We’re not sure how much weight we give to this story, seeing as though we’ve got Bill Cassidy – who, having voted to impeach Donald Trump, doesn’t really seem like a particularly influential senator in advance of this new administration – pushing him, but it’s definitely not an implausible possibility that Garret Graves might get a job as the shepherd of American transportation…

Could Louisiana Congressman Garret Graves find a seat on President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet?

According to multiple published reports, and a source close to the matter, Graves is listed on Trump’s potential list of candidates for the position of Secretary of the United States Department of Transportation.

Graves has been a member of Congress since 2015, representing the sixth district in Louisiana. He decided not to run for re-election for the Congressional seat as the Supreme Court ordered the state to use a congressional map with a second majority-Black district during the 2024 fall election.

The map would reportedly change Graves’ district. He said the Supreme Court’s decision “forces voters to a fall election using an unconstitutional, confusing map.”

When U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy were asked if they would support Graves if he were chosen, both agreed.

“I would absolutely support Garret [Graves] becoming the Secretary of Transportation,” said Cassidy. “It’s something he thought a lot about, he’s worked on the committee on the House of Representatives. I think he’s imminently qualified and absolutely, I would support that.”

WVLA also got a quote from John Kennedy, who might have a little more stroke with Team Trump, and it’s positive…

“I’ve known Garret a long time. He’s very smart, enjoys policy, likes to work, and has deep experience, at both the state and federal level, in everything from infrastructure planning and construction to coastal restoration. He also knows how to manage, he knows how to do battle, and he knows how to cut red tape to get things done. He’d be a terrific DOT Secretary, in my judgment, and having him at the DOT helm wouldn’t be too shabby for Louisiana either.”

Graves has his detractors, and he isn’t seen as the most MAGA MAGA who ever MAGA’ed, but the one thing you can’t deny about him is that he’s both extremely knowledgeable about how transportation and infrastructure policy works in America and that he understands how to use that system to make it rain. Graves was the infrastructure guy in Louisiana’s congressional delegation.

And before that he ran the state’s coastal restoration efforts, and he was effective in that role.

What he wasn’t so effective with as a congressman was playing the political game. Graves worked it so that he ran afoul of every other Republican congressman in Louisiana plus Jeff Landry, and that’s why Cleo Fields is about to take over Graves’ redesigned 6th District.

That said, all of his rivals and detractors in Louisiana politics would probably be motivated to push him for the USDOT job.

For one thing, mending fences with the new Transportation Secretary is an awfully good way to get federal dollars moving for roads and bridges and other projects like getting the Mississippi River dredged.

For another, if Garret Graves were to take over as Transportation Secretary, he’s probably out of the picture as a candidate for statewide office in Louisiana for a good while. You’d imagine that he’d be out of the picture when Cassidy’s Senate seat comes up in 2026, or when the statewide election cycle happens in 2027. That isn’t a guarantee, of course – at least in a Republican administration, it’s pretty common for cabinet jobs to turn over a couple of years into an administration, though Joe Biden’s cabinet members dug into their jobs like ticks and will probably need the Capitol Police to evict them from their offices in January.

But right now Graves is the #1 political free agent in the state, so getting him out of here and off to Washington works extremely well for all of the officeholders who may have designs on the big jobs.

For Mike Johnson, moreover, Garret Graves solves another problem.

Right now the GOP House majority is going to fall somewhere between 218 seats, which is the number of called races in the House so far, and 222 seats, as there are four of eight uncalled races where Republicans currently lead.

That’s before you subtract Elise Stefanik, Mike Waltz and Matt Gaetz, who have all been nominated for cabinet jobs.

And the Washington Post reports that two of the three other names on Trump’s short list for USDOT are Sam Graves and Troy E. Nehls, who are current congressmen from Missouri and Texas, respectively.

Cannibalizing current members of Congress is a real problem. It’s not that the GOP won’t win all those seats back in the special elections that will be called for early next year; these are all safe districts. It’s that you’re going to be operating with a majority of something like 217-215, so all it takes is one Republican vote that goes the other way and nothing can pass.

If it comes down to, say, Garret Graves and Sam Graves, then that’s a consideration which might be dispositive.

But as said above, we don’t know whether this is a real possibility or not. We do know that Graves has talent as a policy wonk and he definitely knows transportation and infrastructure, and were he to get the job running USDOT it would be a big win for everybody mentioned above.

Not to mention a colossal step up from the catastrophic (and obnoxiously gay) Pete Buttigieg, who has run out supply chain and transportation system into the ground the last four years.