Souls to the Polls, PAC Attack, and the Halloween Spooktacular
IN THE NEWS:
Souls to the Polls: Every jurisdiction in Virginia is required to offer voting for two Saturdays before election day. But Sunday is a different story. Registrars are allowed to schedule Sunday hours, but they're not required. House Democratic Leader Don Scott says he can understand smaller jurisdictions that are strapped for cash not having the resources to offer Sunday voting. But he says that does not explain Virginia's largest city, Virginia Beach, opting against Sunday voting this year even though they had it for the previous two years.
PAC Attack: So far, Governor Youngkin hasn't been forking over big money for Senate candidates in toss up races. Instead he saved his largest contribution for a seat that leans Democratic in Henrico. Many people are wondering why the governor is spending almost a million dollars in this election instead of the toss up races.
Early and Often: House District 71 includes James City County, Williamsburg and parts of New Kent County in the peninsula. It also has something special, the highest number of ballots cast so far. The race features incumbent Republican Delegate Amanda Batten and Democratic challenger Jessica Anderson--both of whom agree that 45 days of early voting is too much.
At the Watercooler:
Republicans are getting desperate in the race against Susanna Gibson--mailing flyers containing explicit images to voters in the 57th district. All the while,
Delegate Matt Fariss is in court for an alleged hit-and-run - Alexandria politics are about to get upended with a vote on Zoning for Housing, Housing for All--a proposal to alter housing zoning laws and address equity issues.
Episode Transcript
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Lauren Burke
I'm Lauren Burke.
Michael Pope
And this is the Halloween episode of Pod Virginia, a podcast that knows one thing that's scarier than Dracula and Frankenstein.
Lauren Burke
The state of the world right now.
Michael Pope
Factcheck, true. Well, let's get to the news. Souls to the polls now every jurisdiction in Virginia is legally required to offer voting for two Saturdays before election day. But Sunday is a different story. Registrars are allowed to schedule Sunday hours, but they're not required to. Delegate Cliff Hayes says he's disappointed that elections officials in Chesapeake didn't schedule Sunday voting this year.
Cliff Hayes
I think we need to do everything we can to allow people to take their souls, S O L ES, as well as the S O U L S, to the polls and vote.
Lauren Burke
House Democratic Leader Don Scott says he can understand smaller jurisdictions strapped for cash not having the resources to offer Sunday voting. But he says that does not explain Virginia's largest city of Virginia Beach, opting against Sunday voting this year, even though they had it for the two previous years.
Don Scott
Hopefully, they will have a chance. And if not, they will have to legislate it because I think there will be strong consideration for that legislation. And I'll be supporting legislation that we mandate at least certain jurisdictions or certain fathers to have the opportunity for folks to vote on Sunday.
Michael Pope
This issue of Sunday voting is a very new phenomenon. Democrats passed this in 2020. When they were in control, Ralph Northam signed the bill. So we really have only had a very small number of election cycles when we saw Black communities doing souls to the polls and getting people from the churches to the voting booths on Sundays. In fact, in the first real big election cycle, we saw where that happened. We saw a lot of campaigning in many churches, taking their voters to the polls in an election that Democrats lost. That would be the election that Republican Glenn Youngkin was elected governor. The first real election cycle was souls to the polls. And now we've got registrars and electoral boards in many of the large cities or cities that have large African American populations not even scheduling Sunday voting. Lauren, what has been the reaction to the fact that cities like Chesapeake and even Virginia Beach, the largest city in Virginia, does not have early voting. They can afford it right. Why don't they have early Sunday voting in Virginia Beach?
Lauren Burke
Because the Republicans figured out that souls to the polls are a big deal with regard to getting turnout organized through Black churches in certain areas. Obviously, Virginia Beach has several extremely competitive races during my House District 97, Delegate Greenhalgh, and Mike Fagan's. So once that was seen, Republicans, local Republicans in the area, tried to do what they could to curtail Sunday voting specifically, or really, any voting on the weekend and typically any voting period until, of course, Glenn Youngkin changed his policy and his mind on early voting. But Sunday voting, in particular, and souls to the polls in particular, is a thing in the Black community. Last week, Hampton had their event. A few days ago, Arlington had their souls to the polls events, and there's more coming up as we get into the last days of the campaign. So that's one of the reasons why souls go to the polls a thing, and when you're a church, you, of course, are not to tell people who to vote for. But encouraging people to vote and be civically active is what goes on at your typical Souls to the polls event. And in fact, some barbecue is food and some tents and some other fun stuff and really voter education, which is what happened last week in Hampton.
