The Terry McAuliffe who built his reputation as a partisan bulldog and Clinton ally would probably not recognize Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Virginia chief executive who just this week took a pass on a divisive fight for a critical component of Obamacare.
After having pledged during last year’s election to expand Medicaid under the president’s health law, Mr. McAuliffe said Monday he wouldn’t force the issue by claiming unilateral powers after Republican lawmakers balked.
“As governor, I have to do what the law allows me to do,” he said in unveiling a more modest plan to expand coverage while pledging to press forward. “Trust me, if I could do this on my own, I would do it.”
The comparatively conciliatory tone didn’t come overnight for the former Democratic Party national chairman, who declared repeatedly on the campaign trail last year he would not sign a state budget without the expansion.
Even as he insisted the battle will continue, his pivot underscores the position he finds himself in, facing full-blown opposition to much of his agenda from what is now a solidly Republican legislature.
The transition from party salesman to legislative negotiator hasn’t always been smooth, and Mr. McAuliffe got off to a “slow start” in his outreach to Republicans — held over cocktails at the Executive Mansion, said House Speaker William J. Howell.
“I think some of us were looking for something a little more substantive,” said Mr. Howell, Stafford Republican. “I think we’re still kind of watching each other.”
But the governor has gone to lengths to shed the image he built as a chief moneyman and partisan cheerleader for President Clinton during the 1990s.
That began even during last year’s campaign against then-Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, when Mr. McAuliffe’s staff actively discouraged Democrats from criticizing then-Gov. Bob McDonnell over the looming gifts scandal that led to multiple convictions last week on corruption charges.
Mr. McAuliffe also struck a bipartisan tone after then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his GOP primary in June, with the governor saying he lost a valuable ally that night.
“My staff dealt with Eric Cantor’s staff all the time,” Mr. McAuliffe said during a monthly appearance on WTOP soon afterward. “I dealt with Congressman and [House Majority] Leader Cantor all the time. [They] were nothing but helpful. That’s an important asset in my toolbox for me to do what I need to do as governor.”
Democrats said that in his nearly eight months in office, Mr. McAuliffe racked up a string of successes on jobs and the economy, including successfully lobbying China to end a nearly seven-year-long ban on Virginia poultry exports.
In what his administration billed as the largest Chinese investment and job creation project in state history, he also announced in June that the Shandong Tranlin Paper Co. plans to invest $2 billion over five years to establish its first U.S. advanced manufacturing operation in Chesterfield County, generating a whopping 2,000 jobs by 2020.
But those successes have been overshadowed by his failure to expand Medicaid.
Democrats say that expanding the program would bring federal money to provide health insurance for up to 400,000 low-income Virginians. Republicans in Virginia and elsewhere have balked, saying that while federal dollars pay 100 percent of the expansion now, they believe state budgets will be left on the hook eventually.
With neither side willing to budge, the Medicaid fight seemed poised to prevent lawmakers from agreeing on a budget, which could have sent the state into a government shutdown on July 1.
But the sudden resignation of a Democratic state senator in June forced Democrats to separate the two issues.
Legislators will debate Medicaid separately in a special session slated to start next week, but they will do so at a disadvantage after a Republican won last month’s special election to replace former state Sen. Phillip P. Puckett, thus cementing the GOP’s 21 seats in the 40-member chamber.
Coupled with the GOP’s sizable advantage in the House of Delegates, the makeup of the legislature could hamper Mr. McAuliffe’s ability to get any major legislation through, particularly given the political capital he already expended this year.
Still, House Minority Leader David Toscano, Charlottesville Democrat, said he’s an “eternally optimistic person” and hopes Republicans will come around on Medicaid expansion.
“I think the governor is playing the cards as he’s been dealt at present, and we’re trying to change the deck as we go along,” he said. “I think there have probably been at least four or five separate proposals, and all of them have been rebuffed — simply rebuffed. I think the governor has worked very hard to reach out to Republicans on this issue.”
Dan Sullivan, a Democratic activist from Waynesboro, said he’s been generally impressed with Mr. McAuliffe’s economic record thus far but that the end game on Medicaid can’t be ignored — regardless of tone or outward attempts at bipartisanship.
“Closing a deal counts too,” Mr. Sullivan said. “I think that he’s going to have to roll up his sleeves and do the kind of hard sell that he knows he can do.”
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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