IN THE NEWS:

Every group makes endorsements, but which ones make a difference? Experts say it's generally those that have cash to back up the affirmation. And what's going on with the endorsements in the Deeds vs Hudson state senate primary?

Speaking of endorsements--while school board races are technically nonpartisan, endorsements from political parties are quickly becoming huge factors in school board races across the country. As a result, some state parties are creating a primary system so voters can participate in which candidate gets the nod.

Four years ago, a group of commonwealth's attorneys were elected and started taking a new approach to law and order. They called themselves Progressive Prosecutors for Justice, and they advocated for the abolition of the death penalty, ending cash bail and getting rid of mandatory minimum sentences. Now a few of their most prominent members have challengers in the Democratic primary in Fairfax and Loudoun and Arlington


At the Watercooler:
- Joe Morrissey's estranged wife Myrna files suit with allegations of abuse
- A deep dive from the Virginian Pilot about the history of Virginia's slightly-revealing state seal

Episode Transcript

Michael Pope  

I'm Michael Pope.

Thomas Bowman  

And I'm Tom Bowman.

Michael Pope  

And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast ready for the summertime!

Thomas Bowman  

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional start of summer. And that's usually when voters check out and head to the beach.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, but we're not checking out because Pod Virginia doesn't take a vacation.

Thomas Bowman  

Evil never rests, and neither do we. Does that make us evil?

Michael Pope  

You know, it was in the summertime of 1972 when Nixon's plumbers broke into Watergate. So summertime does have a reputation for some nasty things going on.

Thomas Bowman  

Were they looking for the waterpark, perhaps?

Michael Pope  

Well, let's get to the news. Recommendations for the ballot. The governor has a list of candidates that he's endorsing. The folks at Planned Parenthood have a separate list of candidates they're supporting. Of course, labor groups have their preferred candidates. David Ramadan is a former Republican member of the House of Delegates now at George Mason University's Schar school, and he says the most important endorsements come with a donation.

David Ramadan  

Follow the money. The ones that come with money are worthwhile. The ones that do not come with money are purely for public relations.

Thomas Bowman  

Former House Democratic Leader David Toscano says sometimes an imbalance of endorsements can be telling, like in the Charlottesville area Senate race between incumbent Senator Creigh Deeds and Delegate Sally Hudson,

David Toscano  

You don't see any endorsements of House of Delegates members for Hudson, even though she's served with a lot of these folks for a long time. And on Creigh's website, you see a lot of endorsements from his senate colleagues. Interestingly enough, you see several endorsements from House of Delegates members.

Michael Pope  

Okay, so interesting update to what you just heard there from David Toscano, when he said that, and when it aired on Virginia Public Radio, Sally Hudson had zero House Democrats on her endorsement page, zero, no House members on her endorsement page. Then after that story aired with David Toscano audio, her campaign added a few incumbent House members, including House Leader Don Scott, Carrie Delaney, Jackie Glass, Clint Jenkins, Holly Seybold, and Kathy Tran. So that's six incumbent House Democrats added to Sally Hudson's endorsement page. After that audio of David Toscano aired on NPR. 

Thomas Bowman  

It feels funny that someone could be called out on mild-mannered NPR, like, How could anyone create a stink on a platform that releases fresh air?

Michael Pope  

This primary race here in Charlottesville is really interesting. And it's revealing because usually, if there's a primary where you got a House member and a senator, all the House members will endorse their colleagues, the House members, and all the Senators will endorse the Senator in the race. That's typically what happens. That is not what's going on here because Deeds is picking up. Most of the House members check out this long list of House Democrats who are endorsing Senator Deeds. Jeff Bourne, Cliff Hayes, Patrick Hope, Alfonso Lopez, Cia Price, Eileen Filler-Corn, Dolores McQuinn, Rip Sullivan, Luke Torian, and Vivian Watts. They have all endorsed the Senator in the race, not the House member. And so that's telling that Senator Deeds has that long list of endorsements from House members.

