Automatic Absenteeism, The Great Resignation, and Dog Licensing in Virginia
IN THE NEWS:
Automatic, Asymmetric Abentee Voting: Some, but not all, Virginia voters get an absentee ballot in the mail every election. That has completely changed the dynamic in special elections, where one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is making sure people know that the election is happening. Friend of the podcast David Ramadan says this is a trend that is harming Republicans.
The Great Resignation: According to new numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 120,000 people in Virginia quit their jobs in October, a one-month increase of 14,000 people. That's the second largest increase in the country, second only to Florida. Michael Farren at George Mason University's Mercatus Center says more than anything, this is a sign of strength in Virginia's economy.
At the Watercooler: The Joint Subcommittee on Campaign Finance Reform had zero meetings in 2022 and no meetings are on the calendar for 2023. Meanwhile, an upcoming bill coming before the General Assembly might prevent local governments from issuing licenses for cats and dogs.
Trivia:
Virginia is known as the Old Dominion State. That nicknames refers to the Virginia colony being the dominion of...who?
Episode Transcript
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Thomas Bowman
I'm Tom Bowman.
Michael Pope
And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast that's ready for 2023, Thomas. Are you ready to say goodbye to 2022 and hello to 2023?
Thomas Bowman
You know, mentally sort of but as far as like getting like taxes together and all that, what that means at the end of the year? The answer is no. So speak for yourself.
Michael Pope
Well, looking ahead to 2023, That's gonna be a hell of a year for Virginia politics. All 100 seats in the House will be on the ballot, and all 40 seats in the State Senate. And so, if you're in Virginia politics, '23 is going to be a heck of a year to follow. Okay, let's get to the news. Automatic and asymmetric. Some but not all Virginia voters get an absentee ballot in the mail every election, not an application for an absentee ballot but an actual ballot in the mail for every election, thanks to a new law in Virginia. Now that has completely changed the dynamic in special elections. Well, one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is making sure people know that the election is happening in the first place. A friend of the podcast David Ramadan says this is a trend that's clearly harming Republicans.
David Ramadan
Back in my time, there was a concentrated effort by Republicans in Virginia to push early voting so that we could gain an advantage on election day. And there were paid party efforts by caucuses in the House and the Senate, and the General Assembly to push early voting. And it was not considered controversial. Early voting became controversial during the Trump era because Donald Trump didn't like it because of his false claims of election fraud. Thus, Republicans moved into this mode of early voting that is going to end up costing him now.
Michael Pope
Yeah, Ramadan is hitting it here. Republicans are paying the price for this reticence to embrace early voting. And you know this thing about automatic absenteeism. It's a little nuanced, but it's worth thinking about because some, but not all, voters are going to receive the actual ballot in the mail. Thomas, I know you signed up for this, right? That's what's been your experience getting that absentee ballot in the mail automatically every election cycle?
Thomas Bowman
Well, it's great; it saves me time and it saves me mental energy. I don't know about you, but I've got a million other things to think about. So if you can, just have me check my mail, and there's the ballot ready to fill out and sign and send it back. That's great. That reduces barriers to voting. And I love it; I'm a big fan. So these kinds of absentee voting policies, like Virginia has, they're intended to increase voter participation and accessibility, making it easier for people like me to cast ballots. And these policies, though, have different impacts on different political parties depending on specific details of the demographics of the voting population. It definitely helps people gain access, certainly people who might need to take a bus to get to their voting center, and half their day has gone because of that. Or people often, Ramadan was thinking about the impact on the elderly, or the Republican Party in his day, pushed this as a way to increase voter participation from the elderly. The Democrats also did it to push participation from low-resource communities. So it's important to recognize these policies are not implemented, Michael, with the intention of benefiting any particular party but rather to make it easier to exercise your right to vote. So it's up to you, of course, how to cast your ballot, and it's the responsibility of the parties to adapt and make their case to voters rather than trying to manipulate the voting process for their own advantage.
Michael Pope
You say that's not the intention to be And if at one party or the other, and that's totally true, and that's why they passed the law. But in practice, it's actually having a disproportionate effect here helping Democrats. Not because of anything that Democrats have done, but because of something that Republicans have done, which is to consistently trash talk early voting. And so now, every election cycle, all these democrats receive ballots in the mail automatically without even having to ask for them. And where this is really important is the special election, where Virginia Beach is a really good example of this. You know, a lot of people in Virginia Beach don't know. These are people that don't follow this stuff. They possibly might not even be Pod Virginia listeners. I don't know if that's possible, but maybe they don't listen to our podcast and don't know that this special election is happening. Then they get this ballot in the mail. It's like, oh, hey, there's a special election for State Senate. I'm gonna vote for that disproportionately operationally is helping Democrats right now.
