IN THE NEWS:

• Governor Youngkin's legacy budget proposal is out, and to kick off the year, Michael and Lauren break down some of the biggest takeaways.

• Youngkin is proposing cutting the top income tax bracket from 5.75% to 5.1%, giving a huge tax cut to the wealthiest Virginians -- especially the top one percent. He's also proposing a "tech tax" capturing a sales tax on a new category of "digital personal property" -- including your download of Microsoft Word or your subscription to Spotify.

• What the budget proposal does NOT include: any tricks to defund abortion. Advocates for reproductive freedom say they're pleased, but some are worried the proposal removes funding for services to low-income Virginians who receive dangerous fetal diagnoses.

AT THE WATERCOOLER:

• Despite violent crime sitting at an all-time low--some Republican ads from the last cycle contained racialized anti-crime messages straight out of the Willie Horton era, especially targeting Black candidates.

• Some political "odd-couples" in the new General Assembly--some combinations of committee chairs that might make for an interesting legislative session.

Episode Transcript

Michael Pope  

I'm Michael Pope.

Lauren Burke  

I'm Lauren Burke.

Michael Pope  

And this is Pod Virginia, which is launching Season Five! Can you believe it, Lauren? This little podcast Thomas Bowman and I started way back in February of 2020 is now launching its fifth season. 

Lauren Burke  

Yeah, that's great. It's hard to believe, but time flies. And you guys have done a fantastic job keeping everybody up to date on what's going on in Virginia.

Michael Pope  

So of you, which is why I'm so glad that you are joining us for this season. So, let's get right into it. We've got a New Year's Day special treat for you. Because we're gonna dive headfirst into the governor's budget proposal. This is the kind of thing our listeners love. So, let's nerd out about the budget. Here is our first story. Tax cuts for millionaires. The legacy Glenn Youngkin wants people to associate with him is cutting taxes. That's why he's proposing cutting the top income tax bracket from 5.75% to 5.1%. Giving a huge tax cut to the wealthiest Virginians, especially the top 1%, they'll get the biggest tax cut. Here's the governor outlining his budget proposal to members of the General Assembly money committees. 

Glenn Youngkin  

We are cutting income taxes by 12% across the board. Yes. 12%. Across the board. 

Lauren Burke  

One goal that is not in his budget proposal but one that he says he wants to work with members of the General Assembly on is eliminating the car tax.

Glenn Youngkin  

The car tax belongs in the trash can, not in your mailbox. 

Michael Pope  

That's probably easier said than done, though. You may remember when Jim Gilmore campaigned to eliminate the car tax when he ran for governor back in 1997. And yet, the car tax is still with us.

Lauren Burke  

Yeah. And the car tax is hated by all. And so it's a bipartisan hatred. As somebody who drives an older car, I don't really have to deal with it. But I texted my friends around the Commonwealth, and I am shocked at how high the car tax is. I started with my boyfriend in Arlington, paying $628. Because of the car tax, he's got a 2020 Camry. But at a rate, I didn't think it was that high. It's high; it's a lot higher than I thought. Another friend in the Hampton Roads and Newport News area texted me he was paying as I reached for my phone to look at it $539. I think the governor will get a lot of support. He may not get it from the body of opposition, the Democrats. But I'm sure you'll get it from the public. 

Michael Pope  

It's worth pointing out that the governor is not actually proposing getting rid of the car tax. He thinks it's a good idea. But it is a very important fact to point out that it is not in NOT in his budget proposal. In his speech, he says, "While I'm addressing taxes, there is one topic that is not included in my budget submission. And it's the single most hated tax in Virginia", blah, blah, blah. So, not in his actual budget proposal, but one that he thinks is a good idea, which means that he would have to work with Democrats to do it. 

Lauren Burke  

Part of the car tax thing is that it's this thing that happens all at once. If you raised the real estate tax, let's say, 10%, you probably get the same amount of money into the general fund that the car tax is currently giving. But the real estate tax force is paid every month, so you don't notice it as much as you do the car tax. And I think that's part of the reason why people, quite frankly, hate it. But as far as it not being a formal proposal, I still think it will always be in the discussion. It always comes up as a thing people hate, and it's universal; it crosses every bipartisan, geographic, and demographic line in the Commonwealth.

Michael Pope  

What do you think is the fate of the proposed income tax cut? Do you think Democrats are gonna go for that?

