservative, so he has to go the other way to appeal to those who like big government and big stimulus and think big spending creates jobs and prosperity. “Damn them ideological Republicans in Washington, they are just the party of no! A governor has to get things done! I’m going to vote to send a go-getter like him to the Senate!”
Of course, passing this legislation doesn’t just help Crist. Some are seeing the Sunrail deal as an opening to reintroduce the debate high-speed in Florida. Ask Corrinne Brown, the railroads have deep, deep pockets. Any politicians that get high-speed rail in Florida are never going to want for campaign contributions for all the days of the lives.
The whole idea of representative government falls apart when you don’t feel like you can trust your representatives.
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December 18th, 2009 at 5:00 am
I think the part that nobody seem to state is the money for this bill comes from stimulus money. From reading this bill, (and I could be wrong) it seems the only thing they can do is look in to the cost of running this train. It comes back up for vote in 2014.
I did notice that the democrats did vote in favor of it 4 times (party line vote) before they voted against it. (House voted 5 time on this bill.) I didn’t know Charlie was pushing this issue, so in my eyes it was a political move.
This is an old subject that has been around since the 70’s and it never seems to get any future than where it is now. Plus the idea of a train back in the 70’s made more sense than it does now. hopefully, it 2014 it will be put to rest.
Here is the link to the bill:
http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=42784