RICHMOND — Democratic leaders and Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) remain at loggerheads as Virginia lawmakers return to the state Capitol on Wednesday to take action on the budget and other bills the governor has proposed changing, barreling toward a June 30 deadline to adopt a two-year spending plan or begin shutting down the state government.
Democrats have said repeatedly in recent days that they are in no mood to compromise with Youngkin, who welcomed the legislature’s budget in March by calling it “backward” and going on a tour around the state proclaiming how misguided it was. Since the governor unveiled a package of 233 proposed amendments on April 8 that essentially rewrote the spending plan the General Assembly passed with bipartisan support, Democrats who control both chambers of the legislature have reacted angrily.
“We passed [an] on-time, structurally sound, balanced budget, which is required of us by the constitution,” House Speaker Don L. Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) said Tuesday in remarks to a small group of reporters. “The governor immediately then began to run a campaign against the budget, a full-fledged campaign. … He’s not a middle-ground, bipartisan governor. He has been an extreme — I call him MAGA-in-disguise — governor.”
On Tuesday, Scott debuted a sharp message of his own with an ad on social media, touting elements of the General Assembly’s budget and urging residents not to “let Pretending Glenn shut down the government.” Scott said his message was different from Youngkin’s because it was aimed at setting the record straight about what the legislature’s budget would deliver for the state.
A spokesman for Youngkin declined to comment on the ad or Scott’s remarks.
The most likely outcome Wednesday, according to interviews with several lawmakers on both sides of the aisle: Democrats reject all of Youngkin’s major proposals and send their budget back to him. He then could become the first governor in modern Virginia history to veto an entire budget. Youngkin would probably call a special legislative session so lawmakers could start all over, racing to get a budget plan finished before the new fiscal year starts July 1. If they failed to find common ground, the government could face a federal-style shutdown.
“It’s a position we’ve never been in before,” state Sen. William M. Stanley Jr. (R-Franklin) said, referring not just to a potential budget veto but the high number of vetoes and amendments the legislature must take up in Wednesday’s annual “reconvened” session. “This is new territory for us all, and it should be interesting. This place never fails to surprise.”
In addition to his proposed budget changes, Youngkin issued a record 153 vetoes — more in one year than the 120 the next most veto-heavy governor, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, issued in his entire four-year term. Democrats said over the past few days that they probably don’t have enough Republican support to muster the two-thirds majorities needed to override those vetoes, which included legislation to create a legal market for recreational marijuana, raise the minimum wage, and prevent other states where abortion is illegal from extraditing someone who has or performs the procedure legally in Virginia.
Youngkin has cast his package of budget amendments as an attempt at compromise. He proposed eliminating the Assembly’s plan to expand the sales tax to digital downloads — an idea that Youngkin initially proposed — and in return offered to retreat from his own insistence on tax cuts, which were dead anyway because lawmakers left them out of the budget.
He also said he would accept the legislature’s plan to increase spending in several key areas, including providing 3 percent pay raises in each of the next two years for public school teachers and state employees, increasing funding for higher education and boosting the state’s contribution to the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority, though at a lower level than the General Assembly approved. Youngkin argued that Virginia can afford those expenditures without raising taxes.
As if to underscore that point, the administration released a monthly revenue estimate Tuesday evening that showed tax collections up and the state surging toward a surplus of funds. As of March, state coffers are on track for a surplus of more than $1 billion for the year, Youngkin’s office said.
“March’s solid results provide stable ground for us to work together to land a budget that meets our collective goals,” Youngkin said in a written statement.
Democrats have said they disagree with the way Youngkin shuffled priorities to free up money in the budget. His plan for Metro, for instance, boosts the state’s contribution by tapping into federal dollars that had been set aside for localities in Northern Virginia — an approach several Democrats said was not acceptable.
Democratic leaders who accuse Youngkin of divisive rhetoric and aggressive treatment of their bills see him as punishing them for rejecting his plan to build a $2 billion, publicly financed arena in Alexandria for the Washington Wizards and Capitals. They say they are offended by his attempt to cast wholesale revisions as compromise.
