Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, criticized Gov. Glenn Youngkin Tuesday for his long list of amendments and vetoes that were dropped Monday night. He also said it seems unlikely that Senate Democrats will agree to more than doubling the amount of money put into the reserve fund, a proposal that Youngkin is pushing for in case of an economic downturn from the moves being made by the White House.
With the amendments still uploading Tuesday morning, Surovell said he has not had time to review them all yet. However, he criticized the governor’s methods for offering so many amendments during the short session without any conversations with legislators.
“16 years I’ve served in the period of time between the end of session and when the budget amendments drop, what will often happen is the governor’s office will call and say, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about making some amendments. We have some concerns we might veto. Can we have a conversation about trying to reach an accommodation, reach a compromise here on the bill,’ and there’s dialog about it,” Surovell said during a press call. “This office has never operated like that. The first time a member finds out they have a problem with the bill is usually when the veto drops, or when the amendment drops.”
Youngkin signed 599 bills into law, amended 159 bills, and vetoed 158 bills. The governor returned the budget with 205 amendments and eight item vetoes.
Surovell also criticised the governor for not communicating with legislators during session to look for compromises.
“His people rarely took a position on legislation during session, which is the time to have conversation and make amendments to bills,” he said.
Surovell does not expect his caucus to approve Youngkin’s plan to add an additional $300 million to the reserve fund, which would be on top of the $294 million constitutionally required funding that will already be added.
During a press conference Monday, Youngkin indicated that this is a response to President Donald Trump’s actions to cut the federal workforce.
While Youngkin proposed this extra deposit into the reserve to prepare for the consequences of President Donald Trump’s budget cuts, Youngkin still believes the president is making the right moves.
“Let’s be clear, just as President Trump has acknowledged, there is risk in financial disruption as they take the needed actions to restore fiscal discipline in Washington,” Youngkin said.
Surovell said that while he wants to be conservative with the budget and believes both chambers have been, he does not want to take away from other key priorities of the General Assembly to more than double what is required to be deposited into the reserve.
“I think we’re very well positioned right now, in the event of a downturn, to deal with that, at least on a temporary basis,” he said. “I haven’t talked to our caucus about it yet, or the Finance chair, but I would be really surprised if we supported putting $300 million in reserve fund at the expense of K-12, health care and other priorities like that.”
Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, did not immediately respond to a text or phone call from Virginia Scope.
The governor’s office did not provide a comment for this story before deadline.