If there’s no arena deal, some Democratic priorities likely will get vetoed

If a picture’s worth a thousand words, then you can probably skip the rest of this column and just look at this picture:

While Gov. Glenn Youngkin held a news conference outside the State Capitol on Thursday to renew his case for the proposed sports arena in Alexandria, sharp eyes noticed someone standing at the top of the Capitol steps looking down on him: his nemesis, state Sen. Louise Lucas.

It was Lucas, D-Portsmouth and the chair of the Senate Finance Committee (I think we’re required to always call this the “powerful” Senate Finance Committee), who had kept the financing vehicle for the arena out of the state budget that negotiators had agreed to earlier that morning. And it was the lack of that arena provision that sent Youngkin out to make his case yet again.

The juxtaposition of Lucas looming over the governor was both accidental and telling. 

Those of us with long memories remember previous Senate Finance chairs whose mere countenance could send tremors through the legislature — Hunter Andrews of Hampton and, before him, Ed Willey of Richmond. Lucas, after two months of wielding the Senate Finance gavel, is already on their plane, perhaps even a bit above it. I have a hard time remembering a time when a Senate Finance chair has delivered a smackdown to a governor the way Lucas has with Youngkin over the arena.

The politics here are pretty clear and brutal; the policy a lot murkier. 

There may be good reasons to oppose the arena plan — if you’re philosophically opposed to a government role in financing sports arenas, or if you don’t believe the revenue numbers here add up as advertised. Lucas doesn’t seem to be among the former, but might be among the latter. Whatever her legitimate questions about the arena, there also seems to be an element of pique involved — that Youngkin did not consult her earlier in the process. That may show the liability of having a non-politician as governor. The prevailing critique of Youngkin is that he approached this deal as the corporate CEO he once was, not as a seasoned politician who understood that the business case alone wouldn’t be enough to win over a veteran legislator from the other party who is keen to assert her newfound power.

Legislators in general have historically believed they’re the ones who run the state, not the governor. For his first two years as chief executive, Youngkin had to deal with Democrats at the head of Senate Finance, but those were more amiable Democrats: Janet Howell of Fairfax County, who retired, and George Baker, also of Fairfax County, who lost his primary bid for renomination. Now Lucas has moved into their place. 

In his time, Youngkin has probably negotiated thousands of business deals, but he’s likely never had to deal with anyone like Lucas. She has seen a lot more of life than Youngkin has and no doubt encountered a lot more challenges. At 80, she’s old enough to remember when Virginia shuttered schools rather than integrate during Massive Resistance and often reminds people of that. She was the first female shipfitter at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, when Youngkin was just 5 years old. The Washington Post, in a profile this week, called Lucas “combative.” Her Twitter/X page shows her with boxing gloves, a motif she employed during her reelection campaign. All politicians claim to be fighters; Lucas really is. The Washington Post noted she once came to blows with another female Democrat on the Senate floor. She’s not someone to be crossed, and now she has a platform she’s never had before. Maybe Lucas was always looking for a way to assert her dominance over Youngkin; if so, she found it quickly with the arena plan. Those old-time legislators such as Willey and Andrews would probably be proud.

“It just befuddles me,” Youngkin said, that “senators” (he never mentioned Lucas’ name) don’t see the potential benefit of the arena. In truth, he’s probably befuddled by Lucas, who has a completely different set of motivations than his. Maybe what we’re seeing here is a philosophical disagreement, but we’re certainly seeing a raw display of power on Lucas’ part — not that much different than what we’ve seen in Washington when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked a Democratic Supreme Court nominee. In playground terms, Lucas has schooled the governor. This is undoubtedly fascinating to watch from a political point of view; whether this is good policy is more debatable.

At first, Lucas said she wanted her constituents to get relief from the tolls they have to pay for the tunnels that connect Portsmouth to Norfolk — and Youngkin dutifully obliged with a $322 million toll relief plan. In the end, even that wasn’t enough to make Lucas budge.

Perhaps the governor will yet find a way around her. There are lots of things the governor can do; they’re just not ideal. He could send the budget back with proposed amendments — the arena being one of them. He could veto the budget outright. He could call a special session. Lucas isn’t the only one who can play hardball, just the one who has the initial advantage. In the meantime, both sides risk losing opportunities.

For Youngkin and other arena backers, the risk is losing the arena project altogether. For those who believe the arena would generate extra tax revenue for the state, this means losing the opportunity to secure more funding for, say, rural schools and Interstate 81, two things the governor has often name-checked. (In my column Thursday I looked at other arenas built within the past decade and found that at least one of them, in Milwaukee, has paid off, so the argument that arenas aren’t good investments isn’t true in every instance.)

However, there are things that Lucas — and other Democrats — risk losing, too. The Democratic-controlled General Assembly has passed a whole slate of bills that encompass some of their dearest priorities. In a vacuum, I suspect a Republican governor would happily veto all of them. We’re not in a vacuum, though. As long as the governor had a chance to get the arena, he had incentive to negotiate on some of those — we’re just not sure how many. Might he have swallowed a minimum wage increase to get the arena? Might he have gritted his teeth and allowed retail cannabis if that’s what it took to get the arena? We don’t know. What we do know is that, if the arena is truly off the table, Youngkin has absolutely zero incentive to sign any of those bills. 

In a question-and-answer session with journalists, Youngkin signaled he can throw some elbows under the basket, too. “I have strongly held beliefs on lots of topics that are being sent to me,” he said in response to a question by Cardinal’s Markus Schmidt. “There will be over 1,000 bills that were sent to me, and I am going to evaluate each bill.” Translation: The Department of General Services better stock up on pens because the governor may run through a lot of ink in vetoing bills. (Allow me to point out that Cardinal is the only news organization covering the western third of the state that has a full-time journalist in the state capital year-round. That’s thanks to your support.)

If Youngkin nixes a minimum wage increase, if he blocks retail cannabis, if he kills protections for same-sex marriage, if he sidelines paid family and medical leave, if he vetoes a bunch of other Democratic bills, Democrats can and will blame him — but they indirectly will also have their Senate Finance chair to blame. Will they? Probably not. Those who don’t admire Lucas fear her. (Politics are often complicated: One Republican legislator told me “I love her,” presumably because their legislative interests overlap on some things we may never see.) Democrats may also rationalize that time is on their side. Someday retail cannabis will be legal in Virginia — it may have to wait until the next governor, but it seems inevitable. Someday the minimum wage will rise, it’s just a matter of when and by how much. 

No legislator should ever vote for something they think is a bad deal for the state, and some legislators do legitimately believe the arena is a bad deal. Maybe some are prepared to wait two years for a minimum wage increase, or retail cannabis, or something else, because they think that’s a price they can bear to avoid a financial mistake. Likewise, no governor should ever feel compelled to sign something he truly believes is bad for the state. Maybe Youngkin is fine with black market dope dealers profiting from unregulated and untested cannabis as long as there aren’t cannabis shops across Virginia. 

Some certainly think the arena is a good deal — and the Milwaukee example I wrote about suggests Youngkin might well be right. 

Regardless of those pros and cons, my sense is many legislators are somewhere in the middle  — hung up less on the philosophy behind the arena deal and focused more on the age-old “what’s in it for my district?” (I’ve had some tell me they were backing the arena deal because they hoped to get such-and-such for their district.) Those on the Republican side may not need to worry; a Republican governor will likely look kindly on them no matter what. However, those on the Democratic side are the ones who now are wondering which of their priorities is about to get vetoed if it’s not part of an arena deal.