Drop Box Security, School Accreditation, and Bringing Semiconductor Jobs to Virginia
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Thomas Bowman
And I'm Thomas Bowman.
Michael Pope
And this is Pod Virginia, where we've got a major new announcement...
Thomas Bowman
Michael, you've got a book coming next week, and we're announcing it first on Pod Virginia. Michael, tell us about your book. What's it about?
Michael Pope
Well, the title of the book is "The Byrd Machine in Virginia: the rise and fall of a conservative political organization." And it's about that 50-year period that the bird machine ran Virginia politics and this is a political machine that wielded power and influence over everything from who got the nod to the Governor to how the state maintained racial segregation. Now, one of the things I did with the book was I trace the history of machine politics in Virginia, going all the way back to the Mahone machine. This was the first political machine that operated in Virginia politics. It was a political machine from the Readjusters. Now we actually had an episode about Virginia about the Readjusters that was the first political machine and then there was a reaction to that, the Martin machine. And then so by the time Byrd came along, the Byrd machine was actually the third political machine. So I traced the history of political machines, and then talk about how Byrd used this machine to run Virginia politics, and how he undermined the power of labor unions. And then ultimately, massive resistance, which was the death knell of the bird organization trying to close public schools rather than integrate them. So I've been working on this book a long time. It's, it's great to actually hold it in my hands. And you can hold it in your hands as well. If you come to my book launch, which is October 20. At the Athenaeum, an old town, you can also see me speak at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, January 19. That's the second week of the General Assembly session. So Thursday night, come out to the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, you can hear me speak, you can buy a signed copy. I also have dates lined up in the near future with the Arlington Historical Society and lots of opportunities to come buy a copy of Byrd Machine in Virginia.
Thomas Bowman
Well, more importantly, it's an easy read. It's quick, I've read most of it. I'm still working my way through, but it's only 150 pages. And Michael, I was really impressed that you uncovered material that previously had not been reported or at least compiled in a book like this before. You've got some fascinating research here on the VEPCO affair that, surprisingly, actually kind of somewhat exonerates. VEPCO.
Michael Pope
Yeah, that part of the book is really...I found it fascinating the union politics of this and how important it was for the Byrd machine to undercut the power of unions by essentially forcing all of the VEPCO employees to join the state militia. And with the threat of them being court martialed if they didn't show up to work. So, like, this was the the trick that the Byrd machine used to go around the strike and undermine the power of the Union. And then of course, they followed that up the next year by passing what's known as the Right to Work law, which you know, forever undermine the power of the unions in Virginia. And so yeah, trace all the history of you know, what the machine was up to at that time and how it got what it wanted despite union concerns.
Thomas Bowman
Well, keep an eye out because you'll definitely want a copy as soon as it becomes available.
Michael Pope
Alright, let's get to the news. Drop Box voting. Outdoor drop boxes for ballots kinda look like library drop boxes, they're bulky structures. They're under 24 hour video surveillance, and they're impervious to being knocked over by a school bus or blown away in a hurricane. The legal requirements for security of these things actually has eased concerns among some of the most fierce critics of dropboxes, including the Heritage Foundation. Yes, you heard that right. The Heritage Foundation recently put together a report called Election Integrity Scorecard. And the report gave Virginia a perfect score for drop boxes. And the reason for that is because they're secure. Here's part of my conversation with Zack Smith at the Heritage Foundation.
Zack Smith
They're monitored by 24 hour video surveillance and staffed. And so you know, if a state is going to use drop boxes, then making sure they're secured as Virginia has done is very, very important.
Michael Pope
Wow. So I mean, that actually sounds like an argument in favor of the drop boxes.
Zack Smith
Well, I don't think it's an argument in favor of drop boxes. But I do think it is an argument in favor, if states are going to use the drop boxes, then they need to make sure they're safe and secure. And be sure there are mechanisms in place to maintain the integrity of the ballots. And so you know, since Virginia has chosen to use these drop boxes, they have also implemented these safeguards and put them in place, which is a good thing.
