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If you’re new to this discussion, here’s the background: When times are good, Virginia’s state budget often includes money for various “non-state agencies” — often, but not always, arts groups. In the Roanoke Valley in times past, virtually every arts organization you can think of has gotten some money. When times are bad (like they are now), that money dries up.

For some time, conservative activist Norm Leahy of Henrico County has been making the case that, whether times are good or bad, the state constitution explicitly forbids the state from funding “charitable organizations.” (And all these groups are, technically, charities — 501c3s, to use the official IRS lingo.)

He’s persuaded Del. John O’Bannon, R-Henrico County, to ask for an “informal” attorney general’s opinion from Ken Cuccinelli on whether such funding is constitutional.

Or, put another way, is state funding of Center in the Square (or the science museum, or the art museum, or Mill Mountain Zoo, take your pick) unconstitutional?

We’ve had two posts already as we explore that topic — you find the first one here, and the follow-up here.

In the course of researching the topic, I came across a story I wrote on the topic of state funding for these groups way back in January 1990 that sheds some light on how such funding got started.

We share it here as a “from the archives” special:

When Roanoke Valley legislators met for dinner with Center in the Square officials at the Library restaurant Oct. 6, some of the politicians were flabbergasted at the prices – but not the ones on the menu.
Instead, they were stunned by how much the Roanoke Valley’s growing wish list of special projects will cost.
At the Library dinner, Center in the Square officials made their pitch – $3 million for the downtown arts complex and two of its member organizations.
Once the legislators had digested that figure, they talked about other valley cultural groups hoping to dip into the state treasury: The Virginia Transportation Museum wanted $484,000; the city was asking for $1 million to renovate the old Jefferson High School into an arts center; Mill Mountain Zoo wanted $100,000 to build a cage for Ruby, the Siberian tiger.
Finally, they turned to the valley’s most expensive pet project – the proposed Explore living history state park. How much will that be asking for? someone asked.
Sixteen million dollars, Del. Richard Cranwell replied. With that, other legislators looked up from their meals and started exchanging glances.
In all, Roanoke Valley groups are seeking more than $20 million from the General Assembly this year, at a time when the state is facing an unexpected fiscal crisis that has already forced Gov. Gerald Baliles to order budget cuts and a freeze on state building projects.
Until the late 1970s, such state largesse as that sought by valley cultural groups was unheard of in fiscally conservative Virginia. But with the state budget doubling in size under two Democratic administrations during the 1980s and routinely running surpluses (at least until now), it has become almost customary for senior legislators to hand out state money to special projects back home.
“Some of which have some true value, some of which you would have to look at fairly hard to see if it had any value,” said Del. Steve Agee, R-Salem. “I think if you mailed every taxpayer a detailed list, just the volume of the recipients would make the public very suspicious of pork barrel.”
The current two-year state budget includes more than $80 million for 134 such goodies, ranging from $19.4 million for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond and $8.9 million for the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation to $1,500 for the Thornrose Cemetery in Staunton to restore a pavilion.
Virginia, obviously, is keen on culture and high on history: The state provided $105,000 for the restoration of no fewer than four historic homes in Petersburg and $12,500 for the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia at Staunton to move a historic eight-sided barn from Bridgewater.
It set aside $90,030 to care for Confederate graves, $15,000 to build a museum about a coal mine disaster in Tazewell County, and $5,000 for the 29th Division Association to build a monument to Virginia National Guardsmen who stormed ashore on D-day.
In all, the state helped pay for some 85 local history museums and historical sites, from the Jones Point Lighthouse in Alexandria to an early railroad passenger car on display in Big Stone Gap, and more than a dozen arts complexes, from the well-known Chrysler Museum in Norfolk to the less-well-known William King Arts Center in Washington County.
Science and sports weren’t neglected, either: The state spent $8.8 million to set up the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, $5 million to set up the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton, $175,000 to launch the Virginia State Games this summer in Roanoke and $45,000 to run the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in Portsmouth.
Other expenditures escape immediate classification, such as the $450,000 for improvements at the Front Royal 4-H Center.
For many of these groups, state money is indispensable.
“We couldn’t do without that support,” said Stan Brosky of the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, which counts on the state for one-third of its budget. “We all depend very much on state support of cultural affairs. It’s very important to tourism, and to economic development, because cultural facilities create an environment for businesses to locate or relocate.”
Now, though, state funding for such projects has become a target.
In last fall’s campaign, a half-dozen GOP House of Delegates candidates around the state singled out funding for two projects – Explore and the air and space center in Hampton – as examples of pork-barrel spending they’d like to do away with.
And, with a budget crunch on the way, some key Democrats have started to question whether the state should spend so much money on local cultural and historical facilities.
State Sen. Buzz Emick, D-Fincastle, a member of the Senate committee that handles the budget, complained that “museums and museum-like projects” are one reason the state now faces a fiscal crisis.
Del. Vic Thomas, D-Roanoke, a member of the House committee that works on the budget, thinks the easy money days may be over. “It’s going to be real hard to do some of these things,” he said. “It’s not going to be a session anybody is looking forward to, especially for everyone who’s got some special projects.”