In contrast, Hudson has a list of House members who have endorsed her, but it's much shorter. And then also Thomas, I'd love your thoughts on the kind of establishment people versus nonestablishment people. If you look, Look at the list of deeds endorsements. It includes former Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn and Alfonso Lopez and Rip Sullivan, Vivian Watts and Jeff Bourne, and people that I would describe as the establishment of the Democratic Party. And then on the other list here, the Hudson list. You've got people like Holly Seibold, Kathy Tran and Clint Jenkins, and Jackie Glass, which I would describe as nonestablishment people, except House Leader Don Scott, who, by definition, I guess, is the establishment. However, it is interesting that Don Scott has endorsed Sally Hudson, whereas Eileen Filler-Corn has endorsed Creigh Deeds.

Thomas Bowman  

I don't know how cleanly this breaks down around progressive and establishment lines. Patrick Hope and I'll Funds a Lopez and Cia Price are all card-carrying progressives. And in Patrick and Alfonso's case, they founded the Progressive Caucus in the House about 10 years ago, or maybe even a little longer. But they've got their credentials, their bona fides as progressive, so I'm not sure that it's so cleanly breaking down establishment versus progressives. Still, I will note that Deeds are a known quantity. And they value that in the Senate, often with their big, so much turnover already. I think it's like a third of each chamber is going to be turning over just because of retirements before factoring in primaries and primary losses. So this is a really fascinating breakdown. And I heard former leader Toscano make those statements on NPR; I was listening live. And I don't know if it sparked people to endorse or if Delegate Hudson had planned to roll out the endorsements in a batch anyway. But, interestingly, you do have the mix that you've got leader Don Scott, current leader Don Scott, endorsing Sally Hudson. I'm not sure if that's pro forma or not. That's an interesting outcome. 

Michael Pope  

Yeah, it is. All right. Well, let's move on to our next story. Recommendations from the party. School board candidates don't have an R or a D next to their name. Still, many of them are hoping that an endorsement from a political party will be their ticket to victory. Evan Crawford at the University of San Diego says school board races nationwide are becoming increasingly partisan.

Evan Crawford  

We do have increased nationalization, where funding is coming in from outside the localities to find candidates, whether they're partisan or nonpartisan. And maybe nonpartisanship is a good goal for how school boards should govern. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best way to elect those same candidates. And that's kind of the open question here.

Thomas Bowman  

In Fairfax County, the competition for an endorsement from the Democratic Party is so intense that the party created a kind of primary election so that voters can participate in which candidates get the nod. Brian Graham is chairman of the Fairfax Democrats. 

Brian Graham  

Four years ago, we saw that there was an outsize number of people trying to join the committee to help make that decision. And instead of kind of requiring people to do that, we wanted to open up the opportunity for Democratic voters to have a say in this process without having to formally become members of the committee.

Michael Pope  

So School Board candidates will not be on the ballot for the June 20th primary. But in November, get ready to see parties standing at the precincts handing out sample ballots to make sure everybody knows which candidates have the partisan endorsement in these nonpartisan races. So I've always thought this was a fascinating part of Virginia politics, kind of a quirk of Virginia politics. The Constitution says these are nonpartisan races; you cannot be a partisan figure and run for school board. You cannot be a Democrat and run for school board. However, there's this workaround where the Democratic Party endorses people. And in a lot of places, if you don't get the democratic endorsement, you might as well hang it up and go home. In fact, many people, after they fail to get the democratic endorsement, drop out of the race. And so that's why Fairfax County created this kind of pseudo-election here for the endorsements. This is the first time they've done this this year. Because the competition for the Democratic endorsement has become so intense that they figured they might as well open it up to voters so that people had a say in who gets the endorsement. You know, where I live, the parties actually don't make endorsements. But people kind of know who the Democrats are and kind of know who the Republicans are just, you know, by living in Alexandria,

Thomas Bowman  

Often official sample ballots from the parties will indicate which one of the school board candidates that party supports, maybe unofficially or informally, but they'll have their favorites usually.

Michael Pope  

Those documents, those sample ballots that are handed out at the polls, are really, really significant because a lot of people go to the polls hoping to vote. I mean, in this election, you see a lot of competitive Senate primaries, and like, that's going to draw people to the polls. There are some local elections that have a lot of interest in Arlington; there's a really interesting Democratic primary for there on the County Board. So that's going to draw people out. And then, a lot of times, the voters will show up, and they won't even know the School Board races on the ballot, and they will have no clue who they should be voting for. So those sample ballots with the names on them are really important, which is why the process leading to the party endorsements is so fraught here and so important. So it is an interesting quirk and interesting development that the Fairfax Dems have created this system where voters get to participate and the partisan endorsement. 

