Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Sen. John Carona was unable to get enough support for the Local Option Transportation Act among Senate and House negotiators, dooming the provision when the TxDOT sunset bill goes to floor votes tomorrow.

Statement from House sponsor Vicki Truitt of Keller:

"Senator Carona and I fought the good fight. The House would have acknowledged the problem and passed TLOTA given a full an open debate.

I sincerely appreciate and thank the many people who stood by us in doing the right thing to alleviate congestion and save Texas jobs. The public needs and demands adequate transportation infrastructure.

The matter will be back before the Legislature, because the problem remains and will worsen during the two years prior to the next legislative session."

(More from Truitt on the Trail Blazers Blog.)

Among conferees on the Senate side, only Carona and Kirk Watson of Austin held out for the plan. Juan Hinojosa of McAllen, Robert Nichols of Jacksonville and Glenn Hegar of Katy signed a conference report without the local option provision.

Four of the five House conferees signed as well. They were Linda Harper-Brown of Irving, Joe Pickett of El Paso, Wayne Smith of Baytown and Carl Isett of Lubbock. Ruth Jones McClendon of San Antonio was the only House conferee to support local option in the end.

The parliamentary moves that could save the plan now are way beyond Hail Marys. Consider this cause lost, at least for this lawmaking session.

The outcome must be a bitter one for Carona and Truitt. It was an assignment that both signed up for despite the long odds and the political risk of appearing tax friendly. But it was right thing to do, considering the traffic problems in this metro area. In the end, they were unable to convince enough House members that taking the political risk was the leadership needed to solve the traffic problems of Texas' exploding urban areas.

This is also a stinging defeat for North Texas leaders who have been working for nearly six years to build out the region's transit system.

Where was top leadership on this issue? Not hard to figure. Their appointees to the conference committee could have guaranteed that the loca-option provision remained. Yet the deck was stacked with indifferent-to-hostile people.

It's a shame that the most hostile of all was from the heart of this metro area. Putting Linda Harper-Brown of Irving on the House conference committee poisoned the bill's chances. Speaker Joe Straus send a message about his intentions when he named her.