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MDOT has a budget of approximately $1 billion annual budget. This is approximately 10% of the entire state budget. This is an enormous amount of economic power vested in the hands of the three member, elected Highway Commission, with one each from the northern district, middle district, and southern district. Theoretically, this vast economic power could rest in the hands of just two Commissioners, if the two teamed up against the third. Further, if one of the two was dominate, that would leave vast economic and political power in the hands of one person.
Economic power begets political power which begets economic power which begets more political power and so on. The power to select where roads will be built has enormous economic consequences. Consequences that can be positive or negative for people and businesses including, but not limited to, contractors, builders, developers, bankers, etc., many of whom participate in the political process as campaign fund raisers and as political powerbrokers. I do not believe these people who have an economic interest in good relations with such a political and economic power would want to risk the wrath of such power as wielded MDOT.
Great power is also derived from being able to expend public funds. The recipients, such as highway contractors, engineering firms, and others are usually most grateful to receive lucrative contracts. Many of these recipients are also active in the political process.
Being able to build roads and highways in a powerful legislator’s district that he can claim credit for and his reciprocating can be a source of tremendous power. Likewise, by being able to not build roads in a legislators district can be a strong intimidator.
As will be seen in this article, there has been many attempts to reform MDOT, but all have failed. The latest was in 2001, when a vast majority of the House of Representatives tried to reform an unbelievably incompetent MDOT, as depicted in a PEER Committee report in 2001, but the effort failed to pass in the Senate. All MDOT has to do to maintain its existence, no matter how incompetent, is to keep one or two powerful politicians under its influence, which may not be all that difficult with the vast amount of power that it can exercise. I think this is the reason for the arrogance and tyrannical ways of MDOT.
Bill Minor, longtime Mississippi columnist and political analyst, in a column dated February 8, 2001, which appeared in the SUN HERALD said, in regard to MDOT:
“Commission critics have long maintained that splitting $1 billion annually among the three district commissioners has been a political spoils system much akin to county supervisors divvying up their money by “beats.”
What he is referring to is the once prevalent “beat” system of county government, in which cronyism, favoritism, and corruption were rampant due to the fact that each supervisor, in reality, was autonomous and was allowed to do or spend whatever he wanted in his district with little or no controls or accountability to anyone. The FBI severely disrupted this heretofore sacrosanct, but dysfunctional system in the 1980’s with the conviction of approximately seventy of the supervisors on corruption charges. This led to reform of this type government. MDOT officials have not escaped without being marred by corruption.
Minor points out in his column that during the past two decades, there were four major scandals in MDOT wherein the commission’s executive director was convicted in 1978 for dipping into the till, followed by three commissioners in the late eighties and early nineties. However, no major reform of MDOT was achieved as had county government.
In addition to the scandals mentioned by Minor at MDOT, a CLARION LEDGER article dated 4/1/01, titled, “MDOT exec had unrevealed felony,” revealed:
Hugh Long is an engineer, a Vietnam War veteran and executive director for the state Department of Transportation, overseeing an annual $932 million budget.
Yet for a dozen years Long has carried the burden of a little known fact: He has a 1989 felony conviction.
Long pleaded guilty to two felonies: “kickbacks from public works employee” and “false statement to an agency of the U.S.”
On March 31, 1989, U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate gave Long a suspended sentence and five years probation, ordering him to pay a $5,000 fine. In addition, Wingate ordered Long to not enter into any government contract with construction for the next three years.
Two years or so after his conviction, Long went to work for the state Department of Transportation. He rose through the ranks quickly, and in July became executive director of the agency. Long recently announced his retirement, thus avoiding a confirmation by the state Senate that could have included a background check.
One Commissioner said that he would hire Long again tomorrow.
Minor also points out that Mississippi is the only state with an elected transportation commission even though, nearly every Governor since 1936 has sought to reform MDOT, by bringing its functions under the Governor to no avail. If the Governor has no control over MDOT, “To whom is MDOT responsible?” For the answer, it is necessary to understand the funding for MDOT, because it is only through funding that any control, oversight, and accountability can be exercised over MDOT, due to the fact that MDOT has an independently elected commission.
It is also necessary to have an understanding of this funding in order to know when MDOT officials are conning, spinning, misleading, or being disingenuous about what MDOT can and can not do, and to understand what their real intentions are.
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