McAuliffe has tried to kill the budget language before, but last week he cited the legislature’s decision to make the disputed language a condition for all appropriations as violating his constitutional power to veto line items in the budget. Previously, the language had replaced a “sum sufficient” appropriation to allow expansion of Medicaid if approved by a now-moribund legislative commission.

“By conditioning all appropriations in the budget on (the language), the governor’s ability to issue a line-item veto is removed,” he said in the veto.

Brian Coy, the governor’s spokesman, called the budget language “constitutional overreach” and defended the veto on Thursday.

“The provision in question was unconstitutional and the governor’s veto of it is proper,” Coy said. “We will proceed as though that provision is not in the budget.”

The governor’s office has no plan to unilaterally attempt to expand Medicaid or some other form of health insurance coverage in the face of Republican opposition in the General Assembly, but it says the constitutionality of the disputed language is an issue for a court to decide, not the keeper of the rolls.