How will VA spend stimulus cash and unpack the court?
The Transition Team covers what the VA legislature did in the special legislative session to spend federal stimulus money. Then they analyze how accurate their primary predictions were.
Brad Kutner briefs you on the General Assembly’s effort to unpack the court. All this and more.
Michael Pope
Welcome to Transition Virginia, the podcast examines the ongoing transition of power in Virginia. I'm Michael Pope.
Thomas Bowman
And I'm Thomas Bowman. And you know, before we begin, Michael, why don't we just go ahead and acknowledge our new Patreon? Andrew, thank you so much for supporting the podcast. We can't do it without people like you.
Michael Pope
Yes. Thank you for supporting Transition Virginia, we really appreciate it.
Thomas Bowman
All right. Well, Michael, this week, was completely different for us. Right?
Michael Pope
I was in Richmond, which I have not been to Richmond since March of 2020. And so I got to see all of my old Richmond friends and Thomas, you and I hung out, like, in person, at your house.
Thomas Bowman
For the first time in over a year now. That's crazy to think about.
Michael Pope
Yeah, that's crazy, crazy to think about.
Thomas Bowman
Well it was good to see you again, Michael. And I'm glad you could come by.
Michael Pope
It was great to see you. We spent some time talking about the podcast, and the future of the podcast. We're now in season two. And so we're kind of thinking about re thinking a lot of things for season three, like maybe even a new name.
Thomas Bowman
And we'll just have to leave that little bit right there.
Michael Pope
We could reveal it.
Thomas Bowman
But we won't. Actually there is one person who knows the new name, that isn't the two of us. And it's a good friend of mine, Gonzi Aida, he has been the lobbyist for NASCAR, down in Florida. Now he's back in Virginia, and he is the lobbyist for the Independent Auto Dealers. And he and I were talking about it. He's a fan of the show. He's probably listening right now. And we're gonna try to have him on sometime in the next week or so. So it'll be good. And he'll help keep our secret. He's good at that. But yes, so we've got a lot of fun stuff planned for Transition Virginia. So some of that will roll out next year, when we get into season three, after the election, but, you know, it could very well not really be so much of a transition anymore, would it Michael?
Michael Pope
Um, or would it? I mean, if the Republicans become in power of the General Assembly, I guess there would be a second transition, right?
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. But I guess somebody else is gonna have to do that one. You know, maybe we should get a Republican. What do you think?
Michael Pope
I have some thoughts in mind about...You know, when we originally launched the show, back in 2020, I, my original goal was to have a Republican as part of every show, kind of like a Republican host and the Democratic host, and then me. And we just- we had some Republicans that we tried to talk into it. And we just were never able to get them to be part of our little team here. But I think we've done pretty well with Transition Virginia, although that name, may be a thing of the past, sometime soon, but not this show.
Thomas Bowman
More on that later. Because the other thing we're going to do, and I think we can tease this, is we're going to be looking for sponsors for season three. So if you are..belong to an organization, or your company is interested in sponsoring a podcast like ours, you can actually go right now to transitionvirginia.com/sponsor, and you can fill out the forms there and it gives you a button to click, which is actually just kind of a fancy email link. And you can also email us directly at TransitionVApodcast@gmail.com. So Michael, now that we've gotten to meet in person, we've teased some of what we're planning for season three, we should also discuss what we actually talked about and why you were actually in Richmond, which was the Special Session. What happened in this Special Session?
