Early Voting, Un-gerrymandered Prisons, and the Fracking Debt Ceiling
Charlottesville is taking the lead in early turnout. That's true in both the Senate race with the most early votes and two House races that have the highest turnout so far according to an analysis from the Virginia Public Access Project. The high-stakes Senate primary between Senator Creigh Deeds and Delegate Sally Hudson might be driving the trend. The controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline is moving ahead as part of the deal reached on the federal debt ceiling negotiations. But as the effects of climate change continue to rear their heads, environmentalists say the pipeline continues to lock us into a key greenhouse gas--methane. Before the new set of political maps was created by the state Supreme Court last year, Virginia engaged in a process critics call prison gerrymandering. People who are incarcerated were counted at the prison or jail instead of their home or last known address. Now, that's no longer the case. At the Watercooler: - The Richmond shooting that left two dead--and what Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earl-Sears had to say in the immediate aftermath - Primary day is coming up! TRIVIA: What shade of blue is Virginia's flag supposed to be?
Episode Transcript
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Aaryan Balu
I'm Aaryan Balu.
Michael Pope
And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast getting ready for flag day. Wednesday, June 14th, is Flag Day. Aryan, are you prepared for flagging?
Aaryan Balu
Sure, sure, I'm ready for Flag Day. You may have pulled these from Michael, but sure.
Michael Pope
The calendar! They are where they all come straight from.
Aaryan Balu
Yeah, yeah.
Michael Pope
So, let's get to the news. Voting early and often, Charlottesville is taking the lead in early turnout. So that's true in the Senate race with the earliest votes and two House races with the highest turnout so far, according to an analysis from the Virginia Public Access Project. They're high achievers. As the old saying goes, everyone is such a brainiac in Charlottesville; they got all the degrees.
Aaryan Balu
Oh, thanks, Michael.
Michael Pope
That was aimed right at you. Former Republican Delegate David Ramadan. George Mason University's Schar school says the primary between Senator Creigh Deeds and Delegate Sally Hudson is probably driving that trend.
David Ramadan
Charlottesville, in particular, there's a very highly contested race in the Senate between a current Delegate and current Senator that is probably feeding as well because of the highly contested and high dollar race on the Senate side. It's perhaps providing both House of Delegates districts that the Senate District overlaps with.
Aaryan Balu
Democratic strategist Ben Tribbett says the early voting numbers might be driven by television commercials.
Ben Tribbett
Charlottesville is its own media market. And so it's incredibly cheap to buy television ads in Charlottesville. All these candidates have been on television for months running ads because they can run very targeted network television, which always moves voters. When you raise awareness, it's going to move out more people.
Michael Pope
Gosh, how cheap is it to be on the air and Charlottesville? I don't know. So, Aaryan, you live out there in Charlottesville? Are you seeing lots of television commercials? Or do you watch television in a format where you would see television commercials? I mean, just this isn't this is like a changing part of our media environment. You know, television commercials don't go to everybody. They only go to people who watch television.
Aaryan Balu
As we were talking about this, I had no idea; I don't have TV a TV. I watched him on a streaming service. So I turned to some folks who worked out at WTJU, some of the interns. These are folks who are a couple of years younger than me. And I asked them, and shockingly, one of them said that basically, yeah, TV is where they saw ads for Sally Hudson, kind of blowing up the blown-up TV when they're watching Master Chef or something.
