IN THE NEWS: Eleven senators are retiring. Five won't be returning because they lost the primary. Three senators are in hotly competitive races and might lose in November. Keep in mind that the Senate has only 40 members. That means we’re expecting to see a turnover of 40 to 50 percent in the Senate. One out of four elections this November has no challenger, candidates running unopposed. Most of those are incumbents, but the list of unchallenged elections includes people who aren't even in the General Assembly yet. Dulles International Airport will be the site for like the largest renewable energy project ever developed at a U.S. airport with solar panels and electric vehicles. When all those solar panels are up and operational, Dominion Energy expects they will power 37,000 homes and businesses by 2026. At the Watercooler: AG Jason Miyares seems to believe local school boards are required to adopt the Governor's model policies, and Michael's presentation on the Byrd Machine will be on C-SPAN this Friday, September 1 at 8:30 PM.

Episode Transcript

Michael Pope  

I'm Michael Pope. 

Thomas Bowman  

I'm Thomas Bowman.

Michael Pope  

This is Pod Virginia, a podcast that is looking forward to the month of September, which is Internet Safety Month, Scottish American Heritage Month, African Diaspora Heritage Month, Older Virginians Mental Health Month, and Kinship Caregivers of Children Month.

Thomas Bowman  

I don't think we could say that five times fast. Michael, there's also a whole lot of awareness going on in September. It's Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, Peripheral Artery Disease Awareness Month, Drug-Free Pain Management Awareness Month, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome Awareness Month, and Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month. Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month, Blood Cancer Awareness Month, and wait for this one, Histiocytosis Awareness Month. So are we aware of what all those things are now, Michael?

Michael Pope  

September is also September Awareness Month, where we must be aware that somehow it's September, which means the year is really flying by, as is this podcast. So, let's move on to our first news story. There is massive turnover in the Senate. 11 senators are retiring, and 5 won't be returning because they lost the primary. 3 senators are in hotly competitive races and will lose in November. Now, keep in mind that the Senate has only 40 members. So that means we're expecting to see a turnover rate of about 40% to 50% in the Senate. So when he appeared on Pod Virginia earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw admitted that he's partly to blame.

Dick Saslaw  

Everything came together at once with redistricting. Frankly, we probably made a mistake; we should have kept the redistricting to ourselves. And I'll take part of the blame for that.

Thomas Bowman  

That's a really interesting, self-aware analysis because there were a lot of people, Michael, at the time warning Democratic leaders that this was a really bad idea. Not because they wanted to be able to draw the districts themselves, although that would have happened had they torpedoed the equally partisan redistricting plan that ended up passing. But because it was a very obvious and transparent attempt by the outgoing, formerly Republican majority party to pass something that would keep them competitive, disproportionately so in a redistricting cycle that was controlled by the Democrats, and that they would put that pressure on Democrats to pass and make good on a campaign promise of nonpartisan redistricting. Well, we didn't get that nonpartisan redistricting; we got equally partisan redistricting, which is not proportionally representative of the Commonwealth of Virginia, necessarily. So look, I'm glad he sees the error of his ways. A lot of people were actually warning them of that at the time. But yeah, it is a problem. And not because of all the necessarily the cynical reasons people might ascribe to it for Democrats being able to draw the districts again with the pen. But it's a problem because this isn't really what people actually wanted. 

Michael Pope  

One of the chief things that is now different as a result of the redistricting commission and these new maps is that jurisdictions have fewer members of their local delegations. So, like where I live in Alexandria, we used to have three senators, and now we have one. And so the reason for that is because the new map really is very closely aligned to jurisdiction maps. So you like the old way of gerrymandering the heck out of these things had little bits and pieces of jurisdictions chopped up into these crazy little jagged, geographic areas, which means that a place like Alexandria was carved up in a way that it had multiple senators, now there's like one senator from Alexandria, so that is an interesting trade-off with these new maps is that the sort of under gerrymandered us of them means that jurisdictions that have a lower number of representatives, people looking out for their interests in the General Assembly. So that's one of the end results here, the new map. There's another important one, though, that I talked about with Senator Jill Vogel of Fauquier County; she says, All that turnover has consequences.