Lauren Burke  

Ah, no, they're not. Obviously, the income tax cut benefits the wealthy, and I'm sure that will be the Democratic argument, which is accurate. Democrats always sort of get themselves into the trick box of saying they're pro-tax effectively. Because if you're arguing for any tax, the Republicans turn around the messaging and say, Oh, you guys are pro-taxes. And that's how the Democrats always get trapped, even when they are factually right on something.

Michael Pope  

What's interesting here about the legacy budget is the governor's one shot at actually having a full budget; that's only his proposal from soup to nuts. Here this is. That's why they call it the legacy budget. So you wouldn't think that the governor wants his legacy to be a tax cutter, Such as lowering the income tax or eliminating the car tax (maybe at some point in the future). But the governor is doing something interesting, which is creating a brand new tax, which is the topic of our next story. Netflix and chill all the way to the bank, the governor calls it a tech tax capturing a sales tax on your download of Microsoft Word, for example, or your subscription to Spotify. His proposal applies state and local taxes to a new category he calls digital personal property. Here's Derek Max, president of the Thomas Jefferson Institute.

Derek Max  

He's trying to shift Virginia away from the income tax and more toward a sales tax, and in order to do that, he's going to broaden the sales tax base. One way to do that is to treat digital end-use products in the same way as you do hard copies of those same kinds of products.

Lauren Burke  

Jarad Walczak at the Tax Foundation says the governor is trying to modernize the sales tax to catch up with consumers.

Jarad Walczak  

A tax on consumption is more e economically efficient than income taxes. And it has eroded because we've changed the ways we consume. There's no good argument for why buying a DVD should be taxable. But paying for a Netflix subscription should not.

Michael Pope  

That sounds like a pretty solid argument. Actually, this has been proposed and accepted in several states. Lauren, your home state, New York, has a really interesting exemption, which is that newspapers don't count. There's an exemption for newspapers in the New York version of the tech tax. Do you think that when Virginia adopts this tax on your Netflix subscription, they'll carve out an exemption for newspapers?

Lauren Burke  

I tend to doubt it. But I guess you never know. My home state of New York is also going to have a consumption tax to drive into Manhattan, which is really thrilling for people there. I do think it's interesting to see a so-called conservative argue for a new tax. If there's one thing nobody wants to hear about, it's a new tax. It's as if every time the government gets into our lives, they are doing something to remove money out of our pockets, whether it be tolls or taxes. And I think there is a good argument why digital and tech subscriptions don't apply because the cost of that type of moment is like zero. When we used to get goods and services before, it typically involved physical action: you go to the store. The store had to be brick and mortar, they had to pay taxes, they had to do a bunch of stuff, they had to build a building, and they had to pay employees. All that has to be paid for. We all understand that those employees have to drive on the road to get to work; we do digital stuff. There's a lot less work involved in that, and there's a lot less activity involved in that. And so it's amazing. Here it is, the government again, trying to figure out a new way to tax people. So it is not going to be popular. And you want to talk about something that would disproportionately impact our younger taxpayers. Well, this would be it.

Michael Pope  

Well, if you know who was having a little bit of fun with this, it is Speaker Don Scott. So when the governor gave his presentation to the money committees, he gave a speech, and people applauded, and then he walked out of the room. Then, the Secretary of Finance, Stephen Cummings, gave a more formal presentation and answered questions from members of the General Assembly. So when it was Don Scott's turn to speak. He actually asked a pretty pointed question about the creation of the new tax here. Have you found any Republicans to introduce your bill? Here is a little bit of that back and forth between Speaker Don Scott and Secretary of Finance Stephen Cummings.

Don Scott 

I heard the governor say this was halftime, and he came back out as a Democrat with a lot of tax increases. I've listened to conversations with very much interest about all the tax increases on businesses. And I was wondering which Republican have you spoken to about introducing this legislation?

Stephen Cummings  

A lot, a lot.

Michael Pope  

A lot of Republicans would love to introduce a bill to create a new tax. This actually seems counterintuitive and ironic. Republicans want to create a new tax and tax your Netflix subscription. On the other hand, the way they're framing this is they're modernizing the sales tax. You used to have to go to a brick-and-mortar store, and now everything's digital. And their narrative is they're modernizing the sales tax. Is that going to work? 

