Va. House of Delegates passes bill to approve Alexandria arena

The vote was 59-40 in favor and the bill now goes to the state Senate in Richmond. That is when the big battles will begin.

On Tuesday, the Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill to approve the proposed Alexandria arena, which Monumental Sports & Entertainment wants for the Washington Wizards and Capitals. The vote was 59-40.

The bill would create a stadium authority to issue state-backed bonds to fund the arena.

With this part of the process finished, the project now heads to the Virginia Senate. Their committee has to vote and then put it on the floor. Assuming the Senate approves the deal, the bill heads to Va. Governor Glenn Youngkin’s desk. He is a proponent of the project and would sign the bill.

Of course, this arena process is more complicated than that. Let’s start with the opponents.

NIMBYs in Alexandria want to keep Potomac Yard as a strip mall and nothing more, and some politicians representing them want to stop it. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser says that she is willing to put up a fight in court to keep the Wizards and Capitals at Capital One Arena — and the Mystics at the Entertainment and Sports Arena — and be willing to take the fight to social media for it.

And ultimately, Monumental Sports & Entertainment CEO Ted Leonsis is surprised and frustrated at the backlash from NIMBYs and team fans who live in D.C. and the Maryland suburbs.

But the NIMBYs in Alexandria, Bowser and Leonsis have little to no influence over Va. Sen. L. Louise Lucas, the Chairman of the Finance & Appropriations Committee. Earlier this week, Lucas killed a Senate version of this same bill. That caused cheers among the NIMBYs, Bowser and perhaps many Wizards and Capitals fans outraged by the proposed move.

Since Lucas is from Hampton Roads, not Northern Virginia, she’s not as interested in what economic benefit or downfall Alexandria, Arlington, or D.C. proper will have as we are. Instead, Lucas claimed that the project would be dead simply because Virginia would fund the bonds from the project if that bill passed.

In addition, she and many Democratic politicians in Va. were offended by Youngkin’s speech last weekend at Washington & Lee University in Lexington. It was held during a Mock Republican Party convention at the prestigious liberal arts college.

This is not a political site, but if you ask me whether I think the arena project is actually dead, I don’t. Politics often involves a lot of give and take. This arena project isn’t an issue of Republicans being for the arena and Democrats being against it. And it’s not quite an issue of Northern Va. politicians wanting the arena while the rest of the state’s politicians are against it.

State politics influence citizens’ lives more than federal politics in many ways, so perhaps Lucas and other Democratic politicians who aren’t for this arena AND aren’t from Northern Virginia are looking for some legislation that benefits them. I think there’s more negotiation to be done. And in the end, I think this project will still go through, even if there is a delay.

Of course, stranger things have happened. There’s always a chance that the Va. Senate will kill this bill that the House passed. At worst, it could end Monumental Sports’ hopes of moving to Virginia entirely. If this happens, it would emasculate Youngkin and make him a lamer duck than he already is. Any other politicians who supported the bill, Republican or Democrat, especially in Northern Virginia, would lose influence in their home districts, or possibly lose office in the next cycle.

Also, if this project doesn’t go through, Monumental Sports & Entertainment would be in an embarrassing situation and placed in a position of weakness. After all of this public drama, It’s not like the D.C. government will be particularly nice to the organization if and when they start enforcing leases on the Wizards, Capitals and Mystics.

What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments below.