The Shadow
By Bob Lewis
AP Political Writer
RICHMOND (AP) – Virginia’s Senate expects to vote Monday to approve a version of the state budget, something it could not do during a 60-day regular General Assembly.
In a breakthrough Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee unanimously approved its version of a new budget, incorporating some of the Democratic demands that had been made for advancing a new two-year state funding plan.
Hurdles remain, including a critical floor vote Monday on an amendment Democrats will offer that requires either insurers or the state to pay for the pre-abortion ultrasound examinations that will become mandatory for women under newly passed legislation that takes effect July 1.
“I suspect that once you see the ultrasound amendment adopted off the floor, that you will see a significant vote for the budget,” said Senate Democratic Caucus leader A. Donald McEachin.
He said the proposal would require insurers to cover the procedure and would set aside about $3.2 million over two years in state cash to cover costs for uninsured women. In an accommodation to Republicans opposed to public funding for Planned Parenthood, the state payments would be available only to clinics that perform five abortions or fewer per year or to university teaching hospitals.
McEachin said he had been assured that at least one Republican would join a united Democratic caucus in supporting the ultrasound funding amendment.
A bill passed last month and signed into law by Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell mandates external abdominal ultrasound examinations to determine the gestational age of a fetus before a woman has an abortion. It enraged women’s rights advocates, generated Capitol Square protests that resulted in arrests and subjected the state to national ridicule and scorn by television comedians.
Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan, one of two Senate Republicans who last month opposed the bill, was asked whether there was one GOP vote for the ultrasound funding budget item in the Senate. He flashed a sly grin and said, “there might be. There might be.”
Prospects that a two-year master plan for funding state operations through 2014 will finally survive the partisan crossfire of a Senate evenly split between Democrats and Republicans gained force with a few words from Sen. Charles J. Colgan of Prince William.
“On Monday, I seriously hope we pass a budget bill,” said Colgan, a moderate Democrat whose vote would provide the margin necessary to advance the budget.
Should that happen, the measure still faces equally demanding negotiations between six senior senators and six counterparts from the House to resolve differences between their rival versions of the budget.
Angered that the Senate’s 20 Republicans used Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling’s tie-breaking vote to take organizational control over the Senate’s 20 Democrats in a bitterly contested opening day, the Democrats used their parity to make a statement on the budget, one area where the state Constitution denies Bolling any say.
Compromises contained in amendments made to the House-passed budget and advanced by the Finance Committee Thursday do not address Democratic demands that they be apportioned a greater share of Senate power. Nor do they provide for reimbursing the University of Virginia for the more than $500,000 it spent fending off an aggressive inquest by Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli into climate change research by a former UVa professor.
The new Senate version of the budget, however, provides concessions on relief for toll increases on a Hampton Roads highway tunnel that connects Portsmouth and Norfolk. It also allows for state supplements that schools in the expensive northern Virginia suburbs use to retain non-teaching personnel from being enticed to better-paying jobs in other states, provided there is a sufficient surplus left over from the budget year that ends June 30, 2013.
The toll abatement provision came in for questioning from Senate Republican Leader Thomas K. Norment, who questioned costs for the initiative that he said had ballooned from $2 million to as high as $100 million. He said that legislatively directing transportation funding subverts the expertise and duty of the Commonwealth Transportation Board.
“This is an insidious process we are starting,” he said.
Senate Democratic Leader Richard L. Saslaw acknowledged Norment’s point, but said the CTB has been pre-empted before by a legislature that has refused for nearly two decades to boost revenue the state dedicates to road construction and maintenance beyond the 17½ cents-per-gallon tax on gasoline that has stood unchanged since 1986.
“This begets an even bigger problem that we are running into down here and that is that we are unable to fund this state,” said Saslaw, D-Fairfax County, whose own district has long been subject to toll roads.
Watkins picked up where Saslaw left off, saying Virginia “is inadequately funding the revenue streams to pay for the roads and transportation facilities we need around the state.” Watkins said Virginia was failing its urbanized and busiest regions in particular by not providing adequate highway links to some of the nation’s busiest ocean ports and airports.
“This is just the beginning of a unique set of problems that are just going to get worse,” he said.
