IN THE NEWS:

Advocates for people incarcerated in Virginia prisons say it shouldn’t be a financial burden for them to stay in touch with their family. Now lawmakers are moving forward with a compromise bill that doesn't mandate free telephone calls, but does provide some oversight of those lucrative telecommunications contracts.

Governor Glenn Youngkin is working with House Republicans to have a proposal now under consideration that would give $350 million in corporate tax cuts. Senate Democrats say they have no appetite for it.To work out their differences, a handful of senior lawmakers will meet behind closed doors in a secret conference committee that's not open to the public or the press.

In support of recent bills to legislate the contents of school libraries, Delegate Tim Anderson had teenagers removed from the House chamber so he could read explicit passages from books he thinks are inappropriate. Thomas and Michael discuss the disturbing trend toward book-banning in Virginia and nationwide.

At the Watercooler:

In the US Senate, Tim Kaine introduced the Reproductive Freedom for All Act.

A Democratic House member who was so angry about her bill being killed without a hearing that she surreptitiously recorded the chairman of a committee--as well as the many abortion bills never got docketed in the Republican-led House.

Trivia: When did Virginia bring back the mace that gets paraded down the House of Delegates?

Mark Greenough: Why does the House of Delegates have a mace?

Episode Transcript

Michael Pope

I'm Michael Pope.

Thomas Bowman

I'm Tom Bowman.

Michael Pope

And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast that has survived crossover. So we're in the home stretch, Thomas. There are only two weeks to go before the end of the General Assembly session.

Thomas Bowman

Only two weeks, and we just had crossover? That seems like a stunted crossover, like a poorly weighted front and back side of the session. However, I guess it makes sense, given what's still alive.

Michael Pope

Yeah, we've got this week and next week, and then Saturday of next week is the end of the session. So that's only three more Pod Virginia episodes, and it feels like this whole thing, while simultaneously feels like it's gone really fast and dragged on really long. How does that happen? I don't know. It's like a time warp.

Thomas Bowman

That's a great way to describe it. That's exactly what it is. My gold session is one big-time warp. And I don't know about you. But even though this is a short session, it felt like a long session.

Michael Pope

It feels like it's never going to end but trust me, listeners, it will end in the next week. It's going to end, actually, all right. So let's go to our first story.

Michael Pope

Here's a quarter call somebody who cares and advocates for people incarcerated in Virginia prison says it should not be a financial burden for them to stay in touch with their family, and many families just cannot afford to pay the rates that are arranged in lucrative contracts with telecommunications companies. Some Democrats were hoping to require free telephone calls for people incarcerated in Virginia prisons. But Republican Delegate Nick Freitas test of Virginia Beach says his colleagues don't want taxpayers paying for that phone bill.

Nick Freitas

I hope we're all in agreement. It shouldn't be excessive. I know, I think, at least on this side, we're very concerned about the idea of shifting the burden of paying for it onto taxpayers.

Thomas Bowman

Now lawmakers are moving forward with a compromise effort introduced by Senator Jennifer Boysko. She's a Democrat from Herndon.

Jennifer Boysko

What this does, is asks for some oversight by the General Assembly, which taxpayer dollars are paying for, and it provides some funding to help lower the cost.

Michael Pope

Yeah, so the current posture of the bill, Boyskos bill, that's now going through the House is that it's not going to require free telephone calls for people who are incarcerated in Virginia prisons. But there are some really good things in this bill from the advocate's point of view, which is an oversight. So right now, there's no oversight of these contracts, basically. So under this new scenario, you know, the Department of Corrections would have to take this contract before, you know, Janet Howell and Tony Wilt and say, hey, is this okay? And then they would basically Janet Howell is going to look at it really closely and say, Well, I don't know if this was what we want to do or not. And this is significant because the current contract actually expires in June of this year. So this is really good timing to have this discussion in terms of oversight of the next contract that's about to happen in the next few months. And then the other part of this that's really significant worth thinking about is the $5 million already set aside in the Senate budget, $5 million, is already part of the budget, the Senate version of the budget. And that $5 million could go a long way to making telephone calls a lot more inexpensive for people who are incarcerated. Right now, it's like four cents a minute. And you could take that $5 million and make it closer to like one cent a minute or even maybe even free, depending on how you did it. And this bill is watered down. It doesn't require free telephone calls, which is what the advocates want. But it does provide some oversight and some money to help reduce the cost of those calls or even possibly even make them free, depending on how the whole thing works out.