“Nothing says ‘I love you and let’s work together’ like 153 vetoes, 233 budget amendments and a three-week campaign about how the budget we passed was backwards,” Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) told The Washington Post on Monday.
Surovell characterized Youngkin’s amendments as not just aggressive but also as a misreading of his role in government. “The governor seems to approach governor’s amendments as if he’s an actual member of the legislature,” he said, noting that Youngkin had essentially rewritten the budget and introduced new concepts to some bills after it was too late to vet them through the “committee process and take broad input into whether it’s good policy or not.”
One example: complex legislation to allow slot machine-like “skill games” in convenience stores that Youngkin drastically rewrote, suggesting amendments that effectively ban the games in many metropolitan areas.
Some Democrats have fanned the rhetorical flames. In addition to Scott’s digital ad, Senate Finance and Appropriations Chairwoman L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), who often mocks Youngkin on X, last week posted cartoon images of the governor giving up on the arena, which she dubbed the “Glenn Dome,” and “tax cuts for the rich.” Lucas is portrayed in boxing gloves, ready to sock it to him.
“Buckle Up Glenn- I am coming back to Richmond on Wednesday to deal with your nonsense,” she says.
For all the bluster, the legislature is unlikely to muster the supermajorities necessary to override Youngkin’s vetoes. Amendments to bills are a bit more complicated.
If a simple majority of both chambers approves all amendments on a bill, it becomes law as amended with no further action. If legislators approve some or none of the amendments, the bill goes back to Youngkin with only the amendments they have accepted for him to sign or veto. The governor gets the last word, since the General Assembly does not get another chance to override him.
But the legislature can head off a potential veto by taking a second vote on a bill after rejecting some or all of the governor’s amendments. A legislator would have to make a motion to enroll the bill as law “notwithstanding the governor’s [anticipated] veto.” If that motion wins a two-thirds vote in both houses, the measure becomes law.
Two bills that could be ripe for a challenge, according to several legislators: the skill-games bill that the governor rewrote, and a measure that would allow localities to impose a 1 percent local sales tax to fund school construction, a bipartisan bill that Youngkin vetoed.
But reconciling the positions staked out by both sides on the budget is going to take more time than is available in Wednesday’s session, even if it extends for more than one day, said Stanley, the Republican senator. “How do you find middle ground? I don’t think you find it in the veto session,” he said. “After the dust settles, we have to have a budget by July 1. I have full confidence that the governor, speaker and Senator Lucas can work it out.”
Senate Minority Leader Ryan T. McDougle (R-Hanover) said he expects that some of Youngkin’s budget amendments will pass. “There are a number of actions the governor took that I think everybody thinks are reasonable and they’ll be supported,” he said.
Sen. R. Creigh Deeds (D-Charlottesville), a senior member of the Finance and Appropriations Committee, agreed that the legislature will probably accept some of Youngkin’s technical amendments to the budget, but he predicted it will reject the substantive ones. “He’ll have to make a choice at that point,” he said.
If Youngkin opts to veto the budget, Deeds said, he expects the legislature would quickly go into a special session to pass another budget — probably similar to the one that it just sent to Youngkin. He predicted one change: The new budget might find ways to spend about $100 million freed up by Youngkin’s vetoes.
“It’s not going to get any better,” Deeds said of the next spending plan. “It could get worse from his perspective.”
The Virginia Constitution gives the legislature 10 days to take up the governor’s vetoes and amendments, but it is rare for the reconvened session to extend beyond one day. Reconvened sessions have been extended to a second day just four times since 1994, according to Senate Clerk Susan Clarke Schaar. Given the unusually large number of vetoes and amendments, legislators were not certain they could wrap it all up Wednesday.
“As the party not in charge, we don’t have a lot of say-so,” said Sen. Mark J. Peake (R-Lynchburg). “We’re taking luggage for two days.”
