Over at the Sunlight Foundation, they’ve found Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) taking a page from Rep. Ken Calvert’s (R-CA) investment playbook.
For years, Hastert has been pushing the construction of a highway called the Prairie Parkway in Illinois. He secured $207 million in earmarks to support the project. But what he didn’t tell constituents was that he owned a huge plot of farmland just a few miles from where the road would run. And now that the project’s gone through, the land has been tranferred to a real estate development firm with plans to build a 1,600 home community. The land has already improved in value by millions of dollars.
I wonder how much Hastert will ultimately make on the deal?
More at the Sunlight Foundation.
