Skill Game Amendment, Abortion Vetoes, and Ranked Choice Voting
IN THE NEWS:
Lawmakers are weighing the odds about how to handle the governor's amendment to their legislation allowing skill games in convenience stores and truck stops. The amendment says skill game machines cannot be within 35 miles of a casino or a historic horse racing facility--which knocks out a lot of possible locations. Now supporters have a choice: Do they want to accept a limited program now and try to expand in the future, or do they want to bag it for now and try again next year?
Governor Youngkin now has the record for the most number of vetoes of any governor in recent memory, and he rolled out new abortion vetoes last weekend--including a bill that would have protected women and providers from being extradited to Tennessee or Texas, where abortion is much more restricted.
Glenn Youngkin got the nomination to run as the Republican candidate for governor in a ranked-choice vote at a party convention. But now he's vetoing a bill that would have clarified how the process is supposed to work in local elections.
At the Watercooler:
The US House vote on FISA made strange bedfellows--Rep. Bobby Scott siding with Republicans on protecting warrant requirements for police surveillance, while Rep. Jen Kiggans sided with Democrats against it
Pro-Palestinian protestors are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in public forums at the local, state, and federal level--and this is what the campaign season is likely to hinge on.
Episode Transcript
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Lauren Burke
I'm Lauren Burke.
Michael Pope
And this is Pod Virginia. A podcast that's so ready for the veto session this week. Lauren, are you going to be in Richmond for the veto session?
Lauren Burke
I don't know. I don't think so. I have a sick relative. But I hear all your rowdy friends are coming over this week.
Michael Pope
That's one way to put it. All right, let's get to the news.
The Queening of Virginia, lawmakers are weighing the odds about how to handle the Governor's amendments to their legislation allowing skill games in convenience stores and truck stops. It's that game you saw at your local neighborhood convenience store called the Queen of Virginia. Those are the kinds of machines we're talking about. The amendment said those machines cannot be within 35 miles of a casino or a historic horse racing facility like Rosie's Gaming Parlors. Senator Aaron Rouse, a Democrat from Virginia Beach, says small businesses are not happy the Governor increased the tax rates on the machines.
Aaron Rouse
A Republican governor has increased taxes on small businesses. I don't know if these are the effects of the full eclipse or not. But that, to me, in itself, was surprising, along with the 35-mile radius that knocked out Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, and a majority of the state.
Lauren Burke
Conservative groups, like the Family Foundation, were urging for a veto. But Todd Gathje says a limited program is better than widespread neighborhood slot machines.
Todd Gathje
It appears that there will be a limit of about 20,000. So we'll see how this goes. But I think the Governor and our elected officials have a responsibility to ensure that we don't become a place littered with vices.
Michael Pope
The skill game issue was one of the most interesting in the General Assembly session. And I say interesting because, with many of these bills, everyone knows what the final result is going to be. I mean, let's think about raising the minimum wage; everybody knew what the result of raising the minimum wage was going to be. Or retail licenses for marijuana; everybody knew what the result of that debate was going to be. This one, though, we really didn't know what was going to happen. Now we've got the Governor's amendments that severely restrict where you can put these things. Basically, there are very few places in Virginia that are not within a 35-mile radius of a casino. There are just a few slivers of Virginia here. And they're mainly in remote and rural areas. Now, supporters of this thing have a choice. It's not an easy choice; it's a very difficult one. Do they want to accept this limited program from the Governor and try to expand it in the future? Or do they want to bag it for this year and try again next year? Lauren, how do you think this plays out?
Lauren Burke
I think they'll accept it. And, of course, expand it with another governor. That's the thing about having a governor only serve four years at a time; you can really just wait him out. I'm sure that the lobby group will do exactly that and just come back later. The deal with this 35-mile radius is interesting. I find it interesting in general because we have a lot of gaming in this country. Gaming is a big deal, whether it's gambling or not. So this is sort of a throwback in thinking that you can in some way restrict this.
