It's surreal to hear a conservative like LeMieux campaigning for mass transportation, typically a crusade for liberals. But when it comes to the railroad industry, to which LeMieux has deep ties from his halcyon days as a lobbyist, LeMieux turns liberal.
As we've mentioned on Juice this month, LeMieux's former law firm, Gunster Yoakley, listed Florida East Coast Railroad's parent company as a client at the same time that LeMieux and that firm were retained by the State of Florida to negotiate a deal to buy Florida East Coast's infrastructure for use in high-speed rail: a fairly obvious conflict of interest that leaves you wondering whether Florida taxpayers had a chance to get a fair shake.
The federal dollars LeMieux's talking about in the video above would put high-speed rail along a CSX rail line, but that will certainly bolster the case for spending billions more on the prospective high-speed rail that would flow over Florida East Coast rails, from Orlando to Miami.
Whiplash warning: After the jump, LeMieux flips the switch and goes conservative.
See that? That video was recorded the day after the one about high-speed rail. Same guy, new tie, new position on federal spending.
For some reason, despite all this cause for doubt, the feds trust Florida. It looks like they'll be dumping a few billion bucks on the table for LeMieux to hand out to his favorite plutocrats.