Michael Pope
Well, Uncle Sam is making it rain with billions of dollars in stimulus money. So the lawmakers were all there trying to figure out how they wanted to spend all this money that they're getting from the federal government. And, you know, the one thing that strikes me about the spending plan, that they're about to vote on, is that most of the big ticket items go to help businesses, and not necessarily low income people. And so what I mean by that is, okay, so the biggest dollar amount here goes to the Unemployment Trust Fund. The upshot of that for businesses is that their taxes are lowered, because when the trust fund is depleted, guess who is taxed to replenish it? Businesses. So when you put this huge installment of money into the trust fund, it means that next year, business taxes will be lower. So there is a huge benefit here to the business community by replenishing the trust fund. So there's that, and then also, this thing about the broadband. So when you expand broadband, guess where that money goes? The same people that we talked about last week, who are the traditional telecom companies, and the cable providers, the AT&T's, the Cox's, the Verizon, and so that money is not, probably, very likely, not going to be going to municipal or community broadband, it will be going to the big telecoms. And so with the Unemployment Trust Fund and the broadband expansion, you know, your- that that money really goes to kind of wealthy, big businesses. And you know, what they did not fund is money for affordable housing. There's no money in here for affordable housing, despite the fact that the Virginia Housing Alliance has a plan, they presented to the lawmakers to say, "Hey, here's 7000 units we want to build. We have a plan, the Virginia Housing Alliance, has a plan to build 7000 units, give us the federal stimulus cash, and we'll make that happen." They said, 'No, we don't want to do that." The stimulus plan also fails to address wraparound services for children's schools that you know, after a year of disruption-
Thomas Bowman
Michael, what does that mean? Wrap-around services, what is that?
Michael Pope
So the plan here was that you can have services that are available to the community that are located at schools. So things like social service programs that might help students, and families, that are not necessarily education related. So it's like education- so it's not necessarily education services, they're social services, but the social services are available at schools, and the school becomes kind of a community hub.
Thomas Bowman
Okay.
Michael Pope
There are lots of advocates that were trying to make sure that these social services, that are called like wraparound. isn't like wrapped around your life, that are available at schools. And that's not the direction they wanted to go in. Another big problem is this HVAC thing for the schools. So one of the big things that they want to do is ventilation upgrades. This is like $257 million for to upgrade HVAC's in schools, great ideas, lots of schools need this. But there's a problem here with the funding formula, which is not equitable. It's the same one for one match, your local government has to match the money that's available. And so Petersburg ends up paying the same one for one match that Arlington pays. So it's going to be a lot easier to get the HVAC upgrade in wealthy school divisions, and a whole lot more difficult to get the HVAC upgrades in districts that are not wealthy and struggling. And so why didn't they put the funding formula in there? I don't know. There were lots of people who are upset about that. I talked to Lashrecse Aird during the Session. She was working on getting that changed. And so the funding formula for HVAC's is somewhat of a problem. But it's overall, you know, a few billion dollars here, million dollars there. You know, there's another thing, Thomas, that I think is really interesting about this.
Thomas Bowman
Another?
Michael Pope
I've got a couple things I thought were interesting. I spent a week in Richmond, Thomas, I picked up a bunch of stuff. So a lot of this funding is, I mean, when you get down the list, beyond the big ticket items, and you're looking at the small ticket items, a lot of this stuff is really kind of traditional pork barrel spending that helps specific people. This is an election year and there are some Democrats who are in problematic districts. So some of this money does help candidates on the campaign trail. For example, Nancy Guy can talk about the $1 million that goes to Virginia Beach for the Virginia African American Cultural Center. Rodney Willett can talk about the half a million dollars that goes to this Achievable Dream Program in Henrico. Josh Cole can talk about the half a million dollars that goes to A Public Education in Fredericksburg. Roz Tyler can talk about the $100,000 that goes to the Sussex Youth and Adult Recreation Association. So, you know, when you get beyond the big ticket items, like for the the Employment Commission, and the broadband, and the water stuff, and the ventilation upgrades, and you get down to the smaller ticket items, there are some spending in here that does strike some people as being campaign related. We are in an election year after all.