Lauren Burke  

I don't know about that. They're modernizing the sales tax, a.k.a. they're creating a new tax. That's what it is. And that's what will be seen as creating a new tax. It's kind of like what we hear with red light cameras and speed cameras: It's about safety. Now, you know, doggone well, a lot of times, it's not about safety, it's about revenue. It's about revenue for cities and towns. And it's an easy way to collect that revenue. The thing takes a picture of your license plate, they send it to your home, and it's another tax, it's a bill basically coming in, that they've automated through technology. I have a hard time believing that that is going to sell as we're modernizing the tax code. I just don't know that. That's going to work.

Michael Pope  

Well, let's get to our final news story of the day. Elephant in the womb. Last year, the governor's budget proposal included a bit of funding to carry out a ban on abortions. It's a kind of budget trick, considering that the General Assembly actually never approved a ban on abortion. Now, advocates for reproductive freedom say they're pleased that the current budget proposal does not include money to enforce an abortion ban. Here's Rae Ann Pickett at Planned Parenthood. 

Rae Ann Pickett  

We are really glad to see that the governor has not recommitted to banning abortion in his budget. However, we know that anti-choice and anti-abortion politicians will stop at nothing. 

Lauren Burke  

Advocates are worried that the current budget proposal removes funding for services to some people with low incomes who receive a fetal diagnosis that is fatal to Tarina Keene at Repro Rising. She says she's concerned that would restrict access to services that are currently available. 

Tarina Keene  

If we take that funding away, it will leave pregnant people and their families without any funding or any help to make a decision that they may feel is best for themselves or their families. This type of defunding is particularly cruel.

Michael Pope  

Particularly cruel, I would imagine this is going to be a budget fight that people should anticipate in the new year.

Lauren Burke  

Yeah, and these are the ways in which they do abortion policy without it being completely in your face. But certainly advocates and certainly Tarina Keene and others will be paying very close attention to that. It's typical Republican policymaking. The Republicans are always arguing that they want less government in your lives and that. Or at least the traditional Republicans were back in the days of Reagan, which sounds like a thousand years ago now. But in fact, when it comes to this issue, they're in everybody's business or in the business of women specifically. And it is really amazing to watch that. No matter what, there's always something, but these groups are really savvy about keeping an eye on these types of things. I'm sure these issues are going to come up all session long. 

Michael Pope  

Yeah, I think a lot of Republicans would say that for many years, they have been advocating against public funding for abortion. So it's one thing to say we're going to restrict your right, or we're going to restrict access. And then that's kind of a separate argument. When you talk about reducing public money for abortions in the mind of Republicans. Interestingly, they would continue to make that argument after the election that we just had about.

Lauren Burke  

Well, the election we just had was so close that I think you'd certainly say that the Democrats won on heavy abortion messaging, which certainly worked to their advantage. But when you have a general assembly, that's 51-49 and a Senate a 21-19, it's not exactly a landslide. The margins are still extremely close. Even though, at the end of the day, it is true, the Democrats won, and I think strategically they made the right move with regard to abortion.

Michael Pope  

There's kind of a ticking time bomb for Republicans because this year, the General Assembly is going to vote on this amendment that will make abortion rights codified into the Constitution. That, of course, will double down on their election messaging. Eventually, it will go to voters again, and even before that happens, it'll be on the campaign trail for the next General Assembly election. And so the ticking time bomb for Republicans is that we're gonna keep talking about abortion on the campaign trail over and over and over again, and that's probably going to benefit Democrats.

Lauren Burke  

Yes, we'll see; I mean, we're certainly going to see it next: you're gonna congressional level and, of course, the presidential level. And we're gonna see who wins that argument. Obviously, this was all started by Roe v. Wade being flipped. So on a national level is where I really think you see, these politics matter even more. But, obviously, Virginia, like so many other places, is a microcosm of that. And we just saw an example last year of how abortion politics played politically very close. 

Michael Pope  

Yeah, so we're gonna see it in the election of 2024, with the federal elections. We are going to see it in the election of 2025. We are going to see it in the election of 2026. And so year after year, this is going to be something we'll be talking about on the campaign trail. All right, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll play a round of trivia and head over to the water cooler.

All right, let's go around the Commonwealth.

Lauren Burke  

Residents of Alexandria are hesitant about plans to bring the Washington Wizards; they're fearing it will clog their already busy roads. 

Michael Pope  

The city agreed to expand traffic enforcement by putting NBA referees at the busiest intersections, but beware because they hate traveling.

Lauren Burke  

Residents are also concerned about the proposed location of the stadium as it is a flood risk. 

Michael Pope  

The NHL still greenlit the move, saying that with climate change, all hockey teams should play underwater.