Thomas Bowman
Well, yeah, Michael, but I would say that's an artifact of playing a stupid game and winning a stupid prize on the Republican Party's side.
Michael Pope
Playing a stupid game and winning a stupid prize. Well, that's, that's 2022 in a nutshell, all right. Take this job and shove it. That's apparently what many people are saying or at least thinking; according to new numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they show that 120,000 People in Virginia quit their jobs in October. Now, that's a one-month increase of 14,000 people saying sayonara to their workplace. This is the second largest increase in the country, second only to Florida. Michael Farren at George Mason University's Mercatus Center says more than anything. This is a sign of strength in Virginia's economy.
Michael Farren
It indicates when people quit their jobs, they're willing to, you know, embrace some economic uncertainty and shift to something generally better. And we have to compare the quits rate with the hires rate. So the quits rate was 2.9%. But the hire rate was 3.9%. So, in other words, 3.9% of workers in Virginia were working in new jobs in October. And so this is just kind of part of the overall churn that happens, month in and month out, and in a healthy economy, people switch to better jobs that fit their lives better. Yeah, there's been so much talk about the great resignation. And as it turns out, Virginia is on the vanguard of the second only to Florida, where people in Virginia are just quitting their jobs in huge numbers.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. A report came out recently showing that the number one reason people are quitting their jobs is that they're looking for more flexibility. And so that's what they're seeking, of course, when they accept new jobs, they want flexibility and their work schedules and their work-life balance, like when can you go to the office and want to be able to do a four day work week or a loose Friday, there's, you know, the little pleasant things about life getting out early on Friday. That's what they're looking for, in addition to benefits and security, like health care, dental, vision, those things. So between that and the way that many frontline workers were treated, and teachers have been treated recently, throughout the pandemic, there's no incentive to take a crappy minimum wage job that's not going to give you any benefits and also expose you to some of these nasty diseases going around right now. So it's going to be harder and harder to compete for these guys. And you're gonna start seeing a lot more churn rate, the millennials. I don't know if this is still the case. But back when I was in my 20s, there were a lot of think pieces about how the millennials are spending like two years here, and then two years somewhere else, and then two years out another gig. And the reason for that is that it was easier to get a 20, 30 40 percent salary increase by jumping ship after a couple of years and moving to the next thing, and it was just the way that a lot of the boomers did it, which was keeping your head down and having a whole lifetime career at one corporation or something like that. Styles are changing. And by the way, Gen Z is on our heels. And they're all like when you ask a kid, what do you want to be when you grow up? They all say influencers, YouTube stars, and TikTok stars that are part of the gig economy. And so those, by the way, will not be reflected in quits and higher numbers in the future because people will be effectively self-employed. And we will have a creative economy.
Michael Pope
I think these numbers are also telling us something else about the great resignation. That is interesting, which is I think a lot of people hear the great resignation. And they think of people leaving the workplace and not getting another job, just like leaving the workforce. There's that meme. You may have seen where it's like, I need a car to get to my job, and I need a job to afford the car. So like, if you don't have a car, you don't need the job. So I think A lot of people when they hear great resignation, they that's what they assume that people were just leaving the workforce. But then these numbers are actually telling us something different, which is these people are leaving their jobs, but they're also getting hired somewhere else.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, it's good that there are still businesses that are able to compete for them, and I was on Tik Tok, much to the jealousy of some of my government employee friends. And I saw somebody who left this amazing $200,000 job in high-pressure digital media to go work at Target, of all places, and goes do that because it just wasn't worth the grind to her to this person. She wanted a little bit more flexibility over her schedule. She wanted to enjoy her life and have her own time. Remember that work-life balance thing I just mentioned? So it's not always about the money, and Gen Z and millennials and increasingly Gen X two are starting to realize that.
Michael Pope
All right, well, before we wrap up, let's head over to the water cooler. Thomas, what's the latest? You hear around the water cooler.
Thomas Bowman
I saw this great story in the Virginia mercury that the joint Subcommittee on campaign finance reform and Virginia's General Assembly is failing to complete its task, for now, the second year in a row. So there were no meetings scheduled in 2022. And no report was expected, and the Subcommittee was created to review proposals to limit donations to Virginia politicians and to make it illegal to spin campaign money on personal expenses. They faced logistical challenges lack of consensus on key issues, which is not entirely surprising. But campaign finance reform advocate Nancy Morgan criticized the Subcommittee's inactivity, calling it to quote another lost opportunity. And she suggested to Michael that incumbents in the General Assembly have no interest in changing the current system, which benefits them individually, which could be fighting words to the people listening.
Michael Pope
Yeah, well, I know one person who routinely listens to all our programs is Delegate Marcus Simon. And he's kind of the lone voice out there who wants to see some change, and this most members of the General Assembly like this system and don't have any incentive to want to change it. That's the Democrats and Republicans. And it makes you wonder, like, why have a committee if it's never going to meet?
