You’ve probably heard by now that Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., had tried to amend a 2006 transportation funding bill to kill Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere” and “Don Young’s Way,” another Alaska pork-barrel bridge. You even heard that the measure failed, 82-15. What you didn’t hear is Don Young’s opinion of his constituents.

The Coburn amendment would have defunded the two pork-barrel bridges, one of which connects a small town to an island with 50 residents, and diverted some of the funds to reconstruction of the Twin Spans, the section of I-10 over Lake Pontchartrain east of New Orleans, which was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina, and remains closed.

Repairs began on the Twin Spans on Sep. 12, and two of the four lanes are expected to be open by Oct. 31, with all four lanes open by the end of January, at a cost of $30.9 million, according to the Louisiana governor’s office. Two-way traffic will be established on the eastbound span first, while repairs continue on the westbound span.

The project is to be funded entirely from federal funds.

As it turns out, Alaska residents seem to want the Bridge to Nowhere and Don Young’s Way scrapped, and the money sent to Louisiana.

And, there is a curious twist to the story: Many residents of Alaska appear to support forfeiting the bridge money for hurricane relief. “This money, a gift from the people of Alaska, will represent more than just material aid; it will be a symbol for our beleaguered democracy,” reads a typical letter to the Anchorage Daily News. — Washington Post

Rep. Don Young, who is supposed to be representing these people, had this to say: “They can kiss my ear! That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Whatever happened to representatives who listened to their constituents?