RICHMOND, Va. — What is being called the "Monumental Move" has hit a monumental roadblock.
Hampton Roads state Sen. Louise Lucas is using her power as senate finance and appropriations chair to kill two bills to bring the Washington Wizards and Capitals to Alexandria.
There’s now only one path forward for the proposed Alexandria sports arena — the House of Delegates budget proposal.
The arena has become a high priority for Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
"This spectacular sports and entertainment district will be at the heart of the most vibrant, innovation corridor in the world," Youngkin said during the initial announcement of the proposed project.
During a Feb. 12 meeting, Lucas said the senate bill that could make it happen wouldn’t be heard.
"As everyone is aware, I have used the chair’s prerogative to not docket the Governor’s proposed arena legislation," she told the room.
The senate bill, carried by Majority Leader Scott Surovell, proposed creating a sports authority that would issue more than a billion dollars in bonds to build a sports and entertainment district for the Washington Wizards and Capitals in Alexandria.
"Fundamentally, the reason I decided to not docket this bill is it places too much risk on the Commonwealth. The governor’s proposed deal has many unanswered questions and potential conflicts of interest," said Lucas.
According to Delegate Luke Torian’s Chief of Staff, Lucas “has indicated that she will not be docketing HB1514 since she did not docket Sen. Surovell’s companion bill” — a decision first reported by The Washington Post.
Sure enough, it was not on the docket during Tuesday morning’s committee meeting.
A Virginia Wesleyan University political science professor Leslie Caughell said Lucas has every right to wield.
"Committee chairs have kind of a real disproportionate amount of power in terms of what bills the committee debates," she said.
Sen. Lucas has said she's concerned the professional sports complex would not be a good deal for taxpayers.
But the arena isn’t completely dead. It still has a path forward in House Bill 29.
The House budget can keep arena discussion alive with language that sets up a state sports and entertainment authority to oversee the creation of the arena.
"While Lucas is taking some of these individual arena bills and stopping them from progressing forward, that doesn’t mean that this arena project is dead. As long as it remains in this house funding bill, it’s on the table," said Caughell.
Caughell said Lucas is likely using these arena bills as a bargaining chip to get concessions from Gov. Youngkin and Republican lawmakers when it comes to negotiating the budget.
"I suspect part of what she's doing is kind of signaling that in order for this to kind of go forward in her mind, there should be concessions made by the governor, made by Republicans for some top Democratic legislative priorities."
She said on the flip side, Lucas is also going against some in her own party, like Surovell who is a Democrat.
"She's bucking her party a little bit, and kind of the Senate Majority leader, and one of the things that's really interesting to me is you're really seeing this Northern Virginia versus rest of Virginia divide here on the willingness to use some of these things that are so important to Northern Virginia, like transit funding, or this arena, as kind of leverage in larger negotiations for policies that people in other parts of the state deem important," she said.