Jill Vogel  

If you start with such a massive number of new people who really don't have that institutional knowledge, what ends up happening is that a lot more responsibility goes to staff. I added that isn't the case and that I don't have confidence in staff. But in some ways, it's really important that elected people drive the train, drive policy, and drive it in an aggressive way.

Michael Pope  

And so her point there is that in the absence of people with a lot of seniority, who know what they're doing, the staff members of the Senate Finance Committee have a lot of power, and they can actually influence things in a way that you would normally expect elected officials to do. But when the elected officials are not, they lean on staff a lot. Have you seen this in your experience, Thomas?

Thomas Bowman  

Michael is less concerned than the staff driving the train because one interesting fact about the General Assembly is that the staff always drive a lot of the train at least. But this is going to really empower lobbyists who have not just already issued domain expertise; they're now going to have a significant advantage over a large proportion of the legislature and their knowledge of how things work around the Capitol. You know what levers to pull in order to make things happen. While we would like to think that many of them are going to take the opportunity to educate in a constructive manner, what we also know is going to happen is that some of those people are bad actors and will effectively hoodwink to get their client's policies or laws through the General Assembly. So that's actually what I'm more concerned about than necessarily staff driving the train. Michael, one of the fun things about being a legislative aide, because you are the only legislative aide for the General Assembly member, is that your job is not so much to know everything; it's to know who to talk to, to get the answers when you need to know something. And when you're good at that, what that means is you're going and finding out trusted sources, usually within government, at committee levels, and you're building relationships with the people who draft those bills because the Senators and the Delegates don't draft their own bills, at least most of the time. They're getting legislative services to draft it for them. And so that alone is giving staff a ton of power over the specific language within those laws. And what we often see is some kind of negotiation with the staff. And then that's when you find out all sorts of things are the case about nuances in the law that you would have never been aware of. So, most legislators aren't really driving the train other than in their own perception. And it's not a bad thing to have staff empowered. I would rather have staff empowered than, you know, outside lobbyists who you may or may not be able to trust.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, well, this massive turnover in the Senate will clearly increase the influence of the staffers of the Senate Finance Committee and elsewhere. And you know, the reason for that is just look at these numbers here. 11 senators are retiring 11 Plus, 5 of them lost in the primary. And of the 40 seats, there are only three that are really competitive. Monty Mason is the lone toss-up seat in Hampton Roads. They just got the Republican challenger Danny Diggs; Siobhan Dunnavant, the incumbent Republican in the Henrico race, has a strong challenger, Schuyler VanValkenburg. If you look at the demographics of that race, it leans Democrat. However, Siobhan Dunnavant is an incumbent, so that's one to watch, also out in the Roanoke area. David Sutterline is very likely to get reelected. It's a very likely R seat, but there is a challenger there, Trish White-Boyd. The marquee race in terms of the Senate, of course, is up in Loudoun County, where we've got Juan Pablo Segura as the Republican versus Russet Perry. That's an open seat, though. So this is a turnover Thomas in the Senate that the likes of which nobody has ever seen, even when I talked to Saslaw. He's never seen anything like this.

Thomas Bowman  

Well, if Saslaw hasn't seen it, nobody's seen it.

Michael Pope  

All right, let's move on to our next story. Unopposed one out of four elections this November has no challenger, candidates running completely unopposed. Now, most of those are incumbents, but the list of unchallenged candidates also includes people who are not even in the General Assembly yet. Mark Rozell is Dean of the Schar School at George Mason University.

Mark Rozell  

Usually, when there was a big race at the top of the ticket, that gets more people running in districts who tried to ride on the coattails of their party's statewide campaign. And so statistically, you even have a higher percentage, usually, of uncontested races in these off-off-off-year election cycles where there's no gubernatorial election.

Thomas Bowman  

Wes Bellamy at Virginia State University says candidates who are unchallenged this year might find themselves in a different position during the next election cycle.

Wes Bellamy  

Just because you're unopposed in this particular moment in time doesn't mean that everybody loves you. They may be waiting to see exactly what you're gonna do later. And that's when individuals come and start to talk to you. So you may be in for a race, a strong race in two years.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, so even among those races that have more than one candidate on the ballot, only a handful of elections are toss-up races 4 the House and 2 in the Senate. So I have this list here of the unopposed Democratic incumbents, and it's a long list; there are 11 unopposed House Democratic incumbents: Delores McQuinn, Charniele Herring, Patrick Hope, Betsy Carr, Luke Torian, Sam Rasoul, Cia Price, Paul Krizek, Cliff Hayes, Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, Holly Seibold.

