Abortion Amendment, Assault Weapon Ban, and the Legacy Budget
IN THE NEWS:
The amendment to the Virginia Constitution introduced by Democrats protects the fundamental right to reproductive freedom. Supporters say it's a way to safeguard against future efforts to roll back existing rights. Opponents worry that the amendment actually expands existing rights.
The last time Democrats were in control of the General Assembly, advocates for preventing gun violence were hopeful they could ban assault weapons. But, in the end, that didn't happen. Legislation to ban assault-style weapons has already been filed in the House and the Senate. But even if Democrats are successful this time, they'll still be sending it to Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, who is widely expected to veto the bill.
Virginia has a two-year budget, which means that Governor Glenn Youngkin spent the first half of his time as governor revising and amending a budget he inherited from the previous governor. Now he'll finally get a chance to put together his own budget proposal -- a document often called the "legacy budget" because it's a governor's one and only shot at putting together a balance sheet from beginning to end. Tax cuts and education spending are likely to be key points of discussion as the new Democratic majorities in the House and Senate consider Youngkin's legacy budget in January.
At the Watercooler:
Candidates are already running for races next year--both statewide and Congressional, on account of Virginia's election schedule and some unexpected openings.
Alexandria's City Council has unanimously voted to ditch single-family zoning--always ripe for controversy.
Episode Transcript
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Lauren Burke
I'm Lauren Burke.
Thomas Bowman
And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast celebrating the birthday of Governor Glenn Youngkin. This weekend, on Saturday, December 9th.
Lauren Burke
He told everyone his birthday wish so it couldn't come true.
Michael Pope
Oh man, well, I guess that's the reason he'll never be President. Okay, let's get to the news. An abortion amendment to the Virginia constitution, introduced by Democrats, protects the fundamental right to reproductive freedom. Supporters say it's a way to safeguard against future efforts to roll back existing rights. Opponents worry that the amendment actually expands existing rights. Here's Olivia Gans Turner at the Virginia Society for Human Life.
Olivia Gans Turner
It says matters relating to one's pregnancy cannot be denied, burdened, or infringed upon by the Commonwealth. Well, there are those who interpret regulations on having a licensed professional medical person performing the procedure as an infringement or a burden. So, who is protecting who here? Are we protecting the abortion industry? Or are we truly concerned about women?
Lauren Burke
Jamie Lockhart at Planned Parenthood says judges will work it out.
Jamie Lockhart
State courts will have to evaluate whether any future restrictions on the right to abortion infringe upon this right. So, having this amendment in our state constitution served as a protection against future efforts to limit or ban access to abortion in the Commonwealth.
Michael Pope
This will be a hot topic in the upcoming General Assembly session. It will be debated, and the real interesting part, unless I am misunderstanding, is that the amendment does, in fact, seem to expand existing rights. Currently, abortion is protected in the first and second trimesters. But if you want an abortion in the third trimester, there are hoops you have to go through. And several doctors to sign off on it. So, it's not protected like that for the third trimester. But the language in the amendment doesn't mention trimester anywhere. It's a straightforward amendment; in terms of the language, there aren't a lot of words in the amendment. It basically just protects the fundamental right to abortion and says you can't deny it, you can't burden it, and you can't infringe upon it. And so, if you want to get an abortion in the third trimester, the language of this amendment seems to protect that. So opponents of abortion rights are going to make the argument that this amendment actually expands abortion rights. And they might have a good argument here unless there's something about this amendment that I'm not understanding.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, it does read like an expansion, and it also reads like something that walks headfirst into the Republican talking point with regard to the Democrat's belief that you can have an abortion right up to birth. Now, of course, that is hugely unlikely, but that is something Republicans love to say and put out there as one of their big talking points. And this language would indicate that was the case. I think that none of this is anybody's business because people's medical matters are nobody's business. And it's interesting to listen to Republicans talk about how they want less government and the government shouldn't be involved in things until we're talking about abortion. And all of a sudden, that all goes out the window. But it is an interesting expansion. And I'm not sure why anybody would think it could not be undone later if, in fact, the Republicans take power 2 or 3 years from now or 2 or 4 years from now. So everyone always thinks that when they pass something, nobody can ever change it. Of course, they can change it again; they can get in power again and change it. But I think your assessment is right; it does sound like an expansion.