Thomas Bowman

Let's be clear about who currently pays these phone bills. It's not people who have committed crimes and are sitting in prison. It's being funded by the families of those people who did nothing wrong. Reducing these barriers to innocent families and those costs is definitely a much better use of public funds. And I'll tell you why. Yes, we do actually want public funds to pay these bills because it is actually going to stimulate the economy far more than if we were saddling these families with more and more debts. So that will be money that they can then put into things that they buy at the store. And we know, depending on their income, low-income families, for example, when they get more money, spend on things that are already necessities, right? Middle-income families, middle-class families, they're going to buy things, right? And that's where most of our sales taxes are really coming from. And then high-income families buy assets, right? So what we want to do is find a way for low-income families to accumulate household wealth. And then also once they can grow that household wealth, acquire assets. And when you do that, you eliminate the things that put a lot of people in prison in the first place, which are crimes of poverty.

Michael Pope

Yeah, if you look at the study on, you know, telephone calls and communications with family members, or community members, or even, you know, workplace, some of these people might have jobs when they get incarcerated, and hopefully might have them when they get out. So if you look at the research on this, recidivism rates go down, it's much easier for reentry have, duh, I mean, of course, it's easier for reentry, they've been talking to these people over the phone, which is why by the way, you've got these groups that support this effort to eliminate the cost of these calls, or at least lower them. Groups like the Police Benevolent Association or the safety officers like the national network of people who work in prisons actually support this effort. So you know, there is some concern among advocates that even if Boysko gets bill gets out of the House and has some kind of conference and goes to the Governor's desk that he might veto the bill. So that's a concern that's out there. But if he vetoes this, you know, he's going to have to answer to those law enforcement officers that say, this is a good idea.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, well, and if he is running in a primary against other potential Republicans, those law enforcement groups are probably going to look somewhere else if Youngkins got a bad record with them. Another thing to consider is that if you are politically ambitious and you're also facing a demographic cliff of your voters aging out and dying, one thing to do to recruit new people into your political party and the cause is to get caught making the world a better place and do good loudly. And this is one of those opportunities where they can really grant a marginal impact. But it's one of those things where you want to take this and other things, other policies that make the world a better place and do good for more people. And by the way, people who are in prison are up for grabs politically; think about how Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam went through and expunged so many records in order to let people vote and restore voting rights to people with felonies. Well, guess what? They weren't just Democratic voters. And, in fact, there are a ton of Republican votes out of those newly expunged records.

Michael Pope

And then there is, you know, the related issue that nobody is talking about, which is why don't people in prisons have the right to vote? So they are represented by members of Congress, people who are in prisons are represented by members of the State Senate, and people who are in prison are represented by House of Delegates members. They draw the districts to include the headcount of people who live in those prisons but cannot vote. And so nobody's talking about that right now. But eventually, somebody should give some thought to why it is that people who are behind bars cannot vote for people who represent them.

Thomas Bowman

Now, that might be a good trivia question someday, Michael.

Michael Pope

Well, let's make the world a better place by moving on to our next story.

Michael Pope

The House and Senate are on a collision course over tax cuts, and it's a conflict that's likely going to be worked out in a secret deal later this month. Governor Glenn Youngkin is working with House Republicans to have a proposal now under consideration that would give $350 million in corporate tax cuts. I asked House Republican leader Terry Kilgore about this, and he says those corporate tax cuts they're going to turbocharge the economy.

Terry Kilgore

They're also going to be creating jobs. That's where we're missing on just straight economics. We got to have a tax. The tax burden has to be such that we recruit and retain corporations to do business in Virginia.

Thomas Bowman

Senate Democrats say they've got no appetite for tax cuts. So now the two sides have to figure out some way to compromise. House Democratic Leader Don Scott says the Governor's proposal is aimed at helping rich people to the detriment of everyone.