Michael Pope
Yeah, I thought the Governor's positioning on this was really interesting because he's saying things that are seemingly in conflict with each other. As he says, Virginia already has enough casinos and enough gambling, and we don't want to have too much gambling, which is the same logic we heard from Todd Gathje. However, the Family Foundation wanted the veto, and the Governor did not veto this bill as his conservative supporters wanted. Instead, he created a very limited program that seemed to protect the casino industry and the gambling industry. The politics of this are not cut and dry. They're certainly not partisan. They're not even pro-Casino or anti-Casino. I mean, this is just an interesting issue because nobody knows how this is gonna play out.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, I mean, so much of it is whose lobby group is stronger? Who has the money to push people around? And obviously, yes, it's protecting the casinos. I find the whole thing to be interesting because gaming is such a big thing in the country. Whether you're doing it on your phone, on Discord, or wherever you're doing it, I just find the whole gaming conversation to be interesting. Again, I think this shows you which lobby effort has been the strongest. But as the years go by, there will be modifications to what Governor Youngkin is trying to do. I think eventually, we'll probably have it, but it'll take a few more years.
Michael Pope
It sounds like you're predicting the General Assembly will reluctantly accept these amendments when they reconvene this week. Supporters of skill games will try to expand in the future, essentially using this as a kind of pilot program and expanding it in the future.
Lauren Burke
Exactly. And we've seen that happen before with other unrelated pieces of legislation, so it wouldn't be surprising. I don't know why you would take the whole thing off the table.
Michael Pope
All right. Let's move on to our next story.
Embryonic politics. Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin has set the record for the most number of vetoes of any governor in recent memories. He rolled out new abortion vetoes in advance of the reconvened session this week. Here's Senator Barbara Favola, a Democrat from Arlington who introduced one of the bills that was vetoed by the Governor. The bill would have protected women and providers from being extradited to Tennessee or Texas, where abortion is much more restricted.
Barbara Favola
You can imagine a woman who had to cobble together money to leave her state, then take time off from work, come to Virginia alone, without her family or friends, scared. I think she's already traumatized. And we should be able to provide that woman with the confidence and peace of mind that she won't be extradited for seeking legal care in Virginia.
Lauren Burke
The Governor also signed a bill prohibiting search warrants or court orders for menstrual data. However, Delegate Marcus Simon, a Democrat from Falls Church, says he's not impressed.
Marcus Simon
I don't want to give the Governor too much credit for signing the bill that says that menstrual data can't be subject to subpoenas. That's a fairly narrow thing that he's agreed to. When he vetoed my bill HB 1539, he also vetoed language that would've made it a violation of the Virginia Consumer Protection Act for digital companies that track menstrual data and women's health care data, including location data about what they've shopped for, where they've shopped and where they've gone.
Michael Pope
The politics of abortion are just getting started. I mean, the consequence of making abortion a state rights issue is that your state government is going to be debating this indefinitely.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, as we've already found out down south and obviously in Arizona, I do think the Republicans are going to pay a big political price for that. Their timing could not be worse, going into a presidential year, and you have a Senate race. As we've seen with ballot initiatives already in some red states, including in Kentucky, where people have spoken on the abortion issue. And obviously, when you take a right away, you're gonna get people's attention, and particularly something that is this personal. The fact that a Virginia State Senator, in this case, Barbara Favola, has to offer legislation to protect people's privacy on something so personal is completely ridiculous. But this is the conversation that we find ourselves in.
Michael Pope
Yeah, and you say the timing couldn't be worse. I mean, the timing is 2024, which is a presidential year; obviously, abortion politics will be heavily debated on the campaign trail. It will literally be on the ballot in Florida, which definitely could help Biden. Don't forget, in Virginia, we've got the odd-year elections. So next year, when we've got the election for Governor, abortion rights is going to be the number one issue there. So, buckle up because we've got many years of talking about menstrual data compiled by smartphone apps and extradition law to Tennessee.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, the idea that we're even talking about this is amazing. All the polling data basically implies that this is an issue people are willing to make a choice on for President. And I think this is just going to hurt the Republican party. Again, every bit of evidence we've already seen indicates it's sort of like guns, and these sort of single-issue voters, people are going to pay attention to this. Of course, the more personal it gets, the more private details in people's lives we get into, the more it's going to get people's attention. And so something like this, you would think your government would never even be talking about. People are going to bring that into the voting booth. And it's going to be, I think, very decisive against the Republicans.