Michael Pope
That is really interesting. So VPAP has some very interesting statistics here about the high turnout and the turnout numbers in the races. And so, I took a look at the highest turnout numbers here for the early races. The highest, for the Senate, is that Charlottesville race there with Deeds vs. Hudson. That is one of the most closely watched races across Virginia. So you know, it's probably no huge surprise that it would be the highest turnout. The other high turnout. Early races are the one in Petersburg there with lLashrecse Aird and Joe Morrissey number three on the list is actually a little surprising. It's in the Arlington Senate race between Barbara Favola and James DeVita, which nobody has been following. No offense to James DeVita. I'm sure he's a perfectly fine guy, but it's not like this is a race that's really on anybody's radar. I think my own personal theory about what's going on there in Arlington is the other races are driving it. So they got a super competitive Democratic primary for the Arlington County Board where they have two open seats and six candidates, and that's red hot. And then, of course, the Arlington Commonwealth's Attorney primary is also red hot. We've talked about that on the primary. So I think that's kind of maybe what's driving the high early turnout in Arlington. Also, just as a general rule, people in Arlington tend to vote early. So the Louise Lucas Lionel Spruill race also has a high turnout, which is interesting, or perhaps noteworthy, because that senate district also has a Republican primary. So that's, you know, clearly, people aren't doing early voting there in Chesapeake. Then you look at the House races with the high early turnout, and you got to write in the Charlottesville area; both in your neck of the woods, there is Aaryan, the House District 54 in Charlottesville, which has three candidates; Katrina Carlsen, Dave Norris, Bellamy Brown, and then you got one that we featured last week and Albemarle with Amy Laufer and Kellen Squire. These early voting numbers, of course, will continue right up until the election because we've got 45 days of early voting in Virginia. So you know, people/our listeners can vote now, or they can wait till Election Day. I personally am an Election Day voter; what about you, alright, you'd like to vote early?
Aaryan Balu
Mail is hard. I like going in on the day off too. It's not easier. It is objectively not easier. But there is something kind of fun about waiting in line for a little bit and then going in and saying hi to the volunteers there, who were generally pretty cheery and putting in your ballot.
Michael Pope
Yeah. And I like chatting up and people who are there. You know, typically, on election day, there are the poll workers, and they're handing out doughnuts. And you know, they're, of course, they're handing out their lit, and you can chat them up and ask them questions. And it's more of a scene, you know, like a social scene.
Aaryan Balu
I'm 23, and so when I go in, all the folks there who are generally older, they're so excited to see someone like, who is my age, like show up to the polls. And so I get treated like a little kid, but I also like a little star, and it's great.
Michael Pope
Hey, man, enjoy what you got. Let's move on to our next story. Fracking, the debt ceiling. Opponents of a fossil fuel project connecting natural gas, that's fossil fuel natural gas, from West Virginia to Virginia have chanted at rallies, and they've called elected officials. They've even filed lawsuits. But now the controversial mountain valley pipeline is moving ahead as part of that deal reached for the debt ceiling, which I daresay has added fuel to the fire. So David Sligh at Wild Virginia says there's more to the project than the approval of permits.
David Sligh
If they are held to the kind of environmental standards that they're supposed to, then that could well stop them at certain places. Even if they get their permits, they still have to live up to those permits. And we know that in the past, they have not. And if they cannot in the future, then they should be stopped.
Aaryan Balu
Tim Cywinski at the Sierra Club says the voices of people in Virginia should matter more than the corporate interests who make campaign contributions so they can get a special exemption for a polluting project.
Tim Cywinski
We don't have a lot of time left to get off of fossil fuels. And every single time we build a pipeline, like the Mountain Valley Pipeline, we get more locked into a dangerous fossil fuel because the main ingredient of natural gas is methane, which has 86 times more the heat-trapping power of traditional fossil fuel sources like coal and oil.
Michael Pope
So, campaign finance records following the money here for a second campaign finance records show that Equitrans midstream, which owns the largest stake in the pipeline, that it's given more than $10,000 to West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who insisted that the side deal be part of the final arrangement for the debt ceiling. So you know, following the money here in, you're not going to be surprised by the shadiness of the money part of this. So Equitrans midstream, you know, gave $10,000 to Joe Manchin, but they're not alone. Because NextEra Energy, which is a utility giant, and also a stakeholder in a mountain valley pipeline, gave more than $280,000 to Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer. So Chuck Schumer is also part of the story here. And the natural gas pipeline companies, in general, are really ramping up their spending in this election cycle because in the last election cycle, they gave like $20,000, and in this election cycle, they've already given more than $330,000. So there's a lot of money at stake here. These companies are making a ton of money. And guess what they're doing. They're taking the land of poor people who live in Appalachia. This is a part of the story that I think people haven't really fully wrapped their minds around, is that you've got these corporate interests that make a lot of money, that they're going to rake in dollars here with a fossil fuel project that will be a polluter for generations to come. And the way that they will do it is by taking the land of poor people using eminent domain to build the pipeline.
