IN THE NEWS:

The death of Aston Donald McEachin. The late congressman served four terms in the House of Delegates, two terms in the state Senate and three terms in Congress. He was just elected last month to what would have been his fourth term. Now people across Virginia are remembering a man who was a lawyer who also had a master of divinity from Virginia Union University.

Teenage Voters: Back in the 1960s, during the Vietnam War, advocates for changing the voting age from 21 to 18 adopted the slogan "old enough to fight, old enough to vote." Now advocates might be adopting a twist on that: Old enough to drive, old enough to vote. Elijah Lee is a 14-year-old activist who wants to vote in local elections when he turns 16.

More tragic gun violence in Virginia after a shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake killed six people. Thomas and Michael discuss the state of gun control in Virginia and the difficulty of achieving much progress under the current administration.

At the Watercooler: Republican Delegate Tim Anderson seeks to repeal Virginia's anti-gay constitutional amendment.

Episode Transcript

Michael Pope 

I'm Michael Pope.

Thomas Bowman 

I'm Tom Bowman.

Michael Pope 

And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast that's celebrating a very special birthday. Today is the birthday of Thomas Bowman. Happy birthday!

Thomas Bowman 

Hey, you dug that fact out of there. Thank you very much.

Michael Pope 

I snuck that into the show. I didn't even put that in the script as a surprise to you. So happy birthday and you share a birthday with Delegate Carrie Delaney. And later this week, Friday of this week on December 9th, is the birthday of none other than our Governor Glenn Youngkin. So a lot of Sagittarius people floating around here in Virginia politics.

Thomas Bowman 

It's an esteemed week, I will say.

Michael Pope 

It is an esteemed week. It's going to be a great one. Hey, did you see that we've got some new reviews on Apple podcasts?

Thomas Bowman 

No, I didn't. What are they saying about us?

Michael Pope 

Not one review but two new reviews on Apple podcasts. The first one is from MJN22102 or 22102, which I guess is a zip code. And it says this is the best podcast about Virginia politics listening to these guys since they started. They're very entertaining and informative about Virginia politics. Give them a listen. And then the second one comes from Rung Pint Option says this, informative, great podcast, super digestible and informative. What do you think about that?

Thomas Bowman 

Hey, that's on brand. Thanks so much, guys. That's what we try to be.

Michael Pope 

And that first one from 22102 has been listening since we started. Well, that's going on for three years now. We're about to celebrate our third birthday and launch season four. So this person has been listening for quite some time. So thank you so much for the review. And thanks for listening.

Thomas Bowman 

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for listening. And, hey, if you've got thoughts about Pod Virginia that you want to share, drop a review on your favorite podcast app because it really helps people find the show, and we might even read your comments on the air.

Michael Pope 

Well, gets to the news. The death of Aston Donald McEachin. The late Congressman served four terms in the House of Delegates, two terms in the State Senate, and three terms in Congress. He was just elected back in November to what would have been his fourth term, and now people across Virginia are remembering a man who was a lawyer but also had a Master's of Divinity from Virginia Union University. Senator Jennifer McClellan told me that his faith informed his politics.

Jennifer McClellan 

He is someone who understood the social justice mission of his faith and put that into action first as a lawyer and then as an elected official on issues from civil rights for everybody to reproductive freedom to fighting predatory lending. You name the issue. He fought for the marginalized and the oppressed. And it's a huge loss.

Thomas Bowman 

And the Congressman's views continued to evolve even after he was elected to Congress in 2016. Here's Delegate Lamont Bagley, Chair of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus.

Lamont Bagley 

He started to focus a lot on environmental justice, which is unique for a Black legislator in a hyper-suburban urban district. But that became his focus, and he got us into that same space. I would have never carried the clean car legislation if it hadn't been for, you know, what I've learned working alongside him.

