From the Naple’s News Daily: There’s now a dispute over who’s telling the truth and who’s ducking between Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fort Myers, the congressman who had invited a more senior house colleague to visit Lee County in February of 2005, and Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, who took the floor of the House on Wednesday to defend his support for the Coconut Road interchange study.
Young said he backed the project because it was what people from the area told him they wanted, and those were views he heard at Mack’s invitation.
“It was supported by the congressman from that district,” Young said of the $10 million earmark to study a new place to access the interstate. “And there’s letters to back that up.”
Mack, who represents Lee County and parts of Collier and Charlotte counties, has said on many occasions that he was not involved in pushing for an earmark for Coconut Road.
Jeff Cohen, Mack’s chief of staff, said Thursday that it was clear his boss was being singled out.
Young’s speech to the House was “absurd” and “inaccurate,” Cohen said. “Perhaps we don’t just need a committee on ethical standards, but one on psychological standards as well,” he added.
According to several reports, shortly after a vote in which the House approved the Senate’s call for a Justice Department investigation into the altered congressional appropriation for the interchange study and redesignated the $10 million for widening I-75 in Lee and Collier counties, Mack confronted Young over the remarks.
Cohen described it as “a passionate discussion between passionate people.”
Young put it differently to Alaska Public Radio Network: “He just said I was a liar. I don’t understand because I’ve got all the letters. Pull them up on the Web site. He’s running away from an issue because he’s got political heat.”
