JotBlog

RICHMOND — Prospects for a professional basketball and hockey arena in Alexandria seemed dimmer than ever Tuesday after Gov. Glenn Youngkin spoke with top budget officials from the House of Delegates and Senate, with the governor and lawmakers so far apart that some worry the entire state budget could be headed for a meltdown.

Youngkin (R) met by videoconference with Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), chairwoman of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, and Del. Luke E. Torian (D-Prince William), head of House Appropriations, a little more than a week after the Virginia General Assembly wrapped up its regular legislative session without approving the governor’s tax cuts or his plans for a $2 billion arena.

While the call was generally about Youngkin’s objections to aspects of the state budget passed by the Democratic-controlled legislature, talk turned to the arena, Lucas said in an interview with The Washington Post.

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“He brought up the arena again, and I told him that was a nonstarter for me,” Lucas said. “I’m like cement. … Or since I grew up in the shipyard, I can say I’m like steel,” she said — remaining firm in her stance that issuing $1.5 billion in taxpayer-backed bonds to support construction of the project in Potomac Yard is not in the best interests of the state.

“We’ve started our discussions, and I think that there is just a clear need for us to continue to engage,” Youngkin told reporters Tuesday at an unrelated event in Petersburg. “When anybody finally sits down and listens to the specifics of the project, they’re immediately convinced this is really good for the commonwealth.”

Asked whether he saw any sign that Lucas was softening, Youngkin responded by describing a path around her.

“What we really know is that in order to pass a bill today it take 51 delegates and 21 senators. It doesn’t require all of them,” he said. “And then of course the second thing that it requires is a governor’s signature, and I believe that we can work with our General Assembly in order to make sure that everybody understands the merit of this project on a stand-alone project basis and we’re going to work to see if we can pull together a majority of our House, a majority of our Senate so we can press forward.”

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Youngkin could try to revive the arena proposal by sending down a budget amendment or stand-alone bill when the General Assembly returns April 17 to take up measures he vetoed or amended. Doing so could allow him to bypass Lucas’s powerful committee, where she was able to kill bills and budget amendments related to the arena during the regular legislative session.

Told of Youngkin’s remarks, Lucas scoffed. “If he thinks he can do this without me, he is sadly mistaken,” she said, adding, “I don’t believe he can get 21 votes in the Senate or 51 votes in the House.”

In a separate interview, Torian said he, too, believes the arena would not get majority support in either chamber.

Both Lucas and Torian said that in discussing his objections to the budget, Youngkin mentioned that he hoped he would not have to take the extreme step of vetoing the entire document, instead of the usual route of offering amendments to the parts he dislikes. A veto of the full budget could leave the state barreling toward the kind of government shutdown that has become a staple of congressional dysfunction, with Virginia’s fiscal year ending June 30.

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“If he does that, he’s going to have hell to pay with the citizens of Virginia,” Lucas said. She said she told Youngkin that “if you do that, that’s on you.”

Asked last week by reporters whether he was considering a blanket budget veto, Youngkin said he had not yet had enough time to review all of the budget document’s components to speculate on that.

Torian said Tuesday that Youngkin didn’t make it clear in the videoconference whether a blanket veto would be directly related to the arena; the governor has also criticized lawmakers for rejecting his plans to overhaul the state tax system.

Youngkin had proposed increasing the state sales tax overall and extending it to digital downloads, then partly offsetting that by cutting personal income tax rates. The budget that passed with some Republican support in both the House and Senate scrapped the tax cuts and the sales tax increase, but included a digital sales tax and went a step further by extending it to software downloads purchased by businesses.

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Since the legislature adjourned March 9, Youngkin has been traveling the state campaigning to friendly, invited audiences about the “backward budget” that he says he now has to “fix.” In Chesterfield County he condemned Democrats for wanting “to put their hand in your pocket and take your money,” and in Chesapeake he said Democrats’ “vision is to tax everything they possibly can” to increase the size of government “so people are more dependent.”

Torian said that messaging does not help.

“Does that impact negotiations? Yes it does,” he said, pointing out that the legislature’s proposed budget would raise pay for teachers and state employees, increase the state’s contribution to K-12 schools, and offset the rising costs of higher education. “Is it a backwards budget because we want to do good things for the citizens of the commonwealth?”

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Lucas said the proposed budget “provided for all constituents across the commonwealth, not just for billionaires who didn’t ask for it and don’t need it,” referring to Wizards and Capitals owner Ted Leonsis.

Saying she needs to circle back with Torian, Lucas said she has no plans to cut back on spending plans or step away from other legislation that could wind up as bargaining chips in budget negotiations — such as bills to create a legal marijuana market and to authorize “skill games,” or slots-like gambling machines, in small businesses.

“If the governor wants to torpedo this budget because he can’t have his way with the arena, I think the citizens of the commonwealth will hold him accountable,” she said. “I’m not going to be bullied.”

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