As much as we have the DC side of things on lock, Michael Phillips is down in Richmond still hosting on 910 The Fan, and before he went on air Friday, he joined The Junkies to give a little bit more of the political angle to the Virginia legislature killing the Alexandria arena deal.
“We’re getting tied up in personal disputes now. Louise Lucas, the head of the Senate Finance Committee from down in Tidewater, she's kind of made it her job to be a thorn in Glenn Youngkin’s side because she plays for the blue team and he plays for the red team,” Phillips said. “He was playing ball with her, and as of a week ago, the word was he was going to give her $300 million to take the toll roads out of Hampton Roads and a couple of other things - she wanted to legalize marijuana sales and raise the minimum wage – but she has been against the arena from Day 1 and essentially killed the arena from being voted on. So, obviously, as revenge, he will take all of her things off the board. Nothing's dead yet, but the question is how much do these people want it?”
The Governor could shut down business if he wanted to, but it seems like the more time that goes on, the harder it will get?
“When he introduced it and did his show with Ted, they had the votes; they counted the votes, they had the votes, and if it had gone to a vote that day in Virginia, it would have worked,” Phillips said. “Things changed between here and there, and I think it's probably less popular today than it was then. So the question is, if he puts it to a vote, does it pass? He would need Democrats to cross the aisle to do it, and he has the support of some northern Virginia democrats, but would Lucas say, hey, if you cross the line and vote for this arena, you're not going to be on any good committees next year? Would that change some votes? I think that's the unknown right now: if you could get it to a vote, is it still a winner.”
Politics, man.
“The weird thing to me is it felt the whole way like she was bargaining to get as much as she could get, right? She got a lot, she got the $300 million on the table to legalize marijuana sales, all the stuff she wanted, and Youngkin was willing to trade it for the arena,” Phillips said. “That's why everybody was so surprised when, at the end of the negotiations, she said, no, I don't want it, let's kill it all. There may be democrats who say, hang on, all we have to do is give them an arena and we can get these other things? Let's revive this. That's why I think the vote is a bit of a mystery, right?”
Phillips has talked to Democrats who are anti-arena but don’t love the precedent of Lucas, or any one person, having the power to decide to keep it from being voted on – and as big and diverse of a state as Virginia is, it’s understandable that concessions need to be made and benefits weighd.
“Always, and that's definitely an ongoing tension – and not just that, Tidewater's got a huge military population, so it's a very pro-military place. It's a pretty wild state when everybody comes together,” Phillips said. “There's always that tension of northern Virginia wants something, like, why can't we have something? You saw it with Amazon and you'll see that if the Commanders stadium ends up coming through Virginia too. It helps that the governor is a northern Virginia guy, I think that smooths over a lot of it, but that tension is always going to be there.”