Lauren Burke  

Senator Tim Kaine is joining a bipartisan effort to ban legacy admissions to colleges on the federal level.

Michael Pope  

In response, the rest of Congress said Do you even know who my dad is?

Lauren Burke  

Virginia has been named the top oyster producer on the East Coast, having its best season in 35 years.

Michael Pope  

At the bottom of the list was Washington, DC, only because there's a slimy bottom feeder skilled at self-protection who's known as a senator. Some pretty slimy people, all right. Let's play a round of trivia. Last week, we asked you which neighborhood enrichment got its name based on how the streets are arranged? Well, the answer is The Fan.

Lauren Burke  

And we have some winners. 

Michael Pope  

Yeah, this was a really popular question. We got a lot of people getting the right answer on this one. So Jay Speer, Zach Lincoln, Gonzi Aida, Jason Melendez, Karen Kinard, and Joe Crook. So, Lauren, tell them what they won.

Lauren Burke  

A year's supply of West Virginia oysters, which is just coal with a pearl inside.

Michael Pope  

Alright, so here's our trivia question for next week. What Virginia congressman did President Woodrow Wilson appointed to be Secretary of the Treasury? I'll give you a hint. He later became a Senator, a US senator, one of those slimy US senators. In fact, he's so slimy that he is currently one of the most revered people in Virginia history. 

Lauren Burke  

If you think you know the answer, hit us up on social media. You might even win a prize.

Michael Pope  

Hey, let's head over to the water cooler. Lauren, what's the latest you're hearing about the water cooler? 

Lauren Burke  

Oh, the latest I'm hearing is all the annual end-of-year crime stats are coming out. And what we find is that crime is at an all-time low, at least homicides are, in the nation, according to the FBI. And I bring that up because, of course, we saw in 2023 so many Republican candidates running on the crime issue. But not just running on the crime issue, running ads that were straight out of the era of Willie Horton in terms of scaring voters into the idea that crime was at its highest levels.

Michael Pope  

Hey, Lauren, can I ask you a quick question? So I know who Willie Horton is, and you know who Willie Horton is. But many of our listeners do not. So, explain that whole phenomenon. 

Lauren Burke  

Willie Horton came up as a sort of famous political ad used by Lee Atwater against Michael Dukakis when he was running against President Bush. And basically what it was was they use the scary criminal theme to win the election. Dukakis didn't do particularly well in answering questions on crime. But this really sort of starts before that; it starts in the Nixon era. 

Michael Pope  

And just to paint a picture here for our listeners, Willie Horton was a Black man. And they made a television commercial that essentially starred the evil criminal Black man.

Lauren Burke  

Right. So they did the stereotypical Black male criminal. If you want to know more about that right now, Netflix is a documentary called Stamped From the Beginning; it goes through that entire history. But at a rate, that whole thing that Republicans have been doing as part of the Southern strategy. It's part of using crime as a wedge issue to scare white suburban voters away from the Democratic Party and to vote Republican. We saw that theme a lot in 2023 in Virginia, used against several candidates, notably Michael Fagan and Josh Cole. Josh Cole was running against the sheriff named Lee Peters, and Peters had an ad that really duplicated the Willie Horton ad. And, of course, the person used in that ad was a Black male who had committed a crime and had absolutely nothing to do with Josh Cole. But what's so ironic about this entire thing is the violent crime numbers are plummeting around the nation. And you would never know that when you actually poll people and ask them about crime. People tend to have this feeling that crime is on the rise. And, of course, that links back to, in my view, the media using crime as the issue, and as they say, in the news business, if it bleeds, it leads. 

Michael Pope  

If it bleeds, it leads. 

Lauren Burke  

We know that social media, Facebook in particular, is making money off of driving people's emotions. The media is getting people to click the link because of that same reason; local news tends to use crime as a way of getting people to watch longer. And in our politics, you see, with regard to things like the issue of immigration at the southern border, the Republicans are using the crime issue, once again, to drive people in favor of policies that they want to enact, to close the borders. So I think it's interesting to watch the crime stats go down, or the violent crime stats go down, and realize that all of those things that we saw play against what the facts actually are. But quite often, that's how it rolls in our politics. We're not a really nuanced era; we're not an era of nuance. We're in the era of big fat headlines. 