Thomas Bowman  

There are also 7 unopposed House Democratic non-incumbents or likely freshmen: Alex Askew, Destiny LeVere Bolling, Katrina Callsen, Rae Cousins, and Rozia Henson. 

Michael Pope  

Also, Alfonso Lopez and Marcus Simon. They've got challengers who are not Republicans. So they actually technically have challengers, but you know not, they don't have any Republicans running against them. If you move over to the Republican side in the House, you have 10 House Republican incumbents who have no challenger in November: Terry Kilgore, Danny Marshall, Barry Knight, Keith Hodges, Israel O'Quinn, Les Adams, Chris Runion, Jason Ballard, Mike Cherry, Phillip Scott, all running completely unopposed this November.

Thomas Bowman  

You've also got four unopposed House Republican non-incumbents, Chad Green and Tom Garrett, who's coming back. Jed Arnold and Will Davis. Also, Will Morefield has a challenger who is not a Democrat.

Michael Pope  

Yes. And then, if you move over to the Senate side, we've got two incumbent Democratic Senators with no opposition, Lamont Bagby and Mamie Locke. Angela Williams Graves is a House incumbent, although she's not in the Senate yet. But she has a challenger who is not a Republican.

Thomas Bowman  

There are also three unopposed Senate Republicans. Michael, you've got John McGuire, Frank Wolf, and Todd Pillion.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, the Democrats couldn't find anybody to run against John McGuire? I mean, this is one of the things that is like the Trumpist candidates in Virginia politics. And the Democrats couldn't find anybody to run against John McGuire; what do you make of that?

Thomas Bowman  

Well, what I make of that is in all of the cases that we just enumerated, one party or the other decided they weren't going to contest it. They tried to contest it and couldn't recruit a candidate for one reason or another, which goes to the lack of strength in the grassroots in those specific districts. But I think it's interesting that we're probably at the most pivotal crossroads in American history, nationally speaking. And you would think that there would be a little bit more interest in energy and making sure that we have high-quality candidates to be our elected officials. But in all of these cases, they're not even contesting the field. And you can't build a majority if you don't try to fight for it. 

Michael Pope  

You can't beat somebody with a nobody. Yeah, and the only thing that is a potential saving grace, here is what Mark Rozell tells us, that if this were an election cycle, where you had a race for governor that you might have more challengers on here, so maybe two years from now we'll have a much more competitive race.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, it's possible. Well, what else are we talking about today, Michael? Let's move on.

Michael Pope  

to our final story for the day. Flying close to the Sun Dulles International Airport is a sprawling complex that covers hundreds of acres of land. Senator Mark Warner says it's land that offers an opportunity. 

Mark Warner  

If we're going to make a transition to a cleaner energy mix. We got to build stuff.

Thomas Bowman  

Stuff like the largest renewable energy project ever developed at a US airport with solar panels and electric vehicles. That's a very specific niche category, Michael. But Senator Warner helps shovel dirt to break ground on a project that local leaders are hoping will be groundbreaking. 

Michael Pope  

Elected officials love to do this thing with the shovels. 

Thomas Bowman  

Oh, yeah. Elected officials, as a rule, love a photo op. So here's Fairfax County Board of Supervisors chairman Jeff McKay,

Jeff McKay  

The image that they now will see when they look out the window upon landing and see the solar panels that have been installed at this airport is exactly the type of forward image we want to make sure that the world sees but also that our residents here see.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, that image is really important to these local elected officials who spoke at this press conference out at Dulles International Airport. And that list of dignitaries included Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Chairwoman Phyllis Randall, who says she helps other airports across the country see what's happening at Dulles and take note,

Phyllis Randall  

We can do it in Chicago, we can do it in LA, we can do it in Miami; this will be what starts the next generation of change for land that sits at airports.