Michael Pope
Where I live, Sunday voting happened over this last weekend. And as you mentioned, voters across Virginia live in jurisdictions where they're having Sunday voting; they've been going to the polls. That is a voluntary thing, though the law says you're allowed to have Sunday voting, but you're not required to; we heard audio there from Don Scott saying, well, maybe that should be a lot. Lauren, what do you think about the future and the next General Assembly that they might take up requiring Sunday voting? What do you think the response to that would be?
Lauren Burke
Well, I think it would be a good response. Anything that would make it convenient for people to vote is generally seen as a good thing. We've seen the long lines that have happened in a lot of places around the country and including Virginia, particularly if we have a particularly, you know, this is an off-off year election, but in on-on your presidential year, like we're going to have next year. I mean, we got a lot of working-class people out here. So I think that they appreciate any sort of convenient move toward the weekend. And, of course, the evenings. Obviously, if we end up with a speaker, Don Scott, I have a feeling that we're going to have some Sunday voting laws that will be happening, but we'll see. I don't want to put any words into his mouth. But I will say that, indeed, the Democrats have been leaders in making it easy to vote.
Michael Pope
All right, let's move on to our next story. PAC attack so far, Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin has not been forking over big money for Senate candidates in toss-up races. Instead, he saved his largest contribution for a seat that leans toward the Democrats in Henrico. So he's going on the offense here. This is a seat that would otherwise be a walk in the park for delegates Skyler VanValkenburg. It's a plus eight-point district for Democrats. It's close, but really, it's actually a blue district here. So that's why so many people are wondering why the governor spent almost a million dollars here in this election to help Republican senator Shavon Dunnavant instead of one of the toss-up races. He could have thrown his money in Newport News at Monte Mason or up in Northern Virginia to help Juan Pablo Segura. But he's on the offense here with this seat, trying to help Shavon Dunnavant. Here's Virginia State University Professor Wes Bellamy.
Wes Bellamy
The governor is playing offense because he truly believes that he's going to win. Hey, when you think about a couple of years back when he was running for governor, there were a lot of people who didn't think he could win, and he proved them wrong. And now you're going to see him put his full force into some of these races so that you can take back the House and the Senate.
Lauren Burke
Yeah. And he's rolling out the bus again, just like he rolled out in 2021 as well. The Republican Speaker of the House, Todd Gilbert, also has a PAC. So far, the biggest dollar amount has gone toward a Republican in Prince William, who is secretly recorded saying that he wants a 100% ban on abortion. Republican candidate John Stirrup, who is running against Democrat Josh Thomas, here's the dean of the Schar School of George Mason University, Mark Rozell.
Mark Rozell
The speaker's PAC, here, is trying to help a Republican candidate who needs to be supported much better than he's able to raise money for his own campaign. And that suggests that the speaker's PAC and Republicans generally believe there is some vulnerability there for the Republican candidate who needs this extra help.
Michael Pope
Some vulnerability, yeah, on the abortion issue, I would say definitely have some vulnerability. Lauren, I wanna ask you about PACs. Many of these people raise and spend a lot of their own money. But sometimes they form a PAC; what's the use? What's the benefit in forming a PAC as opposed to just raising and spending the money yourself?
