Virginia Senate Postpones Northern Virginia Casino Plan Until 2025

A plan to potentially bring a casino to Northern Virginia is dead for the year in the General Assembly but survived Tuesday’s effort to kill it for good.

It was already clear heading into this week’s meeting of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee that the Fairfax County casino proposal was in serious trouble after a subcommittee recommended delaying any decision for at least a year.

To ensure lawmakers got the message that many in the county weren’t even interested in having a ballot referendum on the project, a vocal contingent of casino opponents attended the meeting and booed lawmakers just for punting the idea to the 2025 legislative session.

Virginia already has casinos in Bristol, Portsmouth, Norfolk and Danville. A fifth could potentially be on the way to Petersburg after Richmond residents voted twice to reject a casino in their part of the capital region.

This year’s push to open the door to a possible sixth casino in one of Virginia’s most populous and well-off areas shows that casinos remain highly controversial in some parts of the state. As the committee voted to halt the bill’s progress for now without rejecting it outright, some in the crowd blurted out, “Shame on you guys” and “You’re addicting our kids.”

State Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax, was the opposition’s main ally on the committee. She told colleagues the General Assembly shouldn’t spend any more time on the idea after what she’s heard from constituents.

“There were hundreds and hundreds of people in my community who have expressed disappointment and disagreement with this proposal,” Boysko said as she made a motion to reject the proposal entirely. That motion failed 5-9-1.

Other senators from Fairfax argued all the bill did was give the county and state a chance to further explore a project that could bring major revenue to both. Supporters of the plan for a casino and conference center in Tysons Corner estimated it could generate up to $155 million in annual tax revenues for the state while bringing a significant boost to the local economy.

“There aren’t many bills coming before this committee that offer this much potential revenue to the commonwealth of Virginia in a year and a time when our revenues are short,” said Sen. Dave Marsden, D-Fairfax, the bill’s sponsor. “This absolutely has to be considered.”

A  vote to postpone deliberations on the bill to the 2025 session passed 13-2, with Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, and Sen. Jeremy McPike, D-Prince William, voting in opposition.

Some senators suggested that pushing the bill off another year would give policymakers more time to get refreshed numbers on the economic impact of the proposal.

Both Surovell and McPike noted that the state had already looked at the possibility of a Northern Virginia casino.

A major state gambling study completed in 2019 found that Northern Virginia appeared to be the most lucrative home for a casino, even though the region wasn’t up for consideration when lawmakers were first considering allowing gambling facilities in five Virginia cities in need of economic revitalization. That study also indicated a Northern Virginia casino would help prevent Virginians’ gambling dollars from going across the Potomac River to the MGM National Harbor casino resort in Maryland.

“Obviously, there’s a disagreement within the county about it,” Surovell said. “I can tell you that in my part of the county, where we live right across the river from one of these, the people … don’t feel the same way as the people in the other part of the county.”

Unlike other officials in parts of the state that have seen casino projects come to fruition, Fairfax County’s local government has not taken a formal stance on the legislation that would give the county the option of hosting a casino. That difference has fueled opposition from some senators who have said they don’t want to set a precedent of allowing casino developers to start coming to the state before getting buy-in from the local community they intend to partner with.

Marsden has defended his legislation by saying Fairfax residents would still have the final say over whether they want a casino or not.

“This is nothing but democracy,” he said. “It’s allowing local control of the process from here on out.”

Though Marsden said all development will draw some neighborhood pushback, Boysko argued local input from people most impacted should be a paramount concern.

“If one of my colleagues would like to have a casino in their part of the county, they’re welcome to bring a bill next year,” she said.

In interviews after Tuesday’s vote, Fairfax residents who had traveled to Richmond to oppose the casino said they were frustrated by what they see as a state legislature more responsive to wealthy donors than the people it’s supposed to serve.

“They’ve lost in Richmond twice,” said Linda Walsh, referring to the two failed casino referendums in the state capital. “It’s a total waste of time. They have big bucks, and we don’t. But we have a vote.”

by Graham Moomaw, Virginia Mercury

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