Michael Pope
Important to point out here that there are two different flavors of drop boxes in Virginia. But most people are probably more familiar with this bulky metal things that I was describing. Those are these, what they call the "secure drop boxes," they're under 24 hour video surveillance. They're supposed to be impervious to vandalism and inclement weather and that sort of thing. There's a separate kind of Dropbox is probably less well known. That is a staffed Dropbox. So it's not a secure Dropbox. It's not under 24 hour surveillance as a staff. So it's somebody like an actual sworn election official sitting there with a secure box of ballots. And it can be placed, for example, at the reception center at your registrar's desk. So you walk in and you say hi to the receptionist, and you put your ballot into the staff, Dropbox. So you know, what the heritage folks are looking at is, is it secure? And is it staffed? Check and check. So I mean, you know, this is a group that takes issue with many of Virginia's election reforms in recent years, they don't like the fact that Virginia doesn't require a photo ID. They don't like the fact that Virginia allows people to put more than one ballot into these drop boxes. They don't like this list that you can get on that you get permanent absentee ballots, like every election that your actual ballot is sent to you. So heritage doesn't like any of those things. So I mean, like it is worth noting that even this conservative group that doesn't like a lot of this election reform that Virginia does, even they say Virginia has dropped boxes are secure.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, and we want to be clear here, there's no legitimate concerns at all about absentee voting in Virginia. And this election integrity stuff is a total red herring. The reason we're reporting this is because even the Heritage Foundation couldn't find a problem with the way that Virginia implements its secure drop boxes. And so like, that is fascinating in and of itself. And I do want to point out because there are a lot of allegations made, but nobody's willing to go under oath. I think that's like really important. Note: if you've got evidence or knowledge of a crime, and you're not reporting it, that actually opens you up to liability. So nobody, despite all these allegations, are willing to go under oath to say there's actually a problem here.
Michael Pope
You know, who has a lot to say on that is Senator Creigh Deeds, the Democrat from Bath County who actually introduced the bill on dropboxes. Here's part of my conversation with Senator Deeds.
Creigh Deeds
There's not been an allegation that I'm aware of somebody saying, you know, hey, I need to vote because you know, the vote you've got, it's not when I cast somebody made that up and put it in the Dropbox. I don't think that's that's happened in the real world. It might be in some somebody's fantasyland. But in the real world, the drop boxes have been an invaluable tool to make sure everybody everybody gets to vote and every vote counts.
Michael Pope
Senator deeds use the word "fantasyland" there. And there is a total alternative reality here with people who believe this movie 2000 Mules our listeners may have heard about 2000 meals but might not know about it because even Fox News won't talk about this movie like they had Dinesh D'Souza on the guy that created this movie and even Fox News did not want to talk about 2000 Mules on the air. And the conservative public book publisher Regnery pulled the book version of this. The allegation in this totally debunked documentary is that ballot trafficking was going on. So Thomas they used cell phone geotracking data to allegedly prove that specific individuals that they could track with cell phone data. Were visiting drop boxes multiple times. Well, so what they meant by that was a specific cell phone was somewhere in the proximity of the Dropbox, you know, multiple times a day. Well, let me tell you something, I take my bicycle to the gym every day and I ride right by the dropbox on Royal Street. So like I actually bicycle past the dropbox twice a day, every day, sometimes four times a day every day. And so like I suppose under Dinesh D'Souza logic, I'm a mule.
Thomas Bowman
And a lot of these ballot drop boxes are actually located at government centers and courthouses, which attorneys are known to frequent multiple times in the same day. And also, there's absolutely nothing wrong with third parties, making it a little bit easier on you and delivering that absentee ballot for you. So it's similar to the knock-and-drags, it's a campaign volunteer operation where on Election Day, everybody who hasn't voted yet, but you know, would come out and vote for your candidate, you want to go grab them and make sure they actually get in line to vote. Well, similarly, if they filled out a absentee ballot, but they haven't actually submitted it yet, or put it in the mail, because it's got to be postmarked on election day, you're going to want to go out and have your campaign volunteers just pick that up and put it in one of those drop boxes for you. And not just political campaigns. There's third party, nonpartisan organizations like New Virginia Majority who run operations like this to make sure that we have maximal turnout, regardless of your party affiliation.