Michael Pope  

Yet Thomas, when you think about land that sits at airports, there are these huge, and I mean, huge surface parking lots of asphalt. As far as the eye can see, this press conference was in this huge field of asphalt. In fact, they had to create a sandbox for the shovels to go into something so they could have the groundbreaking in this parking lot at Dulles. The really interesting deal here is that the federal government actually owns all this land at Dulles. And so they have entered into this leasing agreement with Dominion. So Dominion gets to put up all these solar panels and create energy. And it's actually going to power 37,000 homes and businesses. Huge, huge operation. And they're also donating all these electric vehicles to the airport in exchange for kind of a lease agreement to use this land. The thing that struck me, Thomas, is this idea of the carport. So, like, you park underneath the solar panel, and the solar panel gives you shade as you're parking underneath it; it's also generating energy. 

Thomas Bowman  

I'm such a nerd that, you know, I drive through Richmond, and there's a lot of open surface parking lots in the city of Richmond. And I've always thought, Okay, if you can't do anything else with this, you could at least put solar panels on top of it. And there are a ton of open parking lots surface parking around the Commonwealth; this is a really, relatively speaking, simple way to find real estate to generate renewable energy sources. So I'm really, really jazzed to see that they're doing this. Michael is excited. And it is also pretty low-hanging fruit as far as where we should be looking to develop these plots of land. If it's something where the federal government already owns the land, or a government, generally speaking, owns the land, then they should be taking the lead in making sure to use that territory for renewable energy. Because we've got to save the planet. Michael, it's as simple as that. Nobody's got time for bullshit debates. We've got to build things like Senator Warner said.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, and if you think about all that surface parking lot area, as you just pointed out, we're not really doing anything with that land currently other than parking cars on it. So what if you use that area to also generate solar energy, you could still park there; it doesn't screw up the parking at all that you generate energy. Also worth pointing out that the energy generation here that's going to happen with the solar panels at Dulles meets the requirement of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which actually requires that the utility produce so much renewable energy per year, and so, we're actually we're seeing the fruits of the clean economy act play out here at Dulles Airport. So yeah, and in the year 2026, When you come back to Washington, DC, from your international trip to Europe, and you are landing at Dulles International Airport in 2026, you will see all these solar panels creating energy. It's actually very exciting.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, cool. Hopefully, we get some more cowbell on this one, Michael. 

Michael Pope  

Okay, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll go run the Commonwealth, play a round of trivia, read your comments, and head over to the water cooler.

It's time to go around the Commonwealth. In Bueno Vista, the former police chief pleaded guilty to using the city credit card for personal expenses.

Thomas Bowman  

Luckily for him, the misuse of a Capital One is not a capital offense.

Michael Pope  

New taller gates at Metro stations have lower fare evasion rates by upwards of nearly 70%.

Thomas Bowman  

The new gates are so high that those who continue to successfully leap over them will no longer be given a ticket but rather an Olympic medal.

Michael Pope  

In Fairfax County. They're releasing body cam footage showing an officer successfully assisting a man in crisis.

Thomas Bowman  

Meanwhile, all the body cam footage of the police brutality was accidentally deleted or uploaded wrong or lost in the mail. Whoops.

Michael Pope  

Alright, a group of parents are alleging that Thomas Jefferson High School's new admission policy is racially discriminatory. Going so far as to petition the Supreme Court.

Thomas Bowman  

The school's lawyers responded that Thomas Jefferson was never connected to racial discrimination. We mean the school. The guy has a different story.

Michael Pope  

It's a totally different story. The first question of the recent Republican presidential debate was about that viral country and western song you may have heard by rich men north of Richmond.

Thomas Bowman  

The question went to Ron DeSantis, aka the stupid man South of Savannah.

Michael Pope  

All right, so let's play a round of trivia. So last week, we asked you how many seats in the General Assembly are unopposed this year? You may have heard our discussion on it. That was actually our trivia question from last week?

Thomas Bowman  

Well, of course, the generally correct answer is too many. 

Michael Pope  

Too many. 

Thomas Bowman  

But this specifically Correct answer is 37. That's 32 in the House and five in the Senate. 

Michael Pope  

Yeah, 1/4 of the General Assembly, no competition. 25% of the candidates don't have to worry about what happens in November because they'll win either way. So shockingly, they're not all incumbents. 11 of those candidates that we read earlier are not even members of the General Assembly yet, and yet they have no challenger,

Thomas Bowman  

And nobody guessed 37. Jamie Lockhart guessed 24. Blair Saint Leger Olsen guessed 28. So she's closer. And Zach Lincoln, though, got the generally correct answer: have too many. But it wasn't the answer we were looking for. So, Michael, this week's prize has no winner. 