Don Scott

Now, he's proposing a $350 million tax cut at a time when they're fighting about how do we keep and retain teachers. How do we provide support staff and education? How do we make sure that we take care of our most vulnerable workers? How do we make sure that we fund Earned income tax credits? Instead of doing those things, he said, You know what, I got to take care of my buddies and give some corporate tax cuts.

Michael Pope

Yeah, I think this is probably the most controversial part of the budget where the Senate Democrats are saying, hell no. And House Democrats are saying, you know, we definitely want this. And so eventually, those differences are going to be worked out by a handful, a very small handful of senior lawmakers who will be meeting behind closed doors in a secret conference committee that's not open to the public and not open to the press. So this is not to transparent government. But this is what says what we've got in Virginia. And I don't really know what the outcome here is, Thomas, because there are two sides dug in on their positions, which you would imagine eventually there might be some sort of compromise where, well, what if instead of $350 million in corporate tax cuts, it's $100 billion and tax cuts?

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, I can certainly see any number of permutations where it's, it's more or less; it also really just depends on whether or not House Republicans think that this is corporate tax cuts or something they want to go to the mat on an election year, which I'm not convinced, you know, Glenn Youngkin is certainly trying to make his case.

Michael Pope

Well, yea, but Republican voters love tax cuts, right? I mean, so, like, if you go on the campaign trail and say, look at all these tax cuts I did, that resonates with voters and helps in the election cycle.

Thomas Bowman

Republican campaign donors like corporate tax cuts. But I don't know anybody who is struggling to make ends meet, Republican-Democrat, either way, that looks kindly upon their politician going to the mat for corporations. That's one of those class things that transcends partisanship. Most people don't think of themselves as Republican voters or Democratic voters.

Thomas Bowman

Well, Michael, that's exactly the point. And I think that you're hitting on exactly what the advantage is, regardless of whether or not there are actually corporate tax cuts in this bill; in some ways, it actually behooves Republicans not to have those corporate tax cuts make it into the final budget. And the reason for that is they can then go to their corporate donors and say, look, we're trying, we're fighting, we just can't do it without having both chambers of the General Assembly.

Michael Pope

So help Republicans.

Thomas Bowman

So open up your wallets and help more Republicans get elected. The problem with that is that we have an election every year in Virginia. And to you know, the Senate is looking to pick up seats. We're not playing so much defense this year as far as Virginia Democrats go in the Senate.

Michael Pope

Well, let's move on to our next story.

All right, that's a strong point. So maybe it's not the voters that would respond to the corporate tax cuts, but it would also be the donor class. I mean, like, you got to raise money to get elected, and this is going to help. I mean, even the debate is going to help Republicans raise money to get elected.

Spoken word performance. So back in 2016, the Senate chamber was cleared of those teenage assistant pages when Senator Tom Garrett did a dramatic reading of explicit passages from Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye. Now, House Republicans are taking a page out of Garrett's book, and Delegate Tim Anderson had the teenage pages removed from the House chamber so that he could read explicit passages from books that he thinks are inappropriate. So last week, there was a press conference with the Family Foundation; you had all these Family Foundation people there, and this is what Tim Anderson said to them about that moment when the House chamber was cleared.

Tim Anderson

There was a permanent record in the House of Delegates now, a video record of what is actually in our children's school libraries. And you can take that, and you can bring that to your school boards, you can take that, and you can present that to your members.

Thomas Bowman

Anderson introduced a bill that would force school librarians to put together lists of books with explicit material, and that bill has already passed the House of Delegates and is under consideration in the Senate delegate Schuyler VanValkenburg said Virginia should not be like Florida or other states; trying to ban books.

Schuyler VanValkenburg

We saw a county that just banned 127 Elementary books, one of which is about Hank Aaron and another which is about Rosa Parks. And so we have a system in place that works, and the moral outrage here that is being used to weaponize this process as a way of, let's be clear, a way of banning books.

Michael Pope

This whole debate is kind of about banning books, but nobody is explicitly talking about banning books. You know, Delegate Anderson is talking about forcing librarians to put together a list of books in their libraries. That might be explicit. And so when you talk to advocates about this. And you say, look, if there's a list of books that have explicit material, you might as well ban them because that's the point of the list.