Michael Pope
You know, when Senator Deeds introduced the bill on drop boxes, there was a lengthy discussion about should it be legal or illegal for a person to put more than one pallet in the drop box. So like there was a train of thought Republican train of thought that said, Okay, so if you're going to do this, you should limit it to Thomas Bowman can only put Thomas Bowman's ballot in the Dropbox.
Thomas Bowman
That's unenforceable and impossible to police anyway.
Michael Pope
They could have made it illegal despite the fact that it would be unenforceable, but they chose not to. But they but they this is important. Under Virginia law, you can put as many ballots in there as you want, they because they what they did, they eventually had no language in the code restricting how many ballots an individual can put in there, which means the code is silent, which means new Virginia majority can collect as many ballots as they want to and put them in the drop boxes. That's totally legal. Under Virginia law. The Heritage Foundation doesn't like that, by the way, they actually docked Virginia points for what they call ballot harvesting.
Thomas Bowman
Well, that's also not a problem. To be clear like this is something that is a made up policy concern in order to advance a partisan interest and that partisan interest is making sure fewer people vote, because that benefits a certain type of politician.
Michael Pope
All right, let's move on to our next story. Researchers at Virginia Tech who studied semiconductors are trying to figure out better ways to synchronize devices and essentially make them work more efficiently with each other. Yuhao Zhang is a professor at the Center for Power Electronics Systems at Virginia Tech.
Prof. Yuhao Zhang
So we can use an optical signal to turn the device on and off instead of using the electrical signal.
Michael Pope
The idea is that power electronics could be optically driven. And that's one of the many advances going on right now in Virginia colleges and universities. Christina DiMarino is a professor at Virginia Tech's Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Prof. Christina DiMarino
So we plan to for this project, in particular, involve not just graduate students, but also undergraduate students and have them all learn more about these technologies. We also are tying this work into our courses that we teach... Not just kind of where we are today, technology wise, but where are we going?
Michael Pope
So there's a important pipeline here because Virginia is hoping to land some of these new semiconductor manufacturing facilities that you know this there's all this new federal money specifically designed to encourage domestic semiconductor manufacturing. And there are three sites in Virginia that the young administration is currently marketing to be manufacturing facilities. Well guess what if you know, one of the ways to land a manufacturing facility is to have a pipeline of scientists who will work there. And so that's what's going on at Virginia Tech. That's why they're looking at these things.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, there's billions at stake to lure these semiconductor chips. A lot of them are made in Taiwan. And of course, that is not a very stable geopolitical region right now. And also ton of them are made in China. And so obviously, we need a different source. Well, you can't just spin up a semiconductor manufacturing center that, that takes a lot of money, some precision construction, advanced manufacturing capabilities. So they've got some in Mexico, that still has some choke points in the supply chain. And the point is that the United States wants to bring that domestically and Mark Warner is going to be key here Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee... Virginia Senator Mark Warner is really pushing to have some of these facilities, not just in the United States, but in Virginia.
Michael Pope
Yeah, and there are three sites that the young administration is currently marketing. There's the Sussex Megasite, and Sussex County that's near Petersburg. Then there's the Mid Atlantic Advanced Manufacturing Center in Greenesville County that's near Emporia. And then the most important site, the one that's getting the most buzz and the most likely to land something is a site called the Southern Virginia megasite. Why these things always called megasites? I don't know. But the Southern Virginia Megasite at Berry Hill in Pittsylvania County, that's near South Boston. So, you know, one or two, or maybe even three semiconductor manufacturing facilities, not just in Virginia. But those are all Southside locations, like wouldn't it be great for Southside Virginia to be the next Silicon Valley?