Thomas Bowman  

Nonpartisanship is out. I guess. So you're either a Republican or a Democrat now.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, it kind of seems like the goals for being on the School Board are, I guess, a lot like high school? 

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, everyone just wants an invitation to your cool party. 

Michael Pope  

Well, you have an invitation to the coolest party in town here at Pod Virginia. So let's get on to our final news story for the day. Progressive prosecutors get primaried. Four years ago, a group of Commonwealth Attorneys were elected and started taking a new approach to law and order. They call themselves the Progressive Prosecutors for Justice, and they advocate for things like the abolition of the death penalty and ending cash bail, and getting rid of mandatory minimum sentences. Now a few of their most prominent members have challengers in the Democratic primary. That's true in Fairfax County, Loudoun County, and Arlington County; Carl Tobias at the University of Richmond Law School says voters will get to determine if this is an experiment that worked.

Carl Tobias  

We entrust prosecutors with a lot of discretion. And I think we rely on political processes and elections every four years in Virginia with Commonwealth attorneys. So that's, I think, the way that people can speak if they're not satisfied with what the prosecutors are doing.

Thomas Bowman  

Legal expert Rich Kelsey says the incumbents in Fairfax, Loudoun, and Arlington could be in trouble.

Rich Kelsey  

I think these challengers have a real opportunity to win these seats back. And when you look at some of the bad press and some of the actions taken by these prosecutors who have blurred the line between advocacy, which they have an absolute right to do, and how they execute the function of their job, I think voters are concerned about where that line is.

Michael Pope  

So there's so much really interesting stuff going on here. You want to keep in mind that there are different election cycles for county prosecutors versus City prosecutors. So where I live in the city of Alexandria, the prosecutor is not on the ballot; this election cycle that's two years from now. So there are a lot of progressive prosecutors for justice. Obviously, they live in cities, so they will not be on the ballot this year. That's true in Alexandria, Charlottesville, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, and Portsmouth. They all have progressive prosecutors for justice that will be on the ballot two years from now. And I bet you anything, all of those prosecutors in Alexandria, Charlottesville, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, and Portsmouth, I bet you anything. They're all closely watching these Democratic primaries in Fairfax and Loudoun in Arlington to see if these progressive prosecutors can hang on or if they are unseated in these Democratic primaries, and so it is really interesting. So if you look at like in Arlington, for example, this is probably the closest to the Democratic primaries that you've got. The incumbent there is a progressive prosecutor who unseated the previous prosecutor, who was viewed as not very progressive at all. In fact, that's why the current prosecutor in Arlington got the job that she campaigned for someone who would be more progressive than the incumbent. And then she got elected. And sure enough, she became a very progressive prosecutor in terms of her approach to the office. So the person challenging her in the Democratic primary is someone who used to work for the previous prosecutor. So there's a really, I mean, so it's really cut and dry in Arlington. It's, Do you like this progressive prosecutor? Or do you want to return to the leadership from before the progressive prosecutor was elected? And then similarly, in Fairfax, there's a pretty clear distinction between the current incumbent who is progressive and has been outspoken in terms of not enforcing new restrictions on abortion, for example, or not working with ice versus, you know, the person that he's running against. That does not necessarily have that kind of pedigree; in fact, I think he is, has been endorsed, and is working with chap Peterson and Stacy Kincaid. And so that's, I mean, you got a real clear distinction between progressive, the progressive prosecutor for justice who is the incumbent, who is making waves for himself because he wants to run for attorney general and making lots of Twitter. But he spends a lot of time on Twitter; I guess, the criticism of him from some quarters as he spends more time on Twitter than he does in the courtroom. But he has tried to make a name for himself because he wants to run for attorney general. And so there's a real clear distinction between the progressive incumbent versus the guy who's working with Chap Peterson and Stacey Kincaid. And then Loudoun, of course, is the center of the storm. Because if you watch Fox News, you will hear lots of discussion about Loudoun County. And they really do not like the incumbent in Loudoun County. And so you definitely see a lot of discussion out there in terms of what's going on. I think the challenge is out there, and Loudoun is a longtime public defender. So you don't want to disparage this person and call her a conservative, although I think she works in a business setting. One of her business partners is a former chairman of the Republican Party, and I think she's on record as voting in the 2016 Republican primary against Trump, but on record is voting in the Republican primary. So in all three of these races, there is a pretty clear distinction here between the progressive incumbent and the challenger who is not quite as progressive. 