Lauren Burke
Well, I mean, I think in Virginia, certainly, with the unlimited spending across the board and the sort of, frankly, lax laws around tax in Virginia. We're kind of the Wild West a little bit. It just allows you to have your own thing going off to the side and kind of do what you want with that campaign money. But the other thing about PACs is not PACs or your own money. But we're seeing some record spending. It is amazing to think about the PAC spending on these campaigns. We're getting into the realm of the congressional level spending on some of these campaigns, and these are House of Delegates seats and Senate seats for what is, of course, in fact, quotes a part-time legislature, which it really isn't; it is really a full-time legislature, but it pays a part-time salary. I'm really amazed at not only all the PACs that we're seeing, all the spending that we're seeing, but just the amount of money, the record amounts of money that we're seeing; I mean, Mamie Locke and Don Scott are on are hitting records in their fundraising and their contributions to the Senate and House caucus. And that's an amazing thing to say because we've had some big raises in past years, but man, every year, I think, well, it can't get above this number. It can't get above that number. And it does.
Michael Pope
I'm looking at the number of As right now, Lauren and they are huge! In the Richmond media market, there is that race there with Siobhan Dunnavant and Schuyler VanValkenburg. This is the governor's money, of course, entering into this. There have been $4 million set on fire by putting TV ads here in Senate District 16, in the Richmond TV media market. $4 million for this Henrico Senate seat, and that's not the most expensive.
Lauren Burke
right
Michael Pope
In Hampton Roads area. There has been $5 million spent on commercials for the State Senate race in Newport News between incumbent Democrat Monty Mason and Republican challenger Danny Digs; that's $5 million spent in the Hampton Roads TV media market. And none of that is the most expensive because up in Northern Virginia and Loudoun, $6 million has been spent on that Loudoun Senate seat that is that toss-up race with the Republican Juan Pablo Segura vs. Democrat Russet Perry. You mentioned big money, $4 million, in the Richmond TV media market. $5 million in the Hampton Roads media market and $6 million in the DC media market. That is an expensive election cycle.
Lauren Burke
It's a really expensive election cycle. And again, every time we think it's not gonna go higher, it does go higher. At least with Segura and Russet Perry, you could say, well, they're in the Nova market; obviously, that's going to be really expensive. But man, Richmond and Hampton Roads, it starts to be Wow. Those are not particularly known to be New York-style spending type media markets, but obviously, the Washington DC market is off the chain. It really is amazing. When you think about it, and you're looking at most of these races, or they're really close. A tiny group of people that is undecided. So you're spending millions and billions of dollars to influence maybe two or three thousand, maybe not even that many voters, and some of these races, of course, come down very, very close to a few 100 voters. But man, the money is just getting higher and higher and higher.
Michael Pope
All right, well, let's move on to our next story. Early and often House District 71 in the peninsula region includes James City County, Williamsburg, part of New Kent County. It also has something really special. This one-house district in the peninsula with James City County and Williamsburg has the highest number of ballots cast. So far, the highest number of early ballots cast anywhere in Virginia is in this one House district. So it's a race that features incumbent Republican delegate Amanda Baton.
Amanda Batten
So, in James City, if you look back over the years, you'll see that we have a very high number of early voters relative to all the other localities in the Commonwealth. So this is this is a trend in the making. And I think that you're just seeing more momentum now.
Lauren Burke
And I wonder if that momentum is related to Jessica Anderson's social media game. Still, I can't, I can't prove that. Until very recently, Republicans have been skeptical of the 45-day window for early voting. Earlier this year, the Republican House voted to shorten the period of early voting, which has some support among some Democrats, including the Democrat who was challenging Amanda Batten and Jessica Anderson, who says that 45 days is too much.
Jessica Anderson
I know that there's a lot of legislation put forward to try to shrink it to two weeks. I don't agree with that. But I think a 30-day with the continued of two definitive Saturdays and then a required Sunday as well. Not, this you can choose to do one if you'd like, in every district would be ideal.