Michael Pope
You mentioned that Republicans could, at some point in the future, undo the abortion rights that have been protected by Democrats. That is kind of the reason for the amendment. If you want to undo it, you have to have another amendment in order to undo it. So, it really would protect existing abortion rights, possibly even expand abortion rights. I guess the courts would have to work that out, as Jamie Lockhart pointed out. But it is also kind of curious to me that you really don't hear Democrats defending the idea of expanding abortion rights in the third trimester. Republicans are mad about it, and they talk about it all the time. But I have yet to hear a Democrat talk about this amendment in a way that defends the proposition of expanding abortion rights. But that's the debate we're about to have in the General Assembly session.
Lauren Burke
Well, I'm sure we'll hear Democrats defend it. I think they will defend it. The argument from the Democratic Party in Virginia would be that they just won an election, leaning hard into this specific issue. So, suppose you just want an election leaning into the specific issue. Why wouldn't you be arguing that an expansion is a problem? Why would you be quiet on that? The other fact of the matter is that this third-trimester thing is mythical. The idea that people are having third-trimester abortions is a myth. So, all you have to do is really argue the facts. And even though I know we live in an era of politics, where facts are not particularly valued, and misinfo and disinfo are king. But if you're reciting the facts, I would bet anything that third-trimester abortions are extremely rare and involve risking the Life of the mother, and that's why that would even be considered. So, I'm sure that Democrats will be on the floor arguing in favor. Effectively saying, Look, women have the right to make this decision about their own bodies.
Michael Pope
The opponents of abortion rights are really concerned that in the third trimester, abortion might be used as a form of birth control. And that's not happening. As you point out, the facts point otherwise. This is a topic that we're going to be hearing a lot about in the next couple of years because of the way this whole system is set up. It has to pass once. And then we have to have the election of 2025. Then, the General Assembly has to pass it again, presumably in 2026. And then it would go to voters as early as November of 2026. So this is actually a debate that we will be hearing and probably talking about this podcast many times for the next few years to come. I would also say that helps Democrats. Or at least, that's the current thinking. We saw this last election cycle that abortion was on the ballot, and Republicans suffered as a result. So, guess what? That's going to happen again in 2025. If you think about the 2026 ballot, that's going to go directly to voters and will be on the ticket. And that actually could also help Democrats up and down the ballot by just having it on the ballot as an actual referendum that voters will be voting on. So, this has the potential to help Democrats in the election and after the election. That's kind of what we're heading into for the next few years.
Lauren Burke
I hear that. The level of leaning on this issue in 2023 was pretty pronounced and pretty obvious. Like every Democratic candidate leaned in on abortion. We do have to keep a little bit of perspective; the Democrats did not win by a ton. It was close. There were a lot of really close races. And 2,000 votes here and there, and you're looking at a different result. But the result is what it is, whether it was close or not. The Democratic Party leaned in hard on abortion, and they won.
Michael Pope
All right, let's get to our next story. Assault Weapons Ban, so the last time Democrats were in control of the General Assembly, advocates for preventing gun violence were hopeful that they could finally ban assault weapons in Virginia. But in the end, that did not happen.
Mark Levine
The Democrats backed away from it; they refused to give it a vote.
Michael Pope
That's former Delegate Mark Levine of Alexandria. Back in 2020, he had a bill that would have banned assault weapons and actually passed the House. But then, when it arrived in the Senate, it was tabled.
Mark Levine
There are many, many, many politicians who think that if they can not have to cast a difficult vote, they should work hard to avoid ever having to cast a difficult vote. That way, they don't harm either side. They can tell both sides. Well, you know, I'm sympathetic to your position. And I think that's what happened in the Senate.
Lauren Burke
As the bill was being considered, gun enthusiasts flooded the streets of Richmond, openly carrying firearms and demanding that lawmakers protect their rights. Phillip Van Cleve of the Virginia Citizens Defense League says that made an impression on lawmakers.
Phillip Van Cleve
Basically, the Democrats looked at that and said, Whoa, this is a hot potato; we need to get rid of this. So that's what they did in 2020. They couldn't get rid of it fast enough.