Thomas Bowman  

Progressive prosecutors for justice, that's a really high set of expectations; perhaps, maybe they should have gone with something a little more reasonable, like progressive prosecutors were trying our best.

Michael Pope  

Well, I've always thought that the name evokes kind of comic book, you know, like, I'm someone who grew up reading DC comic books, Superman and Batman and all that sort of stuff. In my head, every time I hear progressive prosecutors, I think about the Hall of Justice, where they're sitting around the table and their superhero costumes and trying to figure out how they're going to fight the bad guys.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, look, I think a couple of those prosecutors, especially Steve Descano, would love that kind of imagery for himself.

Michael Pope  

The tights and the cape, yea, he wants it. 

Thomas Bowman  

But look, in my observation. I'll start by saying I don't generally follow these levels of elections all that closely. And I would say most people don't. And there's a reason for that. Historically, this has not been a very flashy elected office; it is a nice job to have once you have it. I think it's like elections every eight years or something like that. But the bottom line for some of these things is most people just want their Commonwealth attorney's office to just to work. Right. And so it's only more recently that people have been stepping back and questioning. I'd say, especially in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, most people have been questioning, you know, is the law serving us? Or do we have to serve unjust laws? And so that created an opening for some of these more reform-minded prosecutors. But I would point out there's only so much that they can do using prosecutorial discretion, which nobody objects to; everybody agrees that they should have. But there's only so much they can do from their current position without being, you know, the ag and having those resources or the legislature government as a whole on their side or backing them up. And so the problem is all of their reforms are temporary until the next person comes in and wants to do things their own way and wants to enforce certain crimes. And this is the opening that in Fairfax and other localities in Northern Virginia, a lot of Republicans see because it's not officially a partisan race. I don't think so. It is. Okay. So because it is a partisan race is a very low-level partisan race with low stakes. And while generally speaking, Democrats will win the day in these Nova localities. On occasion, you'll get a candidate, but for school board or for the prosecutor or somebody like that, who is a lot more conservative, who the Republicans do like, and it would be interesting if that's what's going on here. But my depth of knowledge in these specific races is not that high because most of what I hear our opinions from other lawyers themselves, and my take on this, based on this observation, is the lawyers will feel very strongly in one direction or the other about these prosecutors that these Commonwealth's attorneys and the jobs they are or are not doing, usually based off outcomes for their clients. Most of us who are not lawyers don't really care about this stuff. And what we don't want to see is, you know, justice being distorted and books being thrown at people who don't really need it. Well, you mentioned

Michael Pope  

Most people just want the office to work? But then, how it is working is oftentimes what's at issue in Arlington. There is a controversy about a 17-year-old student in Washington Liberty High School that was killed by a drunk driver last year. So a 17-year-old student high school student was killed by a drunk driver. The drunk driver was also a 17-year-old. And so the controversy here in terms of how that is 17 year old going to be prosecuted for killing the other 17-year-old. The controversy was, is that 17-year-old going to be tried as an adult? Which is possible. Or should the prosecutor try the minor as a minor. And there are a lot of trade-offs there that trying the 17-year-old as an adult might not have worked and might have actually backfired. And so there was a lot to weigh in that decision. The incumbent prosecutor, the progressive prosecutor for justice Parisa Tafti, did not prosecute that 17-year-old as an adult, and that caused a stir because there were many people who thought that the 17-year-old should have been prosecuted as an adult, including the mother of the victim, who is now in a television commercial for the challenger. And so that is really caused a lot of discussion. Is this office working the way it should, and should Tafti have tried the 17-year-old as an adult? On the other side of that, you've got the challenger in the race who has been criticized for using the N-word in the courtroom. So he was reading a document that had the N-word in it. And instead of just saying the N-word in open court to the judge, he actually said the N-word. And so you've got all these really interesting issues here in Arlington; this is a much more vivid race than we normally see for Commonwealth's Attorney.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, as a former Arlington resident, I do have an opinion on that specific incident. And I don't think a motion should win the day in these prosecutorial courtroom battles and decisions. I don't think it's acceptable to have victims and victims' families in the driver's seat for the prosecutor's decisions that they're responsible for making because that's how you get bad decisions and outcomes that you don't necessarily even want in the first place. In this politically charged context, I realize that sounds inflammatory to some people. But this is a pretty basic tenet of our justice system that we won't really well-qualified professionals in these positions to make these choices to use their prosecutorial discretion. And by the way, this is why we don't let victims choose the sentences or their families choose the sentences because it's way too emotional of a situation for anybody involved, and you need somebody to step back. So, in this case, I won't speak to whether or not I think the prosecutor trying somebody as an adult or child is the right decision. What I will say is that the wrong decision would have been to just cave into social pressure or pressure from the families because that's not necessarily the right thing to do either, at least a huge slippery slope, depending on the context.

