ELECTED HIGHWAY CHIEF? NOT LIKELY TO HAPPEN

House Republicans in Jefferson City announced a bold idea this week. Among their legislative proposals, they said, is a plan to abolish the constitutionally independent Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission and replace it with a member of the governor's Cabinet responsible for transportation and highways.

Inasmuch as the current commission is in the Constitution, any such idea must, assuming it were to make it through the Legislature, be approved by a vote of the people. Under the proposal, such a transportation secretary would be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Missouri Senate.

Neither majority legislative approval nor approval in a statewide public vote is likely.

Under the Constitution, the six-member commission must have equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans and all must be confirmed by the Senate. The commission hires the director of the Missouri Department of Transportation, who runs the department while the members set policy. The commission has long been viewed as nonpolitical, owing in part to its status as a constitutionally independent body.

House Republicans decry the collapse of the 15-year highway plan and sound utterly frustrated with the commission's and the department's reaction to that debacle. "It's out of control," said House Republican Leader Delbert Scott of Lowry City of the current commission, all of whose members have been appointed by Gov. Mel Carnahan over his two terms. "Accountability is the issue," he said, asserting that transportation planning is in a "tailspin" and "wishy-washy. Currently, there's nobody that's responsible."

Adds state Rep. Chuck Pryor, R-Versailles, "I no longer think it's a nonpolitical body. The people of Missouri have gotten a runaround." Countless Missourians will nod in agreement with these sentiments, even if they don't endorse this particular remedy. Such a proposal, which in truth could prove worse than the disease, will most likely serve principally as a wake-up call to current MoDOT commissioners and to director Henry Hungerbeeler as evidence of the extent of frustration with their current course.

Let us repeat once again: Few were surprised when government made a mistake in forecasting something as challenging as a 15-year highway plan, but such an occurrence is hardly the time for abandoning that plan altogether. Rather, it is an occasion for us to stretch out that plan to however long is needed to complete it. Voters were sold the plan as the hook for a six-cent fuel tax hike in 1992, and no amount of whining can change that fact. Commissioners need to get real, or they can expect more such proposals from other quarters.