Cranwell, D-Vinton, is more optimistic. He notes that the state has $700 million more to spend than two years ago, so even with increased spending necessary for mental health, education and prisons, there should be enough money for many local projects to get what they have in the past.
Still, some legislators are passing the word that hometown projects shouldn’t count on even that. “I don’t think there’s going to be much money for the goodie package this time,” Emick warned.
It’s a prospect that has some museums worried: “At this point, we’re just hoping to hang on to what we’ve got,” said Gail Gregory of the Virginia Museum of Natural History.
When Ray Garland first went to the General Assembly in the 1960s, “there was a very short list of projects and they came in for very small money,” the former Republican legislator from Roanoke recalled. The one he remembers most was the annual appropriation to the United Daughters of the Confederacy to keep up Rebel graves around the state; some cemeteries cost only $20.
It wasn’t until the late 1970s – about the time Roanoke leaders were looking to the state for help in building Center in the Square – that the state started funding local projects in a big way.
“Bill Hopkins figured out how to do it,” said Del. Chip Woodrum, D-Roanoke, referring to the former Senate majority leader from Roanoke. “He worked it out so we got the first money ever for something like that.”
Part of it was simple marketing.
“Before Center in the Square, the Virginia Museum [in Richmond] was pretty much it,” Woodrum recalled. “Everybody said, `Well, that’s the Virginia Museum.’ So everybody got wise. Instead of the Roanoke Science Museum, it’s the Science Museum of Western Virginia. Instead of the Roanoke Transportation Museum, it’s the Virginia Transportation Museum.”
But a larger part of it was the raw art of the deal.
Even after Hopkins was defeated for re-election in 1979, he continued to work behind the scenes for state funding for Roanoke’s arts and science complex.
“Hopkins had that sucker greased and he wasn’t even a member,” Woodrum recalled. “He’d get off the airplane and get there at 7:30 in the morning. He knew I was an early riser, so he’d come to my office. He’d sniff the air in Richmond and by the time he got to my office he’d tell me what was going on.”
Hopkins’ pull was legendary. Woodrum recalls that on the final day of one legislative session, Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews of Hampton presented him with an unexpected treat. “He said, `I’m just letting you know you got $50,000 more for Center in the Square than you asked for. I got another $50,000 for the Peninsula Science and Nature Center and I always had an agreement with Bill Hopkins they’d get the same amount.’”
Garland recalls a different version of how the state first put up money for Center in the Square. It involved Ed Willey, the Richmond senator who was then Finance Committee chairman, and Hunter Andrews.
“They couldn’t stand Bill Hopkins,” Garland said. “They put the money in to please Jack Hancock [the Roanoke industrialist who was one of the center's benefactors and a major contributor to political campaigns]. When I related this to [Gov.] John Dalton, he said, `I wish I had known Jack wanted this; I’d have put it in the budget.’”
Hancock had been the second-biggest contributor to Dalton’s gubernatorial campaign.
In any event, the state put up $1.4 million for Roanoke’s . . . er, Western Virginia’s . . . science museum in 1980 and $2.6 million for Center in the Square in 1982 – and other cultural facilities soon began looking for ways to justify major state funding.
It was under Baliles, though, that state funding for hometown projects mushroomed.
Garland faults Baliles for having “a Louis the 14th complex of wanting to be a builder.”
Certainly Baliles liked to build coalitions. Emick contends Baliles parceled out state money for local pet projects as a way to cement legislative support for his other spending programs. In his first budget in 1988, Baliles increased what Gov. Charles Robb had set aside for museums and other local projects by 142 percent. Only two other parts of the budget increased more.
Aside from the appropriations for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, two projects sacrosanct to Virginia’s old-money eastern establishment, the three biggies that year were $6 million for Explore, $5 million for the air and space center in Hampton and $5 million for the natural history museum in Martinsville.
It’s no coincidence that those projects just happened to be in the back yards of three very powerful legislators – Cranwell, Andrews and House Speaker A.L. Philpott of Henry County.
That’s when the grumbling started.
Republicans – led by Del. George Allen of Charlottesville – tried to strip the money for Explore and the air and space center from the budget and use it for education. They were voted down. The GOP made no effort to take on the natural history museum. Allen jokes that he’s brave enough to challenge Cranwell and Andrews, but not foolish enough to take on the speaker.
State Sen. Granger Macfarlane, D-Roanoke, also tried to cut the Explore money that year. He, too, was voted down.
Garland marvels at how Explore funding was so invulnerable to attack: “Macfarlane has been critical. Even Emick has been critical. You’d think if the local state senators were against it, they’d chop it out, but no. Once you get plugged in, you won’t get unplugged.”
That’s because these projects aren’t funded as much on their own merit as to satisfy political deals, Garland contends. “There are so many people with a finger in the pie, they can’t say no. They’re not going to take money out because then it all comes unraveling.”
Garland, who pines for the simpler days, sees a disturbing trend in state funding for local historical and cultural projects.
“It’s now what is driving our politics in so many constituencies,” he said. “People in Virginia Beach say, `We want an arts center and having a Democratic state senator will better help us get money for it.’ If a Republican ever ran against Chip Woodrum or Vic Thomas, the first thing they’d say would be, `They can’t get money for Center in the Square,’ or whatever.”
Emick also sees some elitism at work. He contends spending on museums, arts centers and various historical sites has come at the expense of more populist, and more heavily used, attractions – such as state parks.
“There are a whole lot more people who like to hunt and fish,” he said, “and they don’t give a damn about museums.”