Michael Pope
So interesting that this race, this one house seat, where we've seen the highest number of early ballots cast, both of the candidates in this race don't like the 45-day window and think it should be shorter. Amanda Baton says voting should start in October and that all of the Saturdays from October 1 to election day should be available for early voting, I guess, except that last one, perhaps. And Jessica Anderson, even the Democrat in the race, doesn't like the 45-day window; she thinks it should be shorter or perhaps 30 days. So there is an irony here, like the one house district with the highest number of early votes tests two candidates that don't like the 45-day window.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, that is interesting. These two candidates, Amanda Batten and Jessica Anderson, are two really good candidates, and they are running really energetic campaigns, not just on social media but in person. I think there is an argument to be made for voting so early now that things can happen during the race that could change someone's mind who has already voted or that could just change the entire trajectory of the race. I mean, we had a judge last week side, and Fairfax, take somebody off the ballot running for school board, and now you have 3,000 people who have already voted. So when everyone's voting early, any sort of change like that. Got a sort of problem. That may be an argument to shorten it a little bit. But once again, in most of these races, Democrat and Republican, whether we're talking about the left or the right, most people have made the grind up a lot of times based on party. And so the issues are not necessarily driving, parties driving so much of the momentum of so many voters on the left and on the right. But again, early voting does sort of take away any opportunity; one might have to rethink their vote later in the campaign.
Michael Pope
Yeah, the early voting is fascinating because it's giving us all this new data analytics that we can do and take this list of people who have actually voted and said, Okay, well, what else do we know about them? And what can we learn about their commercial buying habits? And what are the demographics here? What does the voter file say? And you can overlay all these data points on top of each other? So yeah, the 45-day window is changing the game of what it means to do politics in Virginia.
Lauren Burke
I'd be interested to find out why it is that there's a spike in that particular district.
Michael Pope
I tried to get to that. That's why I talked about the candidates. And basically, what my takeaway from speaking to both of the candidates in that race to get a sense of why this particular district had the highest number was that there's just a long history of early voting in this district, long predating Donald Trump. Republicans have had this game for years, where they have been encouraging their voters to do early voting. And so there's a legacy here in James City County that even predates Amanda Batten; she was saying, like, look, people, these voters have a very long history of doing this. And a lot of retired people in James City County.
Lauren Burke
Right.
Michael Pope
So they've got some free time between 9am and 5pm. And so they turn out and vote.
Lauren Burke
It's interesting to note that the top Senate race that has an early voting spike involves Senator McDougal and, obviously, Pam Garner. And it's interesting to think that the Juan Pablo Segura vs Russet Perry is tops in spending. Still, it's third in turnout so far. And that is District 26, Senate District 26, Garner vs. McDougal; the Republican has been number one for weeks. So it's interesting to see what, you know, the amounts of money was that correlating with turnout, that's going to be interesting to look at when it's all over.
Michael Pope
That Senate race is a very solidly Republican seat plus 30, basically plus 30 for the Democrats +27.6. But, like, there's a 30-point advantage that Republicans have in that senate district, so it's not really all that competitive. The House race is slightly more competitive but still a pretty solidly Republican seat. It's +6.4 for Republicans. So Amanda Batten has a very clear edge over Jessica Anderson. But as you mentioned, Jessica Anderson has a social media game. Does that work with voters on the campaign trail?
Lauren Burke
We're gonna get all those answers very soon.
Michael Pope
All right, let's take a break; when we come back, we'll play a round of trivia and also wish a happy birthday to Ken Plum.
This just in hearing the Democratic House Leader Don Scott might be joining Pod Virginia later this week. Lauren, what do you think about that?
Lauren Burke
Yes, I believe that he is. I think he's going to be doing a whole lot of podcasting. This week. As I've been trying to get him, he said yesterday to me with Black Virginia news as well. And so I'm sure that yours is going to be longer than mine in length. I know that I've just sort of tried to keep it to about 10 or 11 minutes, but I'm looking forward to hearing both interviews. And again, leader Scott is going to be doing a lot of podcasting, and that's going to be some fun.
Michael Pope
Yes. Well, I'm hoping to get you involved in the Pod Virginia with leader Scott, so hopefully, you can tune in for that. Later this week, let's go around the Commonwealth.
Lauren Burke
Republicans in Prince William County have coined a new term for what they call hypocritical climate change legislation, which they've been calling greenwashing.
Michael Pope
Greenwashing reminds them of their favorite pastime, money laundering.
Lauren Burke
Governor Youngkin was courting voters in Pentagon City this week.
Michael Pope
Yeah, when he heard about the event, he thought they were actually going to the Pentagon.
