By JEFF E. SCHAPIRO, Media General News Service
Published: April 24, 2008

Virginia lawmakers are divvying up $1.4 billion in bricks-and-mortar projects and handing an unexpected goody to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine: an appointment to the powerful agency that oversees corporate Virginia.
In unanimous votes, the House of Delegates and Virginia Senate yesterday endorsed a plan to finance through the sale of taxpayer-back bonds 75 construction projects over the next six years.
The bond bill, described as “a landmark piece of legislation,” by the chief sponsor, Del. Lacey E. Putney, I-Bedford, will provide building funds for colleges, mental-health facilities, parks and state offices.
The projects include the purchase of an office tower in downtown Richmond to house the tax department and a replacement for the art deco-era hospital on the medical campus of Virginia Commonwealth University.
Elsewhere, the package includes $110 million to replace Western State Hospital, a state psychiatric facility; and $82 million to improve mental-health facilities.
The bond package was backed in a rare display of bipartisan cooperation—a sharp contrast with the prolonged bickering that scuttled the proposed elevation of a Henrico County Circuit Court judge to the State Corporation Commission.
The General Assembly’s failure to choose a successor to retired SCC Judge Theodore V. Morrison Jr. means Kaine has a rare opportunity to use his appointive power to shape an agency whose oversight of utilities and telecommunications companies had been scaled back by a Republican-dominated legislature.
“I’m not looking to appoint, but if I have to, I’ll appoint good people,” Kaine said.
The impasse over judges required frequent starts and stops and pushed the session, which opened at noon, into the late evening. The legislature finally quit at 10:05 p.m.
The SCC slot is among about six judicial appointments left vacant because of General Assembly squabbling. Despite the new political dynamic of a Republican-run House and Democrat-controlled Senate, legislators reached agreement on two-dozen judgeships.
A House-Senate deal to shift Henrico Circuit Court Judge Catherine B. Hammond to the SCC, while naming former prosecutor Mary Bennett Malveaux as her successor, fell apart because Sen. Walter A. Stosch, R-Henrico, said he had been denied a say in choosing Hammond’s replacement.
The Hammond-for-Malveaux swap was largely the handiwork of Del. William R. Janis, R-Henrico, who vets judicial candidates for the House GOP, and the county’s new Democratic senator, A. Donald McEachin. Their pact would have assured an all-Republican SCC, while installing the first African-American woman on the Henrico circuit court.
Kaine’s choice for the three-member corporation commission must be approved by the legislature—a task complicated by his continuing tensions with the House. Further, friction between the House and Senate potentially signals more fights over judicial patronage.
The General Assembly also yesterday rejected seven of 41 amendments proposed by Kaine for the two-year, $77 billion budget that goes into effect July 1.
One would have added discount generic drugs to a state list of medication for mental patients under Medicaid. The amendment came under heavy fire and Kaine, who added it at the request of a large pharmaceutical company, asked that it be killed.
Legislators also turned down a Kaine amendment that would have partly restored a health-insurance initiative previously killed by the assembly. The $500,000 budget item would have set up a pilot program to offer a state subsidy to small businesses to help provide insurance to low-income workers.
Kaine initially had sought a broader, $7.8 million program.

Contact Jeff Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or .