Michael Pope
Yeah. The thought of extraditing somebody to Tennessee so they could face criminal charges for something legal in Virginia but not in Tennessee. You would extradite an abortion provider to Tennessee to face criminal charges; I can imagine the campaign on that one.
Lauren Burke
Yeah. Well, the fact that you would be all in people's business about whether or not they will have children or not have children and what their medical situation, individually, may or may not be. All of that is not the government's business. So right, that's a problem more globally, and now we're getting into the minute details of even more personal information. It's something that is so easily communicated and marketed to voters. And, of course, women voters are going to be particularly interested. But I think just more globally, it's a privacy issue that a lot of voters who may not be female are going to pay attention to. The global question here is whether the government should be involved in your personal business in this way. That is the question, and the Republicans right now have the wrong answer, according to every single poll on this subject matter.
Michael Pope
All right, let's move on to our next story.
Ranked choice so the Governor got the nomination to run as the Republican candidate for Governor, and it was a ranked choice vote at the party convention. But now he's vetoing a bill that would have clarified how the process is supposed to work in local elections. Liz White at the advocacy group UpVote says the original version of the bill would have expanded which local offices could be decided using rank choice elections. But by the time it got to his desk, it had been watered down so much that it basically was just language clarifying how the votes are tabulated and reported to the public.
Liz White
It didn't expand the scope of it. Ultimately, it was just kind of a technical adjustment bill. And especially a governor who was nominated for this office using rank choice voting to veto the bill, saying that his concerns were about voter confusion, was really surprising.
Lauren Burke
Former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is now with the Election Transparency Initiative, which opposes rank-choice voting.
Ken Cuccinelli
We viewed the bill as seeking to expand and ingratiate rank-choice voting further into Virginia, and we're happy to see the Governor's veto. Of course, he was nominated using rank-choice voting, which is interesting and makes him, in my view, a much more credible person to veto a bill like this.
Michael Pope
Supporters of rank-choice voting say they'll be back again at it next year in an effort to make sure this kind of voting is available to local governments for a variety of elections. So Lauren, as so often is the case, the original version of the bill kind of did one thing, And then as it goes through all those committees, they water it down. The original version of the bill would have allowed rank-choice voting for what they call the constitutional offices, which is to say. These offices are mentioned in the Constitution, which include Sheriff, Commonwealth's Attorney, and Clerk of Court. So, should your local government have a rank choice election for Clerk of Courts? That was the original bill; it would have allowed that. Then they watered it down so that actually wasn't even part of the bill. That was before it got to the Governor; it was this kind of technical fixes that emerged after the Arlington experience. Because when you report this stuff, when you report election returns to the public, in the old-fashioned way, it's pretty straightforward here. Here are all the returns. But with this version of voting, you really have to report the first round. Then, there's the second round, and then the third round, and there's actually a lot more data that needs to be made available to the public. You also need to figure out how you're going to tabulate these things. Because the math here is pretty complicated, as we learned in Arlington. So the bill that was actually before the Governor was some technical fixes that became apparent in the Arlington experience about how you tabulate this stuff and how you report it to the public. But the Governor vetoed it. Clearly, he's not a fan of rank-choice voting, even though he actually was selected in a ranked-choice process.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, I don't know that he's the only one; I thought that the Arlington process, with regard to the Arlington County Board last year, was extremely confusing. All of this happens to land at a time, by the way, more globally in this country. We have a political party that is questioning the entire voting system and the legitimacy of our democracy when it comes to voting. So, I think it actually stirs even further confusion in people's minds. I'm not sure; the folks who are against rank choice are too far off when it comes to the subject of confusion. When I saw this in the script and learned that we were going to discuss it, I texted a few elected officials around Virginia. And they reflected the same thing with regard to their constituents, and the few times they've spoken to them, there's a great deal of confusion around rank choice voting. So, I think that's a very steep hill to climb, to say the least,