Aaryan Balu
You kind of said everything that I would want to say; I would just say it with more expletives. It's disappointing to see that this is kind of what Biden's deal finally ended up with on what should have been a clean debt ceiling increase. But I want to get I want to give a fair shake. I know if Thomas were on the show. I know he and I have disagreed a little bit on something like the Atlantic Coast pipeline. He's got much more of a brain for sort of national security and geopolitics. And I think it was more of an argument for that one. I think there's less of one, as I understand it, for the Mountain Valley Pipeline; not only is there the environmental concern, as you know, we're a couple of years, well 2027 is kind of the point of projected point of no return for raising the average global temperature by like 1.5 degrees Celsius. That's the big, that's the big number.
Michael Pope
We're almost there.
Aaryan Balu
This is not helping with that. Not only is it that, but it's also taking eminent domain, taking land from poor people in Virginia. I mean, listen or like. Ordinarily, climate issues and sort of these conservation issues are sort of a distant thing. That's hard to get a sense of wrapping your head around. As we record this right now. I don't know if you've looked outside.
Michael Pope
Yes. I know you're going with us.
Aaryan Balu
Yeah, it is gray and hazy. Today is the day we're recording this. The wildfires in Canada are causing poor air quality in Charlottesville, specifically, but all across the Eastern Seaboard, like dangerous air quality. This is all one... I don't want to sound like a... actually, no, sure. It'll sound like an environmentalist; it's all one ecosystem, and the climate change issues that things like this project are contributing to affect all of us. It's not that it's something happening over there. It is something that is happening right here, right now, as you look outside.
Michael Pope
Yeah. And there is a reason that you need to go through a process to get a permit, right. So like, what this deal does is say that whole process that we normally would make you go through it to get the permit, we're gonna throw that all in the garbage can, and we're just gonna give you this permit. You deserve it, right. I mean, like, you may have given hundreds of $1,000 in campaign contributions, so we're gonna give you the permit. Okay. So that's the shady deal that was done in Washington. And they also, by the way, another side, part of this was that they created some legal immunity here. So theoretically, you could not bring lawsuits challenging certain parts of this deal. However, worth pointing out that none of that has been tested in court. So I did talk to several opponents of the mountain valley pipeline, and there is hope out there that there is a way to legally challenged some of this stuff because keep in mind that there are existing lawsuits that have not been resolved right now; there are existing lawsuits that have not been resolved. And this deal sort of takes those lawsuits and throws them in the garbage can. Well, you really can't have one branch of government, you know, meddling in the affairs of the other one; I mean, this is really kind of Article One meddling and the doings of Article Three, in other words, like you really should not have Congress meddling in the deliberations of the court. That is a legal argument that opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline are going to make in court. And I don't know, maybe there'll be successful,
Aaryan Balu
It's not even like the court is necessarily going would be that sympathetic. Anyway, I wanna mention there was a case a couple of decades ago called Sierra Club, more than actually the Sierra Club that we just featured. This is from 1971. Basically, the effect is that the Sierra Club did not have to stand to argue in the Supreme Court in favor of arguing against a development project that would have destroyed some natural land in the Sequoia National Forest, basically saying that, you know, no one can speak for the trees, right, that folks who haven't like it just makes it harder for those who have an interest in protecting the environment from being able to bring it up in court because they don't have standing. I think we've talked a lot on the show.
Michael Pope
So corporations are people, but trees are not people.
Aaryan Balu
Yeah, exactly. God, this bums me out, man.
Michael Pope
Well, let's get to our next story. Counting the incarcerated so before a new set of political Maps was created by the state Supreme Court last year, Virginia engaged in a process that critics call prison gerrymandering so people who are incarcerated were counted at the prison or jail where they were incarcerated and not their home or their last known address. Kate Donovan at the Redistricting Data Hub says that created some tension for elected officials.
Kate Donovan
Representative, in theory, is supposed to be representing both the folks in prison as well as the folks living around the prison, demographically and probably in terms of attitudes towards prisons. Those are very different populations, with likely very different attitudes.
Aaryan Balu
Now, for the first time ever, Virginia is counting people where they lived before they were incarcerated. Sean Weneta, at the ACLU of Virginia, says that's a major step in the right direction.
Shawn Weneta
There were some Senate districts that had five and six prisons in them. So they effectively are taking 5,000 or 6000 people out of the voting pool in that district, so that could lead to a bit of a shift, being more honest in who's actually voting and not being able to stack the deck.
