State Representative Chris Pringle (R-Mobile) on Monday visited U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) office to fight the proposed I-10 Mobile Bay Bridge toll.
An email from Pringle’s AL-01 congressional campaign explained that he intended to personally ask Pelosi why she walked out on President Donald Trump during infrastructure talks last month. However, Pringle was turned away by Pelosi’s staff.
This did not dissuade Pringle from making his point, as he recorded a video outside of the speaker’s Capitol office and then published it for the world to see.
In the video, he called on Pelosi to stop “playing political games” with infrastructure, which is an issue that should have bipartisan support on the merits.
Pringle lamented that the Democrats’ obstruction is “going to cause [southwest Alabamians] to pay a $6 toll to cross that bridge (the to-be-built I-10 Mobile Bay Bridge) and that’s not right.”
“We need that infrastructure plan and we need it acted on now,” he added.
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Pringle is an opponent of the proposed $6 (each way) toll, which he emphasized would hurt locals. Instead, he supports finding alternate funding solutions.
“The fact that Nancy Pelosi can’t get her act together to make progress on an infrastructure bill means we can’t get federal funding for projects like the Mobile River Bridge,” Pringle said in a statement. “As your next congressman, I’ll stand with President Trump and go toe to toe with liberal [D]emocrats to fight for the citizens of my district.”
“The citizens of Southwest Alabama deserve the ability to get between work and home every day without the added burden of $12 or more a day. This plan is nothing more than an added tax on our local families,” he concluded.
The trip to Pelosi’s office came three days after Pringle and the entire Mobile County delegation in the Alabama legislature sent a letter to Governor Kay Ivey opposing the toll, which has been proposed by the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) to fund the project.
“A toll would have a detrimental impact on individuals and families that we represent in the greater Mobile area,” the legislators wrote. “A toll could cost an individual hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars a year, which would be a huge financial burden on many of our constituents.”
They added, “We are certainly grateful that the bridge will be built, and hope that other funding possibilities will be explored to pay for its construction. Allow recreational users from out of state to pay the toll, not the working men and women of Mobile and Baldwin counties.”
Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
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