Lauren Burke
The Virginia Beach school board wants to raise its salary by $5,000.
Michael Pope
That breaks down to about $1 per banned book.
Lauren Burke
Leaked emails seem to show that a councilman in Lynchburg tried to get dirt on the Vice Mayor by spying on him, leaving everyone to ask why?
Michael Pope
Find out in the James Bond summer spy blockbuster Live and Let Why.
Lauren Burke
Golden why.
Michael Pope
The why who loved me.
Lauren Burke
Why fall.
Michael Pope
Tomorrow, never whys..
Lauren Burke
And finally, a new report out of Tufts University says that despite being a huge voting bloc, only 20% of Virginia College students actually vote.
Michael Pope
In the hopes of making voting seem cool. Again, they're releasing the new college party movie Animal House of Representatives. Let's play a round of trivia. Last week, we asked you who was the Republican senator in the seat currently held by Senator John Bell?
Lauren Burke
We heard from several listeners that this question was too easy.
Michael Pope
Too easy. Yeah, maybe it could be too easy. But the answer was Dick Black. Yes, that's his name, Deke black, and we did. Lauren and I got some off-color emoji responses to that trivia question. I'm going to set those aside, and we're not going to talk about what they are or who sent them. But we heard the correct answer from several folks, including Jameson Bab and Jackie Gary. We also heard from Jess Brown, who posted this on social media:, It was a surprise to see Deke black defeat a Democratic candidate as talented as Joe McCabe in 2015. She ran on Medicaid expansion at the time and paved the way for it to pass in May of 2018.
Lauren Burke
Fun fact: Jill McCabe is the wife of Andrew McCabe, the former official fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions for leaking details about the investigation into the Clinton Foundation to The Wall Street Journal.
Michael Pope
Yeah, I vaguely remember all of that stuff. I kind of remember Trump going after Andrew McCabe because his wife had received money from Terry McAuliffe. Yeah, it was a big mess.
Lauren Burke
Yes, it was.
Michael Pope
All right. Well, we've got a prize for our winners, Jamison Bab and Jackie Gary. Lauren, tell them what they've won.
Lauren Burke
John Belushi 2024 presidential yard sign. Let's keep Virginia blue's brothers. So, what's our trivia question for next week?
Michael Pope
All right. In celebration of the birthday of Delegate Ken Plum, I'm going to ask a Ken Plum trivia question. Okay, so he was first elected to the House of Delegates back in 1979. But 1979 was not his first campaign for office. So here's your Happy Birthday, Ken Plum trivia question for this week. What year was his first campaign for office? And I'll give you a hint. He actually had two unsuccessful campaigns before he was elected in 1979. So, your trivia question for the week. What year was the first year that Ken Plum ran unsuccessfully for office? If you think you know the answer to that, hit us up on social media. You might even win a prize, maybe, if our lawyers ever get around to approving any of that. All right, let's head over to the water cooler. Lauren, what's the latest? You're hearing around the water cooler?
Lauren Burke
I think we're hearing a little desperation out of the Republican Party and House District 57 Because one of the news items of last few days was they decided to run a flier against Democrat Susanna Gibson that effectively was their effort to re-remind voters of the Washington Post piece from a few months ago with regard to her being on Chatterbait. Now the question is, why did they do that? If you notice, Michael, HD 57, House District 57, has a little bit of a spike in early voting. It wasn't way way back there, but now it's like in the top five or six all of a sudden. I have a hard time believing that would not benefit Miss Gibson because usually, higher turnout benefits the Democrats. Still, the fact that they ran that ad, which had a big You've got to be 18 years old, open this up and all this drama on the front lawn.
Michael Pope
Wait, hold on, hold on. Please explain this. So there was an envelope that said you have to be 18. To see the smut that's on the inside of this envelope is clearly an indication to anybody who is under the age of 18 to run to get the letter opener ASAP, right. That's what was going on in this election.
Lauren Burke
And so the Republicans decide, let's put out some flyers reminding everybody. And, of course, it's the front of the flyer, which is a very unusual, of course, for a political flyer to have, you have to be 18 to open this, and so they're doing this course to remind everyone of the Washington Post story on Susanna Gibson. And I just think if they're doing that, that has to have something to do with them worried about this race run against David Owen, Republican. And I don't know, that smells kind of like panic to me.