Michael Pope
I would add that it's not just confusion; it's when you actually do understand rank-choice voting, which is not always a really popular idea. And so what I mean by that is, in this Arlington experience that we had for the Arlington County Board, two seats were open. So this was a really unique experience with rank-choice voting because all the times that I've ever seen it, it's been for one open position; I remember Rip Sullivan got the nomination to run for the House of Delegates in a ranked-choice election; there was one open seat there. And the same thing happened with Glenn Youngkin and getting the nomination for Governor; that was one open seat. So, the thing that made the Arlington experience really interesting was that there were two open seats. The rank choice process has something, at least the way we do it in Virginia, called the single transferable vote, which means you did not get two votes in Arlington; you got one vote. And so that's not confusion. It's not that people were confused about it. When they learned about it. They didn't like it.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, why would they like it? There's a sort of if it ain't broke, don't fix it feeling that I get when I hear about rank-choice voting. And we're trying to encourage people to come to the polls. Obviously, in the lives of 99.9% of the people, simple majority voting has been the way we've done it forever. And now you're introducing this thing that's hard to explain to people, to say the least. By the way, I also get the Glenn Youngkin example. But we do realize that to keep it real here, that was done to stop Amanda Chase. The Republican Party decided they wanted Glenn Youngkin. And they're gonna figure out a way to get Glenn Youngkin and block Amanda Chase.
Michael Pope
Keep in mind we didn't even need to do that. Because, as it turns out, Glenn Youngkin won in the first round. So, even under the old rules, he would have won the nomination anyway.
Lauren Burke
Yeah. I mean, it wasn't as if, oh, they're so in love with rank-choice voting. That wasn't the thing that made that happen. So I'm just saying that, in speaking to people, whether they be elected officials or just regular people, and having witnessed up close what happened in Arlington last year, whatever money is behind this, or whatever, that's all very cute. But I'm trying to figure out why we keep talking about rank-choice voting, which is something that nobody was asking for. Who was asking for this?
Michael Pope
We quoted this advocacy group, Liz White, with UpVotes, so all these organizations are calling for this, lobbying for it, and pressing elected officials to expand rank choice voting. The bill that actually got out of the House and the Senate actually clarified how the process would work based on the results in Arlington. So there are supporters for this thing, but people listening to this podcast, I think there are lots of people listening to this podcast that love the idea of rank choice voting.
Lauren Burke
I'd love to hear from them because when you're standing at a door or talking to voters or talking to people in politics, it's not something that comes up. All right, they're not saying, well, you know, I care about education, health care, and rank choice voting; that's generally not a topic that comes up. But again, I'm certainly willing to listen to anybody who knows more about it than I do.
Michael Pope
Well, listeners, let us know what you think. If you like rank-choice voting or don't, hit us up on social media. We might even read your comments on the air. All right, let's take a break. When we come back, we will read your comments about other stuff and play a round of trivia.
All right, let's play a round of trivia. Last week, we asked you about the name of the old cafeteria on the first floor, the basement of the old capitol.
Lauren Burke
The answer is chickens. And we have a bunch of winners.
Michael Pope
Delegate Rodney Willett, Chris Piper, Jay Speer, John Provo, Albert Pollard and Mandy Burnett.
Lauren Burke
Apparently, chickens were known for the Limeade because delegates Josh Cole and Chris Piper both raved about it.
Michael Pope
Yeah, they did online Limeade. I love lemonade. I don't know if I've ever had It, but I guess Chickens was famous for its Limeade.
Lauren Burke
Okay, what's our trivia question for next week?
Michael Pope
All right, this is a good one. It's a veto session trivia question; it has to do with this historic number of vetoes from the Governor. A lot of House and Senate Democrats had their bills vetoed. However, some did not have any vetoes. They were in the minority, of course, because most Democrats had a bunch of vetoed bills, but nine House Democrats had zero vetoes. But on the Senate side, here's your trivia question; who is the Senate Democrat who had zero bills vetoed by the Governor?