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, no campaign finance reform. It's really important to note that there are a lot of great ideas that sound wonderful, but then when you actually get, drill into the details, and also conform it to the Supreme Court's rulings, there's not a clean way to do a lot of things, you might want to pull something simple, like do it the way the feds do it or do it the way this other state does it. And for one reason or another, individual state court just doesn't work. I'm personally a big fan of publicly funded elections. But then, when you get into the discrepancies of media markets, that's where that always gets screwed up, especially in Virginia, where we would have a lot of trouble doing that. For example, it's going to cost a quarter million dollars or more to get onto the cable in Northern Virginia and a lot less to get on to cable in other parts of Virginia. So, you know, just having an equitable budget that lets everybody have the opportunity to accomplish the same thing just really makes your head spin when you think about the dollars that would be required to do it.
Michael Pope
Yeah, but you know, Virginia doesn't have to reinvent the wheel. I mean, I'm sure there are other states that have figured out a way to at least put limits or guardrails on some of this money that's sloshing around the system.
Thomas Bowman
Yes, there are, and those are. It's important to explore and keep our minds open about what could or could not work specifically for Virginia. One thing, though, that I find really interesting is, in many of those states, what happens is you just spin off a bunch of different, like fake committees. So if somebody wants to give you $10,000, but there's a $1,000 contribution limit, well, guess what? You get ten different packs that all accomplish the same goal. And really, the money is still in that system, Michael.
Michael Pope
Well, let me tell you what I hear around my watercolor; there is a bill that's going to be considered in the upcoming General Assembly session introduced by Delegate Tim Anderson. He's a Republican from Virginia Beach and involves household dogs and cats. So the bill says that local governments should no longer have the ability to issue licenses for dogs and cats and takes away the ability of local governments to issue fines and fees for not getting the licenses. So I talked to Delegate Anderson about them this bill, and he considers this a nuisance tax. He says local governments, most people, Lots of people don't even know that they're supposed to get a license for their dog or their cat. And so they might not have one. And so, you know, if your local government hit you up with a fine and fee for a license you didn't know you're supposed to have, it's a nuisance, right? He also made an interesting point, which is, if you look at the Virginia law, it actually gives the local government the ability to euthanize the pet if it doesn't have a license. So that's a strong argument in favor of getting rid of this thing. But then I called a friend of the podcast Jordan Miles, who's chairman of the Buckingham County Board Supervisors, and he says, Look, these things actually play a really important role. Because the licensing structure makes sure that all these household pets have all the vaccinations that are required to keep everybody healthy and safe. And then also, there's a money component to this too, because this money is often earmarked specifically for animals. So in Buckingham County, they're building an animal control center with the revenue they get from the pet license fees. So this is a debate that's going to happen in the General Assembly in 2023. And Thomas here's the fun part. For being in the building of the General Assembly, anytime there's a bill about animals, this really happens on the House side more than the Senate. They make animal noises. Thomas, have you ever been in the chamber when they're debating a bill about dogs? I mean, they bark those members will bark during the session?
Thomas Bowman
Woof, yeah, they're a hoot to watch sometimes but also incredibly frustrating. And that's one of the fun little things of when everyone's cooped up, and you don't have that many ways to have fun. You get these really weird running gags and jokes that start emerging, and making animal noises during animal bills is one of them.
Michael Pope
Yeah, it's the General Assembly's really go-to dogs.
Thomas Bowman
Such a horse and pony show.
Michael Pope
Oh, wow, yeah.
Thomas Bowman
Well, Michael, before we go, I thought we might do the trivia thing but give it a spin. And so, is that something that you might be interested in doing my goal? Do you want to do a little spin? So I don't want to answer the trivia question right now. I want to put it out there and see if anybody will hit us up on Twitter. At Pod_Virginia.
Michael Pope
That sounds good. Yeah, I didn't know this was coming. And this is actually not in the script. So hit me up. Yeah, let's hear it.
Thomas Bowman
Okay. Pod Virginia did tweet this out earlier this week. So maybe I'll leave that up. Maybe I'll suggest to somebody that they go ahead and delete it and see. So there's no cheating. But Virginia is known as the Old Dominion state. That nickname refers to the Virginia colony being the Dominion of who. Alright, so if you think you know, hit us up at Pod_Virginia on Twitter.
Michael Pope
And one more thing before we go, happy birthday, so we've got three birthdays this week. Tuesday is the birthday of Jason Ballard. Wednesday is the birthday of Senator Lionel Spruill and Jennifer McClellan, perhaps soon to be the next member of Congress from Virginia. So happy birthday, Jason Ballard, Lionel Spruill, and Jennifer McClellan.
Thomas Bowman
All right, let's leave it there. Thanks for listening.
