The morning headline blares that Senate majority leader Dick Saslaw may have strong-armed UVA lobbyist Laura Fornash into testifying at a finance committee hearing on Medicaid expansion.
Or at least that’s the charge House majority leader Kirk Cox is making. Saslaw, in his fashion, brushes it all off:
Saslaw in a Monday evening interview initially denied calling anyone about testifying at the hearing, then conceded he contacted Fornash in response to a reporter’s direct question, suggesting he forgot about that call.
“She’s the only person I called,” said Saslaw, D-Fairfax County.
Saslaw said he reminded Fornash that McAuliffe’s budget proposes a two percent pay increase for state employees, which college faculty would benefit from.
To insinuate anything untoward about that, he added, suggests Republicans are trying to gin up controversy because “they must be feeling the heat, they must be hearing footsteps” on Medicaid expansion.
Yes, Mr Saslaw knew exactly who he called and why. Pretending otherwise is just silly.
But so, too, is the idea that only Democrats are making phone calls and twisting arms over the budget and Medicaid.
Remember that less equivocating statement from the Virginia Chamber of Commerce that hit the wires last week? The one where the Chamber, which came out early for some sort of Medicaid expansion, decided passing the budget was much more important, and that the Governor’s counter proposal was unacceptable?
That change of heart did not happen by itself. Calls were made, positions made clear and so on.
In other words, it was just another day in Capitol Square.
But do look for more heated, if not exactly honest, rhetoric to flow out of downtown Richmond as the special session grinds on.
