The Florida House today passed the special session bill, 84-25, aimed at expanding the state’s commuter railroad system. The bill now moves to the Senate.

The bill is targeted at winning $2.5 billion from the pot of federal stimulus money to build a high-speed rail system in the state. State lawmakers believe the best way to do that is to impress the feds with their commitment to a state rail system: the special session bill would earmark $15 million per year to subsidize the struggling South Florida Tri-Rail line and spend $432 million to buy 61 miles of track from CSX for a Central Florida commuter line, known as SunRail.

Since the special session opened last week, lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Crist have repeated and repeated again the same mantra: “This is about creating new jobs.” Crist said he will “take money from anyone” as long as it creates jobs. Although the bill doesn’t actually talk about jobs, they would be a consequence of creating rail systems.