Contempt of Congress

Public trust in Congress has reached a new low dropping below 50% for the first time since Gallup started polling on this question in 1972. http://www.gallup.com/poll/110458/Trust-Government-Remains-Low.aspx To better understand this disturbing fact, one simply has to look in our backyard. Congresswoman Anna Eshoo’s crude manipulation of her “Town Hall” meeting on High Speed Rail may explain why the majority of Americans distrust Congress. Billed as an informational meeting, Eshoo’s Town Hall more resembled a time-share sales session where gullible potential buyers get the hard sell. Eshoo ensured that facts would remain obscured by not allowing citizens to interact with her panel. Citizens had to submit questions in writing and could not follow-up when panelists responded with evasion, half-truths and outright misrepresentations. Her staff selected the questions to be asked and many never were asked. One question asked how the State of California would be able to pay for the $45 billion rail system. Eshoo asked Executive Director of the High Speed Rail Authority Mehdi Morshed to respond. His answer was clear, unequivocal and just plain wrong. He stated the approved bond issue would provide $9 billion while the Federal government would provide $8 billion with private investors providing the balance. The $8 billion number for federal money is a blatant misrepresentation. The Federal Government has allocated $8 billion over five years for high-speed rail projects for the ENTIRE country. The ability to ask follow up questions would have illuminated this mistake or perhaps led to the clarification that California was awarded the entire national budget. Another critical question was how many homes on the Peninsula would be taken and demolished via eminent domain. Again, Executive Director Morshed responded that he was unaware any homes or property were needed to increase the size of the right way. A follow-up question might have asked if it was possible to build a grade separated, four-track system within the existing right of way while continuing to operate both Cal Train and Union Pacific freight service? Given that the existing right of way is barely wide enough for the four tracks, some experts have said it would be impossible to build the grade separation in phases within the right-of-way while the current train services continued. Most likely, a shoofly or detour track would have to be built on land acquired via eminent domain. A shoofly track, if required, would widen the right of way by 50-60 feet and require the destruction of hundreds of homes. Morshed is an engineer by training and should have been able to address this vital question in greater detail.

Equally disturbing was Eshoo’s attempt to stifle public participation by holding the meeting in an inappropriately small venue. Hundreds of people were forced to sit outside the meeting room and could barely hear the proceedings. Others simply left when it was apparent that there was no room to sit and no ability to see the material presented. Eshoo’s explanation that it would have cost $10,000 to rent the Fox Theatre was disingenuous at best. There are numerous public auditoriums in local schools that would have been honored to host the Town Hall. Indeed, Stanford alone has 10 auditoriums that could comfortably accommodate 500 people and, given Eshoo’s great success in delivering large amounts of Federal research money to Stanford, would probably have been happy to help out.

I am not sure what disturbs me the most. The hard-sell, hardball tactics of the High Speed Rail Authority or the contempt for the most basic principles of democracy by our elected leaders.