Michael Pope  

Yes, and there's also the issue of featuring the mother in the television commercial because the campaign is using the victim of a crime and a political context.  

Thomas Bowman  

And that's unethical. It's not surprising that the victim would be emotionally charged enough or the families of that victim would be emotionally charged enough to cut an ad, the unethical thing as a campaign using that person to cut an ad.

Michael Pope  

Well, I guess we'll see what happens when the voters make their decision on June 20. All right, let's take a break. When we come back, we will play a round of trivia and read your tweets.

All right, and we're back on Pod Virginia. Hey, it's time to play a round of trivia. Last week we asked you what is the official state salamander for Virginia?

Thomas Bowman  

Yes, Virginia has a State Salamander.

Michael Pope  

Yes, Virginia does, in fact, have a state Salamander. And we have a winner; Leigh Nusbaum posted this on the Twitter quote, am I allowed to answer the trivia question this week? Or do I have an unfair advantage because it's absolutely the red Salamander? And then she put the scientific name of the red Salamander, which I'm not even going to try because I'll screw it up. So then she continues, make sure to give the four H club salamander savers a shout-out next week.

Thomas Bowman  

And yes, Leigh Nusbaum, you are allowed to answer the trivia question. She is asking that question because she was the Chief of Staff to the speaker or Delegate Eileen Filler-Corn at the time for that bill. So yes, she has a lot more experience around it. And she even sent some really fun pictures which we should tweet, tweet out at some point of all of the like kids who do read salamanders and cinnamon. So I'll drop those on our company Slack channel. So our comms team can get those out.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, of course, we'd be happy to give a shout-out to the Four H clubs, so shout-outs to them. And the and Eileen Filler-Corn had the bill House Bill 459 Back in 2018 to designate the red Salamander as the official state Salamander.

Thomas Bowman  

Were there any no votes on that out of curiosity? 

Michael Pope  

Yes! It's really interesting. If you look at the history of the bill, there were two, one in the House and one in the Senate. Delegate Berry Knight voted against the Red Salamander, and Senator David Suterline voted against the Red Salamander.

Thomas Bowman  

Look, you can't please everybody because they might be fans of one of the other 50 varieties of salamanders in Virginia.

Michael Pope  

50 Shades of Salamander.

Thomas Bowman  

50 shades, well, you cannot spell Salamander without SNM.

Michael Pope  

Okay, so congratulations, Leigh Nusbaum. So, what did she win?

Thomas Bowman  

All right, well, unfortunately, all of these gift opportunities, these prizes, they're all tied up in legal, and our lawyers.

Michael Pope  

Man, our lawyers are really slow. We have to do something about it. 

Thomas Bowman  

They always are. 

Michael Pope  

Well, we've got some potential prices where legal is still looking at this. So we're not really offering these yet, but these are our potential prices. Option one is The Big Book of communist lizards called Das Kaputa-tail.

Thomas Bowman  

Hey, yo, I like that one. Option two is a copy of the seminal High School novel The Perks of Being a Well-Funded Partisan Candidate. 

Michael Pope  

High School politics is great. Option number three is a sweater vest for Eric reading Get out while you're Youngkin got some good options, good options; maybe that's the lawyers who are taking all their time. Alright, so here's our trivia question for next week. Since we're on a roll with all these state officials, state items here what is the official state insect, and you're all allowed to answer this trivia question. And we promise you won't be bugging us. 

Thomas Bowman  

Boohoo. 