Michael Pope
Definitely, some of these elected officials have been stacking the deck for quite some time. Because, as he points out, you know, some of these districts have multiple prisons or jails. So this group, the Redistricting Data Hub, issued this report that looked at jurisdictions all over the country, but I was specifically looking at the Virginia numbers, which I found fascinating. So Greensville, because Virginia got rid of prison gerrymandering, we no longer count these people in prisons and jails; we count them where they live. Greensville lasted 2,400 constituents, Norfolk gained 2,000 constituents, Sussex lost 1,500 constituents, Richmond gained 1,900 constituents, Buckingham lost 1,300 constituents, and Newport News gained 1,000 constituents. So there are winners and losers here in terms of getting rid of prison gerrymandering and taking this distorted picture we had and making it just a little bit less distorted.
Aaryan Balu
Shawn Weneta actually brings up another sort of important point, which is that the next big question is about suffrage. Adding the people who are represented by elected officials should have the right to be part of that process and vote. So for, that movement to add a constitutional amendment that gives people the right to vote, whether incarcerated, hasn't received much traction. And Michael, I'd like I mentioned it, kind of because all of this stuff sort of has its roots in, you know, American slavery, right? The 13th Amendment bans slavery but carved out an exception when it's a punishment for a crime.
Michael Pope
You know, Aryan, when someone said that to me pretty recently, I said, oh, that sounds suspect. Is that true? And I went and read the 13th. Amendment. It's right there in the black-and-white words, yes. Exemption for slavery in the 13th. Amendment. Yes, correct.
Aaryan Balu
And I understand there to an extent you're, you know, taking away somebody's bodily autonomy by imprisoning them at all. And obviously, there's, there's stuff that gets complicated there. But some people need to be in prison for one reason or another. But the idea of disproportionately adding population to certain areas of the state, well, denying the right to vote for those people in those populations. That is right in line with stuff like the 3/5 Compromise. That is disproportionate, you know, putting people there, their bodies effectively add to the weight of those localities, but they don't have the ability to vote. It's weird because they're two separate problems, right, the prison gerrymandering and the right to vote for these incarcerated people, but they are tied in together in this. The way that we treat incarcerated people is so strange; it's so...
Michael Pope
Nonsensical, I think, is that is a word.
Aaryan Balu
Yeah.
Michael Pope
You know, there's a very strong case to be made for allowing people who are incarcerated to vote; nobody seems to be making that case right now. But there, certainly, there is a strong case there to be made. And I personally would love to see a future when people are campaigning in prisons to get their votes and then introducing bills on their behalf and doing constituent services for people who are incarcerated. And you know, I think, eventually, people will get around to talking about that issue. I don't know when that's going to be, but eventually, that's probably going to happen. One thing, though, about getting rid of prison gerrymandering that you want to think about the long-term consequences of is it really does undermine the argument for allowing people who are incarcerated to vote because if the person is incarcerated in Greensville, but they live in Norfolk, then you know, the person who is campaigning in Greensville, is not going to go to the Greensville. Prison to get the vote of the person who lives in Norfolk. And so there goes your argument for allowing people who are incarcerated to vote.
Aaryan Balu
You're right. To an extent, I disagree with that; I think they're two separate issues. And There comes a point where you can't really play the, well, the consequences of this are this, so we shouldn't do it or the consequences of that. Right now, there are two issues. One is the gerrymandering of people in prisons, and the other is whether they should get the right to vote. And those are two distinct things that are sort of principled on their own; you can make those arguments. I don't think they interact one way or another. Is the gerrymandering bad? Yes. Should folks who are incarcerated have the right to vote? I'm of the opinion, yes, they are citizens of the United States, and that they don't have the right to vote is a flaw of the fact that the right to vote is not enshrined in the constitution. So, you know, those are two for me, those are two distinct issues. And one, the passage of one does not undermine my thoughts on the policy of the other.
