ONLY $150 MILLION STATE MONEY FOR METRORAIL IN JUST PASSED SENATE BUDGET BILL

Senator Colgan abandons the Democrats' effort to garner $450 million funding for Metrorail.  

This from the Richmond Post-Dispatch: 

UPDATE: Senate approves two-year budget

Credit: BOB BROWN/TIMES-DISPATCH

Sen. Charles J. Colgan, D-Prince William, left, and Sen. Walter A. Stosch, R-Henrico, chairman of the Senate Finance committee, confer before the State Senate voted to pass a budget.

By: Jim Nolan | Times-Dispatch
Published: April 18, 2012
Updated: April 18, 2012 - 5:40 PM

UPDATE:

In a swift legislative turnaround, the Virginia Senate today abruptly passed the two-year, $85 billion state budget that Senate Democrats had derailed less than 24 hours ago in a dispute over toll mitigation for the Dulles Metrorail project in Northern Virginia.

Sen. Charles J. Colgan, D-Prince William, the Senate's longest-serving member, sided with 20 Republicans in the evenly divided chamber to guarantee passage of the spending plan. The bill, which the House of Delegates had approved Tuesday  now heads to Gov. Bob McDonnell.

"I didn't feel very good about not having a budget," Colgan said in an interview minutes after the vote on the budget bill. The measure came up suddenly during today's reconvened session in which lawmakers consider the governor's amendments and vetoes of legislation passed during the regular session that ended March 10. The Senate voted on the budget without discussion.

Colgan's defection from the other Democrats took a number in the chamber by surprise, but the senior senator said it shouldn't have -- noting that he had made his intentions clear throughout the day. "They should have known," he said.

The vote also followed failed attempts by Senate negotiators to reconfigure transportation funding to ease the burden of tolls. That caused Democrats to reject the plan Tuesday. . .

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