Michael Pope 

Yeah, Congressman McEachin, how His fingerprints are all over a bunch of really important policy issues. And during his time in the General Assembly and in Congress, he advocated for things like; increasing the felony threshold, joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, fighting against predatory lending, banning the box from preventing state agencies from asking about criminal records of applicants, fighting for in-state tuition for undocumented students and of course, his advocacy for LGBTQ rights. And so yeah, this guy had a huge guy. He was physically a huge guy. And he also has a huge legacy here in Virginia.

Thomas Bowman 

Yeah. Michael, interesting that both Jennifer McAllen and Lamont Bagby are two of the names most mentioned as potential successors to Congressman McEachin. What do you think about that?

Michael Pope 

Yeah, the death of the Congressman opens up a potential special election. Jennifer McClellan was very close to the Congressman. As you heard, you could hear it in her voice when she was talking to me there. She actually holds the seat that he used to hold in the Senate. And then the Congressman also was close to Lamont Bagby, who, as you noted, is the chair of the Legislative Black Caucus. So Senator McClellan and Delegate Bagby have been mentioned as possible candidates in that special election. People are also talking about former Delegate Lashrecse Aird as a potential candidate, as well as Chesapeake city councilwoman Ella Ward and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, and so it's kind of a crowded field here, potentially a crowded field. Anytime you talk about, you know, open seats for Congress, usually what happens is a lot of names are thrown out there. Yeah, I think we're probably going to see a pretty crowded field here for the special election that's coming up in the near future here.

Thomas Bowman 

Yeah. And on that issue, Michael, it's a shorter list of who we know for sure isn't gonna run. I learned from our sister program that you do with Jeff Shapiro that both Joe Morrissey and delegate Jeff Bourne are not interested in running for that congressional spot. So that is going to potentially create a whole series of specials, depending on who that is. So if it's McClellan who wins the nomination and moves up to Congress, and by the way, some people suspect that because she's the chief breadwinner for her family, that she's not really in a financial position to do that, because you need a Congress doesn't pay for housing the way the governor job pays for housing. And so if it's going to be McClellan, then that would set up an interesting opening for someone like Bourne to run for that Senate seat. Bagley might also be in that Senate seat, so you could have a reshuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic kind of as we matriculate these officeholders up, and so then you avoid a really nasty primary potentially between Bourne Betsy Carr and Don Adams in the House, all redistricted together into one district that is mostly just the city of Richmond. However, you could also have a situation where Lamont Bagby takes that congressional seat, and now you've got a vacant seat in a district that at one point had two incumbent House members, Skyler van Valkenburg former guests, or one-time guest at least, and we're gonna have to have him on again, who has announced already that he's going to run for Senate. And now Bagley, if Bagley runs for Congress and wins now that House District has absolutely nobody, as far as incumbents, to go to represent them. So I mean, the good news if you're in Richmond or Henrico, in that case, is that there's a lot of Democrats packed in there. So there's going to be somebody to run in that district. However, it's not always an obvious choice.

Michael Pope 

The death of the Congressman here kind of reshuffles a lot, a lot of the deck here. I mean, we talked about Lashrecse Aird being a potential candidate for the special election for Congress, which reshuffles the deck here for the Virginia Senate District 13, where we were expecting to have a Democratic primary between Senator Joe Morrissey and former Delegate Lashrecse Aird, which was actually going to be one of the marquee races for the upcoming Democratic primary season. But you know, if Lashrecse Aird becomes a candidate for Congress instead, that changes the dynamic there. And then, as you point out, you know, if Senator McClellan ends up getting the nod to the Democratic nomination to run in that special election for Congress, then that opens up the Senate seat, and you have a special election for the Senate, which means that you're likely to have candidates from the House as you just laid out, which means you haven't yet another special election for the House of Delegates. So yeah, there's clearly going to be a cascading series of special elections here created by all this.

Thomas Bowman 

Yeah. And everybody, I talked to Michael, and I think it's all speculation at this point; nobody's really come out from the point that we're recording. No one's actually formally announced anything. What I'm hearing from people in Richmond here is that it is certainly likely to be Jennifer McClellan's if she wants it. However, Bagby would be a great candidate, and most of the observers that I'm talking to think that if McClellan doesn't run, then Bagby is in the odds in favor.