Michael Pope
Yeah, I hear you. Another important part of the story here is the role of the Census Bureau. So while Virginia has taken Virginia and a dozen other states have taken this step of abandoning prison gerrymandering and counting people where they live, as opposed to where they're incarcerated for the purposes of drawing their Statehouse maps, guess who has not taken that move? The Census Bureau, so they still count people for purposes of the census in terms of where they're incarcerated, not where they live. And, you know, you could end prison gerrymandering in all the states if the Census Bureau abandoned prison gerrymandering and if the Census Bureau counted people where they live, as opposed to where they are incarcerated. And the Biden administration actually could do this tomorrow. They don't even need Congress to take action, but they haven't done that yet. And I would imagine, you know, aside from political representation, that's only one thing that the Census numbers do. These census numbers do a lot of other things. You know, like, if you want to plan for water usage or electrical, you know, electricity usage. Census data is really important. So I mean, I can kind of see the argument for counting people where they're incarcerated for a number of things that have nothing to do with voting. So I mean, I guess I can kind of understand why this instance, you might not have taken action yet. But the Census Bureau actually could solve prison gerrymandering tomorrow by changing the law, well actually, not tomorrow; they could change it, you know, 10 years from now by making this change, but that has not happened yet. Although, you know, the Biden administration could take a look at this thing.
Aaryan Balu
They could take a look at a lot of stuff. Listen, I was told that when Biden came into office when I voted him in, the adult would be back in charge. This feels like a thing that the adults should be taking care of.
Michael Pope
Well, we are going to take care of some commercial business. So we're going to take a break; we will be right back to play a round of trivia and read your tweets.
Alright, so we're back on Pod Virginia. We're going to play a round of trivia. Last week, we asked you about the official State Liquor of Virginia.
Aaryan Balu
Yeah, we had to do a lot of personal research on this one, and we have a winner. Congratulations to Shawn Weneta at the ACLU of Virginia. He responded on Twitter with this quote, rye whiskey. George Washington's, to be specific, and Pete Seeger even wrote a song about it.
Michael Pope
Yeah, Shean Weneta, not only being quoted on Pod Virginia about prison gerrymandering but then also winning the trivia contest.
Aaryan Balu
An of many talents.
Michael Pope
A man of many talents. Also, shout out to James Hutzler, who contributed this suggestion to Allagash White, noting that Virginia is going to steal it from Maine.
Aaryan Balu
So, Michael, we were talking about this before the show, but you've actually been to the mill where this whiskey is made, right?
Michael Pope
Yeah. So I would highly encourage all of our listeners who are in the Northern Virginia area or planning to be in the Northern Virginia area to visit George Washington's Gristmill. So this is actually not at the Mount Vernon state, but it's really close. It's a short drive from Mount Vernon state to George Washington's Gristmill. And you can go there, it's actually two buildings. One is a Gristmill where they actually make, you know, grist for things like grits, and you know, that sort of thing. And there's a whole separate building there where they distill whiskey, and it's pretty Gosh, darn good. I will say it's kind of expensive. But I remember years ago, I happened to be there right when it first opened. And I thought it was a little weird because it was clear, and it's rare that you see a clear whiskey. But it was unaged. And so now, in retrospect, I recognize that I was there that like the first year of operation, and so it had not been so it was clear whiskey that had not been aged. Now when you go there, like recently, I was celebrating a friend's birthday. So we went down there to like to do a little whiskey tasting sort of thing. Now they've got three models; there's the clear version, which is unaged. And then they've got two aged versions, which have that color that you associate with whiskey, which is actually from the aging process where they aged in the barrels, it takes on the color of the barrels, so you can get The unaided, clearer version, or you can get the aged, you know, colored version that we're more familiar with, which tastes a little more like what you're used to in terms of whiskey. It's all very expensive. Fun fact, the General Assembly actually had to pass a special bill to allow the gift shop to sell whiskey. But that wasn't much of a problem because it was George Washington's whiskey distillery. So yeah, a fun time in Northern Virginia. If you've got the time for it.
Aaryan Balu
I'll have to check it out. Okay, so Michael, what is our trivia question for next week?
Michael Pope
Well, since it's Flag Day, let's ask a question about Virginia's official state flag. You know, the flag. It features the official state seal, including the exposed boob, and it's on a field of blue. So here's the trivia question. What shade of blue is that flag supposed to have? If you know, hit us, hit us up on social media, and you might even win a prize. All of our prizes are actually kind of theoretical because Aryan, I think our lawyers are still looking at this. I don't know what's up with it.
Aaryan Balu
I've never met these lawyers. I'm starting to think they don't exist.
Michael Pope
Well, we do have some potential prizes. So option one is a Betsy Ross rookie card.