Michael Pope  

Do you know this trivia question? This trivia contest here we have for Pod Virginia is all the buzz. So all the answers will be accepted. 

Thomas Bowman  

Are you done? 

Michael Pope  

No, I am not. You know, Thomas, you don't like all my puns. They're not going to fly with you.

Thomas Bowman  

I regret this.

Michael Pope  

We better stop this now and move on to the water cooler. All right, so Thomas, what's the latest you're hearing about the watercooler

Thomas Bowman  

looks like Senator Joe Morrissey; he's finding out the hard way that politics is a contact sport, but not in the way that he hoped or might be used to. So look, we've got a new divorce filing out in the ongoing saga of Joe and Myrna Morrissey's divorce. She is the estranged wife, of course, and this filing sided allegations of assault, emotional abuse, and manipulation. She's alleging that Joe used their marriage to bolster his political career and maintain a facade of a happy life. The divorce filing claims Joe had ongoing fidelity and fidelity exerted financial control over Myrna, allegedly persuading her to stay in the marriage to support his state Senate campaign in 2019. And promised to live separately after the election. That's according to the filing, not, not me. Allegations of abuse Myrna alleged physical assault, including an incident where Morrissey elbowed her in the abdomen while she was pregnant. 

Michael Pope  

Yikes. 

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, and emotional abuse, of course, saying that Joe Morrissey belittled her and made her feel powerless and that Joe paid Myrna $30,000 to $60,000 a year from his law firms payroll between April 2015 And June 2020 despite her not having worked at the firm since August of 2013. So Morrissey has been disbarred twice and cannot currently practice law. And, of course, Joe denies all those allegations and says they're politically motivated and claims this accusation surfaced because he reported that her boyfriend had spanked their child with a wet belt.

Michael Pope  

Oh man, this is good for bad, the worst, you never Want to be in a messy divorce, obviously, but the last thing you want is for the messy divorce to happen when you're in the middle of the hottest Democratic primary in Virginia.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, look. So these events add another chapter to Senator Joe Morrissey's very controversial career. He's faced legal and ethical issues in the past, including disbarment and misdemeanor convictions. But he's managed to maintain his political career through all of that. And this development, though, might shift that political landscape and a public sentiment away from him, given the severity of the allegations and the criticism from his own party members.

Michael Pope  

The story of Joe Morrissey just is so fascinating because I mean. Obviously, he's the most colorful figure in the history of the General Assembly. That's saying a lot because the General Assembly has been around for hundreds of years, but maybe we'll just say it in our modern world in our modern lifetime. He's the most colorful figure. I think that's probably indisputable. And it's not just that his personal life has been so colorful, because he has also been really effective for criminal justice reform. There's a huge irony here. Like he changed how jury trials work in Virginia for the better and in a really good way. He is the only person speaking out about the civil commitment centers that we talked about last week. He's the only guy that's doing this right. Nobody else is introducing bills to get rid of civil commitment centers. He's the only one. And so it is really interesting, not only his colorful life but the trajectory of his politics also.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, and to be clear, his politics are weird, especially with him being, well, not anymore, but at the time when he was the deciding vote on a lot of things. I think that was a position that he really embraced, getting to be the center of attention and fed the will he won't he, debates in his votes. But I will say this. There was a time when Joe was in the House when I was a fresh staffer in 2013 or 2014. whenever that was, Joe was one of the only Bulldogs that the House Democrats had at the time; he would get up and would attack, attack, attack. And it was, frankly, really refreshing to watch because, at the time, we didn't even have enough Democrats to sustain a governor's veto. So the incentive was actually to kind of go along and get along so that you could hopefully get something. And you know, this plays out 5, 6, 7 years later when Democrats finally take the House, and kind of we're governing from a bunker because that's where they were used to being. Well, what about you, Michael,

