Peoria congressman considered for Secretary of Transportation

Add comment December 17th, 2008

According to the New York Times, Republican Rep. Ray LaHood is a leading candidate for Secretary of Transportation. That’s interesting on a number of levels:

• President-elect Obama has pledged to have Republicans in his cabinet, and this is a more likely place than the other outstanding position - Labor.
• Having a downstate Illinois person in that position could help downstate communities looking for transportation funding. Whereas a Chicagoland pol might be pro-Peotone, say, LaHood might continue the positive relationship Chicago Rockford International Airport has with Transportation. Total conjecture on my part, though.
• LaHood is apparently pro-Amtrak, voting on several bills to increase funding. That’s a good sign.
• I’ll admit I was kind of hoping for a person with more of a mass-transit/urban backround to pull Transportation away from simply building roads to try to relieve congestion. It’s clear we need a multi-modal solution to our traffic and gas-guzzling problems, and that needs to come from the top down. But it’s Obama’s vision that counts, not LaHoods, and having a moderate Republican in there maybe could sell some changes better than someone from, say, New York or San Francisco.

Seems like this could be a win for places like Rockford, though having an Illinois politician as president was plenty good. Maybe a Secretary LaHood can help grease the skids on a capital plan in Springfield…