Michael Pope
Demographics here: This is a Republican district, but very, very slightly +1.1 for the Rs. So this is basically a 5050 seat here. I would imagine. Of course, there would be heavy politics on both sides. I'm wondering, okay, so if you open up the envelope, and there are these racy pictures of one of the candidates, are there also new pearls? Because you're clutching your old pearls so much they've had damage, Right? Voters in this district are going to need some fresh pearls to clutch.
Lauren Burke
Well, I do think that the decisions that people make are an issue during a campaign. Okay, that's fair enough. I'm not one of the people who thinks that this was not a story. I do think this is a story.
Michael Pope
I think we talked about the previous podcast.
Lauren Burke
Well, I do think, you know, when you're running for office, you know, your decision-making, the things that you do, things you focus on, particularly as an adult. So this was last year. So it's not, you know, 20 or 30 years ago, and I'm saving for law school. This is fairly recent. So I do think that I mean, some of the arguments I've heard are well taken. I mean, we have a sitting member of the House of Delegates who was involved in litigation with regard to hitting somebody with his vehicle. How that doesn't get the parallel attention to the Gibson story, specifically in the Washington Post, that would be Delegate Matt Ferris, and he has denied what is alleged, but this thing is being adjudicated in a court of law. That's a lot different than a candidate running for office that is not yet seated. He is a member of the House of Delegates, and he is running again. Okay, in HD-51, I think, is an Independent, but still, he's running. And so, you know, you figure if somebody does something that is not in front of a court. Somebody is not alleging that you hit them with or you are trying to harm another person; it is hard to believe that the Ferris story is not at least parallel with the Gibson story. But I do think, at the end of the day, both have stories, but it is interesting to see the Republicans running this flier; I mean, what I think their internal polling must be telling them, we have to, we have to pull this lever for some reason. And that is very interesting.
Michael Pope
Yeah, well, fun fact: if listeners want to know more about the Republican Delegate who is charged with hitting someone with his car, you can listen; we did a whole episode about this with Marcus Schmidt of Cardinal; it was very interesting. And he went into the details of what happened. And as an old friend of mine used to say, Who shot John? But worth pointing out? Delegate Ferris is running as an Independent. So I guess he, after this incident, had a falling out with a local Republican Party. So he's not even a Republican, but he is on the ballot as an independent. What do you think about that?
Lauren Burke
I think he should be thoroughly looked into and investigated. I mean, you're in court. Those are, those are things that the voters should know about? I think part of the problem here, and tip of the hat to the cardinal for reporting on Ferris, for whatever reason, is that the Post can't get somebody in a car to drive to Southwest. I mean, most of Virginia is rural. That should be a story. And if the argument is from the Post that well, the Gibson thing, certain things are outside of our jurisdiction, or the Gibson story is enriched, outside of Richmond Short Pump. You have to travel to do that. I mean, fair, the fairest story to me is a big story. What about the water cooler? What do you get?