Michael Pope
You heard audio from Mark Levine recounting what happened in 2020. So a little more of the backstory, there was a house version of the bill that was Mark Levine's, and there were two different Senate versions; there was the Dick Saslaw assault weapons ban and then also the Adam Ebbin assault weapons ban. Saslaws suffered from the fact that it was assembled in such a way that it did not grandfather existing weapons. So, at the stroke of the Governor signing it, it would have made the firearm that you had in your House already illegal, and that was a problem. So, Saslaw removed his bill. Adam Ebbins was much more similar to the Mark Levine version. Still, he ended up withdrawing it and not going forward with it. So when Mark Levine's bill passed the House, it went over to the Senate committee, where Adam Ebbin had already withdrawn his bill. So Mark Levine tells me the reason that the senators were reluctant to move forward with the House bill was that the Senate version of it had been withdrawn. As a courtesy to the senator who withdrew it, they did not want to go forward with the House bill. So there's a little bit of internal House vs. Senate politics. I think there also might be some personal dynamics between Mark Levine and Adam Ebbin. But in terms of the actual issue that we're talking about here, the assault weapons ban never happened. And it's one of those issues that you would think Democrats would be on board with it, but they're not right. The votes just aren't there for an assault weapons ban. And so I think we're gonna see this play out again this year.
Lauren Burke
Yes. I mean, after what we saw in Virginia Beach and at Virginia Tech, the two worst mass gun violence incidents in the Commonwealth of Virginia. I know that the Virginia Tech incident did not involve an assault weapon; it was actually a handgun with a long magazine loader, an unusually long magazine loader. But at any rate, most polls will demonstrate that people are interested in some sort of restriction on particularly military-style weapons, commonly known as assault weapons. I think that the Democrats, in this particular moment, really have a huge advantage because we can't go three weeks in this country without some sort of a mass shooting someplace in the United States. So, it's very easy to argue that it makes no sense. We're the only civilized nation that allows people to have these types of weapons legally. And it's just a very easy argument to make. Of course, the politics are that the NRA owns the Republican Party and is in a place where you have unlimited campaign spending. That's a consideration that I'm sure came up when this was considered by Senator Ebbim and then Delegate Levine. I mean, you gotta understand that the background of this is a ton of money. And when people are allowed to show up in Richmond and brandish firearms, which they were. Yeah, that's going to fix the mind; if you're a public official or elected official, we do have a growing problem with violence in this country. We've had a member of Congress get shot, Gabby Giffords. And we've had real stuff happen, and we've had real stuff happen throughout American history. So it's not something just casual to throw around the idea that this could get violent on this particular issue because there's a ton of gun violence in this country. But I do think the Democrats certainly have a political advantage. And I'm sure they have a polling advantage as well. Where they probably don't have an advantage as the money because the NRA could probably match Michael Bloombergs group and anybody else when it comes to political spending around the gun issue.
Michael Pope
Back in 2020, when they tried this, the players were Mark Levine, Adam Ebbin, and Dick Saslaw, and that's when it failed. This time, Dan Helmer introduced the bill in the House, and Creigh Deeds introduced the bill in the Senate. Both of them have grandfather clauses, so it does not make your existing weapons illegal; they only talk about future gun sales. Which was a problem with the Saslaw version, so you take away that part of the problem. Dan Helmer, of course, has a military background and can speak to this in a way that other members of the General Assembly cannot. And Creigh Deeds has his own background, so he can talk about this from a part of the state that might have opposition to it. So I think Helmer and Deeds is probably a pretty good team to make this happen. But then, Lauren, what happens when they pass it? They send it to Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, who you would expect to veto it. However, it's worth pointing out, and actually, Phillip Van Cleave pointed this out to me when I talked to him. Is that Younkin hasn't really considered gun legislation? He hasn't had to because the General Assembly has not sent him any gun legislation yet. So, I mean, we might imagine where he would be on the issue, but we really don't know.
Lauren Burke
I'd be very surprised if he didn't veto. There is no question that he is going to be forced into a number of tough votes this session, and I'm sure this is going to be one of them. I'm surprised that the grandfather clause issue came up in the Saslaw bill because that goes right into the problem of gun confiscation. And the talking points of the Republican Party, they love to say, well they're coming to get your guns, they're coming to confiscate your guns. Which, of course, leads to a spike in gun sales across the country, even though no one's coming to get anybody's guns.