Michael Pope  

I think you could make a big-fed headline out of the chart for violent crime in Virginia. If you're listening to this podcast, and you want to visualize the violent crime rate in Virginia, on the left side of your graph, back in the late 80s, early 90s, was the huge spike top, that's the top of the mountain. We're nowhere near what the violent crime rate was in the late 80s and early 90s. In fact, it's kind of double; it's basically double what it is now. So that's the peak of the mountain. And then, since the early 1990s, that graph slopes all the way down. And that's where we are currently at a low point. It's actually risen a little bit since 2012. But it's a very small increase compared to the mountain of crime that happened in the late 80s and early 90s. 

Lauren Burke  

That late 80s and early 90s period was the crack cocaine era. And I remember my dad was a cop in New York at the time. And he, I think, had 2,000 murders in one year, which is extraordinary. And I'm pretty sure that they're under 400. This year, I was in the biggest city, you know, a city of 8 million people. But in Virginia, violent crime is down as well. But it really amazes me how many conversations that issue drives. Because, of course, it goes into the issue of police funding. And policing is a huge issue attached to all this infrastructure and bureaucracy that is policing. I'm sure that not much will change in the next cycle next year. Obviously, in Virginia, there is no next cycle because we're always in the cycle that says there are elections every year in Virginia, but you'll see it again. I'm sure in 2024, we'll see the same types of ads with regard to the crime issue. What about you, Michael? What's the latest you've heard about the water cooler? 

Michael Pope  

I'm taking a look at odd couples, political odd couples, which is to say, chairman and chairwoman of important committees in Virginia. So, if you think about the money committees, you have Louise Lucas at the top of the chain. They're chairwoman of a committee that she has wanted to leave for a very long time. So she's kind of achieving a lifelong goal here of being chairwoman of Senate Finance and Appropriations. So she's paired with Luke Torian, who is at House Appropriations, and Vivian Watts, who is at House Finance. So, the political Odd Couple there is Louise Lucas, Luke Torian, and Vivian Watts. Then we get over to the Senate Judiciary Committee. We've got Scott Surovell paired with House Courts of Justice Committee Chairman Patrick Hope and House Public Safety Committee Chairman Marcus Simon. So that is a politically odd couple of Surovell, Hope, and Simon.

Two of which, by the way, Lauren, our Pod Virginia, are all-stars. Then we get over to Labor and Commerce or Commerce and Labor, depending on which side of the building you're on. We got Creigh Deeds and Jeion Ward as the odd political couple there. And then, in general laws, this is actually the committee that's going to consider all the marijuana legislation. We've got Adam Ebenn and David Bulova. And then for kind of Health, Human Services & Education, we've got a mix of people here. We've got Mark Sickles at House Health and Human Services, Sam Rasoul at House Education, and then over on the Senate side, we've got Ghazala Hashmi at Senate Education & Health and Barbara Favola at Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services for the local government. We've got Jeremy McPike on the Senate, and then on the House side, we've got House, Counties, Cities & Towns chair Candi Mundon King. So that's your odd couple of McPike and King.

Then, Privileges & Elections considers all the election law stuff. We've got Aaron Rouse and Cia Price. That's a really interesting political odd couple there. And then for Transportation, we've got Jennifer Boysko in the Senate and Carrie Delaney in the House. And then, of course, don't forget about the House Rules Committee Chairman Don Scott and the Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman, Mamie Locke. Who, of course, wanted to be a leader, and this was the kind of concession she ended up with. I guess one of the concessions was being chairwoman of Senate rules. So there are a lot of really interesting pairings here. The most important of these pairings is the money committees. Luke Torian, Vivian Watts, and Louise Lucas, what do you think of all these pairings that we've got for our House and Senate committee chairs?

Lauren Burke  

I think several of them are gonna do really well together either because they're regionally together, like certainly Aaron Rouse and Cia Price. And Mamie Locke and Don Scott. Surovell, Patrick Hope, and Simon, I think those three will do really well working together. McPike and King will probably do well together in the same area. You know, the geographic question. And NoVa vs. Hampton Roads always plays into a lot of politics in Virginia. Although it's not talked about a whole lot. But I think that these pairings actually make a lot of sense to me. The biggest one to me, or I would say the most important one, certainly is Louise Lucas, Vivian Watt, and Luke Torian. And it's going to be interesting to see how that goes. There is a lot that Hampton Roads and that part of the state have not gotten over the years. Obviously, the governor wants to do the Potomac Yards project. And others, not just the governor in Potomac yards, that would involve a lot of taxpayer funding. Senator Lucas has already indicated that she's not hot on that idea. And so there's going to be a lot of interesting moments at the party. And, you know, that's another thing about politics, too, that's not talked about a whole lot, which is the disagreements that happened within the party. On the national level, when we talk about politics, it is always so partisan, talking about Republican vs. Democrat and MAGA Republicans vs. Progressives. But when you talk about state government politics, it amazes me how many of these stories are inner party conflicts and disagreements, and they make for some very, very interesting stories, as you know, Michael.