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. And the reason you should care about this is because computer chips, silicon chips are in everything. So not just computers, which are have gotten very expensive due to the shortage and your phones, which have gotten even more expensive due to the shortage. But also things like your cars. And for GM, all of those auto manufacturers are having a lot of trouble finding semiconductors to put in their cars. And in addition to pretty much anything else that has an electrical component, whether or not you realize it, precision guided munitions, requires semiconductors. And so this is part of the reason that we're trying to bring this manufacturing hub back to the United States and out and away from China. Because if the United States cannot make smart bombs, then we immediately go back to a situation that looks a little bit more like World War II,
Michael Pope
Yeah. And then all of those Chinese microchips in your phone can deliver information right to China, too. I mean, like there's a security issue. And then there's also a supply chain issue. In our previous podcast, we talked about, well, what happens if China invades Taiwan, what happens to the supply chain of these semiconductors, and, you know, try buying a car without a without a freely available market for microchips, and you're gonna have a problem. So it's, it's in everybody's interest in the United States that there is a domestic semiconductor and manufacturing capacity, which is why we need sites across the United States and hopefully, even here in Southside Virginia.
Thomas Bowman
Alright, well, we should probably move on to our next story.
Michael Pope
The state of the schools, the vast majority of schools in Virginia are fully accredited more than 1600 schools making the grade while fewer than 200 schools are not. Laura Goran at the Commonwealth institute says the current accreditation system was created back in 2017, to provide a full picture of how schools are performing and the progress they're making.
Michael Pope
I think it's a real tribute to our students and their parents and the teachers that so many students and schools are doing pretty well. Despite the real challenges of the last few years,
Thomas Bowman
Governor Glenn Younkin said the new accreditation ratings show a broken system that doesn't reflect learning loss or achievement gaps. But Chad Stewart at the Virginia Education Association says the new system accounts for improvements that schools have made rather than taking a punitive approach to restrict their funding.
Chad Stewart
So wherever a student is, wherever their baseline is, the focus is on improvement, which is somewhat of a change from our previous accreditation system, where schools just had to hit a certain pass rate, and then they could be fully accredited.
Michael Pope
Yeah, that was the era of No Child Left Behind. I mean, there was a pass rate and you either made the pass rate, or you didn't make the pass rate. And if you didn't, then they were punitive, they punished you. So if a school is struggling, they punished the school that was struggling mainly by taking away money. I mean, like this, this approach just actually made no sense.
Thomas Bowman
And they starved those schools and forced them to fall further and further behind because of that. And so you've got all sorts of Title 1 schools that are just completely resource starved, just because they've got kids who have parents that aren't able to sit and read with them to improve their achievement. Or there's a lot of language gaps and barriers there where they don't necessarily understand what their homework is when they're assigned rating.
Michael Pope
You know, part of the story that I just find really counterintuitive. Is the money part of this following the money. So if the schools that have full accreditation in Virginia, get more money than schools that are not fully accredited, that makes no sense. Like, shouldn't we be helping the schools that aren't fully accredited, but the way it actually works is schools with full accreditation get $800 more per student on average and state and local funds! So that's backwards, give the schools that aren't fully accredited $800 more per student.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. And also, most governors in this situation would be touting just how strong Virginia schools are, they wouldn't be showing off, there'd be going on tour, saying, hey, my state is doing something, right. That's why you should elect me for higher offices, because we've figured out how to make sure schools actually achieve and don't take a punitive approach to punishing schools that have struggling students.
Michael Pope
Well, you know, the Republican criticism of this accreditation system is that it weighs too heavily improvement. So if you're a failing school, what they call a failing school, if you're a failing school, but you have like doubled your performance over the previous year, but you're still a failing school, under the old punitive, No Child Left Behind system, you would just be a failing school. But under the new model that would say, hey, so we recognize that you're not where you need to be with your scores, but at the same time, we're going to reward you for doubling your performance over last year. And so that is controversial. There are lots of people that don't like that, and don't think that that kind of progress should be awarded so heavily.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, but it's important to point out schools aren't failing. There are failing buildings where they're falling apart. And it's all it's really hard. This is a true story. Not necessarily from Virginia, but DC, where my wife was a teacher at DC public schools for a while she actually had one week, sewage start writing down and it completely disrupted the classroom. So when you have situations like that, where the construction itself or the schools are, like 50 or 100 years old, and falling apart, that alone, regardless of the resources makes it hard for kids to learn when their days get completely disrupted. But, Michael, it's very important to point out Virginia has amazing schools and continues to have amazing schools, and the governor going on tour, because it's inconveniently proving his talking points wrong. It just blows my mind because the Virginia Governor should be its biggest cheerleader.