Michael Pope
Well, Alexandria is about to erupt in politics on November 28. So right around the corner. The city council is scheduled to vote on this thing called Zoning for Housing, Housing for All. The idea here is they're ditching single-family zoning. You may recall, Lauren, Arlington recently tried something called the Missing Middle, and it totally upended politics in Arlington and featured prominently in the Democratic primary. So you had one supporter of the Missing Middle win, you had one opponent of Missing Middle win in this rank choice system that they recently had in Arlington a cluster of a lawsuit challenging this is going on in the court. So Arlington politics have really been upended by this concept of getting rid of single-family housing. Alexandria is about to have that exact same debate because this vote is scheduled for November 28, zoning for housing for all, so basically, the idea of single-family zoning is racist. If you look at the history of zoning, the original purpose of the fundamental first zoning laws was to separate white communities from Black communities. Here, where I live in Alexandria, they use zoning as a tool to marginalize black communities by zoning them industrial and not residential, thereby reducing the value of their properties in addition to all of the restricted covenants that were assigned in the era of Jim Crow, still on the books. So, you have a restrictive covenant. Hundreds of these things are all over the books in Alexandria. They so they say things like this property can never be sold, rented, or conveyed to any person of Negro descent; that's one from 1913. Or there's this one here from 1911 that says no lot shall ever be sold, leased, rented, or in any way conveyed to any person or persons of African descent. Then there's this one in Rosemont from 1914. That said, the ownership of this property is prohibited for anyone not of the Caucasian race. So this is a restrictive covenant from 1914, and the Rosemont neighborhood of Alexandria prohibits ownership of this particular property in the Rosemont neighborhood for anyone, quote, not of the Caucasian race. I want you to think about that for a second because that is white supremacy. This is the language of white supremacy in Alexandria documents still on the books. And so one of the things they want to do here with this zoning for housing housing for all is address the equity issues. So it's interesting the name of this is a little weird because it goes on and on and on. Why do they call it zoning for housing, housing for all that's actually two separate concepts, which is supposed to tell you that it do two different things. The zoning for housing part is increasing. Affordable housing, housing for all, is increasing equity. Okay. So the first part is zoning for housing. Housing is expensive. The one of the ways to reduce the price of housing is to vastly increase the supply; you increase the supply, more people can meet the demand because the price will go down. So the plan here is to ditch single-family zoning by taking out the word family so they replace the word family with the unit, and you no longer have single-family zoning; you have units. And then, you can take those unit sizes and make them smaller to improve affordability. So this is the zoning change. Zoning for housing increases the supply of housing by removing the word family from single-family zoning and just talking about units so that you can have smaller unit sizes and more affordable housing. That's the first part of zoning for housing. The second part is housing for all, which addresses this historic wrong with white supremacy in these restrictive covenants and the racist history of zoning, which divided these communities for a very long time. So they're trying to do a lot here, Lauren, with this November 29 vote. And there's like a suite of different things they're doing, like one of them is replacing the word family with unit. They're also doing stuff with parking spaces, and they want to have parking maximums instead of parking minimums. So this is all kind of designed to be a more urban-friendly city. But the way that missing middle upended Arlington politics recently is about to happen, and Alexandria, with the City Council vote coming up on November 29 of zoning for housing, housing for all.
Lauren Burke
Wow. and so those housing covenants that have been on the books since the early 1900s. Nobody's thought to change that.
Michael Pope
Well, the Supreme Court ruled in a way that obviated them, so they're actually no longer legally enforceable because of a Supreme Court decision that happened many years ago, but they are still on the books as a reminder of the racist past of Alexandria.
Lauren Burke
Wow, you're gonna mess around Mike and become a guest on Black Virginia News podcast because that's a very interesting thing that's going on. And you write it up in Arlington. I'm sure that it'll do the same thing, and Alexandria, I would be very surprised if it didn't because the housing issue is absolutely huge. And with the cost of living being what it is in Northern Virginia, the cost of living is just through the roof. And I'm somebody who, even when no, my mom, my mom's side, the family's from Virginia. Still, I grew up in New York, and I'm in for rest by the housing prices as a New Yorker; I'm impressed by how incredibly high they are in Northern Virginia and specifically in Alexandria. That's amazing.
Michael Pope
All right, let's head over to the Pod Virginia mailbag. Lauren, what are our listeners talking about?
Lauren Burke
We are hearing from one of the candidates you and Thomas talked about on a recent podcast.
Michael Pope
Yeah, we heard from Jessica Anderson. We talked about her in the previous segment. She is the Democrat running in that Peninsula race with James City County and Williamsburg against Amanda, and so we heard from Jessica Anderson, who listened to our discussion of her race there in the peninsula against Amanda Batten, and she posted this on X quote, So I just listened to this podcast and I'm very confused over the assessment of my race as of this past Wednesday, L2 Political that's a data firm called L two data has Dems, leading by 10% in my district, and Pam Garner, that's the Democrat running against Ryan McDougal and senate district 26, a +20. Republican district only lost by 10%. So Jessica Anderson concludes with this quote: it appears Batten is not driving votes. So Lauren, you and I talked about this in the last segment. I think what's really driving the votes here, it seems like, is just this long history of early voting in James City County unless there's something else going on there.
