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LaHood waffles about staying as DOT Secretary in Obama second term

If President wins re-election, LaHood tells air cargo group, they will sit down and "figure it out."

Mark Solomon
By Mark SolomonOct 01, 2012
Mark Solomon
Mark Solomon joined DC VELOCITY as senior editor in August 2008, and was promoted to his current position on January 1, 2015. He has spent more than 30 years in the transportation, logistics and supply chain management fields as a journalist and public relations professional. From 1989 to 1994, he worked in Washington as a reporter for the Journal of Commerce, covering the aviation and trucking industries, the Department of Transportation, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he worked for Traffic World for seven years in a similar role. From 1994 to 2008, Mr. Solomon ran Media-Based Solutions, a public relations firm based in Atlanta. He graduated in 1978 with a B.A. in journalism from The American University in Washington, D.C.
See Full Bio

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood didn't say he would remain on the job should President Obama win re-election to a second term. But he didn't say he wouldn't either.

Asked today at The International Air Cargo Forum & Exposition in Atlanta if he would want to stay on in a second Obama term, LaHood instead spent several minutes talking about the challenges and rewards of holding the Department of Transportation's (DOT) top job since January 2009. Then he said that if there is a second term, "I'm going to sit down with the President, figure it out, and see where it takes me."

LaHood said he would probably not be asked to serve in the same post in a Mitt Romney Administration, although he quickly pointed out that he is a Republican, and that he was "proud of it."

LaHood, who spent 14 years as an Illinois Congressman before joining the Obama Administration, is not the first DOT secretary to serve as a member of the opposition party. Norman Y. Mineta, a Democrat, was DOT secretary under President George W. Bush. Mineta served five-and-a-half years, the longest tenure of any secretary in the DOT's 45-year history.

ArticleTransportationRegulation/Government
u.s. department of transportation
ArticleTransportationRegulation/Government
u.s. department of transportation

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