Thomas Bowman
Well, you know, Michael, it's interesting that you point all this out. But I used to actually work for a member who is on the Appropriations Committee. And the thing is, in order to build support for the budget, they actually set aside a dedicated amount for member, I guess, like pet projects and interests. And the reason for that is, once you get your amendment in the budget, you, the custom at least, is that you have to vote for it. Right? So it's a strategic give and take that the Appropriations Committee has to do in order to one, build support among its own caucus for the budget, because remember, these people, like you said, are facing a tough reelect. And one thing that they might do is try to put the majority party in a bad position, otherwise, by calling and asking for amendments that would absolutely help their communities, so they can be seen as fighting for their communities. But amendments for provisions that maybe weren't in the cards, or weren't in the budget, and it would put the, at least the Democratic Party, or in most cases, the majority party, in a tight spot or a bad place.
Michael Pope
Well interesting, you say that, because this budget spending plan, despite having Republicans complain about the process, and they weren't a part of it, as it turns out, half the Republican House Caucus ended up voting for it.
Thomas Bowman
Of course, there's a lot of good stuff in the budget, you don't want to vote against. In fact, everybody who did vote against the budget, their challengers, come November, will be spreading the message like, "So and so voted against money for mental health funding, so and so voted for money against school renovations."
Michael Pope
Thomas, I think I just heard you make a prediction. Now speaking of predictions, that reminds me of something I was going to tell you.
Thomas Bowman
What's that?
Michael Pope
Well, more than one listener approached me about following up on our episode with Chaz Nuttycombe, back in April, way back in April, when you and he made a bunch of predictions about House Democratic Primary races. Now, most of those predictions were correct, but not everything.
Thomas Bowman
All right, let's do right now.
Michael Pope
Okay, so friend of the pod, Sarah Taylor, left us this voice message about that very topic.
Sarah Graham Taylor
Hey, Michael and Thomas. It's Sarah Taylor, friend of the podcast, and possibly the most entertaining guest now that Trevor Southerland has moved to Pennsylvania. So as the Transition Virginia prediction champ, where I currently sit atop the leaderboard and am batting 1000, I had to call y'all out on the episode where you and Chaz Nuttycombe made predictions on the House of Delegates Primaries. Y'all missed some of those predictions big time. You overestimated incumbents, you underestimated young challengers. You gave the DSA way too much credit and someone owes Alfonso Lopez a big apology. Me. I told Delegate Lopez he'd get 70% of the vote in his primary so yep, still batting 1000. Talk to y'all later.
Thomas Bowman
Thank you for that message, Sarah. And yes, you are still the reigning champ. Yeah, election predictions are a dangerous game. And squirrely things happen on Election Day, once voters are in the polling booth. Chaz is a 21 year old progressive analyst who actually got most of those predictions correct. The vast majority of incumbents did win. And some of the ones who lost, Transition Virginia actually predicted they were going to lose, including Mark Levine and Ibraheem Samirah.
Michael Pope
Now our guests on the podcast, say all sorts of interesting things, which is why we invite them on. Now Sarah was referring to this line from our guest, Chaz Nuttycombe.
Chaz Nuttycombe
Yeah. So if anybody is going to lose from a challenger from their left, I definitely think it's going to be Lopez. I think Karishma Mehta has built a really strong campaign for herself. She had a pretty good Q1. She's got the backing of the DSA folk. And you know, the DSA folk were there for Lee Carter, when most people from, you know, the big boys in the House Democratic Caucus, were not. They really are a force to be reckoned with up in that region in the Beltway, and in Fairfax.
Michael Pope
Nice. Lopez won this primary with more than 70% of the vote. So once again, Sarah keeps the top spot as Predictor in Chief here on Transition Virginia. And this idea that the Democratic Socialists of America is a force to be reckoned with in Fairfax, Thomas, what did you make of that?