Lauren Burke
If you think you know the answer, reach out to us on social media. You might even win a prize.
Michael Pope
All right, let's head over to the water cooler. Lauren, what are you hearing about the water cooler?
Lauren Burke
My water cooler is focused on the House vote this week in the US House on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, better known as FISA. And the reason I found this interesting is that before they took the final vote, which extended the program for two years, there was a very interesting amendment vote for the Virginia delegation. There was an amendment, and the vote was tied 212 to 212, which means it failed, which would have added a warrant requirement for searches. So, in other words, the government would have to get a warrant to search. Otherwise known as the Fourth Amendment in the US Constitution. So, this vote would require the government to get a warrant. Now, for a lot of constituencies, particularly in the Black United States, this is something that might get your attention because Martin Luther King was the subject of wiretapping, and there was COINTELPRO. More recently, there was surveillance on the leaders of Black Lives Matter. So, minority groups are often the subject of their government spying on them, quite frankly. So when this amendment vote came up, it was a little bit of a surprise that anybody would have had to bring up a vote to protect the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
Interestingly, in the Virginia delegation, what ended up happening was only one Democrat, Bobby Scott. Congressman Bobby Scott joined with the Republicans to protect the Fourth Amendment and protect people's privacy rights. Bobby Scott was joined by Congressman Klein, Congressman Good, all Republicans, so of course, Griffith and somehow or another Wittman missed that vote. But I thought that was really weird and interesting because, on the other side of it, you had Abigail Spanberger, Congresswoman McClellan, Gerry Connolly, and Don Beyer, joined with Congresswoman Kiggans, who, of course, is a Republican, effectively saying we don't need a warrant. The government can look at your stuff without a warrant; this kind of, sort of, by the way, relates to what we're talking about with menstrual data and the privacy rights around whether or not the government can look at certain things. So I found that really interesting. I think that, you know, civil liberties are important. What I do find with politicians is that a lot of times, they sort of do what they're told, depending on who's President, so of course, the Biden administration was pushing hard for, I guess, there to be no Fourth Amendment protection. It's always an argument on the law enforcement side that, oh, we don't want to have to get a warrant because it'll threaten national security. National security will be threatened; we need to go in right away. But there's never anyone who gives you an example of where getting a warrant has been problematic in a national security setting. Obviously, I think, as most people know, that Congresswoman Spanberger worked at the CIA, and I'm sure she would be very aware of the powers of the government over the rights of individuals. But I found it interesting that the only Democrat in the delegation, Congressman Scott, who often talks about civil liberties and due process and the presumption of innocence, was the only one who voted in favor of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. So I found that all very surprising and confusing. And so I thought I would bring that up for the water cooler. The overall vote is that the FISA bill will pass; it's a two-year extension. A bunch of Democrats joined Republicans. It was a very interesting thing to watch. It was a bunch of right-wing Republicans who like to talk about the deep state and the government watching you, joined by a bunch of progressive Democrats. So that's my water cooler.
Michael Pope
Wow. You know, the thing that I find so frustrating about Congress is that most of the time, it's so boring because everybody, every vote, is a party-line vote. It's, and it's predictable,e, and they actually never get anything done. This vote is fascinating because Bobby Scott joined the Republicans, and Jen Higgins joined the Democrats. Is that what you said?
Lauren Burke
Yes. Because it matters who your constituency is. And so I think if your constituency is not necessarily likely to be subjected to government spying, you might not be thinking about these things. However, from a constitutional point of view, the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects is important. So I was surprised to see that none of the Democrats other than Bobby Scott. Bobby Scott, in his press release, brought up that this FISA provision would give the government some powers that have nothing to do with foreign policy. So, there's a feeling amongst people who were against FISA that this would allow the government to check into domestic-related issues and crimes. So that was the other thing, and Kiggan joined with the rest of the Democrats who effectively voted against the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
Michael Pope
Jen Kiggan’s is In a swing district. Let's not forget she only recently flipped that district red; Elaine Luria was the incumbent. The newly drawn congressional district does lean Republican. It's like a seven-point Republican district, but it's expected to be one of the most hotly contested in the fall. We're expecting Missy Cotter Smasal to end up with a nomination, although she does have a primary opponent. So I'm wondering, here, is Kiggan looking at this tight election when she's making this vote? I'm wondering how you think that she's evaluating the political dynamics of this?