Michael Pope 

All right, well, let's move on to our next story. Teenage voters, back in the 1960s during the Vietnam War, advocated for changing the voting age from 21 to 18 and adopted the slogan old enough to fight, old enough to vote. Now modern-day advocates might be adopting a twist on that old enough to drive old enough to vote. I spoke to Elijah Lee. He's a 14-year-old activist, and he wants to vote in local elections when he turns 16.

Elijah Lee 

We saw record, record voter turnout for Gen Z. And this just shows that we as a young generation are ready to confront the issues of, you know, homophobia, we're ready to confront the issues of institutionalized racism, we're ready to confront the issues of systemic sexism.

Michael Pope 

I expect to be hearing a lot from Elijah Lee in the future. I tell you, Thomas, when I was 14 years old, I was nowhere near that articulate, but he's going to be testifying before the General Assembly. You would need to have a constitutional amendment. So that means the General Assembly has to pass it in 2023. And then you have the intervening election. The General Assembly would have to pass it again and 2024. And then, the voters would have to approve it in November of 2024. But here's the twist. We're only talking about local elections here, your local board of supervisors, your local city council, your local school board, not the General Assembly, not Congress. And so it would be a huge headache for registrars because they would have to have two sets of eligible voters. I'm gonna guess here, Thomas. The registrars are probably going to say this is going to be a big headache.

Thomas Bowman 

Ultimately, I think that this proposal goes nowhere legislatively. But that doesn't make it a bad effort. Michael, I definitely personally agree with giving people as young as 16 the franchise, and they should absolutely be voting because that's how they're able to communicate their opinions on the conditions of their own life experience, including paying more attention to making sure that K through 12 has the resources that it needs, both in schools and also the environment itself. If you talk to young people, young people really care about climate change. There is no other issue in many respects. And so that would give a lot of issues, a ton of momentum, hypothetically, but because of federal rules, we could never do it for everybody unless you have an actual federal constitutional amendment extending 16-year-olds the right to vote. And so that's what makes us really complicated is that it's only going to be for some elections, which means you have to double up on all of the lists. You have to double up on a lot of registrar training. And that ends up getting to become a lot more expensive than you realize. And Virginia's budgets are always tight. So this is gonna be one of those things where it's complicated. It could be potentially pretty expensive. You're gonna have some trusted organizations coming to these elected officials to say no. It's a bad idea. Here's why. With all of these nuanced things and objective truths, to combat the subjective, 16-year-olds should vote. I mean, yeah, like, the bottom line is I don't see Speaker Gilbert letting more people in a generation that just voted 70% democrat vote earlier. I just don't see that. That said, on the flip side, Michael, there is a certain age where you're just acting on the will of your parents, and a lot of people in high school, well, when I was in high school, at least. So granted, it's been a few years, but would parents the talking points that you know, they're getting from their parents, or they're forced to go to church activities and whatnot? And it's not that they're not thinking for themselves. It's just that they don't have enough information yet. And that type of bill may not always work in Democrat's favor just because 70% of Gen Z is voting Democrat because of Democratic issues. There's a certain age where you could potentially do a lot of damage and not realize how much damage you're doing. Because people are just voting along the lines that their parents tell them to vote, and that may not be what you want it. Just throwing it out there.

Michael Pope 

There's another angle of this, which I hadn't really thought about, but Elijah Lee raised it when I was talking to him about this proposal. If you talk about 16 and 17-year-olds voting, it's particularly relevant in a school board election because school boards across Virginia are talking about banning books. And so you know, who suffers their students, 16-year-old 17-year-olds, and they're talking about banning divisive concepts from the classroom. Well, hey, guess what slavery is a divisive concept. If you want to explain the history of America, you got to understand slavery and its legacy. And that's a divisive concept. And it's going to make students feel uncomfortable. And you got all these parents out there who say, don't make my child uncomfortable with your history lesson. So there's an immediately vested interest for 16 and 17-year-olds to have a franchise, especially in a school board election.