Thomas Bowman

It's definitely a violation of the First Amendment; it also is gonna have a chilling effect. And there is historical; the Supreme Court comes down against chilling effects because you really need to have a compelling government interest in doing so, in which case, there is no compelling government interest in keeping kids from really understanding humanity. And that is what literature does. And so there are some, let's call it, distasteful human interactions documented in the literature. And it's how we learn about the world, or at least how we did learn about the world before the advent of social media. And, and, Michael, I think about it, there is nothing contained in the literature that you'll find in libraries anyway. So they're curated to the school curriculums as it is, or to augment school curriculums as it is, you're not going to find anything that is more offensive than what people do to other human beings on a daily basis and is covered in the news.

Michael Pope

You know, it's interesting that you said before the advent of social media, we learned about distaste for human interaction from the literature; that made me think of something from many years ago; there was a book written by this guy, Neil Postman, it was a very thoughtful book, very thoughtful guy. And he had this really excellent book called amusing ourselves to death, where he made this really interesting point that, at that time, remote learning was like a really big thing. And so he said, you know, there is a really old version of remote learning; it's called the book, right? So like, we, we've done this before, right? Like, you can even consider the book a form of social media, too; if you think about it, you know, when it was when words were first created and formed a permanent record of something that had previously been only, you know, verbally transmitted. So the reason I bring all this up is that it actually is really important what's in your school library, in terms of students learning about the world, Tim Anderson is worried about explicit passages, and he's saying, Look, you know, if you're a family foundation advocate, and you want to go to your school board, and explain to them that your local library's filled with explicit passages, then here's a record that you've now got that you can go to your local school board. And he believes, and they believe, that the media has been lying about the existence of explicit passages, that the media, from his perspective, has been lying to people saying that there are no explicit books in school libraries. And so you know, he likes the fact that there's now a permanent record of Delegate Tim Anderson on the House floor reading passages of books, from his perspective here to for denying the existence of the right, so he thinks that's a record that people can take to their school board member and start complaining about stuff that's in the libraries.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah.

It's also an assault on freedom, right? Kids, or me as a kid, or me, as a parent, I want my kids to have the freedom to learn; I want my kids to have the freedom to read what's on offer to them. And without restricting it because of people's pearl-clutching and because of things getting censored. Book banning is a form of censorship, and it's not acceptable in a democratic society. Because that stifles your access to information and stifles creativity and thought. And obviously, it's a dangerous precedent. Obviously, it's an assault on intellectual freedom. And obviously, it's an assault on the First Amendment. And books like this play a crucial role in education and learning. And this attempt to ban books or create an environment that's chilled environment is going to have a negative impact on the quality of education and the development of critical thinking skills in young people. Right? So it's really important to ensure that students have access to a wide range of books to promote not just literacy and knowledge but also how to be responsible members of society. And so sometimes his books are taught as an example of how not to behave. Right? So depending on the lesson curriculum and look, parents need to have conversations with their kids, asking them about what they're reading and asking them what they're learning and things that they found interesting or not right. So, parents are responsible for creating a context and a framework around which that kid is able to read and learn and engage in that critical thought and experience. And, by the way, you're not going to succeed in banning books; you're going to make them more likely to be read. It's kind of like putting a parental advisory label on records. Remember when the music industry was actually really excited to put parental advisory labels on their records? I'll be it not at first. But once they saw what people did and how they responded.

Michael Pope

I actually remember that era very well. And who's responsible for that was the wife of Al Gore, Tipper Gore, who was responsible for the parent's musical, whatever it was called. And like them, they're the group that ended up forcing the record, business, the record industry that existed at the time of having those parental notification stickers on there. After a while, people realized that was a goldmine, slap that thing on the cover, and you're gonna sell a whole lot more copies.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, kids wanted it.