Michael Pope
On that issue, that's how the Republicans would frame it. But you wouldn't have to have gun confiscation; it would just be that you had something in your house that was illegal. And so if it came up, if authorities found it in your house, they could charge you. But you wouldn't have to have gun confiscation. The idea would be people would confiscate their own guns under that scenario. But that's more of an academic debate because that's not in this. That's outside the Deeds-Helmer version of the bill.
Lauren Burke
Well, you wouldn't have to confiscate somebody who is law-abiding. I inherited a number of guns When my father died. He was a cop, and he liked to have a lot of firearms. And I had to figure out what to do with all of those things. And as it turned out, I sold a number of them to law enforcement officers in Virginia because Virginia was the jurisdiction where you could make that transaction pretty easily. But I will say when my family had to deal with that issue, it was never something in the back of my mind that sat well. Because the firearms were in New York, which has much tougher gun laws than Virginia. I happen to know a bunch of law enforcement people. So, I was comfortable giving certain things to those people. But I don't think it sits well with anyone that you would have something in your possession that you knew was illegal and that the government at any moment could say, you know what, we want you to turn your firearms. Because that was the whole point of that provision. Otherwise, why wouldn't you fix the grandfather problem? So you are right; I get your point, the idea that people are going to storm into people's houses and take their firearms. I mean, that is highly unlikely. But still in the back of your mind is you own this item, which is, in fact, a deadly weapon that the government has now made illegal.
Michael Pope
These are all issues that we are going to hear about in 2024. All right, let's move on to our final story for today. Legacy budget Virginia has a two-year budget, which means that Governor Glenn Youngkin spent the first half of his time as Governor revising and amending a budget he inherited from the previous Governor. Now he'll finally get a chance to put together his own budget proposal, a document that's often called the legacy budget because it's the Governor's one and only shot at putting together a balance sheet from beginning to end soup to nuts. Finance Secretary Stephen Cummings says the December budget proposal will be outlined on December 20th. That budget proposal will not have all that stimulus money from the pandemic.
Stephen Cummings
Clearly, at the lower end of our socio-economic strata, the spending of the excess pandemic savings is dwindling quickly, if not already gone.
Lauren Burke
Bill Leighty was chief of staff to Governor Mark Warner. And he says the federal stimulus money had a lot of strings.
Bill Leighty
All of the federal money has very prescribed uses and didn't give him a lot of latitude in the first place, nor did the General Assembly. But it did fill the coffers, particularly in the education realm, construction area, maintenance reserves, and things like that. I don't think that it's necessarily going to define his budget. Let's say that.
Michael Pope
Leighty doesn't think it's going to define the Governor's proposed budget that he will outline on December 20th. And, indeed, there's still a huge surplus. So, the Governor has a surplus of $900 million. That's a lot of money that the Governor gets to play around with. But Lauren, the previous pandemic era budget surplus was $11 billion. That's billion with a B, $11 billion. So, Governor Youngkin's birthday is this weekend. Hopefully, someone will throw $10 billion into his budget. I doubt that will happen. But yeah, we're going to see lots of discussion around budget issues, specifically tax cuts and education spending. I think that's really the focus because Youngkin and the Republicans are really pushing permanent tax cuts. And Democrats and progressives are really going to be going to bad for increasing education spending.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, and with a $900 million surplus, you can do all of that. I mean, as this shouldn't be a big issue with that, he's going to be able to argue Governor Youngkin is going to be able to argue that Virginians are overtaxed, and that's why we have a $900 million surplus. Even if that's not true. He's going to be able to argue that, and I do think that it's going to be interesting. Obviously, the Republican Party wants to typically give tax cuts, certainly on the federal level, to the top 1%. We'll see if Youngkin does some sort of Commonwealth of Virginia version of that same policy. I suspect that he will. But Virginia, whether it's been a Democrat or Republican in office, it has been a pretty business-friendly state. And I think you'll see some tax cuts for businesses, maybe small businesses, and certainly some money for HBCUs. We did see a very interesting discussion during the 2021 campaign where Youngkin pledged that he was going to do stuff for HBCUs. I'm sure he's going to be challenged, given the fact that State Senator Louise Lucas will be the Chair of the Finance Committee. There should certainly some funding efforts for HBCUs will be seen. We did see a recent discussion that Virginia State has not been funded historically over the decades. So let's see if the Governor will sign and agree to some of that funding. I don't know why he wouldn't, quite frankly, because some of this is just being able to say that you like to fund education. So we'll see.
