Slow Start Creates Big Challenges For Va. Legislature

"The rest of them were bills looking for a problem," Saslaw said. "It was stuff [the Republicans] wanted to put in their campaign literature."

On Thursday, Democrats and a handful of Republicans in a Senate committee endorsed legislation that would ban smoking in virtually all public buildings, but Republicans in the House have said such a far-reaching measure will never reach the governor's desk.

Efforts to reform the payday loan industry, where borrowers take out cash advances against their paychecks, are stalled after the governor's office failed to mediate a compromise earlier in the session. A House committee is expected to hear the first proposal this week. Even if a bill is passed in the House, the issue faces a tough road in the Senate.

One bright spot has been the overhaul of the state's mental health system. It was prompted by last year's shootings at Virginia Tech, in which a student killed 32 students and teachers and then himself.

Democrats and Republicans, along with Kaine (D), have worked together to tighten restrictions on gun ownership by the mentally ill and increase the chances that an unstable person will receive help.

"The piece of my legislative proposal that is doing the best right now and that I am confident that will do as good as the revenues allow is . . . mental health," Kaine said.

One of Kaine's legislative priorities -- expanding pre-kindergarten to an additional 7,000 at-risk children -- has not gone before legislators, but Republicans have said there is no money for it.

House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem) said people should judge the House not just by what bills have passed but also by what bills have been killed. Rejected measures include bills that would have required all gun sellers to conduct background checks on buyers at gun shows, allowed government workers to form unions and undermined the abolition of parole.

"It's not always the passage of bills that is important,'" he said. "We killed a lot of bad bills."