Lauren Burke
I mean, the political dynamics are always. Do we want to do what law enforcement and national security people want us to do? So the political dynamic is, oh, law enforcement wants no warrant requirement. Okay, let's do what law enforcement wants to do. That's usually the argument with these types of things. And so the civil liberty, people always get sort of beat on that, because all you have to do is say, Oh, my goodness, the cops want it, or the government or military want it. So you don't want to be seen as voting against it. The problem with that argument is the government and the police have a lot of power. They have a lot of power already. Also, there's this thing called the Constitution. I never understand why that never matters in these conversations. I thought it was interesting, too, that a lot of folks ducked and hid from press releases after this came out. I don't know if you could actually explain it because, at some point, you do have to explain why you're not defending the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in a press release. So I think that's the argument, if the cops want it, you know, the cops can have it. Certainly, when we watched Abigail Spanberger in her last congressional race in 2022. She was, of course, marketing heavy; I'm with the police. So I think that's what this is. What about you, Michael? What's the latest you've heard about the watercooler?
Michael Pope
Well, international politics is something we don't often talk about in this podcast. However, I was at my local city council public hearing over the weekend because I wanted to go to get a sense of what was happening with the budget for FY 25. I also worked with a very talented journalist who is the editor of the high school newspaper in Alexandria. It's the high school newspaper called Theogony. The editor, James Libresco, and I were at this budget public hearing to get a sense of what was happening with the budget. However, international politics showed up because the first hour of the meeting was a time when dozens and dozens of people were demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. And this was interesting to me because I have never seen city council chambers that crowded for anything. When the city council was getting rid of single-family zoning, it was pretty crowded, but it wasn't this crowded. And when the city decided to have bike lanes instead of car lanes, which was a pretty hot topic at the time, it was crowded, but it wasn't this crowded. And the thing that really strikes me about this is that last month, I was at a public hearing for the arena, and the same thing happened. The open mic section of the public hearing was completely dominated by people supporting Palestinians and demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. And the reason I bring this up on this podcast is because this is what the campaign season is going to look like. Democrats are going to need to have an answer to their support for Israel. The race it's going to be most prominent in is the Gerry Connolly election. So Gerry Connolly has a primary opponent, a Democrat who is running against him, Ahsan Nasar, who is running on this issue, support for Palestinians. He is going to challenge incumbent Congressman Gerry Connolly on his support for Israel. Even when Tim Kaine officially launched his reelection campaign, he held an event here in Old Town Alexandria, and it was repeatedly interrupted by Palestinian supporters. So this is something that is going to happen over and over again on the campaign trail. Obviously, Biden's situation gets a lot of media attention, and Biden's reelection, of course, is imperiled by this issue. But it goes up and down the ballot, including Gerry Connolly.
Lauren Burke
I think that, certainly, Israel had more than enough justification to have a very heavy military response after October 7th. But I think what is happening is the pendulum sort of swing in the other political direction. Primarily because of the World Central Kitchen killing of seven people, and everybody is familiar with World Central Kitchen. But even before that, when the IDF had killed over 30,000 people, many of them children, you could see the pendulum swinging. And I think, you know, I've been to several now political events where there has been some sort of interruption. With folks getting up and interrupting events. And in fact, actually, at the Fairfax straw poll, there was a sizable amount of people who had cheered when various candidates would talk about a ceasefire. So, it is interesting to see a foreign policy issue get involved. I mean, we know that Virginia's demographics would reflect this actually makes plenty of sense. But it's a difficult issue because I think President Biden is gradually starting to change his foreign policy position on this. Of course, Israel was attacked by Iran, so that may change the calculus. But this is definitely going to be an issue. There's no doubt about it.