What's the latest you're hearing about the watercooler

Michael Pope  

Boobs, Thomas,  boobs. Colin Warren-Hicks, at the Virginian Pilot, and Karri Peifr, at Axios had some great reporting last week about why there is an exposed boob on the Virginia seal. So fascinating backstory here, the woman featured on the Virginia state seal is supposed to be Virtus, the Roman goddess of virtue. So that's what we're looking at in the Roman goddess of virtue. She's supposed to be dressed like an Amazon holding a spear, treading on tyranny. So like, that's what we're supposed to see there. And she didn't always have exposed boobs; it was this is a fascinating part of the history that I was not aware of until I read this report last week. In 1901, the Secretary of the Commonwealth, David Eggleston, worried that the depiction of the Roman goddess of virtue was too manly, that you could not look at this woman and tell that it was a woman that needed to be, feminized, or it needed to be really clear that she was a woman. So his solution was going back to the description of her as an Amazon to say, well, she's really an Amazon; one of her breasts should be exposed. And so in 1901, they changed the seal so instead of a breastplate that covered up both of her breasts. The seal was changed in 1901 by the Secretary of the Commonwealth David Eggleston, and one of her breasts would be exposed. So that's the famous nip slip that now has an exposed nipple on every piece of government property in Virginia.

Thomas Bowman  

Michael, and with all of your earlier puns and jokes, it sparked my memory and recalled a joke that we used to tell in youth group. This is seventh or eighth grade.

Michael Pope  

All right, here we go. Our podcast audiences are the target market for this, so go away. Go for it.

Thomas Bowman  

How do you scare a Bee?

Michael Pope  

How do you scare Bee?

Thomas Bowman  

Boo-bees!

Michael Pope  

Well, we are really bringing up the intellectual level of our podcasts. Alright, let's Why don't we move on to listener mail. All right, Thomas. Go ahead and open up that Pod Virginia mailbag. What are our listeners talking about 

Thomas Bowman  

Gary heard our discussion of milk as the official beverage of Virginia and said this milk might be the official beverage today. But my maternal grandfather was a lifetime member of the Virginia Boat Club. In his time, the beverage of choice was Bourbon bourbon.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, you know, I guess you could combine them and have a bourbon milk punch.

Thomas Bowman  

But maybe don't drive a boat after that.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, that actually would not be very good. So Jordan Miles heard our episode with Bob Brink on ERIC and said this quote really appreciates Pod Virginia covering such an important issue as Virginia leaving ERIC and the impact on election integrity with Bob Brink. Thanks also for mentioning our quagmire here in Buckingham County. Yeah, so shout out to Jordan Miles. He's fighting the fight there in Buckingham County with this electoral board that just seems to get stranger and stranger every week. 

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, that was actually a really popular episode and got picked up by NPR. It was on NPR News Hour, and it was syndicated, so it was on VPM and WAMU. And I'm not sure what all of the times it ran on, but like two minutes into their little five-minute News Hour segment was Pod Virginia, not just getting a shout-out, but also they used some of the interviews that we took. So that was really cool to hear.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, shout out to pod Virginia from VPM. So thank you, Whitney Evans, for making that happen.

Thomas Bowman  

That episode was really popular, and Sam Shirazi also really liked it. He posted this if anyone's looking to load up on weekend podcast listening. This is a good discussion with Bob Brank on Virginia leaving ERIC. It does a good job breaking down what ERIC does and why leaving doesn't make a lot of sense. And I enjoyed the reference to sweater vests.

Michael Pope  

The sweater vest thing was really fun. Bob Brink was having some fun with the governor's love of sweater vests, and in that episode, I think he compared the cost of dry cleaning that sweater vest to the cost of making sure Virginia voter rolls don't have dead people or people who have moved out of the state. So yeah, Thomas, I think we could have there's a merch opportunity here for the Pod Virginia sweater vest.

Thomas Bowman  

Oh, let's talk to Pete Gibson and get it done.

Michael Pope  

Let's do it. All right, let's celebrate some birthdays this week.

Thomas Bowman  

Tuesday is the birthday of Delegate Dave LaRock of Loudoun County.

Michael Pope  

And Tuesday is also the birthday of Delegate Luke Torian of Prince William County.

Thomas Bowman  

Thursday, June 1, is the birthday of Secretary of the Commonwealth Kay Cole James.

Michael Pope  

And Thursday is, of course, also June 1, which is LGBTQ Pride Month. So Happy Pride Month, everyone!

Thomas Bowman  

Except for Governor Youngkin, who we wish was as big a fan of the LGBT as he is clearly of the VEST.

Michael Pope  

So that's our episode for this week of Pod of Virginia. Don't forget to check out our website and follow us on all social media for more updates and discussions of Virginia politics.