Thomas Bowman 

I absolutely agree with Michael, and when I was 16 and 17, I also wanted to be able to vote specifically to impact the things that were happening in my school directly because that was my community. So I absolutely like that point, and I agree with it. And that is exactly what the policymakers are going to have to balance when thinking about some of the hard reality is like the money, the implications of dual processes that now we have redundant spending on the books, and that's for this state, which is used to operating lightly going to be an adjustment.

Michael Pope 

I don't know, man; when I was 16 and 17 years old, I wanted to be Metallica, but I didn't know any kind of local school board. So, so good on allegedly. And I hope to see him in Richmond when he testifies in favor of this constitutional amendment, which by the way, has already been introduced by Delegate Sam Rasul. So we're going to have this debate, and I'm sure he'll be down there testifying in favor of it. Let's take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about the latest round of gun violence in Virginia. And we'll also head over to the water cooler.

Thomas Bowman 

And we're back on Pod Virginia. Thanks for sticking with us, Michael; what do we get next?

Michael Pope 

More tragic gun violence here in Virginia. So first, there was the Virginia Tech mass shooting, then there was the mass shooting at Virginia Beach, then the University of Virginia, and now the latest at a Walmart in Chesapeake. The response from a lot of people to all of this is thoughts and prayers. You hear this all the time, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, maybe even sometimes a vague pledge to do something about mental illness. But Mike Fox of the Virginia chapter of Moms Demand Action says a very small percentage of crime is actually committed by people with mental illness.

Mike Fox 

Under the Red Flag Law, you don't have to be diagnosed with having some kind of mental illness in order to be applied to you because you may simply be going through a moment of crisis. So I think looking at it only through the mental health aspect is, is too narrow.

Michael Pope 

Very narrow. In fact, if you think about it, it's sad that we constantly have to crawl inside the head of these mass shooters to understand their psychology, but that's the world that we live in. And they're not; they don't all have a mental illness. I mean, a lot of these people are total with it. And I mean, it's probably a stretch to call them sane because they're killers. But that doesn't mean they have a mental illness. Right. So and then also, all these people that talk about thoughts and prayers and mental illness, where are they on all the recommendations of the Deeds Commission, right? I mean, like, are they really for reforms to mental illness? I don't see a lot of movement on mental illness. And you would think with all the gun violence, if the people who are constantly talking about mental illness as a reaction to gun violence, I don't think that we see the Virginia citizens, defense league, advocating in favor of mental illness reform or funding for mental illness. And we're gonna have this debate again the next time we have a mass shooting.

Thomas Bowman 

This is one of those situations where you hear people say, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, and it's, we make fun of it now, right? Because thoughts and prayers imply that you read the Bible, which also says in James two that faith without works is dead. Right? So faith, by itself, thoughts, prayers, absolutely worthless. Someone might say that you have faith, but like I have deeds. So show me your faith without deeds, and I'll show you my faith by what I do. Right is what we're actually trying to look for. And that should be what the religious message is here. So it's imperative to get more guns off the streets, right, so more guns and more situation means more deaths; you're gonna get things like this as a symptom. But also, this person should have been flagged as a red-flag offender. In the Walmart case, this was a boss who had shown violent and abusive tendencies before. And there's a $50 million lawsuit by one of those employees against Walmart for employing this person anyway and giving them this kind of access to the employee break room. That was absolutely tragic. And whether mental illness is diagnosed or undiagnosed, most mental issues are going to always be undiagnosed. And this world for people who aren't neurodivergent, no matter what that is, is not built for them. So it can be incredibly frustrating. And in many cases, disabling to live in a world that's not really built for you, whether it's your values, whether it's the way your brain works, whether it's anything. So what you see is that because people don't have a safe outlet, it's easier to access guns than it is to access the proper; I don't want to say mental health care because that's not always the case. But access the thing you need to get you onto an off-ramp for a violent action like that. We don't really have a robust infrastructure or network for that type of stuff. Health care, if you think that the problem is mental health treatment, then stop stigmatizing mental health in your families and in schools. Stop pretending that if you don't have a diagnosis, then it's not real. Right? Stop pretending like somebody's red flags aren't really a problem because they're just weird, right? Or they're just quirky. That's, you know that it's the same story every single time. And so if you actually believe that mental health and addressing it is the solution, I would also expect you to pivot to universal health care, including mental health outlets, and make it free by the way and easily accessible as your policy response. But none of that actually ends up happening.

