I got a call from Indiana-headquartered owner-operator Daniel Koors this week. After plenty deliberation, but with time against him, Koors said, "I put my name in the hat for a U.S. Congressional seat." He was running against time because, as he noted, his district's previous Congresswoman, Jackie Walorski, tragically passed in a car accident just more than two weeks ago, on August 3. Indiana's governor decided on a dual special- and general-election both to be conducted on the principal, November 8, Election Day for candidates to both serve out the remainder of Walorski's current term and to fill the seat for the next term. Koors filed for both special and general elections just ahead of the deadline this week and will be caucusing to potentially be the Republican Party nominee tomorrow morning at Grissom Middle School in Mishawaka, Indiana.
"I put my paperwork in this morning," he said Wednesday. "We have a caucus on Saturday for the primary. We’ll find out Saturday if I get the nomination -- we’re going to try."
Tough to run an effective campaign, no doubt, in just a few days, eh? At once, Koors has been talking to plenty among his fellow Indiana second-district residents about a desire to have effective blue-collar representation in the legislature, and trucking matters are of course among his principal issues of concern.
Since we last checked in with him in the wake of the December tornado outbreak in Kentucky, where he spent time delivering aid to affected areas, the owner-operator's gotten back to flatbed work, he said.
On the trucking front, Koors said he favors measures to liberalize the hours of service regulations -- "I'm a huge fan of the Leland Schmitt exemption," he said, which if granted would deliver to Schmitt the ability to use 11 maximum driving hours in a given day in whatever manner he felt necessary, without any required break period other than what's left after the 11 is taken in any 24-hour day.
While he feels it's likely some version of the current electronic logging device mandate is here to stay, he does favor looking back at a potential exemption to the regulation for the smallest trucking companies, such as the one that was floated in 2018 in this bill with bipartisan support of some measure.
