The Chronicle Editorial LiveJournalists are raging predictably today about an old “bad guy,” Rep. John Culberson. They’re so wound up it could almost be described as the LiveJournal equivalent of a hissy fit!
Still, one lone snippet from the rant caught our eye:
In 2003, Metro area voters narrowly approved an ambitious plan to expand both bus and rail transit. The ballot initiative referred to a proposed light rail line along Westpark.
Westpark.
Not Richmond.
That wasn’t so hard.
METRO runs into problems when it acts (arrogantly) as if Westpark really meant Richmond, or other ballot language really meant something else. Such departures from the METRO Solutions plan approved by voters in 2003 may be preferred by some bloggers from the Heights and architects who hope to benefit from certain types of rail development and Galleria real-estate developers and the Editorial LiveJournalists, but those departures from METRO Solutions inevitably result in neighborhoods and elected officials and activists all shouting over each other, and insisting that proposals that suit their personal preferences are much better than proposals that suit some other group’s personal preferences.
One purpose of the METRO Solutions vote was to remove such interest-group pluralistic deadlock by establishing community approval for or rejection of the METRO Solutions plan. Rail skeptics did insist that METRO put alignment language on the ballot. Rail opponents ultimately lost the vote. The community approved rail, with that alignment language.
METRO is on firm political ground when it closely adheres to METRO Solutions, and can wield the club of popular support against anyone (rail opponents, Rep. Culberson, pols, activists) who might object. As METRO departs from METRO Solutions, however, it invites the very interest-group acrimony that the community vote was intended to head off.
UPDATE: Blind rage sometimes leads to mistakes:
“Metro created this dilemma,” said Culberson, the man who for a decade helped to block all federal aid for rail transit in Houston….
Rep. Culberson has not been a member of Congress for a decade. He first began serving in Congress in 2001. Whoops!
UPDATE (08-16-2006): The Chronicle issued a correction today:
An editorial on Page B6 Tuesday mistakenly implied that U.S. Rep. John Culberson had served in Congress for a decade. Culberson is serving his sixth year as a member of the U.S. House.
They did not add, “This fact severely undermines our rant that he’s stood in the way of federal funding for Houston rail for a decade.” They also did not add that he’s been a member of Appropriations for only three years.
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