Michael Pope  

No winner. 

Thomas Bowman  

But you know, if we did have a winner, they might have gotten a really cool prize because what was our really cool prize for the winner this week?

Michael Pope  

If we add a winner, we would have given this as our prize of $73 million in cash, but oops, nobody wants a well.

Thomas Bowman  

And never to be offered again. 

Michael Pope  

Never again. That was the only time for the 73 mil. Alright, so yeah.

Thomas Bowman  

Okay, so what's the trivia question this week, Michael? Okay.

Michael Pope  

So this week, our trivia question is this. When was the last time a governor of Virginia became president? So we currently have a governor of Virginia who is maybe thinking about becoming president, and maybe he looks at himself in the mirror and sees a future president. Rupert Murdoch certainly sees a president when he looks at Younkin, but so our trivia question is this: When was the last time that happened? When was the last time a Virginia governor became president? Hint: there are only three.

Thomas Bowman  

So, if you know the right answer, hit us up on social media, and you might just win! You're not gonna win $73 million again because that opportunity is gone.

Michael Pope  

Gone, totally gone; too bad because I guess you and I will split the $73 million? Alright, Let's head over to the water cooler. Thomas, what's the latest you're hearing about the water cooler?

Thomas Bowman  

Well, Michael, what I'm hearing around the water cooler is that Attorney General Jason Miyares has not listened to our August 3rd pod Virginia episode with Atif Qarni called Youngkin versus Northam's model policies for transgender students because the Attorney General has an official opinion saying that local school boards are required to adopt policies that are consistent with them. And that's not the truth. Atif outlined specifically how that legislation, passed in 2020, requires the Department to create model policies, but the creation of model policies does not require local school boards to adopt them. And they already have that fight in the past. So, the past is prologue in this specific case, and the Department of Education has zero enforcement authority.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, if you go back and listen to our episode, Atif Qarni really lays it out here, walking through the history of this legislation, which passed back in 2020. I think Marcus Simon was the House patron on that bill. And it requires the Department of Education to come up with a model policy. So that's the requirement. What that legislation does not do is make any requirement at all on the school division because the legislation could have required school divisions to do X, Y, and Z. And it does not do that. It actually requires the Department of Education to come up with model policies. So that's what you heard on our episode from August 3rd. If you didn't listen to it, go back and listen to it on August 3rd, the episode with audit Carney, where he really lays that out former education secretary Atif Qarni really lays all this out very starkly, although I will say, Thomas, so maybe there's not as a legal requirement in terms of the Department of Education has no power to enforce this. However, the governor certainly could sort of use the budget to enact revenge on jurisdictions that don't adopt the model policy. I think he might have to get buy-in from the General Assembly to do this. But so, like, let's say, theoretically, if the governor, in his next budget, might want to punish Fairfax County for explicitly rejecting his model policies, perhaps there are ways that Fairfax County might not receive the best possible outcomes in terms of what the governor might be able to do. You know, steering, grant money steering, there are ways that the governor has, that he might make life kind of difficult for people in Fairfax Count.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, there's no shortage of dirty tricks that politicians and elected officials can play on each other to try to enforce their own will. But the short answer is no. There's nothing explicitly in the law that legally requires them to do anything. And, Michael, I wouldn't be surprised, though, to see the governor try something because why not? And they are already having trouble agreeing to the budget. We might have one by the end of the week, at least according to some headlines. But I would think that an effort like that would just make his marquee budget untenable. Michael, what are you hearing? 

Michael Pope  

Well, let me tell you what I'm hearing around the water cooler. The Bryd machine will be featured on C span, too. So mark your calendars for this Friday night, September 1st, at 8:45. So put yourself in front of your television screen. Friday night. At 8:45, You will see one solid hour of Michael Pope talking about the Bryd machine on C-SPAN 2. It's my speech to the Virginia Historical Society. That was filmed and recorded by the C-SPAN 2 cameras at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. I'm very excited about being on C-SPAN because, as a longtime C-SPAN viewer, the thought of being able to tune into American History TV, which is the weekend programming on C-SPAN 2, is very exciting to me. It's so hot date night, Friday night, 8:45, be there.

