RICHMOND – Virginia senators made a rare June return to the state Capitol on Tuesday to take up a contentious issue involving military tuition waivers, and after more than five hours of backroom deals and impassioned speeches, they took no action.
The fruitless day angered dozens of military families and advocates who had gathered in Richmond to urge lawmakers to restore the program, which offers college tuition waivers for the families of veterans killed or disabled in the line of duty. The program also applies to law enforcement officers and firefighters, and in recent years its cost has skyrocketed to the point that higher education officials He said it was unsustainable.
“We’re extremely frustrated,” said Suzanne Wheatley, 59, of Norfolk, who said her husband served in the Navy for 26 years. “I took a day out of my life, I took a day out of my son’s life to be here, as did many of my friends. … It’s just ridiculous.”
The state budget adopted in May by lawmakers from both parties and signed into law by Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) contained strict limits on the program. The cuts drew swift complaints from veterans groups, and Youngkin, whose administration sought the limits, appointed an advisory group to propose revisions that the General Assembly could consider at its next regular session in January.
But the complaints continued, and in a military-heavy state that seeks to be the most welcoming place for veterans, politicians responded. Youngkin earlier this month urged lawmakers to return in a special session to undo the change. House Speaker Don L. Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) set June 28 as the date for the return of the House of Delegates, pledging to restore the program to its previous state and then review ways to do so. more sustainable during next year’s session.
Democrats who control the Senate opted to return on Tuesday, which coincided with primary voting for congressional elections, and announced they would undertake some revisions to the program, but did not support its full restoration.
That created a conflict with Republicans and some Democrats who wanted to go further. On Tuesday, Sen. Bryce E. Reeves (R-Orange) proposed a full repeal measure. But Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), the powerful chairwoman of the Finance and Appropriations committee, proposed a more limited set of changes.
Lucas’ bill would have made clear that anyone enrolled for the next school year is exempt from the existing program, and would have fully restored the program for families of veterans killed in the line of duty or wounded in combat with 90 percent disability. He would not have allowed families of veterans with non-combat-related disabilities to participate.
On Tuesday, the Finance and Appropriations committee had scheduled a meeting for 11:45 a.m. before a plenary session at 1 p.m. When the members arrived, the hearing room was filled with spectators and people wishing to speak. But instead of starting the session with the gavel, the senators continued to disappear into two back rooms. Sometimes all the Republicans went on one side and all the Democrats on the other; sometimes they disappeared into bipartisan groups.
This continued for approximately one hour and 20 minutes before all members took their seats and Lucas called the committee meeting to order. But he immediately announced that he was not going to bill any bills.
As it turned out, special session rules required that any budget-related bill be approved by 80 percent of the Senate. Because so many senators wanted full repeal, leaders couldn’t get enough support for Lucas’s partial measure. He then decided that no bill would be heard.
“I care about veterans, first responders and their families,” Lucas told the gathered crowd, many of them wearing T-shirts calling for “reverse and repeal.” “I also care about ensuring that future participants have access to the program. We continue to work on a long-term solution. “All of us, all of us, want to protect this program.”
Lucas said he was appointing a “special, select working group” of five senators (three Democrats and two Republicans) “to find a more articulate solution in the coming weeks.”
Sen. Barbara A. Favola (D-Arlington), who Lucas said would chair the group, said its first meeting will take place on June 28, the same day the House of Delegates plans to return to a special session. Lucas said she was also tasking the state’s audit agency, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, with expediting a review of the program and creating proposals to make it more sustainable in the long term.
The committee also came up empty on another legislative issue: Lucas had proposed a budget bill that would have legalized skill games, or slot-machine-like gaming devices, in convenience stores and truck stops across the state.
The General Assembly passed such a bill during its regular session earlier this year, but Youngkin proposed a series of amendments that essentially banned the devices in most major cities in the state. Lawmakers refused to approve his changes, so Youngkin vetoed the bill. He and General Assembly leaders suggested they were open to revisiting the issue, which convenience store owners say is crucial to the health of their businesses.
However, on Monday, Youngkin issued a statement saying he would not consider any legislation on games of skill until the military registration issue was resolved. Lucas cited his statement Tuesday in announcing that the bill would not be considered along with the military enrollment measure. “I’m not going to pit voters against each other,” Lucas said.
Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) said in a later interview that leaders hope to revisit the issue of skill games later this year.
Surovell and Lucas made one more attempt to take action on the military registration bill. After the committee meeting, the entire Senate met, and members once again disappeared into back rooms to try to reach an agreement. This time, Democratic leaders proposed approving a delay in the program’s budget cuts, allowing time for the various advisory committees to recommend long-term changes.
But Republicans again opposed it. That left lawmakers with nothing to do but make speeches.
“To say I’m disappointed is an understatement,” Reeves told his fellow senators. “Unfortunately we’re going to have to rely on our friends in the House to clean up this bill or fix this issue… and the real victims of this whole issue will be those families that are affected by it.”
Several Democrats noted that current participants in the program are protected and unaffected by the cuts, and that costs have reached the point where something has to change.
The tuition waiver program began in the 1930s for families of World War I veterans, and eligibility has expanded over the years to include people going to graduate school and veteran families. from other states. According to a legislative analysis, the cost of tuition waivers increased from about $12 million in 2019 to more than $65 million last year — a growth of 445 percent.
“We’re doing everything we can right now to basically preserve this program and preserve its continued viability,” Surovell said in remarks on the Senate floor. Participation “has been so overwhelming that in many ways it has jeopardized the viability of the program.”
In the end, the Senate promised to return to a special session on July 1, after the House has made its own decision on the bill. Lucas declined to tell reporters what he plans to do if the House sends a full restoration of the program. “Then I will make a decision,” he said.
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