Michael Pope
Another issue that came up during the campaign you and I talked about is the car tax. So Governor Jim Gilmore, back in the day campaigned on the issue of getting rid of the car tax, and it helped him get elected. And so now he was Governor Gilmore. But guess what? He did not get rid of the car tax. We still have the car tax. There was that Senate campaign out in Roanoke where we saw Democrat candidate Trish White-Boyd's campaign specifically on this issue. The Republican in that race, David Suetterlein, was also in favor of getting rid of the car tax. So I mean, obviously, this has bipartisan popularity.
Lauren Burke
I don't understand how the car tax is still with us. I don't have any clue as to how everybody's paying this car tax. And it makes no sense. It's an extra tax and a great example of too much government. And when the government enters the scene, it's always reaching into your pocket. And it's a very easy example for everybody to target. I'm surprised that it's still here, given the bipartisan nature of everyone hating the car tax. Yes, Trish White-Boyd did a campaign on that. It was a very popular thing to be campaigning on, to say the least. Who is for the car tax? I want to know who that is. Then you're sitting here with a $900 million surplus. You could give each citizen in Virginia a million dollars and not even think twice about it with that type of surplus. And it's just amazing to me that we sit here and still have the car tax. Every time I see one of my relatives pay it. I just say to myself, you gotta be a kid. I've got an older car, so I'm not as impacted by it, but it's amazing to me.
Michael Pope
All right, well, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll play a round of trivia and head over to the water cooler.
Michael Pope
Alright, let's go around the Commonwealth.
Lauren Burke
Attorney General Miyares submitted his opinion that the leadership of public colleges in Virginia has a primary duty to the Commonwealth.
Michael Pope
Governor Youngkin is angry at colleges because this spring, he had been hoping to attend the Electoral College, but his application was denied.
Lauren Burke
Governor Youngkin visited UVA this week, warning that free speech was in danger and that he'd like to protect it.
Michael Pope
Unless you're a trans student, in which case the Governor would prefer that free speech came from your parents.
Lauren Burke
A Virginia man was arrested in connection with the January 6th riots. He was easily caught in part because he wore a Captain America backpack to the insurrection.
Michael Pope
When asked how someone could be so foolish as to wear such a recognizable item, the FBI replied, that's their secret cap. They're always foolish.
Lauren Burke
An Ashland man is getting sued by the EPA after damaging 21 acres of wetlands.
Michael Pope
The problems started when he did not dry them properly. And now they all smell like mildew.
Lauren Burke
In good environmental news, scientists studying the Chesapeake Bay reported the lowest dead zone in recent history.
Michael Pope
Dead zones are sections of the water that have no oxygen and helped inspire the children's book. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, dead Fish.
Lauren Burke
I believe Dead Zone is the new name for Glenn Youngkin's presidential campaign?
Michael Pope
Slamming Youngkin on his birthday. Oh my goodness!
Lauren Burke
Happy Birthday, Glenn Youngkin. Look, I wrongly predicted that he was going to run. I thought he's gonna run no matter what. But you know what Happy Birthday, Mr. Governor.
Michael Pope
Happy Birthday, Mr. Governor. All right. Let's play a round of trivia. Last week, actually, it was two weeks ago because we took Thanksgiving off. We asked you when the first Thanksgiving happened?
Lauren Burke
I don't think listeners like that question.
Michael Pope
No, this was a pretty unpopular answer. The answer was Florida, which actually had the first Thanksgiving way back in the year 1565.
Lauren Burke
Shannon Watson guessed it was the Berkeley plantation in Virginia.
Michael Pope
The Berkeley plantation and Virginia had Thanksgiving in 1619, which was more than 50 years after the first Thanksgiving in Florida.
Lauren Burke
So why does everybody think that the Pilgrims had the first Thanksgiving in 1621?
Michael Pope
That's marketing. The folks in Massachusetts know how to market themselves, and somehow, they have persuaded everybody that they had the first Thanksgiving, even though Florida and Virginia had one earlier than them. So, Massachusetts and the Pilgrims did not have the first Thanksgiving. Florida had its first Thanksgiving. Virginia had the second one. And the pilgrims come in here at number three.