Michael Pope  

Well, let's go ahead and open up that pod. Virginia mailbag. Lauren, what are our listeners talking about?

Lauren Burke  

Senate Majority Leader and Pod Virginiaall-starr Scott Surovell loved our discussion with Kim Bobo about paid sick days, posting this on Twitter, "frontline essential workers should never have to choose between getting paid and making everyone else sick. Thanks for focusing on polic. y". 

Michael Pope  

Yeah, Senator Surovell, thank you, and good luck when that bill gets to the governor's desk. I mean, Senator Surovell, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is probably going to get his bill to the governor's desk, but who knows what happens after that? We also heard from Sam Shirazi, who hit us up to say he appreciated the shout-outs to the Shirazi-Ramadan combos. That's a reference to one of our most popular episodes of the year last year when we paired him with David Ramadan.

Lauren Burke  

Shirazi, Ramadan has a great ring to it. Okay, 2025.

Michael Pope  

So, definitely expect to be hearing more of the Shirazi-Ramadan combo in 2024. We also heard from Fairfax City Mayor Catherine Reed, who saw that top 10 list of our most popular episodes last year and posted this quote: I confess I binge listen to Pod Virginia between audiobooks. It's a great way to reset Lauren. Do you listen to a lot of audiobooks, and do you use podcasts to reset? 

Lauren Burke  

Yes, I listen to a ton of audiobooks. It's sort of fun;y last night, I was on the phone with a friend of mine, and we were going over the audiobooks we listened to. The funny thing is Ryan Grim has a new book out on the Squad, and both are listening to it at the same time. But I'm listening to two books at the same time right now. Brian Stelter, the former CNN analyst on the media, has a book out called Network of Lies on Fox News. And I'm listening to What's Left Unsaid by Melissa DeRos on the Cuomo scandal, Cuomo's spirit, and how he handled COVID. Two excellent audiobooks, and I listened to a ton of audiobooks. So this is a this is a dangerous question. It could go on for a long time.

Michael Pope  

I have to admit, I'm an old-fashioned hardcopy book reader. I don't use a Kindle. I don't listen to audiobooks. In fact, I love buying used books. I was recently in a great used bookstore in New York City; I'm sure you're familiar with the Strand. And so I got this great book called Stars, The Making of the Network News Anchor. This is actually a book from the early 1980s. And it's fascinating. It talks about Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, and Dan Rather and their internal feuds. And it goes into the history of Walter Cronkite as a young wire service reports; he was really competitive. He was assigned to write an obituary of a prominent person, so he needed a photo to give to the editor. So he showed up at the House of the person who had died and knocked on the doo,r hoping to talk to the widow, but the widow didn't answer the door. And so he looks through the window, and he sees a photograph. So Walter Cronkite breaks into the House to steal the photo to give it to his editor. Which is a crazy story. But it actually gets even crazier because, as it turns out, it was the wrong House. It was the neighbor's House. So he printed a photo in the newspaper on the wire service with the photo of the dead man's neighbor. This is a fascinating backstory to all of these evening network anchors, like Walter Cronkite. 

Lauren Burke  

Oh, my goodness. The two of us, it turns out, were in the Strand within two weeks of each other, sort of funny in New York. It's so funny you bring up David Brinkley at the very beginning of my career. I was at ABC News in his last year at ABC News when I was working for Cokie Roberts. Such a competitive time. So that story that you just told really brings a few flashbacks to me. It was a very competitive business in that in that era.

Michael Pope  

All right. Let's celebrate some birthdays. Thursday

Lauren Burke  

January is the birthday of Creigh Deeds of Charlottesville. 

Michael Pope  

It's also the birthday of Senator David Suetterlein of Roanoke.

Lauren Burke  

We have three birthdays on Friday, January 5th, which is the birthday of Delegate Marie March of Floyd. Delegate Jeon Ward of Hampton and Senator Richard Stuart of King George

Michael Pope  

January is also Mentoring Month in Virginia. So find somebody to mentor; they'll thank you for it.

Lauren Burke  

That's it for this episode of Pod Virginia.