What’s Next for U.S. Secretary of Transportation & Former CLT Mayor Anthony Foxx?

CHARLOTTE, NC – Outgoing U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx helped break ground on phase two of the Charlotte streetcar project Saturday.

But with less than a week left in office, the former Charlotte mayor says he hasn’t decided what’s next.

“Who knows? I have to sit with my wife and my kids, who didn’t have opinions when they were born and I was doing this crazy stuff. But they now have opinions, so we’ll see,” Foxx says.

For now, he will remain in Washington, D.C., he says, where his kids are enrolled in school.

Foxx’s political career began in 2005. He won an at large city council seat and served for two terms before being elected mayor in 2009.

Over the years he pushed for transportation projects championing the streetcar, despite stiff criticism.

His national reputation grew after Charlotte hosted the Democratic National Convention.

President Obama nominated him for Transportation Secretary in 2013.

“He’d certainly be thinking of a statewide office. U.S. Senate, Governor, but those opportunities at least in the short term are limited,” explains UNC Charlotte Political Science Professor Eric Heberlig.

Heberlig says Foxx could go back into the private sector, but shouldn’t wait too long if he wants to run for political office again.

“If he does want to have a future in North Carolina, coming back and reestablishing himself here is something that would have to be in his plans,” Heberlig explains.

Foxx says something he’d to work on going forward is bridging the urban/rural divide.

“Whatever I do, I’ll find a way to try to, try to help people and try to do good things for, for our community,” Foxx says.