Michael Pope

Now. Here's the problem with what we're talking about here with delicate Anderson, is that it's a slippery slope. Right. So, he reads what he thinks are explicit passages from genderqueer. And then, so Okay, so then you ban genderqueer. Or at least you put it on a list that says it's explicit, which is a way to ban it. But then what happens next, then suddenly, you're banning books about Hank Aaron and Rosa Parks. I mean, like, that's, that's the path that a lot of people are worried that Virginia is headed down.

Thomas Bowman

Oh, yeah. If the House Republicans' attempt to ban books is successful, it sets a dangerous precedent for other forms of censorship and limits people's access to information.

Michael Pope

All right, well, let's play a round of trivia.

Last week, we asked you, who was the very first guest on our very first podcast three years ago. So yesterday, Sunday, was the third birthday of our podcast; happy birthday, Thomas. And so we asked our listeners, okay, so if you go back and listen to that first episode, or maybe you've been listening for three years, who was that first guest? So Thomas, who was it?

Thomas Bowman

Our first guest was Whittney Evans at VPM.

Michael Pope

That was a really fun episode. I remember, I recently went back to listen to that episode, and we talked about the gun lobby day, you know, that was the year 2020 was the year that epic gun lobby where thousands and thousands of people came from all over the country. And we talked about the ERA, and we were just having a good time. And it's, you know, listening back on it. Now, in retrospect, it's really funny because it was right before the pandemic happened. We, of course, did not know that. And it was just like three people sitting around having a great time talking about Virginia politics.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, who knew what that would spawn? And who also knew it'd be one of them? Literally, you can count on, probably on the one hand, the number of times we've gotten to do an in-person episode.

Michael Pope

Yeah, I wish we could do more. But that's not the world we live in. Maybe someday, maybe someday. All right. So our trivia question for next week has to do with the mace that is paraded down the center aisle to open every single session of the House of Delegates. It's a medieval weapon, but these days, it's kind of like a blinded-out piece of jewelry, basically. This has a long history, and you know, British politics. And so, you know, in the colonial era, they had the mace. But then, after the revolution, they looked at themselves and said, hey, look, this is a symbol of monarchy. We don't want to have this thing around. So they got rid of the mace after the Revolutionary War. At some point, the House of Delegates said maybe we should bring this thing back. This is the trivia question for next week. When did the House of Delegates bring back the mace?

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, and we'll give you a hint. So we did an episode in July 2021. The capital historian Mark Greenough told us all about the maze. So if you're really interested in learning more, we'll link it in the show notes. And you can find it there. You can also just find it in our library and back catalog, but also shout it out on Twitter or on Tik Tok, or anywhere else you find us on social media. When did we bring the mace back?

Michael Pope

It'll be a race to figure out who can determine the history of the mace. Okay, let's move on to the water cooler.

Michael Pope

Thomas, what's the latest you hear about the water cooler?

Thomas Bowman

Breaking shortly before we started recording. Tim Kaine and others are reintroducing their Reproductive Freedom for All Act. And so this originally got introduced in August at the end of the last Congress. And so we're in a new Congress. So he has to introduce it again. But this is interesting, right? So it's very Tim Kaine-esque because if it passed, it would prohibit states from enacting restrictions on pre-viability stage abortions.

Michael Pope

So we're talking about the first two trimesters, I guess.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, basically, and allowing them to enact reasonable restrictions, quote, unquote, on post-viability abortions, so that's usually viability is considered the end of the first trimester of gestation. So, Michael, I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say this is not going to pass at all because it plays into the conception that there is such a thing as a reasonable restriction on a woman seeking health care, right? So there is none. And people in their third and second trimesters are not using abortion as contraception. They're using abortion because it's medically necessary.

