Lawmakers agree on $1.5 billion for projects

Virginia lawmakers agreed Wednesday to scatter nearly $1.5 billion in bricks and mortar around the state and gave Gov. Timothy M. Kaine an unexpected prize.

Legislators, back in Richmond for their one-day spring session, gave Kaine a chance to make an appointment to the powerful agency that oversees corporate Virginia.

Legislators unanimously approved the $1.5 billion bond bill, described as "a landmark piece of legislation," by the chief sponsor, Del. Lacey E. Putney, I-Bedford. It will provide building funds for colleges, mental-health facilities, parks and state offices.

The package will finance 75 construction projects across the state. It includes — in the Richmond area — a new headquarters for the tax department and a replacement for the Art Deco-era hospital at Virginia Commonwealth University's medical campus.

Elsewhere, the package includes $110 million to replace Western State Hospital, a state psychiatric facility; $82 million to improve mental-health facilities and $71 million to consolidate the state's two schools for the deaf, blind and multidisabled into one facility in Staunton that can accommodate 200 students.

Del. Robert D. Hull, D-Fairfax, described the bill as "an investment in Virginia's economy," because it takes effect as soon as Kaine signs it into law and because some of the proposed projects are already on the drawing board.

The package will be particularly important to adding jobs in the depressed construction industry, he said.

In other action, lawmakers took up Kaine's proposed 41 revisions to the state's two-year, $77 billion budget. Nine of the amendments failed. They included a provision authorizing the sale of a government property in Richmond, the Dove Street armory, as well as language mandating energy efficiency in state-owned buildings.

Another casualty: the addition of generic drugs to a state-sanctioned list of psychiatric medicines for Medicaid patients.

The General Assembly last night again failed to agree on a pick for the State Corporation Commission, which could give Kaine a chance to make the appointment.

Legislators had been hung up since winter over a successor to retired SCC Judge Theodore V. Morrison Jr.

Under a complex deal between the House Republican majority and the Democrats who control the Senate, Catherine B. Hammond would have quit as a Henrico circuit court judge to join the SCC. Mary Bennett Malveaux, a former prosecutor, would have taken Hammond's judgeship in Henrico.

However, the swap was scuttled largely because Sen. Walter A. Stosch, R-Henrico, said he'd been locked out of the candidate-screening process for the circuit court slot.

The Hammond-Malveaux deal was the handiwork of Del. William R. Janis, R-Henrico, who vets judicial candidates for the House GOP caucus, and the county's new Democratic senator, A. Donald McEachin. House Republicans would have won an all-GOP corporation commission; Senate Democrats would have seen the first African-American woman on the Henrico circuit court.

Unless Kaine agrees to give the legislature a third chance to pick an SCC judge — perhaps at the expected special session on transportation — it will fall to the governor to select Morrison's successor.

Earlier Wednesday, Kaine said, "I'm not looking to appoint" to the SCC, "but if I have to, I'll appoint good people."

Kaine's choice would have to be approved by the General Assembly. Given the partisan split at the statehouse, there's a chance that House Republicans might refuse to confirm the choice of a Democratic governor, particularly one heading into the final year of his term.

Kaine is likely to come under to pressure to name an African-American to the three-member corporation commission, largely known for its oversight of utilities and telecommunications companies.

Unlike the other top statewide courts, the SCC has not a had a black member.

Kaine previously appointed a justice to the Virginia Supreme Court and a judge to the Virginia Court of Appeals, both of whom were endorsed by House Republicans after they briefly threatened to remove them.

Jeff E. Schapiro is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Staff writer Tyler Whitley contributed to this report.