Aaryan Balu
Alright, Alright. Option two. The Joe Manchin morality playbook, which turns out to be just a blank journal.
Michael Pope
As a blank journal fan, actually, I'm a fan, and I like that.
Aaryan Balu
Me too, yeah.
Michael Pope
Option three an Apple Fracking, the only desktop that runs on methane. Alright, so yes. So if you know the answer to our trivia question, what shade of blue is Virginia's flag? Please hit us up on social media; you might win one of these prizes, or maybe not. All right, so let's head over to the water cooler. All right, and what's the latest? You're hearing around the water cooler.
Aaryan Balu
Well, this one, actually. I mean, you probably most folks have heard about it by now. But there was a shooting, a mass shooting at a graduation a couple of days ago in Richmond that left two folks dead, a father and son, as well as injuring five other people. That story, sort of as with every gun story, has become a lightning rod with Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earl-Sears.
Michael Pope
She blamed gangs, right?
Aaryan Balu
She blamed gangs.
Michael Pope
I couldn't... I had a hard time making sense of that. Because there's no evidence that gang activities are involved at all in this, is there?
Aaryan Balu
Not, as far as I know, Michael.
Michael Pope
So what was she talking about? I don't understand this.
Aaryan Balu
It is a dog whistle. This is what her constituency expects. Gun issues are not anything to do with gun laws.
Michael Pope
Oh, it's always about mental health. It's always about something else. Other than the availability of the guns.
Aaryan Balu
We're lucky if it's about mental health because mental health, like mental health issues, is a real thing. Not that gangs aren't. But there is always an association, you know, to speculate on gang activity with no specific evidence of that gang activity is just code word for it is, you know, something to do with the Black people.
Michael Pope
Well, you know, another aspect of this is that this person was under the age of 21. And in Virginia, you need to be 21 in order to buy a gun. So this was an illegally acquired gun. So, you know, I think from the perspective of people who support gun rights, this is already illegal, and no new law would solve this problem because it was already illegal, right?
Aaryan Balu
Entirely possible. Nevertheless, the push from Democratic politicians is to try and get guns off the streets and get as many guns out of the way as possible. In Virginia, we covered just a couple of weeks ago that we have the shortest time to crime, for guns getting acquired to being used in a crime. And that is not an accident. You know, I think lieutenant governor, Earl-Sears, blamed the local government.
Michael Pope
She sure did. You blame the Mayor of Richmond and the apparatus in Richmond.
Aaryan Balu
We live in a state that has the Dillon rule. We've covered this a fair amount over on my other show called Dominion. But, like, this is a show where localities have a ton of trouble getting anything done without going to the state government, right? I was under the impression that the sort of argument for state rights and federalism was that the state government would have the power to govern in a way that sort of handled things. But the blame gets then shifted to the original locality. And I don't know enough to, you know, say who is to blame one way or another, but I know for sure that Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earl-Sears also does not have enough information to be saying what she said this week.
Michael Pope
Well, she didn't try to walk it back a little bit.
Aaryan Balu
I'm sure she did. So Michael, what have you been hearing about the water cooler?
Michael Pope
Well, the primary election, everybody's buzzing; we are one week and one day away from the primary election. So it's almost here, and what I'm looking forward to in this primary in terms of the news value and what all the journalists are looking for is the incumbents who lose. Anytime an incumbent loses re-election in a primary, it's a really huge deal because it almost never happens. Like, you know, the vast majority of incumbents, they always win re-election. So it's really an outlier when incumbents lose re-election in a primary, but not unheard of. There are actually lots of interesting examples. And the recent memory of incumbents losing re-election in a primary, and I will give the Goldstar here to the late great Donald McEachin, who actually unseated a house incumbent in the Democratic primary, and then like 15 years later unseated a Democratic incumbent in a Senate Democratic primary. Yeah, he has actually done this twice, once in the House and once in the Senate, unseated an incumbent and a Democratic primary. And then also Kaye Kory got her seat by unseating an incumbent. And then, if you look at the current election cycle, it's there's a really interesting sort of symmetry here with the two of the most imperiled Senators in this primary are Joe Morrissey and Amanda Chase, both of whom got their job in the Senate by unseating an incumbent and a primary. So Joe Morrissey unseated Rosalyn Dance in a Democratic primary, and Amanda Chase unseated Steve Martin in a Republican primary. So that's an interesting symmetry. And then also, if you think about the last election cycle, you had three Democratic incumbents in the House, unseated Ibrahim Samir, Lee Carter, and Mark Levine, all unseated in the last Democratic primary. Interestingly enough, all three of those were unseated by women candidates Irene Chen, Michelle Maldonado, and Elizabeth Bennet-Parker, and so it's not unheard of for incumbents to lose in a primary. And if that happens on June 20th, that's going to be the news that everybody is going to be focused on.
