The most consequential legislative session of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s first and only term as governor ended with a rare failure to approve a budget and with many of the governor’s top priorities killed off by a sharply divided Senate.
At the same time, McDonnell was forced to address the kind of thorny social issues from which he’s tried to distance himself, including legislation requiring women to get an ultrasound exam before getting an abortion that sparked national controversy.
For a Republican with national political ambitions, it wasn’t helpful.
Virginia governors can’t serve consecutive terms so their best shot to leave their mark on the state comes in the third year of their one and only term, when they propose their first budget. It’s also their best chance at jockeying for national office, which nearly every governor, Republican and Democrat, has attempted over the last two decades.
McDonnell is no different, and he’s routinely mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket. But while he’s been elevated to that conversation as a popular Southern governor from a battleground state with an improving economic outlook, still in doubt is whether McDonnell has racked up enough victories to earn the job.
“It’s hard to point to any major legislative accomplishments,” said Toni-Michelle Travis at George Mason University and author of “The Almanac of Virginia Politics.” “It’s not a strong record. But he’s been a faithful Republican in terms of the policies he tried to get through.”
Most notably, McDonnell pushed in 2010 to privatize Virginia’s state-owned liquor stores only to have the proposal shot down by the legislature. That was to be expected with Democrats in control of the Senate.
But a number of McDonnell’s key fiscal proposals for the next two years appear in doubt, too, most significantly his proposal to shift a portion of the sales tax away from schools to use on roads. Even Republicans senators shunned that initiative, instead passing legislation that would raise the gas tax.
The Senate, in which Republicans control half the seats and the tie-breaking vote of the lieutenant governor, also rejected some of McDonnell’s top education priorities, including a bill that would have ended tenure for public school teachers.
“Nobody is going to bat 1,000 in baseball or politics,” McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin said. “At the end of the day, the win percentage will be very high.”
Conservative Republicans ignored McDonnell’s pleas not to overreach in pushing a social agenda, and forced McDonnell to take sides on controversial abortion legislation and gun-rights bills that have become fodder for critics and hijacked the narrative for this legislative session.
So far those setbacks haven’t taken any serious toll on McDonnell’s standing. The National Journal released a poll last week that had McDonnell atop their monthly vice presidential power rankings.
“Being a governor in tough economic times means you end up with little by way of major legislative accomplishments, but I’m not sure that it matters,” said Stephen Farnsworth, political scientist at the University of Mary Washington. “Being popular is far more important than being effective.”