Lauren Burke
So it's Florida, and that's why Lauren Kaiser chimed in to say this. Are you Pod Virginia or Pod Florida? smh.
Michael Pope
Well, Pod Florida, that actually sounds kind of awesome. I don't know. I think that we would have a lot more Governor jokes there. I'd hit the subscribe button on that one. Florida was the answer to our trivia quiz. And we had two people get the right answer. Michael Gryboski is on Facebook, and Pranav is on X.
Lauren Burke
Michael tells them what they've won.
Michael Pope
Dinner with Ron DeSantis at the Margaritaville in Key West, funded by our friends over at Pod Florida.
Lauren Burke
Okay, so what's our trivia question for next week?
Michael Pope
Well, Lauren, do you know who was the first woman elected to the Virginia Senate? That is our trivia question for next week: who was the first woman elected to the Virginia State Senate? I'll give you a hint. It was way back in the year 1971. That's when she was elected. So, she showed up at the capitol in 1972. So who was that woman? If you think you know the answer, hit us up on social media; you might even win a prize. All right, let's head over to the water cooler. Lauren, what's the latest you're hearing around the water cooler?
Lauren Burke
Well, we have a whole lot of candidates going on in Virginia, some of whom have not actually started their term in office yet, which, of course, starts on January 10th, 2024, which includes Suhas Subramanyam and John McGuire. But of course, we have other candidates to run for Congress. Delegate Guzman is running, and it's a pretty amazing thing. And it only really happens because Virginia has elections every single year. It actually puts the members of the General Assembly in sort of an advantageous situation because they don't have to give up their seats when they run for Congress. There are two congressional seats up that I don't think anyone could have predicted would be vacant next year. And that is the seat of Jennifer Wexton, in Virginia's 10th congressional district, because of a serious health issue, and all prayers to Congressman Wexton on that. And the seat of Abigail Spanberger, she will not be running again next year because she will be running for Governor in 2025. So that sort of gives you the advantage if you're a member of the General Assembly to run without giving up your seat. Because typically, in politics, during even years, you do have to forfeit what you're doing to run for another seat. But I think it brings up another interesting issue, which is that there's a lot of turnover in the Virginia General Assembly. We've talked about it before. And I think it has to do with the fact that the cost of living, of course, has skyrocketed in a lot of jurisdictions in Virginia, making it very difficult for a lot of these lawmakers to make a livable wage. I know it's not in vogue for politicians to talk about these issues because you don't want to be in office and be voting yourself a pay raise. But frankly, I mean, as somebody who's worked in politics in New York and Virginia, New York, you have a full-time General Assembly, and they make a livable wage. And I just find it amazing in Virginia, we continue this sort of tradition of acting like everybody's coming in horse and buggy style to come to Richmond and serve for a base salary of $17,000 a year. And that's got to change; it creates a situation where you don't necessarily get the best people running. And I think it creates a situation in a lot of these seeds where nobody is running. It also creates turnover; there is a lot of turnover, and you see a lot of interest in other offices, I think primarily because of of that issue.
Michael Pope
You mentioned there are two brand new senators who, even before they have served one single solitary day in the Senate, are already running for Congress. That seems a little awkward to me. I guess one way of reading that would be here's your new senator and colleague who's really ambitious. That's the best possible reading. The other would be a person who only sees the Senate as a stepping stone to something else they want to do, and they don't really care about the Senate. And you can sort of write them off. You have to wonder like, what their what their colleagues are going to think about the person sitting next to them who doesn't particularly care about being in the Senate.
Lauren Burke
I think in the specific cases of John McGuire and Suhas, they have served in the Virginia General Assembly. So it's not as if they came in this is their first time running, and then all of a sudden, they're swiftly announcing to everybody, oh, by the way, I'm going to run for Congress now. It's not like that. I haven't talked to either of them about this at all, but I suspect that they know what it is to serve in the Virginia General Assembly. These opportunities to run for Congress don't generally come along that often. But I do have to say we do. We are seeing a lot of turnover in Congress this cycle. I can't help but think that has something to do with the dysfunction of the Republican Party in the US House, specifically.
