Today is day 18 of Governor Terry McAuliffe’s budget impasse.
The Republican led House of Delegates fufilled its most important constitutional obligation Tuesday night, passing a two-year state budget. But House leaders found an empty Senate chamber when they attempted to send the bill to the Senate for pasage.
From the Richmond Times Dispatch:
After approving a spending plan similar to the one that passed the chamber before the General Assembly adjourned March 8, some Republican delegates walked a copy of the budget over to the Virginia Senate chamber and posted a “gone home” sign on the door. The Senate was empty, and its members are in recess.
The Republican-dominated House of Delegates on Tuesday night passed another state budget bill that excludes provisions for Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s top policy priority, and then GOP delegates walked a copy of the bill across the Capitol to a dark, empty Senate chamber.
Republicans in the House of Delegates put that question to the test by taking their version of the two-year, $96 billion budget to the vacant Senate after approving it on a 68-31 vote Tuesday night.
The House left a “Gone Home” sign and a copy of its budget outside the dark, vacant Senate chamber.
The move had a theatrical purpose: to show that while the House was focused on the budget impasse in Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s special session, members of the party that controls the state Senate had left after just one day.
At the end, House Republicans sent their budget over to the Senate, where it will apparently sit for a while. House Republicans walked a copy of the budget over to an empty Senate chamber, put it on the floor out side the door and tacked up a handwritten sign that said “Gone Home.”
After voting along party lines to pass their version of a roughly $96 billion two-year budget late Tuesday, a group of House Republican leaders posted a sign reading “Gone Home” on the door of the empty Democratically controlled Senate.