Her opposition leaves the project hanging by a thread, and left Youngkin (R) fuming. “It befuddles me,” he said at a news conference Thursday below the steps of the State Capitol, Lucas smiling down on his dismay from the portico above. Youngkin, a multimillionaire former private equity chief, had marshaled his Harvard MBA and all of his business experience, plus that of his team of high-finance advisers, only to run up against a humbling Richmond truth: A governor is not a CEO.
The General Assembly’s leaders have to be on board for the arena plan to work. Lucas, who this year became chairwoman of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, has enormous power as one of the gatekeepers of the state budget. And after three decades as a Black woman climbing the ladder in the former capital of the Confederacy, Lucas felt she had been shut out of the dealmaking process.
In interviews last week, Lucas said she views the Potomac Yard arena proposal as not just a risk to the state’s finances, but a test of the newly ascendant Black lawmakers who hold the House speaker’s gavel and the chairmanships of each chamber’s money committee.
“The last thing I would want to see while African Americans have this level of leadership is for this thing to go south,” she said. “I wasn’t about to take that risk.” Describing herself as “a product of the Civil Rights movement,” Lucas said she feared that if the project failed, she and other Black leaders would “come out looking like we can’t manage well.”
Thanks to her actions, the arena is not included in the budget approved Saturday by the General Assembly before it adjourned this year’s legislative session. Youngkin has options for bringing it back to life, most likely by submitting a bill or a budget amendment when lawmakers return to Richmond on April 17 to take up measures vetoed or amended by the governor. He also could call a special legislative session specifically for the arena, but so far he has said that’s unlikely.
But the project’s failure so far is a blow to Youngkin’s bid to make a mark with what he terms the greatest economic development deal he’s ever negotiated, even dating to his time with the Carlyle Group private equity firm.
“The way the Senate has handled this opportunity I fear damages Virginia’s business environment,” he said at his Thursday news conference. “It’s a clear signal … [projects like these] will not be evaluated on their merit, but instead will be viewed through the lens of partisan parochial interests. … I believe this is a massive mistake for the commonwealth.”
Lawmakers and others familiar with the negotiations — some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating Youngkin while hundreds of other pieces of legislation await his action — described an administration keeping close control over the process. Starting just before Christmas, Youngkin political adviser Matthew Moran led conference calls about the project every weekday at 8 a.m. with two cabinet secretaries, lobbyists and representatives from Alexandria, Leonsis’s firm Monumental Sports & Entertainment and other private companies involved.
Although Youngkin regularly contacted Lucas with phone calls or through his staff on the arena and other matters, three people familiar with the situation said Leonsis delayed meeting with Lucas, in particular, because of guidance from the governor’s team.
Youngkin spokesman Rob Damschen called that account “completely false.”
Leonsis called a handful of leaders early in the year — including Lucas once and House Appropriations Chairman Luke E. Torian (D-Prince William) twice, each lawmaker said — but otherwise Youngkin’s office and lobbyists were largely the go-betweens. That arrangement might have prevented inadvertent blowups on social media, where Lucas is notoriously active and blunt, but it also kept lawmakers from building a personal stake in the project.
Monumental Sports & Entertainment declined to comment for this story, referring to a statement issued Friday night. “We remain hopeful that the merits of the proposal will eventually get a fair hearing so this important project can advance for our fans, players, employees and the residents of Virginia,” the company said.
Early in the legislative session, some of those involved in pushing for the project suggested bringing the Washington Wizards Dancers to Richmond for the Capitol Square Basketball Classic, an annual charity basketball doubleheader that pits the governor’s office against a team of lobbyists and the House versus the Senate. But with prospects for the arena seeming to dim as the Feb. 29 game approached, there were concerns that the move would look like a premature victory lap. The idea was scrapped, though Monumental still had its name flash on the jumbo screen above the court.
Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax), who sponsored the arena legislation in his chamber and was inclined to support the project if certain changes could be made, said the governor never seriously engaged legislators on specifics, including the financing.
“He has stated that the financing is nonnegotiable and our priorities are nonnegotiable,” Surovell said. “He needs to learn that this isn’t Carlyle, it’s not a corporation. We’re a coequal branch and if he wants us to work with him, he needs to learn how to compromise and have dialogue about issues that matter to both him and us, and not just only things that matter to him.”
There seemed to be more support for the arena in the House, where Speaker Don L. Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) kept up a steady line of communication with Youngkin. The House passed a stand-alone bill creating an authority to oversee the arena and included language in its version of the budget, but Lucas blocked both when they got over to the Senate.
On Friday, Scott said he fully supported Lucas’s efforts to do her “due diligence” on the ambitious project. But he added that it’s too soon to write it off. “This is politics — nothing is dead until it’s dead,” he said. “I understand it might look that way, and it might wind up being that way, but the fourth quarter has not been played.”
With support for the arena slipping away as the General Assembly headed for adjournment, Scott, Torian and three Republicans on the budget conference committee — Terry G. Kilgore (Scott), Terry L. Austin (Botetourt) and Robert S. Bloxom Jr. (Accomack) — met with Youngkin on Wednesday at the Capitol Square high-rise that houses the governor’s offices.
The House delegation said they thought they could deliver Lucas if the governor offered more than the toll relief and unspecified boost in Metro funding that he’d already put on the table, according to two people familiar with the gathering who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share a private conversation.
The delegates asked first about legislation setting up a regulated cannabis marketplace and Youngkin reiterated that he was not interested in that, so they quickly moved to other topics. Among them was the minimum wage, which Democrats voted to raise to $15 by 2026, the two said. The group said they would come back later with a list of potential issues that might make Lucas come to the table.
But before that could happen, Youngkin contacted Lucas — and she told him it was over.
Lucas acknowledged ruffling the feathers of some fellow legislators by refusing to hold a hearing on the two stand-alone arena bills. She also conceded that she has likely jeopardized some of her legislative priorities, since Youngkin might be inclined to veto them as revenge. “When you feel strongly about something, you know you have to make some sacrifices,” she said.
But she expects to ultimately deliver on her priorities, if only because Youngkin — who, like every Virginia governor, cannot serve back-to-back terms — leaves office in January 2026. “He’s here for another two years, I’m here for four,” Lucas said.
Asked if the project’s failure to advance so far reflects badly on Virginia given that the governor announced it with great fanfare, Lucas said: “Well, guess what? Not my problem.”
She acknowledged enjoying her meeting with Leonsis on Wednesday, which Torian attended along with Senate Democratic caucus chair Mamie E. Locke (Hampton). They engaged in some chitchat about the Wizards and the Capitals, Torian said, and Leonsis described some of the community outreach work both teams conduct in the District.
Lucas insisted she was unhappy with the “moral obligation” state and local taxpayers would undertake to support the bonds financing the project. If there were some kind of catastrophe, she said, the public would be on the hook for millions. Leonsis pointed out that much of the teams’ revenue is from media rights, which continue to flow even if something like a pandemic blocks in-person attendance. During the covid shutdown, he said, his company never missed a mortgage payment.
Though in the end Lucas said she was still opposed, Leonsis told her he was sorry they had not met sooner. “He said, ‘I should have reached out,’” Lucas recalled. “I said, ‘I was treated like I was invisible from the beginning.’”
Torian, who watched the exchange, said later that things might be different now if Lucas had been involved from the beginning.
“Perhaps if he had had some time with her, who knows?” he said. “If they’d had some more time with each other — you never know.”
