California’s soaring cost for its dragged-out high-speed rail construction was inflated by another recent political embarrassment for the state: labor icon Cesar Chavez.

Calls are growing for California’s high-speed rail to be abandoned completely after revelations this week that the estimated cost of completing the fantasy train project has ballooned to a staggering $231 billion.

A virtual rendering of the California High-Speed Rail project. California High-Speed Rail Authority

We’ve now learned about a billion dollars of that cost stems from a reroute around the resting place of Chavez and his wife at the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in Keene — and rail regulators are now open to reconsidering, according to the San Francisco Chronicle .

Board directors at the High-Speed Rail Authority needed to route the train through the Tehachapi Mountains, which separates the San Joaquin Valley from the Mojave desert.…