Michael Pope
Well, the governor falls into that line of thinking that would say we shouldn't measure progress so heavily that schools should either pass or fail. And if you if you're a school that doesn't meet the pass rate, then there should be consequences for that there are lots of people who believe there should be consequences if your school doesn't meet the pass rate.
Thomas Bowman
And those people don't have expertise and education policy. And that's a bad policy. We've been doing that for 20 years. It didn't work it incentivized teachers to teach the test. Everybody hates that... the kids, the teachers, the parents...
Michael Pope
Republicans hate that!
Thomas Bowman
Everyone hates that. Yeah. And so if you're just gaming the SOL system, or the SOL tests to just to boost your scores, guess what happens as soon as the SOLs are finished? No more teaching. Right? And so you have this like 2-3-4 week period where no one's paying attention to anything, because the job is done. The kids took their SOLs.
Michael Pope
Well, let's head over to the water cooler. Thomas, what's in your water cooler?
Thomas Bowman
All right. Some news out of Richmond The New York Times investigated the Bon Secours hospital chain, to find that they were committing fraud. They were taking federal dollars that were intended for low-income neighborhoods and giving people who live there access to affordable medicine, and distributing it throughout their health system, giving it to rich white people.
Michael Pope
And shout out to the New York Times for doing the investigation. So it was a killer story. And it's certainly is having a prompting a lot of discussion on that. Also shout out to Gonzi Aida, who on Twitter said he appreciated us mentioning the Independent Autodealers in our episode where we had a segment about electric vehicles and the new standard for electric vehicles here in Virginia, you will not be able to buy a vehicle that is not an electric vehicle after 2035. So we talked about that on a podcast we did a shout out to the independent dealers. Also on Twitter. Supporters of Holly Seibold are circulating our episode from back in August, Thomas. She's in a primary fight for that seat vacated by Mark Kim and so she's a candidate for the Democratic nomination. Also the school board member Karl Frisch is a candidate for that seat in the election special election. There's going to be in early January like I think it's the day before the General Assembly session starts. And then also Katie Frenzel. listener on Twitter commented about our segment about the governor's new transgender guidelines. She said on Twitter quote, please submit comments opposing the governor's guidelines. These policies are dangerous and schools must be a safe place where children can express themselves so they can do their best learning. So Thomas that transgender guideline comment period is currently open. So if you're a listener to this podcast and you want to comment about these guidelines, you can go on to the government townhall website, not townhall.com, but the Virginia government townhall website and submit your comments. And I saw on Twitter, I believe you posted as like a screenshot of some of those comments, right? What are people saying about the new transgender guidelines?
Thomas Bowman
Well, overwhelmingly opposed to those new guidelines. And people have until October 26, at midnight, so really October 25 to submit their comments. That's the deadline. And it's very important to get your thoughts on the record, whether you oppose or you support this. And you can find it very easily not only at townhall.virginia.gov. But also, we put out a really helpful QR code in our Instagram feed and on Twitter. And so you can point your phone camera at our QR code and the image there and it'll take you right to the site where you will submit your comments.
Michael Pope
It sounds like those guidelines are being ratioed.
Thomas Bowman
Alright, well, let's leave it there, Michael. Be sure to tune in Thursday because in our next episode, we expose the myth of Virginia's balanced budget. You've heard it over and over how Virginia has to have a balanced budget. Well, guess what? We actually have a $1 billion debt because that balanced budget only accounts for cash flow year to year and not long term debt. We're going to be joined by Christine Couglin at Truth and Accounting, who explains all the red ink on Virginia's balance sheet.