Thomas Bowman
Well, definitely not in Fairfax, Michael. Look, the reality is is Northern Virginia, especially while it is very liberal, this is the home of the Establishment. People who work for big corporations, the defense industry, the military, the elected officials themselves often, they all live in Northern Virginia, and many of them vote in Northern Virginia. So yes, it's liberal, but it is not a bastion of super progressivism, as far as the DSA is concerned. And, you know, I actually have an interesting story about that. So when I was a union lobbyist, I had the privilege of sitting in on one of the Amazon HQ2 hearings for the Arlington County Board. And DSA showed up in mass, and disrupted the hearings, as they wanted to do. And 12 hours later, at the end of that hearing, turns out most, if not all of them, shipped in from D.C. They weren't actually Northern Virginia residents at all. So yeah, you've got a you got a little bit of presence of the DSA in parts of Northern Virginia, and they certainly go out and turn up in marches. They're all over Twitter, but the reality is, you know, as a voting block, maybe it's small but growing, but Northern Virginia is the Establishment home. The one place where an incumbent did lose to a challenger from the left, is Steve Heretick. Now, Mark Levine lost because of Alexandria City politics, Ibraheem Samirah lost because of Reston's politics, Heretick lost because he was alleged financial predator in a district that does not have a lot of wealth. And so yeah, he had a lot of built in advantages, one being the incumbent, having two opponents that, in theory, could have split the vote. But he did himself in by having all of these negative news headlines, unfortunately, right after we published so neither one of us got the memo that Steve Heretick was going to lose until of course, our episode was already out. So I think I actually had some of my own comments about the Alfonso Lopez race in that episode. Do you remember what I said?
Michael Pope
I can pull the audio right now. This is what you said on our episode back in April.
Thomas Bowman
I will be watching the Lopez race closely as a former constituent of Alfonso's. But I think ultimately, he's going to be fine.
Did you catch that last part? Play that again, Michael. I think ultimately, he's going to be fine. One more time. I think ultimately, he's going to be fine. So yeah, look, I didn't say that he was going to win by a lot or a little, but I did say he was gonna be fine. And he was more than fine at 70%. So Alfonso, Sarah predicted you would have 70% of the vote, and I predicted you would win, Chaz got it wrong.
Michael Pope
I think it's worth noting here, for the record, most of Chaz, when it comes predictions, were actually spot on. I think the parts of the show that may have been a problem, in retrospect, is when he's talking about incumbents who ended up losing. Now let's remember here, for the record, we had a number of incumbents that lost; Steve Heretick, Lee Carter, Mark Levine, and also Ibraheem Samirah. Now, I think, Thomas, there was a point of the show where you were talking about that race. Here's what you said on our show back in April,
Thomas Bowman
Ibraheem Samirah versus Irene Shin, I think Irene Shin is an incredibly strong challenger, she got the endorsement of Janet Howell, in that district, and that isn't easy to get when you are trying to take on an incumbent. And so she is absolutely one to watch.
Yeah, so what I didn't say there, Michael, is that I knew that she was knocking doors and raising money the entire time. And it's funny, because shortly after we published that, I actually got a call from Ibraheem Samirah who told me he thought it was cute, that I thought his race was going to be close.
Michael Pope
Cute. He used the word cute.
Thomas Bowman
He used the word cute. And so yeah, I knew that she was working hard. And then I knew that Ibraheem wasn't. And so okay, like, people lose. And so the one I didn't see coming, necessarily, was Lee Carter. The reason I don't, I didn't see Lee Carter losing is because Lee Carter is kind of the every man of Manassas City. He is working class, far left, but at the same time, like salt of the earth, and that's exactly who votes in Manassas City. But what I didn't know at the time, was that Lee Carter was not knocking doors, and he wasn't letting his campaign volunteers knock doors on his behalf either.
Michael Pope
What? Why was that?
Thomas Bowman
Well, the reason Lee Carter didn't do that is because he understood the science around COVID, did not want to risk exposing him, other people that were his constituents, or his campaign volunteers or staff to the Coronavirus. That was obviously not a good call if you wanted to come back to Richmond at least. But that's the decision he made. I would also point out that Lee is now a father of four, and he's got a young baby at home. And it's a lot more preferable to just be a dad with, an enjoy that time with a new kid, than it is to go knock doors, and this guy has gotten death threats, by the way, multiple times every day of his life. So I'm sure Lee's kind of thinking, "Good riddance to you guys here."