Michael Pope
To that issue, Lauren, I'm really curious about the internal Republican dynamics of John McGuire. Trying to run the right of Bob Good, oh woof. That's gonna be an interesting primary; grab the popcorn route for that one.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, I think running to the right of Bob Good and doing anything to the right of Bob Good is going to be, you know, spectacular. I mean, Bob Good is always trying to pretend that he actually wants to get something done as a member of Congress. I'm not sure that that's true. I just think this is all making of YouTube videos and PR for a lot of the people who run for Congress, particularly on the right, because we're witnessing the Republican Party convert into something that does not resemble the Republican Party era of Reagan, and even George W. Bush, where policy is not top of mind where you're not really talking about issues in a deep way. And you're not really there to change anything. You're there to stop somebody else from changing something. So Bob Good has been a particularly good example of someone who I think is not really there for any particular reason. He's not the only one, though. I mean, can anyone name anything that Eric Cantor did when he was in Congress? I can't. I mean, we have a Republican Party right now that doesn't seem all that focused on actual policy. So, I actually think John McGuire might be more focused than Bob Good would be. It'll interesting to see what decision the voters make on that because that's going to be a battle of the... I don't know what that's going to be: a battle of the right-wing politicians in the southwest? I don't know, but we'll see soon enough.
Michael Pope
Trump vs. Trump.
Lauren Burke
We'll see. It's going to be interesting, given it does fall in the year that Trump would be on the ballot. Well, he will be on the ballot for the primary. However, I believe the primary will not be competitive with the Republican primary for President. But it'll tell us a little something, I guess, about whether or not people are moving even more to the right. After watching Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 8 million votes, there's evidence that people are not interested in complete disarray, controversy, and craziness every moment. Even though it would appear that Donald Trump and his party are going to try to run that again. I wonder if the evidence is there. People really want that. So what about you, Michael? What is the latest you've heard about the water cooler?
Michael Pope
Well, people here where I live in Alexandria are buzzing about single-family zoning. Specifically, the Alexandria City Council's unanimous vote to ditch single-family zoning. So, as we've talked about in this podcast a couple times, the origin of single-family zoning is racist. It was created in the era of Jim Crow, specifically to separate white neighborhoods and black neighborhoods. So, White homeowners were protected by the zoning. And then black people were specifically harmed because, like here in Alexandria and many other places, the properties where black people lived were zoned industrial, which lowered their property values. And so you create this problem of generational wealth. And so, you know, layered on top of that is the housing crisis in Alexandria. We have all these people who want to live in Alexandria, but they can't because the cost of housing is ridiculous. So, the Alexandria City Council removed the word family from Single Family Zoning. Change it to units so you could have smaller units, which would create market forces that would, if not lower the cost of housing, at least stop it from going up. So astronomically. So, all that seems a little academic; let me make this a reality for you. Okay. If you imagine in your mind a single-family neighborhood where you got all these big lots, and you got one House on the lot, under the old zoning laws under the Jim Crow zoning laws, you could only have that one House. And if a developer wanted to come in and tear that House down and build, let's say, a small apartment unit with four units or a townhouse unit with four townhouses, that would be illegal under the old zoning codes. But under what the Alexandria City Council has done under this plan called Zoning for Housing, depending on the size of the lot, you could have two units. So you could have your single-family lot there, and you could tear the house down and build a two-unit home, a three-unit home, or a four-unit home like either a small apartment complex or a townhouse unit. Or you could also take the existing House and separate it up into different units that are inside of the existing House; this was extremely controversial. As you might imagine, there were lots of people who spoke in favor of this and also people who opposed it. Arlington did something similar, although Theirs was a little more extreme than they had. They had a maximum of six units, and Arlington and Alexandria had only a maximum of four units. So what they did in Alexandria is a little bit more constrained. And there's lots of guardrails. There are 9000 single-family properties in the city of Alexandria. Still, city officials estimate that only about 66 of them will be targeted for this kind of zoning use in the next decade. So if the plan is to increase supply to meet demand, having 66 parcels, where you add more units to the 66 parcels, is really not actually going to add all that much. So it's a constrained version of this that's not quite as extreme as perhaps a lot of people would like to see, but it is something, and at