As we slog into more than a month of debate and deliberations regarding the state budget – longer than it has drawn out in years – House Republicans are turning to an unlikely ally: U.S. Senator Mark Warner.
Warner was an extremely outspoken critic of the federal government shutdown last year where he thought Virginians had a right to be “mad as hell” and that the mere threat of a government shutdown was “not the way you govern.”
But, perhaps the most poignant of comments from the senator regarding last year’s kerfuffle was, “We cannot allow ideological issues to stop us from funding the basic operations of the government.”
[1]Exactly. And that’s why the House of Delegates is asking him, as a former governor who understands these budget battles, unlike the current occupant, it would seem, to intervene.
“If it was wrong to use the threat of a federal government shutdown as a bargaining chip last fall, then it is certainly wrong to use the threat of a state government shutdown as a bargaining chip now. You are correct that holding up the operations of government over a stand-alone issue like healthcare or immigration is fundamentally the wrong way to govern,” writes the House leadership.
So, what are the odds that the radical centrist will actually offer some leadership or that, even if he did, His Excellency will actually listen?
I wouldn’t hold my breath.