Michael Pope
Also, it's worth pointing out, that he was a double filer, and his name was literally on the ballot twice. Voters hate that, right? And so same thing hurt Mark Levine in his race.
Thomas Bowman
Who we got right, too, in that claim.
Michael Pope
The other person who had the same situation, but totally different dynamics, is Jay Jones, who is an extremely popular incumbent and his name was on the ballot twice. And he won one of those races and lost the other. You and Nuttycombe actually had that, all of that spot on, in terms of Jay Jones winning, despite the fact that his name was on the ballot twice. But yeah, Levine and Carter actually suffered from the same problem, which is their name was on the ballot twice. And they weren't as strong as they should have been in their own districts and they got knocked off.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, and in Levine's case, he was also running against an incredibly popular candidate, and relative newcomer, Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who's now Delegate Elect, presumptive, I should say, Delegate Presumptive, Elizabeth Bennett-Parker.
Michael Pope
There is a Republican challenger who has lots of yard signs up all over Alexandria. So yeah, she's got to make it through the General first.
Thomas Bowman
Well, it's it's good that they're paying attention to their constituents and, or potential constituents, in Alexandria City. The Republican Party there is. But anyway, yeah, so mixed bag, predictions are always a risky game. But they're fun. And that's why we play them right.
Michael Pope
Lopez did win with 70% of the vote. So any discussion of him being imperiled in any way, or the most likely to lose, in terms of a challenge from the left, were bad predictions.
Thomas Bowman
It's okay. All right. Well, we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to unpack the courts. Brad Kutner of Courthouse News Service is going to walk us through all these new judges that Democrats are about to add to the newly expanded Appeals Court bench. We'll be right back.
Michael Pope
And we're back on Transition Virginia, we're talking about the Special Session, which is not just about federal stimulus cash.
Thomas Bowman
Members of the General Assembly are also selecting new Appeals Court judges. Virginia is currently the only state in the country that does not guarantee a right to appeal, which is why lawmakers took action earlier this year to expand the jurisdiction of the court to guarantee a right to appeal cases.
Michael Pope
And that means a bunch of new judges, six brand new judges that did not previously exist, plus two judges are retiring. So that's actually eight new Appeals Court judges.
Thomas Bowman
Alright, so here to help us understand exactly what's happening with this black robe crowd is friend of the podcast, Mr. Appeals Court himself. He's a reporter for Courthouse News Service, and the Secretary Treasurer for the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association. Brad Kutner, thank you for joining us.
Brad Kutner
Thank you so much for having me.
Michael Pope
So, tell us what we're talking about here. I think a lot of our listeners kind of vaguely know this is happening but haven't really been following it day to day. Why is all this necessary? Like what are all these new judges about?
Brad Kutner
The guaranteed right of appeal will put your appeal in front of a panel of three judges, at the State Court of Appeals, for sure. You will get your case, you will get at least one hearing by the Appeals Court. So that's a big deal because we didn't have that before, and the nature of why we didn't have that, as I usually tell people, it's probably racism. But there's also been other changes to the State Court of Appeals in the past.
Thomas Bowman
Well, you know, that's a good point. So like, let's clarify, if you're just the average person going through the court, and you don't like or agree with the ruling that the judge has to say, previously, there wasn't much you could do about it, if the next judge wasn't interested in hearing it? And now, you can get that appeal, at least hearing, right?
Brad Kutner
Yeah, you start the District Court. If it's a criminal offense, you start the District Court, you get convicted, you appeal to your local District Circuit Court. So like Richmond, General District versus Richmond Circuit, and then after that, you would go to Court of Appeals. And then after that, if things didn't still didn't go your way, or the state didn't go the state's way, they go to the Supreme Court. But at any point, either the Court of Appeals, or the State Supreme Court could just say no to your appeal. And now, going forward, the Court of Appeals has to at least three judges will hear these disputes.
Thomas Bowman
So this is expanded jurisdiction, right? So what kinds of cases is it gonna hear now that it never heard before?