Thomas Bowman  

Look, if you and everyone else are listening to this, tune into C-SPAN 2 to September 1st at 8:30 p.m. You just might double their Nielsen rating.

Michael Pope  

Ouch. Okay, alright. Yeah, that's a C-SPAN 2 slam, Thomas. 

Thomas Bowman  

Okay. 

Michael Pope  

All right. Let's go ahead and open up that pod Virginia mailbag. What are our listeners talking about?

Thomas Bowman  

That week, heard our episode last week and posted this? It's baffling that the same episode says Fairfax County is so blue that the school board explicitly rejected the model policy for LGBTQ+ students and then laments the loss of chap Peterson because he doesn't represent his constituents. 

Michael Pope  

Michael Lawson heard our discussion of Fairfax County rejecting the governor's new anti-transgender model policies and posted this on threads. Roanoke County also adopted Youngkin's model policies, which will actively harm transgender youth. At both of the last two school board meetings, people were arrested for their support of LGBTQ students. The majority of people at the meeting were in opposition to the harmful model policies. It was peaceful until the board invited violence and started arresting people. Sounds like this is what Sam Rasul was referring to when he said don't make national headlines.

Thomas Bowman  

And that's a good policy. Generally speaking, I noticed Sam Shirazi, you heard the episode of Old Dominion Where Aaryan Balu talked to you about the lingering influence of the Bryd machine and posted this interesting that the 1971 constitution didn't fix some of these issues. 

Michael Pope  

I would 100% agree the 1971 constitution of Virginia is really interesting, mainly because of the failure complete failure of the people who wrote that constitution in terms of keeping these old Jim Crow rules around felon disenfranchisement. So they had an opportunity to ditch this crusty old bit of systemic racism, but instead, they decided to keep it a major failure. Although the ACLU has this really interesting lawsuit pointing out that the disenfranchisement of people because of drug convictions is actually a violation of the 1870 Readmission Act. So, it's a totally interesting lawsuit worth following as that plays out.

Thomas Bowman  

I like it. Senator Scott Surrovell heard our discussion of how Harry Bryd climbed Old Rag Mountain every year on his birthday and chimed in to add about the cabin at the top of the mountain known as the Bryd's nest, including a photo he took after hiking the mountain with podcaster Jessica Bowser host of the Virginia outdoor adventures podcast so that'd be cool to have a crossover episode sometime at the on top of the Bryds nest.

Michael Pope  

I don't know about that, Thomas. And I'll tell you why. Because if you read the National Park Service website where they describe this thing... this is how the National Park Service website describes this hike. Quote: while highly rewarding, hiking the summits to Old Rag is very physically demanding and can be dangerous. If you have not planned properly. Be sure that you are physically able to complete the hikes on Old Rag Mountain. Most hikes in this area are long, and there is significant elevation change with strenuous rock scramble that requires good upper-body strength. Often, children and shorter adults need assistance navigating the rock scramble, so I know that sounds like a lot of work.

Thomas Bowman  

Well, having done it myself more than once, I know that it's not too bad. It's if you're like three and a half feet tall as a child and yeah, it's gonna be a lot of work or certainly if you don't have a ton of upper body strength, but we like in college jogged up that thing and it was one of my few regrets in life. And it can be intense. It's definitely a harder hike than most people are prepared for. That said, it's not that hard of a hike, especially if you've been out of the state. 

Michael Pope  

Let's celebrate some birthdays. Today. Monday, August 28th, is the birthday of Agriculture and Forestry Secretary Matthew Lohr.

Thomas Bowman  

and Tuesday, August 29th, is the birthday of Delegate Nick Freitas of Culpeper. And Michael, I want to make one last note to the listeners here. I'm planning to take parental leave on the birth of my baby. So this is actually going to be my last show for a few weeks. So, shout out to Lauren Burke, who sat in on our last Monday episode and who has agreed to be my sub while I learned how to be a Zaddy.

Michael Pope  

Congratulations, Thomas. This is really, really exciting.

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, Michael, I am really looking forward to getting to be a dad for a little while. All right. That's all for today's episode of Pod Virginia.