Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx on Monday encouraged Congress to take up President Barack Obama’s offer to trade corporate tax reform for increased spending on the nation’s infrastructure as a means of juicing the economy.

The former mayor of Charlotte, N.C., in his first 40 days as head of the nation’s $70 billion-a-year transportation bureaucracy, said he knows that Republican leaders understand the link between transportation and economic development.

Continued Foxx:

“But that understanding at some point has to develop into ideas being debated and discussed. We’ve got a window here between now and Oct. 1, where that dialogue really needs to bubble up to the surface.

“There is a very clear nexus between what we do with our infrastructure and what happens in our economy. I would call that investing. I spend money to take my kids to the movies, but I invest in their education.”

The transportation secretary said that, “in many respects,” the over-arching debate over federal spending “has gummed up this whole issue.”

Foxx was the first speaker of note at the National Conference of State Legislators, a gathering of 5,000 state lawmakers from around the nation. Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, speaks later this morning. Former U.S. Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor speaks this afternoon.

In addition to increased federal spending on infrastructure, Foxx pointed to examples of states that have picked up the pace.

Fourteen states have or are considering raising motor fuel taxes, he said. Foxx also pointed to Oregon, which has a pilot program underway that would tax drivers according to the miles they travel on public roads. He did not mention last year’s failure, throughout most of Georgia, of a transportation sales tax.

Foxx said investment in transportation must be seen as a multi-generational “cathedral test” – a reference to the religious skyscrapers of the Middle Ages, which often took hundreds of years to complete.

Said Foxx:

“[Builders] knew they weren’t going to live to see the whole vision completed. But they also knew the vision would never be completed if they didn’t move those stones.

“Our businesses can’t wait. Hard-working Americans can’t wait. The next generation can’t wait. We must figure out a way to continue investing in our infrastructure. The good news is we’ve done it before. We’ve done it amidst incredible strife and hardship.

“If you look at the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam, or the transcontinental railroad – all of them were magnificent examples of infrastructure that was done in difficult times.”

Attending the session with Foxx were at least two Georgia legislators, state Rep. Bubber Epps, R-Dry Branch, and state Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega.

Gooch said they would have a private word with the transporation secretary after his speech. He intended to bring up federal funding for the dredging of the Port of Savannah. “You don’t sit down with someone like that and not bring something up,” Gooch said.

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Elections experts from Alabama, Washington and New York agreed Monday that the future of the Voting Rights Act will likely not be found in Congress.

Ed Packard, Alabama state elections director, said it’s doubtful that Congress has the partisan ability to find consensus for a rewrite of Section Four coverage formulas. Earlier this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the nearly 50-year-old formula that was used to determine which states are subject to preclearance under the landmark voting law.

The case that rocked VRA enforcement, of course, was brought by officials from Shelby County, Ala.  Packard said efforts were made to get an official from that county to attend this week's meeting of the National Conference of State Leguslatures. They came to naught.

The failure of Congress to act, Packard and others said, will lead e Department of Justice to test its ability to "bail in" jurisdictions for coverage under the act's Section Three.

Jason Torchinsky, a private Washington lawyer and expert on the VRA, said DOJ is testing this theory now in Texas. That case, he said, will almost certainly end up back before the Supreme Court, which will have to decide if the federal government can choose, on its own, what states or jurisdictions can be forced into preclearance coverage.

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Sunday’s column was on tactics now contemplated by top Georgia Republicans to meet next year’s challenge posed by Democrat Michelle Nunn in the U.S. Senate race. Specifically, moving the 2014 primary to mid-May, in hopes of generating a more centrist GOP electorate.

The Press-Register in Mobile, Ala., today provides a specific example of what the Georgia GOP would like to duck – a debate in which a Washington Republican like U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is considered a liberal:

The U.S. Representative from Wisconsin and 2012 GOP vice presidential candidate is making waves in the race for Alabama’s 1st Congressional District.

Ryan on Wednesday endorsed the campaign of Wells Griffith, one of nine Republicans running in the Sept. 24 primary election.

Griffith, a Mobile native and former deputy chief of staff for the Republican National Committee, hailed Ryan as a friend and leader “in the fight to cut wasteful spending (and) reform our federal government.”

But one of Griffith’s GOP rivals – Quin Hillyer of Mobile – met the news with disdain.

Hillyer, a former columnist for the American Spectator, accused Ryan of abandoning conservatives in Congress. He sharply criticized Ryan for his efforts to strike a deal to pass immigration reform in the House.

"I have been a longtime admirer of Paul Ryan, but he has increasingly proved to be a disappointment and out of touch with Alabama values," Hillyer said. "Ryan is the driving force in the House for amnesty, against the principles laid out by our own Senator Jeff Sessions. If one of my opponents wants a leftward-moving Paul Ryan, he can have him."

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The AJC’s Politifact Georgia today examines the claim by state Rep. DuBose Porter of Dublin that changes to the HOPE scholarship two years ago cut in half the number of students at one Georgia technical college.