Michael Pope
The expanded court will hear commercial cases, and that's actually going to be the major new thing, is commercial, civil disputes. So Brad, earlier, you mentioned that, like, how did the system get set up this way? Like, what is the origin story here for this? And you said, the answer is probably racism, which I like, I like where you're going with that. I mean, that is usually the answer. But actually, I spent some time going back to the news clips from the mid 80s, when they created the Appeals Court. And what the lawmakers are quoted as saying, at the time, is they were concerned about money. That if you guaranteed a right to appeal cases, for every case, outside of criminal cases, in divorce cases, that would cost a lot of money, and they didn't want to spend that money. Brad, do you think that they were being straight up with that answer? Or do you think there might have been something else going on with that?
Brad Kutner
I think we all know that the government spending is is the excuse that a lot of folks use. Republicans use to stifle any expansion of government authority. This will cost money. But as we noted earlier, we were the only state in the country without it. So the, maybe the better version of this is why we didn't have it in the first place. And so I say, probably racism is, the Court of Appeals still have the capacity to refuse cases individually. So even like criminal cases didn't- there's no guaranteed right of appeal for every criminal violation until this law change. So a single judge could make the call to deny an appeal in a criminal conviction, and that was it, and then we'd hear nothing about it again. Now, essentially, every criminal case that's appealed, will have the capacity to get some kind of hearing. I'm sure there'll be situations where they can deny, but my understanding is this will open up the courts to hear so many more disputes that weren't getting heard before.
Michael Pope
Mainly, commercial civil litigation disputes. This is something that I think should be on the minds of lawmakers is that you're talking about a court, currently, that hears only criminal cases and divorce cases. And so suddenly, that same court is going to hear a whole bunch of commercial civil litigation disputes. Should that be a guiding factor in what kind of judges that you put on this new court, is that you've got sort of people who are...these commercial civil litigation disputes can get really, really complicated. I mean, don't you want people who are kind of experts in that stuff sitting on your court?
Brad Kutner
Yeah. And well, and so it's funny that you mentioned that because I do see some commercial disputes, contract disputes like that in state courts, which would end up at the State Court of Appeals. But honestly, I see a lot more of those high dollar disputes at federal courts. And I'm not sure if I'm not seeing as many of those disputes in state courts, because of the way the system is set up, that whether the lack of appeals created a barrier that limited lawyers interest in filing in state courts, because that was when they expanded the Workplace Protection Law that allowed people to sue in state courts for workplace discrimination, a lot more a lot easier, made those disputes easier to file and easier to get put before a judge. There was a lag, but I've started to see those employment disputes show up in state courts, whereas there were none before. So essentially, none before, they would transfer to federal court almost immediately. So I'm curious to see if in the same vein that you're talking about here, if the reason I haven't seen as many of the civil disputes in state courts, as I do in federal courts, is because the system didn't allow for this kind of civil process. Does that make sense?
Thomas Bowman
Yeah.
Brad Kutner
It's what I do all day, is read those lawsuits, but so it kind of glaze over even more than the average person would glaze over, because you just look for certain terms. But yeah, I mean, I have no doubt that it will allow for some room. I guess your concern here is you put Democrats pack the court and then they put sympathetic judges. And then when commercial disputes come up, it's going to change the nature of how those disputes are handled or how they're how they're...
Michael Pope
Well, I wasn't even really getting to the court packing yet. I mean, we can talk about that later. What I was really concerned about is, so you've got this court that right now, hears a whole bunch of criminal cases, and a whole bunch of divorce cases. And that's it. They don't they don't hear these complicated commercial disputes. And so suddenly, they're gonna start hearing a whole bunch of commercial civil litigation disputes, which again, can get really bogged down and complicated. And so like, don't you want people who are kind of have some experience in commercial civil litigation to be part of your newly expanded jurisdiction court?