Lauren Burke
I think something else is going on there. I talked to a few people about this. And apparently, there's someone, some mystery operative there, that I've been trying to find out who it is. That's really good at turnout. And I'll tell you, whoever that is called Pod Virginia, and find out and get an interview with this person. If I were the Democratic Party, I would assume that That'd be better for the Democrats. However, obviously, Senate District 26 is very red. But particularly when you see high turnout numbers, it's like, what was that? You know, so it could also be, you know, related to the fact that the Republicans have found religion on early voting. It could be that, but I just have a funny feeling that it's more than that because it's so random. Like, why that district? I mean, it's other districts see big money being spent and everything else, and we're not seeing those types of early turnout numbers.
Michael Pope
If you're listening to this podcast right now. If you're in Williamsburg, or you're in James City County, and you've got some insight, hit us up! Hit us up because we would love to hear from you. Lauren. Hey, also speaking of listener feedback, I hear you were at an event, and people were buzzing about Pod VA. Tell me about this event with Mamie Locke and Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland, Jennifer McClellan, the Congresswoman, and Bobby Scott, obviously the senior congressman from the delegation. Yeah. Tell me about this event where people were hitting you up about Pod Virginia.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, I got a few questions. I went last Thursday to an event where I saw that Wes Moore was one of them. And no offense to anybody else. I was really there to see Wes Moore. And there was an event, and it was really an honor Mamie Locke, a fundraiser for Mamie Locke. And it was in Alexandria, and the headliners were our historic members of Congress, Jennifer McClellan, and of course, the legend, the man, the legend, Bobby Scott. And also, you know, the invite comes out, and then all of a sudden, I see Wes Moore's name on this. Let me stop by that and see what's going on. So it was great. It was fantastic. And it was a lot of fun. And I had a few people come up to me and mention Pod Virginia. I think they had absolutely no idea who I was; I had a little nametag on. They were like, Oh, the Lauren from Pod Virginia, that a few people didn't know what it was. And they had good things to say about it. So that was nice to hear. But it was really fun.
Michael Pope
They know who you were yet.
Lauren Burke
Right. And shout out to these elected officials. I'll say this and any of these candidates: the constant people coming up to you and taking photos and interrupting a conversation. I don't know how people do it. I'm impressed by it. And Wes Moore stayed there till the very end. I think he took pictures of every single person that was there. It was crazy.
Michael Pope
People forget how much stamina is involved in doing this sort of thing all day, every day, shaking hands and talking to complete strangers. This takes a level of energy that is not normal. Normal people don't work this way.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, I'm impressed by I've always been impressed. My first job in politics was in New York. My mother worked for a politician, and I worked for that person while I was a teenager. And I'm still impressed by when I see the endurance on some of our elected officials because it, you know, they got to take time away from their family to be at this stuff. It's amazing to me, but it was fun. It was a very fun event, and I'm sure people will have seen the photos online, and you can kind of feel the fun. You know what, there are a lot of candidates there; it was a cool event.
Michael Pope
All right. Let's celebrate some birthdays this week. Wednesday, November 1, is the birthday of Senator Todd Pillion of Washington County.
Lauren Burke
Friday, November 3, is the birthday of Delegate Ken Plum of Reston. Yeah, so
Michael Pope
Happy birthday, Senator Pillion, and Happy Happy Birthday, Delegate Ken Plum. All right. So it's also the beginning of November, Lauren, and you know what that means. We've got a long list of months that have been voted on by the General Assembly. All right, so November is Native American History Month, Early Intervention Month, Equals Citizens Month, Adoption Awareness Month, Virginia Caregivers, Bone Marrow Awareness Month, Lung Cancer Awareness Month, Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, and Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Lauren Burke
That's it for this episode of Pod Virginia. Be sure to check out Black Virginia News, the substack, the Tiktok account on the platform called X, and, of course, the podcast, which we're going to be slamming with the podcast in the last few days of this campaign.
