TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A House Republican has filed a proposal aimed at eliminating the Florida Transportation Commission, a decades-old panel that oversees transportation issues and helps select transportation secretaries.
Rep. Ardian Zika, R-Land O’ Lakes, filed the bill (HB 681) on Wednesday.
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The measure, which is filed for the upcoming 2019 legislative session, would remove references to the commission from state law.
The commission is perhaps best known for its role when a new secretary needs to be hired for the Department of Transportation.
The commission conducts interviews and provides a short list of candidates to the governor, who then selects a secretary -- a process that recently took place when Gov. Ron DeSantis named Kevin Thibault as secretary of the department.
The nine-member commission also is supposed to do such things as recommend transportation policies and periodically review the state of the transportation system.
The commission’s website says it was created in 1987 to “serve as a (citizens') oversight board for the Florida Department of Transportation.”