Brad Kutner
So I mean, another thing to keep in mind is with Appeals Courts, usually it's, there are merit angles to the decisions being made. And its interpretation of evidence, and whether or not the evidence that was presented meets a certain threshold or hits a certain test, stuff like that. But I mean, a lot of appeals stuff is more procedural than anything else. And it's more reinterpreting or interpreting law.
Thomas Bowman
So Brad, explain to us who are these judicial candidates that the ledge is actually considering? There's there's eight of them, or eight new positions, right?
Brad Kutner
So the State Bar, which is under the state Supreme Court, created a list of candidates that they sent that is secret, we don't know that one. The State Bar Association, sent out lists, other Bar Associations from around the state, regional Bar Associations, they start with the candidates, and then they go for the body at some point. And then there's a public hearing where the public and legislators get to ask them questions in a meeting, and then it's voted on in the actual bodies. I say all that because the way that it's going now is a lot of these conversations are happening outside of the public sphere, with legislators saying they're talking to candidates one on one, which has been a sticking point for Republicans, because they've argued they felt left out, they said that about everything.
Thomas Bowman
Well, you kind of just hit on something probably a little bit more interesting, as far as the rest of the show goes, which is like, how do you become a judge? And, like, walk us through that process? Because we would like to know who these candidates that the ledge is considering. Is there anybody that's gonna be controversial, like genuinely controversial, potentially? And is that why they might be doing it in secret? Or is this setup...is this just why it's set up this way?
Brad Kutner
So we don't know who the people are outside of the public candidate list. When I spoke to legislators ahead of it, they made it sound like the public meeting would have a larger, large-ish, like the leadership would meet and they would whittle it down to a certain number, and then that number would say, like 15, or something like that, I didn't get a specific- but more than the exclusively open seats. And instead, so there's eight open seats, right, I made it sound like ledgers booked ahead of time, made it sound like we'd get like 15 people in a public meeting that the public and the legislators would get to ask questions of. Now we're hearing that they're going to present eight people for that public meeting, which essentially means those are the eight people who will become the next judges on the State Court of Appeals. And all of that has happened, allegedly, behind closed doors. I mean, I guess, officially, behind closed doors, which has brought the ire of those on the right, because they are feeling like they've left out. But as Jeff Shapiro noted, in his headline, Democrats behaving as a majority party should. There's a long history, Ned Oliver over at The Mercury did a nice write up on just how partisan the judicial selection process is. You're asking about controversial judges, we don't know who they are yet. So we don't even know if they have the capacity to be controversial. The lists I've seen in public have been existing judges from across the state, which goes back to the geographic concerns. There's also individual lawyers, I reached out to some of them, and they denied interview requests, which keeps in the Virginia tradition of judges not talking to the press ever. We don't know what's going on. Republicans don't know what's going on. I'm guessing there's like five people in Democratic leadership, who knows what's going on. And then a lot of folks are just going to show up and vote, "Yes."
Michael Pope
Brad, you mentioned that the Republicans are upset about the lack of transparency. I think what they're really upset about is the lack of an ability to participate in this. Because if they were behind closed doors doing it, I think they would be fine with that. So I think people who are concerned about a lack of transparency, probably should be worried that all of the conference committee stuff happens in secret, and members of the public are not allowed to be in the room when they're making these decisions. And all of these, the process for electing these judges, all happens in secret. And so why is it people in Virginia have this fetish for secret government?
Brad Kutner
I think that's all governments, Michael. But no, I mean, well, this is going back to what I was saying before, with the other part of my job is, like in order to see a civil document a court opinion in the state of Virginia, you have to physically go to the local court to see a copy of that document. There's a long history of keeping things obscured from the public in the judicial system in the state.
Michael Pope
And shouldn't people be outraged about that?
Brad Kutner
I mean, sure? I mean, we spent the first 15 minutes of this conversation trying to explain what the Court of Appeals is, and I'm not sure any of us are better off now.
Thomas Bowman
If we still have anyone listening...