Michael Pope 

Well, you know, the menu for policy response has a bunch of things on it. When I was talking to Mike Fox, they're the Virginia chapter guy for Moms Demand Action. He specifically mentioned a waiting period if you want to buy a firearm, and he also talked about funding here for public awareness campaigns on the Red Flag Law to let people know that the Red Flag Law requires you, the average citizen, to report suspicious people and potentially even temporarily take their guns away. And then you get into other things about, like, potential laws that would require people to not make their gun available to children. And then, you know, the 800-pound gorilla, the assault weapons ban, the Democrats were unable to accomplish when they were in control of the General Assembly. So you know, considering we've got divided government, I don't think anything of what I just said is probably going to pass with one exception, which is like maybe I could see a scenario where you get more funding for a public awareness campaign to let people know how the existing Red Flag Law works.

Thomas Bowman 

Yeah, but at the same time, Glenn Youngkin, as governor, also has a line item veto over things like that in the budget. With Republicans winning, that was the candidate that the NRA backed; not only do they have Glenn Youngkin, but they also have the Lieutenant Governor who can vote to break a tie in a way that's favorable to Republicans. They have the Attorney General who can, you know, argue or not sometimes argue that strategically. Unfortunately, in 2021 the NRA won, so for four years, the NRA gets to win. Like that sucks. And that's the reality we live in. So that's why your vote in these off-year elections really matters.

Michael Pope 

Well, before we wrap up, let's head over to the water cooler. Thomas. What's the latest you hear about the water cooler?

Thomas Bowman 

Delegate Tim Anderson from the Fredericksburg area has a bill to repeal the Marshall Newman constitutional amendment now that Marshall Newman amendment, Michael, as you may know, prohibits Virginia from recognizing gay marriages. And so what the fear is, is that if Obergefell falls at the Supreme Court, which we're not really convinced that it will, but if it does, all of a sudden, because of Virginia's constitutional amendment, we immediately go back to a state where gay marriage in Virginia is not legal. And so federally, you're seeing the Respect for Marriage which guarantees the contract clause so that marriage is in other states. And, of course, you can't have an ex post facto law. So if you're already married, you'll be fine. But that contract law, working its way through federal forces, all the states to recognize marriages from other states, but it doesn't require affirmative rights that don't require that state to allow LGBT people to get married. So it's interesting that a Republican delegate who's in a very vulnerable district, by the way, is patronymic this by the way Mark Sickles and Adam Ebbin normally put this in, and they're working right now, they're debating amongst themselves presently? Did they want to put this amendment, and we'll call it skinny repeal? Or do they want to put in a bill that will absolutely fail on a resolution that will absolutely fail in the House to guarantee affirmative LGBTQ plus protections?

Michael Pope 

Well, from a strategic point of view, I mean, so Mark Sickles and Adam Ebbin have tried to get rid of this amendment for years, year after year, but they've not been successful in doing that yet. But, like, from a strategy standpoint, why wouldn't you let delegate Anderson, you know, do the repeal and then move forward with this other thing that you're talking about?

