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RICHMOND — Horror stories about the electric chair led Gov. Terry McAuliffe to offer a choice to the General Assembly: go along with a proposal he says will make it easier to obtain lethal injection drugs or see an end to capital punishment in Virginia.

McAuliffe says he will veto General Assembly death penalty legislation if lawmakers reject his amendment that would strike out language making the electric chair the automatic method of execution if the state can’t get compounds of several drugs it uses in lethal injections.

“If they do not accept my amendments, I want to be very clear, I will veto this legislation,” McAuliffe said. “The veto of this legislation will halt capital punishment.”

In the final rush of bill signings, vetoes and amendment proposals before a Sunday midnight deadline, McAuliffe also proposed major changes to the $40 million GO Virginia program he had backed, and that he and legislators had hailed as evidence of their ability to work together.

The death penalty legislation, and McAuliffe’s amendments, were driven by the difficulties the state believes it could face getting compounds of the combinations of drugs it uses in executions.

The legislature’s proposal was to say if those compounds were not available, the state would use the electric chair to put criminals to death.

“There is no justification for a bill which carries such horrific consequences,” McAuliffe said. “We take a human being, we strap them into a chair and then we flood their bodies with 1,800 volts of electricity.”

To keep lethal injection, the use of drugs to anesthetize and then put a criminal to death, as a viable option, McAuliffe wants to give the Department of Corrections legal authority to mix up the compounds of drugs itself, rather than trying to obtain them from reluctant suppliers.

His amendments also would keep the names of the suppliers of the drugs used in execution compounds secret.

Without that guarantee, the companies would not supply the drugs, he said.

McAuliffe said his proposal was a reasonable compromise.

He said the death penalty is and should be reserved for the most heinous crimes, and added that he had promised to follow state law and not block executions when a judge and jury sentence someone to that punishment.

But giving the corrections department authority to assemble the execution drug cocktail and keeping information about the components and suppliers secret eliminates any possibility of oversight, said Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.

“It allows unregulated experimentation on humans,” she said.

She said there was no evidence that the state couldn’t get execution drugs if it runs out, while on the other hand, there’d be no way for anyone outside the prison system to check on the amounts, quality and expiration dates of drugs used, or even if the cocktail changes, to be sure lethal injection executions actually were more humane than any other method.

“We live in a state where people fight for no-kill animal shelters, and we’re having a debate about killing people faster,” she said.

McAuliffe also said he wanted amendments to the GO Virginia economic development bill he had backed in concept. He said the bill as enacted by the General Assembly is unconstitutional because it usurps a governor’s veto power.

Those concerns emerged only at the last minute, said House Majority Leader Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, who had joined with McAuliffe and business leaders across the state in developing the idea.

The aim is to give state support to regional efforts to encourage economic growth, including efforts on education, infrastructure or other public services. A board named by legislators and the governor would have to approve any state funding.

But the General Assembly bill said a two-thirds majority of the 22-member board would be legislators or citizens appointed by General Assembly leaders. McAuliffe’s proposal would enlarge the board and said a majority would be gubernatorial appointees.

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“I had the feeling he really didn’t understand the purpose,” said Cox. “This wasn’t an incentive fund, a second Commonwealth Opportunity Fund” — the money that the state grants to businesses to help relocate or expand in Virginia.

“A lot of the problem was he’s not going to be cutting the ribbon on these,” Cox said.

Cox said he was still studying the governor’s proposal, but added that he didn’t think McAuliffe’s constitutional worries were valid. He said those concerns emerged only during the past few days.

“I’m pretty disappointed … it’s going to be difficult,” he said.

All in all, McAuliffe said he signed 732 bills, vetoed 32 and proposed amendments to 54, including 30 amendments to the budget bill.

He said nearly three-quarters of his own proposals passed, and added that he was particularly pleased that the version of a $2.1 billion borrowing measure the General Assembly approved included funding for new facilities for juvenile offenders to replace aging and over-large juvenile prisons.

Ress can be reached by phone at 757-247-4535.