Michael Pope

Interestingly, abortion was also the topic that I wanted to hit up in the water cooler because I was interested in the discussion around bills that have not received a hearing and where the patron of the bill was never called up to present the bill. There was no vote on the bill, just like it never went anywhere. And there is this tradition; maybe it's more of a perception than a tradition that basically everything in Virginia gets a hearing. So even if it's a cursory five-minute hearing, where the patron introduces the bill, and then they kill it instantly, at least it had some kind of reading. But there's been some talk here lately of people being upset that their bills did not get it reading. In fact, I heard a story of a Thursday night caucus last week about a member of the House who apparently surreptitiously recorded a conversation with the chairman of a committee. And the House of Delegates member was upset that one of their bills was not going to receive a hearing and was basically getting the chair of the committee to admit, you know, like on tape surreptitiously without the knowledge of that person without the knowledge of the chairman. You know, getting audio of the chairman admitting. No, we're not going to give you a bill here, and you're not going to be given a chance; we're not going to give you a chance to present it. And so I think that member probably would have to join a chorus of other people because, on the issue of abortion, there were a number of Republican bills that wanted to roll back abortion rights. And you know what the House leadership did, Thomas? They didn't ever docket them. So all those bills that would roll back abortion rights, those Republican bills to roll back abortion rights, they never received a hearing. They never received a vote. There was never a day in the spotlight. They just quietly died by not having a hearing at all, which is a really interesting strategy. Thomas, what do you make of that strategy for Republicans not to want to have that conversation?

Thomas Bowman

So this is a tactic that comes up every session. And it's usually around bills that are messy for one or both parties, usually the party in charge, where a vote in either direction isn't in their interest. What's new about this iteration Michael, is the scale at which it's happening. So I think about when Republicans controlled the House in the 2015 session, and Democrats had the attorney general, we were actually a DACA state because Attorney General Mark Herring, at the time, ruled that in the absence of legislative intent, we had, we got to be a DACA state. And he was able to interpret the law accordingly. Now, one democratic Delegate patron to bill to codify that we were a DACA state, and one Republican Delegate sponsored a bill to codify that we were not a DACA state. Right. And so what was going to happen, and I couldn't remember, doesn't really matter who had controlled the legislative chambers at the time, because Terry McAuliffe, the Governor, was going to veto a bill that he didn't agree with, and of course, the Democrats bill that was Kay Cory to codify. DACA was never going to pass the Republican General Assembly. But the Attorney General was very concerned because, hey, if you create legislative intent, regardless of whether or not the bill passes, we lose our DACA state status because that was the logic by which he was able to opine. So what happened then was an agreement got worked out behind the scenes with the committee chair and everybody, all the patrons, at least we're okay with this. The Education Committee chair at the time, Republican Steve Landis, would just never bring up either bill for a hearing. Right so that there would never be legislative intent. Republicans couldn't bash Democrats, and Democrats couldn't bash Republicans during the campaign season. And we got to stay at DACA state. So that actually was used for good. But that was extreme. And that happens a few times a session, but having it happen this much in one session, just categorically, is incredibly rare. I can't think of a time that's ever happened, either.

Michael Pope

Well, you know, there was a time back in 2017, the 2017 General Assembly session. I remember going to a press conference with Jennifer Boskyo, who was then a House member. This was before she was in the Senate. She was in the House. And she called this press conference to call attention to bills that never received a hearing. And then, you know, the patrons never got to present them; there was no vote on them. And interestingly, one of those bills that she was mad about never receiving a hearing protected abortion rights. So like, we've come full circle here, where Republicans in 2017 never called up Boysko's bill to protect abortion rights, and it died without a hearing. And now, in 2023, the Republicans aren't even docketing their own member's bills to roll back abortion rights. So that's kind of what's happened in the last few years and months on the abortion issue.

Thomas Bowman

It kind of works out for everybody. Right? So the Republicans get to say they introduced it, and most people aren't gonna do their homework to figure out what happened to it. They can blame it on Democrats or the fact that it would have died, and the Democratic-controlled Senate, and they can placate their voters who care about that, or their constituents today who care about that, and not actually have the detrimental impacts of one it becoming policy, or to the electoral consequences of stirring up a hornet's nest because, guess what is not a popular thing to do in Virginia, restrict abortion rights, it's like 80% to 88% of all Virginians, regardless of partisanship, oppose restrictions on abortion.

Michael Pope

Perhaps that's why the Republicans did not want to have the debate this year.

Thomas Bowman

Correct. So that's kind of how the sausage gets made. Sometimes, Michael.

Michael Pope

Talking about making sausage, let's go over and open up our listener mailbag. Thomas, what are our listeners talking about on Twitter?