Thomas Bowman 

It's just never that simple. And there's a lot of calculus to make and 3D 4D chess to play. So one reason you might not want that is that Republicans, no, Democrats, absolutely want this. If it's on the floor, there are probably the votes to pass it in the House. But guess what? It could never get to the floor to actually pass. It's also got to get through the Rules Committee and perhaps a subcommittee on the rules committee before being discharged to the floor. So there's a lot of places for this thing to go away. There are three Republicans presently who have said they would vote for it or are on the bill. Hopefully, that would obviously be enough, plus the Democrats, to get it out of the House. However, that's not necessarily enough, depending on who those three Republicans are, to get it out of the rules committee in the first place. And if Speaker Gilbert doesn't want that, then it's not happening. So whichever bill that they pass out of the Senate, what's likely to happen is the Senate is going to pass whatever that version is, or resolution. The House is going to pass, potentially, Tim Anderson's amendment, and now they work it out in conference, that's another opportunity for everything to fail. So the question is, like, do the Democrats really think that they can get at the very least, Marshall Newman, anti-gay marriage law repealed or amendment repealed from the Constitution? If they think that Republicans aren't really serious about it and it's going to fail no matter what Bill they go with, or resolution they go with. Well, then nothing happens till 2025, anyway. But right now, the temptation is like, well, 2023, year one, there's the election and 2023, then year two, January session, and 2024. And then you could have this amendment goes up on the ballot in the federal election presidential year, in which case, it's very likely to win either one of those amendments or, if that's not on the table anyway, because nothing passes this year. Now, we're talking about 2025-2026 being the earliest you can do things.

Michael Pope 

You know, the thing that I find fascinating about this is the reason we're talking about this is Republican Delegate Tim Anderson brought it up, right? So Mark sickles and Adam Ebbin, and they've tried to do this year after year after year. If they propose this resolution yet again, I doubt we'd even be talking about it because, like, it's a story that we've already talked about several times. But the reason we're talking about this is Republican Delegate Tim Anderson is talking about this. And I'm reminded that Anderson was one of the first Republicans out of the gate here to talk about Trump, saying that Trump running for president is the absolute worst thing that could happen in Virginia state politics for Republicans. So you know, here's Anderson out front here, getting, you know, dumping Trump and embracing gay rights, so I think we see some did some movement here and Anderson, this, you know, relatively new, like he was just recently elected.

Thomas Bowman 

That makes sense, given his physical geography, representing Fredericksburg, which is a seat that has changed hands across various elections. It has new district lines. And this is a seat that Democrats are very much going to be playing for in the 2023 election. And it's part of what Democrats have to win back in order to take that chamber. So it makes a lot of sense from that perspective that Tim Anderson is trying to make himself more palatable to independents in that area. And hopefully, he can avoid it from his perspective. He can avoid a primary challenge which would probably the inevitable result of that primary challenge would be somebody who doesn't want to patron bills like this. Resolutions like this. Michael, though. What about you? What do you hear around the water cooler?

Michael Pope 

Well, my water cooler is in Alexandria city hall, where we've got some city politics gossip here about the Alexandria City Council. There's lots of buzz among Alexandria Democrats about Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson not running for a third term, which would open up the mayor seat. And people are buzzing about who might run for that open seat. People are talking about Vice Mayor Amy Jackson potentially running for Mayor of Alexandria. She can be a controversial figure in democratic politics because of her opposition to bike lanes, very controversial bike lanes in Alexandria, and she was kind of against them on seminary roads. There's also kind of the more aggressive, affordable housing politics that are divisive even among Democrats. And so there's talk about persuading council woman Alia Gaskins to potentially run against Amy Jackson if Mayor Wilson decides he's not going to run again. So all kinds of gossip and contingency planning going on for what might happen if the Mayor of Alexandria decides against seeking a third term?

Thomas Bowman 

Well, that sounds very much similar to the conversations being had down here with McEachin stuff. Mayor Wilson, not running again would be a big deal because the Mayor of Alexandria can be a stepping stone to Congressmen from the Eighth District.

Michael Pope 

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, the longtime Congressman from the Eighth District was none other than Jim Moran, who was a longtime mayor of Alexandria. So yeah, without a doubt, it's potentially seen as a stepping stone. Actually, I don't think Mayor Wilson has any interest in running for Congress or the General Assembly or anything else. So this would kind of be a swansong for the Mayor. If he decides not to run again, he has not made an announcement, and we'll have to see how this plays out.

Thomas Bowman 

Yeah, well, if he doesn't want any of those other higher offices, then you're only going to want to be Mayor of Alexandria as long as it's fun. As long as your family can sustain it. Michael, let's leave it there. Thanks for listening to Pod Virginia.