by Dick Hall-Sizemore

As reported by the Virginia Political Newsletter, Sen. Lucas and Gov. Spanberger have been engaging in public responses to the House budget conference proposal and to each other. Neither is backing down, although Lucas seems to have dropped her demand that the sales tax exemption for data center equipment be repealed.  Instead, she is now calling for “tiered state impact fees on data centers,” that are estimated to generate $1.7 billion in revenue.  In a social media post, she outlines what she would like to do with that money.

Spanberger responded, saying, in essence, that it was a welcome development to finally get some details from Lucas.  But, she went on to say, “There is no budget language associated with that tweet, and when there is, I’ll certainly do a more thorough review of it, but we cannot govern just by tweets.”

The full texts of the exchanges can be found here.