As early voting begins this week for the upcoming transportation sales tax referendum, a key state lawmaker is joining a grassroots organization to oppose the tax.

Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) says even though he helped pass the law creating the referendum, he is opposed to the transportation project list.

“Fifty-two percent of the money goes for transit projects which we know are not going to solve the congestion problem,” he says.

Rogers also complains that many of the projects will need funding far beyond the ten years the tax would be in place.

“Essentially if we pass the ten-year tax, we’re telling the next generation of taxpayers they will also have to fund this because you’re not going to shut down the mass transit system, you’re not going to stop the trains, you’re not going to quit construction on the projects in the middle of the projects,” he says.

Rogers stood alongside organizers of the Transportation Leadership Coalition, which is working to defeat the tax, asking for the list to be redrawn by professional traffic engineers and be brought back for another vote in two years as allowed by law.