Michael Pope
Yeah, and I'm thinking about the indefinite nature of it as well. I mean, if you think about the Alexandria City Council public hearings, they all start with an open mic section where you can talk about anything you want as long as it's not on the docket later in that meeting. And so the last few public hearings I've been to have been completely dominated by dozens and dozens of Palestinian supporters demanding a ceasefire. And I don't see that ending anytime soon.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, and also, every time the President has an event, if he has any event, someplace where the public can sort of enter or get close, there's a demonstration. So yeah, they're going to have to, at some point, articulate different policy, whether it's a ceasefire, or obviously conditions on aid to Israel is generally what everyone has been talking about, at the federal level. But it's interesting to see the extent to which the state actors are going to have to respond. Still, they are going to have to respond, and in the 10th and in the 7th congressional districts, it's going to come up in the debates. You know, a few debates are coming up for both of those congressional seats. And it's an issue before Congress. So, everyone is going to have their answers in order. And it would not surprise me at all if we had some demonstrations at those candidate forums as well.
Michael Pope
All right, let's open up that Pod Virginia mailbag. Lauren, what are our listeners talking about?
Lauren Burke
Wow, we got a lot of feedback about your podcast with Sam Shirazi.
Michael Pope
Our friends over at Blue Virginia posted this, "excellent analysis by Sam Shirazi on the US House primaries in key districts."
Lauren Burke
Former Delegate and 2021 candidate for lieutenant governor Hala Ayala chimed in to say she appreciates the pragmatic commentary. Steve Verdier says the competitive races will help determine who controls the US House, adding that there's plenty of reason to get involved this year.
Michael Pope
Definitely plenty of reasons to get involved this year. Norma Margulies heard the part of the podcast where we talked about the Republicans running in those two open seats in Northern Virginia. And she said only the Trumpist of the Trumpy had any chance. She said that was proven by the election of Katie Gorka, chairwoman of the Fairfax Republican Party.
Lauren Burke
Wait, is Sebastian Gorka's wife now the chair of the Fairfax Republican party?
Michael Pope
Yes, you heard that right. Katie Gorka, Sebastian Gorka's wife, is now the chairwoman of the Fairfax County Republican committee.
Lauren Burke
That's wild, that is really wild.
Michael Pope
Yeah, I mean, election 2024 is really going to be something.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, absolutely.
Michael Pope
All right, we also got a negative review on Apple podcasts from a country lawyer who posted this quo: Pod Virginia mostly comes from a Marxist NoVA perspective.
Lauren Burke
Marxist NoVA perspective, huh?
Michael Pope
Marxist Nova perspective. Alright, so next week on Pod Virginia, dialectical materialism.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, yeah. Get ready for that. I will say that there are certain things, such as issues that are up for debate now, that are fairly ideological. I mean, the abortion issue is you're either pro-choice or you're not. And whether you're located in NoVA or not, that's a biggie. That's a biggie.
Michael Pope
I kind of saw that. And I wondered, is there a difference? Is there a Marxist NoVA perspective that's different from a Marxist Southwest perspective?
Lauren Burke
Well, I do know that if you go out to other parts of Virginia, there's a much different view of several issues, and you're not going to find a NoVA. You're not going to be talking about rank choice voting out in Southwest. No, I'm kidding; I just think certain things are unique to NoVA. I'll say that.
Michael Pope
Yeah. All right. Before we wrap up, let's take a look at the calendar.
Lauren Burke
Today is tax day. So make sure you get all your paperwork filed on time.
Michael Pope
And perhaps not consequentially. The day after that, Tuesday, April 16th, is Federal Budget Deficit Education Day.
Lauren Burke
Wednesday, April 17th, is the reconvened session.
Michael Pope
Yes, we will see you in Richmond. Sunday, April 21st, is the birthday of the Governor's Chief of Staff, Jeff Goettman.
Lauren Burke
That's it for this episode of Pod Virginia.
