Apr. 18-RICHMOND — The Virginia Senate passed a two-year $85 billion budget on Wednesday, more than a month late, as a pair of senators took U-turns — one figuratively, another literally

Virginia Senate passes two-year budget after Colgan votes with Republicans April 18, 6:08 PM The Senate’s 21 to 19 decision came after Sen. Charles J. Colgan (D-Prince William) had a change of heart and decided to vote with Republicans for the spending plan that he had voted against on Tuesday. Sen. Harry B. Blevins, R-Chesapeake, left, greets Sen. Charles J. Colgan, D-Prince William, the only Democrat to vote for the budget bill, which passed the Senate on April 18. Blevins had to rush back from caring for his ill wife to cast his vote. The Virginia General Assembly session:?The 2012 session goes out the way it came in: with Republicans and Democrats facing a mountain of work and wrestling for power in the Senate. Colgan’s decision surprised his colleagues, many of whom had given up hope that Republicans could muster the 21 votes needed in the equally divided chamber. Word of Colgan’s decision, which brought the budget plan back to the Senate floor, led senators to summon Sen. Harry B. Blevins (R-Chesapeake) back to the Capitol for the vote. But they couldn’t reach Blevins, who had left Richmond by car to tend to his sick wife, so State Police put out an all-points bulletin for him. Blevins was flown back to the hospital after Wednesday’s vote. Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) blamed Democrats for delaying the budget as they sought more power in the chamber and more funding for their priorities. The governor thanked Colgan, the longest-serving state senator in Virginia history, for his vote. “It took the courage and the statesmanship of one Democratic senator, Chuck Colgan, to secure this outcome for the good of the citizens of Virginia,’’ McDonnell said. Senate Democrats had held up the budget for weeks as they fought aggressively for an additional $300 million for the extension of Metrorail to Dulles International Airport. Colgan’s vote floored his colleagues. “He didn’t tell us anything,” said Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax). Normally game to hold forth for the media, Saslaw had little to say, walking directly from the Capitol to the General Assembly office building without stopping to talk to reporters, who trailed him to the building. “I thought we’d do better than we did.” Colgan, 85, said he signed off on the compromise — even though it meant bucking his own party and giving up on money to the Dulles rail project — in part because he had second thoughts Tuesday night after voting “nay.” He said he pondered the implications of not having a spending plan. “That really got inside me,” he said. Corey A. Stewart, the Republican chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, gave Colgan’s arm the last twist it needed. “?‘We need that budget,’?” Colgan said Stewart told him Wednesday. “That kind of reinforced what I was thinking.” Colgan, a former World War II pilot, had decided before each of his past three elections that he was going to retire, but he was persuaded to run each time by Democratic leaders, including former governor Timothy M. Kaine and Sen. Mark R. Warner. A moderate Democrat and committed Catholic, he sometimes crosses party lines to vote with Republicans, particularly on abortion issues, but he has been a stalwart Democratic vote on fiscal issues. Source: Washington Post