Brad Kutner
Like these are very complicated, intricate things, that, there's a reason the process exists. Trust me, I'd like to know more. But even if you had a list of 40 people to look through, is that going to offer more insight? I mean, you can say like a following some of Biden's stuff you say this person has a background in public defending. You have, you know, civil rights law, they're all going to be civil rights attorneys at some point, I'm sure. So yeah, I mean, do we want to know? Sure. Does anybody actually care, unless they're a lawyer? Probably not. And we will get at least a semi Lorca have a hearing with the the public one that happens with with I guess, these eight candidates. Like you're totally right, this is a completely hidden behind shade. I just don't know how much people will actually, like, are they gonna go to this meeting now? Because because they're mad that they didn't get to go before? I don't know.
Michael Pope
Brad, you get points for using the word semi Lorca on Transition Virginia. I think you're probably the first on this podcast to do that. So one last question before we wrap this thing up. Republicans have made the argument that Democrats are trying to pack the Court. Is that an accurate way to look at what's going on with this?
Brad Kutner
I mean, it was a bipartisan process. Every Bar Association, every Legal Group in the state has been asking for this for years. Obenshain said what you said earlier, that it was expensive, and just increasing bureaucracy, and blah, blah, blah. When I spoke to Stanley, he, Bill Stanley, Senator Bill Stanley, he took issue with the capacity for partisanship in the selection process. He said, "Had there been guard rails, [he] would have voted in support of it," Whether or not that's true, as you know, for for them to say. But yeah, and as we've mentioned beforehand, you know, the Republicans have been in charge for a real long time, they've had the capacity to fill almost every judgeship in the state. There's good stories about a McAuliffe appointee to the State Supreme Court, getting removed by Republicans six months later. So there's a long history of partisanship on the bench. Is it any worse or better now because Democrats are doing it? I guess it depends on what side of the aisle you're on.
Thomas Bowman
Brad, I'm glad you mentioned that, because I think that's great fodder for a future episode, if we can get Judge Roush on.
Brad Kutner
Now, that'd be funny.
Thomas Bowman
I was going to just push back, once again, on the Republican narrative that Democrats are packing the Court. One, they're doing the job they were elected to do, which is make government run more efficiently and, you know, fill positions, which the Republicans deliberately chose not to do. And then the other thing is, the Republicans had 30 years of power to fill and appoint all the judgeships that are currently there, except for the ones appointed in the last couple of years. And so the judicial bench is already heavily skewed to the right. And we learned in a previous episode from Michael, that they're overwhelmingly white males and older. So the courts are already packed. We are unpacking the court. And I think that is the message that should win the day because people know, like, the average person knows that government is not working, it's not functioning properly. And this is one of the reasons why.
Michael Pope
So your argument, Thomas, is yes, the Democrats are packing the Court, but they're reacting to decades of Republicans packing the Court.
Thomas Bowman
No, they're unpacking the Court, they're bringing balance back to the force.
Brad Kutner
I mean, they're also, when they when they if and when they appoint current judges to these to the Court of Appeals, they'll also have to fill those vacancies. And that was one of the questions I had for one of the legislators we interviewed. And I said, "Does that mean that if they open these seats by, with these new appointments, will they have to immediately, or will they want to, immediately turn around and fill the vacancies that they created themselves, because the House is up for grabs this fall?" If I was them, I would fill those seats as soon as possible, just in case. And I guess there might be a veto session on the other side of the Special Session. So there could be a version where we see, if any current sitting judges are appointed, we might come back in a month after post veto and appoint those judges that fill those empty seats again, so continued court packing.
Thomas Bowman
It never ends. So that's all for this episode.
Michael Pope
Support us on Patreon or send us an email to TransitionVApodcast@gmail.com.
Thomas Bowman
Like and follow @TransitionVA on Twitter and anywhere pods are cast.
Michael Pope
Read the transcripts at TransitionVirginia.com and special thanks to Emily Cottrell for figuring out what the heck we're saying.
Thomas Bowman
Thanks for being on the Transition Team. We're your hosts Thomas Bowman.
Michael Pope
And I'm Michael Pope.
