Via Wonkette, one of our favorite HuffPost Hill characters of recent memory, Tennessee State Rep. Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol), has avenged a slight against his person using the legislative powers at his disposal.
A state lawmaker whose vehicle was shown speeding by a traffic camera in upper East Tennessee co-sponsored a bill to take that camera down this year.
Rep. Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol) was cited for driving 60 miles an hour in a 45 mile-per-hour zone while driving in Bluff City in 2010, just weeks before voters elected him to a third election. The photo-enforced traffic cameras did not show images of the driver, and Lundberg said an employee of his public relations firm was driving the company vehicle at the time.
The traffic camera speeding ticket “has absolutely zero effect” on his decision to sponsor the bill, Lundberg told The City Paper. “In fact, until you said that, I completely forgot about that.”
Lundberg is co-sponsoring the bill, authored by state Rep. Tim Hill, "whose district shares parts of Sullivan County with Lundberg and encompases Bluff City." Speaking of, the bill has been "[n]arrowly written to apply only in Bluff City," and would affect only two traffic cameras, including, presumably, Lundberg's nemesis.
The Nashville City Paper reports that Bluff City's city manager, Judy Delaney, is concerned that the removal of the cameras would turn those streets into a "race track ... again," and is rightly confused that these lawmakers don't have anything better to do with their time, saying, "I think there’s more important things for them to do than to try to intervene in local traffic control.”
But Lundberg's not the first lawmaker to pitch a feverish fight against traffic cameras after being nabbed by one. Over in Missouri, state Sen. Jim Lembke similarly went all Inigo Montoya after his car got caught going through a red light in St. Louis back in January of 2010.
Of course, it is obligatory to mention that Lundberg's whole approach to politics is basically #YOLO. As HuffPost Hill recalls, he is best remembered for that time his staff wrote a resolution honoring Jon Lundberg, and his P.R. firm, making note of the fact that the "owners and employees" of said firm were "many such noteworthy persons," and that "the company has continued to set the standard for the highest quality professional services."
Lundberg also "passed another resolution back in 2009 honoring his daughter for graduating high school." I guess it was a real struggle.
Anyway, that's the continuing story of one man's quest to use his legislative power to remove minor inconveniences from his life and to celebrate his picayune achievements.
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