least, we're really talking about the future here. What does the future of the city look like? Is there going to be enough housing for all the people who want to live in Alexandria? And so they took the word family out and replaced it with units. And now you can have one unit on a single family lot, you could have two units, potentially three units, or if it's a very large lot, you can have four units on that lot. So that's what's happening in Alexandria next year. And Lauren, next year is an election year in Alexandria; all six members of the City Council will be on the ballot, and the mayor will also be on the ballot. Late last week, Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson announced he will not be seeking a third term. So that opens up a very hot primary in the city of Alexandria for the Democrats. And the conventional wisdom is that Vice Mayor Amy Jackson would run, as City Councilwoman Alyia Gaskins is likely to run, or at least people are talking about that. And this really kind of aligns with this discussion that we had been having for a long time in Alexandria about what the city looks like. Is it more urban, or is it more suburban? The vote on getting rid of single-family housing was unanimous; they all voted for it, which means Amy Jackson voted for it, and Alyia Gaskins also voted in favor of it. So, that's not as clear as a campaign issue as you might think it would be. However, if you look at recent history, there were lots of debates about bike lanes and dedicated lanes for buses. And there's a pretty clear distinction between Vice Mayor Amy Jackson and Councilwoman Alyia Gaskins along those issues. So this idea of what is zoning, what kind of city is Alexandria? Is it a more urban city? Or is it a more suburban city? Do cars on the roads? Or are cars for other kinds of vehicles? Where can you put bike lanes? All of these issues will be very hotly debated in the next few months here because the Democratic primary for the mayor of Alexandria and the city council will be in June of next year. So that's right around the corner.
Lauren Burke
Yes, it is. I'm surprised that that was the vote. Actually, I felt like I got the vibe that Alexandria sees itself as a more suburban place, a more townhouse place. But maybe I'm just thinking about Prince Street, Duke Street, and that area. But you see a lot of development around Alexandria right now. But the issue of housing insecurity is just so huge because it controls so much of everybody's budget. As everybody knows, it's typically the most expensive item that you have to pay for every month, whether it's the mortgage or the rent. So it doesn't surprise me as so many of these communities are dealing with these issues and having these votes.
Michael Pope
I will have to say, I thought there were a lot of strange bedfellows here. You had the more conservative people and Republicans saying that they wanted the government to prevent the free market from doing what it wanted to do. So let's say you own a very large lot where you've got one House on your huge lot. And you wanted to sell it to a developer who wanted to build a four-unit apartment complex. Well, under the old zoning codes. The city says no, you can't do that. And so that's what conservatives and Republicans were in favor of government telling you what you could not do with your own property. And so you have Democrats, that unanimous democratic city council plus progresses and housing advocates advocating in favor of market forces. So that's kind of an interesting, you know, strange bedfellows with this discussion on zoning and housing. This is a debate that is Pleased to map out all across Virginia. So, Arlington has already done this. Alexandria has already done this. This may be coming to a city near you very soon.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, those strange bedfellows. You make a good point there. Typically, what I find is they align with moneyed interest in one way or another when you go back and look to see who's making the donations to whom. You're seeing the same sort of debate with regard to Air B&B. In Richmond, and now, all of a sudden, there's a restriction: you've got to have somebody on your property for a minimum of 30 days. They are doing the same thing in New York. Well, what, who would benefit from that? Well, the hotel industry would benefit from that because they are the ones losing money off of short-term rentals. So the strange bedfellows seem to always coincidentally align with whomever is giving the most amount of money to the folks who are making the decision on these matters because what you do with your property and who you have in your property for whatever amount of time that may be, one would think that that would be your business and nobody else's.
Michael Pope
All right. Well, let's celebrate some birthdays.
Lauren Burke
Well, let's start with Pod Virginia's founding co-host, Thomas Bowman, whose birthday is Tuesday, December 5th. Happy birthday, Thomas!
Michael Pope
Happy birthday, Thomas Bowman. Tuesday also happens to be the birthday of Delegate Karrie Delaney of Fairfax County.
Lauren Burke
Saturday is the birthday of Governor Glenn Youngkin. Happy birthday, Glenn Youngkin. I've met him a few times, and I will say he's a nice guy. I know a lot of Democrats not gonna like me saying that. But he's an enjoyable guy to talk to you. So happy birthday, Governor Youngkin
Michael Pope
Happy Birthday.
Lauren Burke
That's it for this episode of Pod Virginia. Transcripts are on the website, and follow us on social media for more chatter on Virginia politics.
