The great philosopher (and baseball catcher and manager) Yogi Berra once said: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Nonetheless, I’m going to try.
The General Assembly has gone home, leaving a big stack of bills on Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk to act on but there’s one that’s noticeably missing: the proposed sports arena in Alexandria. Let’s look at five of the questions Youngkin now confronts and look at his options.
1. How will Youngkin try to save the Alexandria arena?
The arena’s not dead, but it’s not exactly alive either. It’s just not in the budget, thanks to state Sen. Louise “I’m the roadblock” Lucas, D-Portsmouth and chair of the Senate Finance Committee. If Youngkin wants the arena, he’s going to have to figure out a way to revive it (there are ways) or he’s going to have to figure out how to get Lucas on board (that’s much harder).
Procedurally, Youngkin could send the budget back with an arena amendment. That’s a better option than calling a special session, because that special session would come after the so-called veto session on April 18 — and by then Youngkin will have diminished leverage.
All along, his leverage has been that there are bills that Democrats want signed that a Republican governor might not otherwise be inclined to put his name to, and it seemed logical that there could be a grand bargain — the legislature approves the arena, and Youngkin agrees to sign certain Democratic bills that he might otherwise find distasteful. That’s how a dealmaker like Lyndon Johnson would have done it, but Youngkin isn’t dealing with LBJ, he’s dealing with Lucas.
By now, she’s staked out such a hardline position on the arena that it may be impossible for her to change. If her primary motivation is to humble the Republican governor and show him she’s a power to be reckoned with, she’s already done that — and now could possibly exert even more concessions than she could have before. For practical purposes, she’s already got the governor’s head on her wall. However, a story in The Washington Post suggested that Lucas has other motivations — that she wants to prove that she and other Black leaders in the General Assembly are good money managers:
“The last thing I would want to see while African Americans have this level of leadership is for this thing to go south,” she said. “I wasn’t about to take that risk.” Describing herself as “a product of the Civil Rights movement,” Lucas said she feared that if the project failed, she and other Black leaders would “come out looking like we can’t manage well.”
In other words, Lucas is presenting herself as a budget hawk — the Horatius at the bridge warding off a financially risky scheme. Under that scenario, there’s still room for negotiating — or maybe not.
There are some questions here that ought to give other Democrats some pause: Is it wise for one legislator to have so much power? Maybe most Democrats do agree with Lucas and are skeptical of the arena. The risk for them is setting a precedent that some future Republican chair could use to unilaterally block some initiative Democrats care about. However, they may see more risk in crossing Lucas — or in constituents who are also skeptical of the project.
Will Youngkin prevail here? I have no idea, for the same reasons Yogi Berra cited, but it seems safe to assume that behind the scenes there will be a lot of attempted dealmaking.
2. Can Democrats make cannabis a negotiating point or is it doomed to a veto?
Youngkin has made it clear again and again that he has no interest in authorized legal retail sales of weed — but he’s never said outright that he’d veto such a bill.
Given his druthers, I’d assume that Youngkin would veto the cannabis bill.
However, legal sales have also been a top priority for Lucas — which makes me wonder whether her smackdown of the arena is smart politics, when the obvious deal would have been “arena for cannabis.”
Here’s the danger for Democrats: If the governor doesn’t sign cannabis now, when they could trade it for the arena, he’s sure not going to sign it next year. That means the prospect of retail cannabis would be dead until at least 2026. Maybe some Democrats are so opposed to the arena they think it’s fine to wait that long, but waiting is not without risk. If Republicans win the House or governorship — or both — in 2025, then cannabis would likely be dead again until either 2028 (when a new House would take office) or 2030 (when a new governor would be sworn in). That’s a long time to wait.
Democrats may think they don’t need to worry about such things. The ones I hear from are convinced that they don’t need to worry about the 2025 governor’s race, and that a Democratic House will be reelected, as well. Maybe so, but much could depend on the presidential race this November. The last time Donald Trump was in the White House, he provoked a voter backlash against Republicans the following year. Under that scenario, a Trump election in November would produce big Democratic numbers in Virginia in 2025. However, if Joe Biden prevails, it’s easy to see Republicans in Virginia benefiting next year — just as they did in 2021 after Biden’s election then. Translated: A Biden win in November could mean that a Republican House of Delegates and maybe even a Republican governor gets elected in 2025. How much do Democrats care about getting a deal now as opposed to a deal several years from now?
3. Will Youngkin veto a minimum wage increase or propose some compromise?
This is another Democratic priority that Younkgin has made it clear he’s skeptical of. I would not be surprised if he vetoed this, or sent it back with some amendments to create a regional minimum wage — something the state studied at Democrats’ behest. The political calculations here are the same as with cannabis. If Democrats don’t get this signed this year, they won’t next year, either.
The Senate sponsor of the minimum wage increase is Lucas. I bet the governor would love, just love, to veto this bill. The irony is that her opposition to the arena may have cost those she believes would benefit from a higher minimum wage.
4. What changes will Youngkin propose with electronic ‘skill’ games?
The legislation to legalize electronic “skill” games — what opponents call “neighborhood slot machines” — passed by wide, bipartisan majorities, but Youngkin has made it clear he has reservations about the measure. He could veto this outright. I can also see him sending the bill back with amendments. If so, the most likely amendments would a) require all games to be hooked up to some central monitoring system, something the industry has opposed, and b) require a local referendum on whether to allow these games. That would be consistent with what Virginia has done for casinos, off-track betting and liquor by the drink — and what legislators have proposed with retail cannabis.
5. What will Youngkin do about sales tax referendums for school construction?
Only nine localities have been granted permission to hold sales tax referendums with the money going for school construction. Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, and state Sen. Jeremy McPike, D-Prince William County, sponsored legislation that would expand this power statewide — HB 805 in the House and SB 14 in the Senate. Both passed by wide margins; Democrats voted in favor, but so did many rural Republicans, because many of the localities in most need of money for school construction are in rural areas. We know the governor is averse to taxes, but what about giving people the power to tax themselves if they choose? This is an issue that pits philosophy against the practicality that the localities that would benefit the most are often strongly Republican ones. The poster child has always been Prince Edward County, where one room is unusable because of a leaky roof and the school must set out buckets whenever it rains.
6. What other changes will Youngkin propose with the state budget?
It seems a foregone conclusion that the governor will send the budget back with amendments; governors always do. In this case, as soon as the General Assembly approved the spending plan, Youngkin called it “backwards” because it left out his proposed tax cuts — along with “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring 30,000 jobs, $12 billion in economic contribution, and two professional sports teams to Virginia.” The governor will send back changes to the budget — that seems the easiest prediction of all.
As for what how big those changes are, and what actually happens, we’ll all have to wait and see.
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