Va. Gov. Youngkin arrived like a GOP star, but arena failure clouds legacy

“I so fundamentally believe that this is a giant mistake that we didn’t have to make. The Senate didn’t have to do this,” he said. Led by Finance and Appropriations Committee Chairwoman L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), the Senate blocked a bill that would have authorized the arena and stripped language from the state budget. Though some House Democrats initially voted for the arena, the project was unpopular in Alexandria and never built a strong constituency in the General Assembly, where even some Republicans did not support it. Youngkin said he...