Thomas Bowman

John Brown, JPBrown56. On Twitter said Congratulations on the third anniversary of the pod. Keep up the great work. And thank you for all the work the whole team puts into this vital source of information. Yes, thank you. And we're glad to start not just another year of Pod Virginia but another second year with our whole team, having a wonderful producer Aaryan Balu, our ad manager, David O'Connell, and our communications director, Nicole Taradif.

Michael Pope

We've got a great team. We're really happy to be doing this for another year. And we're also really happy to pick up a bunch of new listeners, Thomas; I know that you look at the numbers really closely. Gosh, and since this General Assembly session started, we have really dramatically increased the number of people who are downloading our shows.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, well, that's because we're making it easier for people to follow in-depth discussions on Virginia politics; Michael, it's not easy. Certainly, there are resources out there. Good resources that are in print. The Richmond Times Dispatch comes to mind. Virginia Pilot comes to mind, but you can't get a lot of nuanced discussions. In those articles or on two-minute news broadcasts the way you can in a format like this.

Michael Pope

Hey, man, don't knock a two-minute newscast. All right, I'm gonna move on. People are buzzing about our episode with Bo Belotti, where we explore the trans panic bills introduced by House Republicans. Virginia Pride posted on Twitter a quote from Bo when he was talking about the bill introduced by delegate Dave LaRock of Loudoun County that would force schools to out trans kids. So the quote from the podcast was this quote, I want to believe that Dave LaRock is simply ignorant to the harm he's causing. But a lot of these laws are written, drafted, and proposed with the goal of not just harming trans youth, but of removing them from public life. So, Thomas, that episode was really something we got to hear that dramatic floor debate with Delegate Danica Roem really dismantling the Dave LaRock bill and the Karen GreenHalugh bill, and that episode actually stirred up quite a lot of discussion and thought about the trans panic that's going on in the General Assembly right now.

Thomas Bowman

Here's another one after the House of Delegates rejected a bill to prohibit the use of cyanide in mineral mining operations. Buckingham County Supervisor Jordan Miles tagged us on Twitter and said, Wow, I guess localities like Buckingham County are on their own to regulate gold mining, which we are examining and studying now in my Goldmine study response committee on the board of supervisors. So Michael looks like they're going to keep pursuing this even though the Virginia General Assembly said they don't care that Virginia doesn't have the expertise to regulate the mining of precious metals.

Michael Pope

Yeah, earlier, we were talking about our podcast back catalog, and we actually did an episode with Jordan Miles about gold mining in Buckingham County, which he opposes. And in that episode, actually, he revealed a bit of his strategy on this specific bill on cyanide by saying, we're not; how could anybody oppose the use of cyanide in mining for minerals? And sure enough, enough, people actually don't want to ban cyanide. So the strategy was to call attention to the fact that even with something as dangerous as cyanide, you're gonna have elected officials not want to ban the use of it. And so it is drawing, you know, a spotlight on that. Unfortunately for Jordan Miles and Buckingham County, this is still a live issue. So they still have to figure out a way from their perspective to stop the gold mining from happening there. But there is gold in them. There are hills, and somebody's gonna figure out a way to make money on them eventually.

Thomas Bowman

Well, if there is one thing you can always say about Virginia is that Virginia businesses find a way. But Michael, we've got some birthdays this week. Right? Who are we celebrating?

Michael Pope

Yes. So we've got some birthdays. This week, Monday, February 13. Today is the birthday of Delegate Elizabeth Guzman of Prince William County. She's currently in the Democratic primary against Senator Jeremy McPike for the 29th Senate district. So happy birthday to Elizabeth Guzman, and then Saturday, February 18, is the birthday of Delegate Mark Sickles of greater Franconia. So happy birthday, Elizabeth Guzman and Mark Sickles.

Thomas Bowman

I don't think I've ever heard anyone call it greater Franconia.

Michael Pope

So I said that kind of as a joke because one time on the House floor, Mark Sickles referred to his district as greater Franconia. So I thought of a funny way of referring to it.

Thomas Bowman

Yes, or an alternative is known as Springfield. All right, well, that's it for this week's episode of Pod Virginia.