Aaryan Balu
We are on the edge of our seats as this last week kind of comes down, and we'll get some good podcasting out of it.
Michael Pope
And stay tuned to Pod Virginia because we will be talking about all of these races. Okay, Aaryan, let's open up that pod Virginia mailbag. What are our listeners talking about?
Aaryan Balu
Well, we've got a new review on Apple podcasts.
Michael Pope
Yes. So thank you to the longtime listener James Marino, who wrote this quote; I'm a criminal defense attorney and personal injury attorney in NoVA. I also served as a commissioner on Virginia's first redistricting commission; keeping up with the issues affecting our general assembly laws and community is vital to my work, and Pod Virginia provides a great resource to fellow listeners and me if you want to learn more about Virginia, our laws, our process personalities involved, and some just good old fashioned tea, make sure to listen and follow.
Aaryan Balu
That's a really great review. Thanks so much, James.
Michael Pope
Yeah, yeah, and perhaps this would be a great time to remind our listeners that they, too, you too, if you're listening to this podcast, you can go on Apple podcast right now and write a review.
Aaryan Balu
Yeah, yeah, you can. If you like Pod Virginia, if you appreciate our discussion of the issues, maybe, maybe you even think the show is entertaining savings.
Michael Pope
Maybe.
Aaryan Balu
Well, go ahead and write us a review.
Michael Pope
Yeah, do not delay. Stop what you're doing right now. Hit the pause button, go on Apple Podcasts, and tell the world how much you love Pod Virginia. All right. So what else are people talking about?
Aaryan Balu
Eric Berkey. Here heard our discussion about the governor sending 100 National Guard troops to the southern border in Texas and said this quote, it's clear from day one that Glenn Youngkin's agenda is focused solely on the constituent, himself.
Michael Pope
Alright, so if you've got a comment about something you've heard on Pod Virginia, hit us up on social media. We might even read your comments on the air. Okay, let's go around the Commonwealth in 90 seconds.
Aaryan Balu
Darren Post, a school board member in Gloucester County who spread anti-trans propaganda, secretly recorded a closed-door meeting where he was called a coward and a pathetic human being with a quote shit-eating grin by his coworkers. It's really unfortunate that that happened behind closed doors and not out in the open, not a podcast where we're happy to say to Darren's post you are a monster.
Michael Pope
The City of Norfolk is purchasing its local mall, the MacArthur Center hoping to redevelop it, but of course, everything is political. So they'll be making the food court into a district court on any will be running for Congress, and the only Hot Topic is fracking.
Aaryan Balu
A Virginia regulatory board voted to leave the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which has been a youngin goal for a while, on the subject. He said greenhouse. I'm only interested in the White House.
Michael Pope
in Portsmouth, the recently fired police chief just got rehired as the assistant police chief, so at this point, police accountability is like the Three Stooges. I have expected them to show up wearing a fake mustache and pretending to be somebody else.
Aaryan Balu
And finally, Delegate Murray March is being sued by a former staff member who claims she was forced to work unpaid overtime while doing work for marked as personally owned restaurants. Delegate March. Politicians are supposed to be the servants of the people that make servants of their people.
Michael Pope
Oh, I'll have an IPA? Okay, so let's celebrate some birthdays.
Aaryan Balu
Thursday, June 15th, is the birthday of Delegate Scott Wyatt of Hanover County.
Michael Pope
Sunday, June 18th, is the birthday of Delegate Les Adams of Pittsylvania AND the birthday of Congresswoman Jen Kiggans of Virginia Beach.
Aaryan Balu
Well, Happy Birthday is all around. That's it for us on this week's episode of Pod Virginia. Don't forget to check out our website and follow us on social media for more updates and discussions on Virginia politics.
