Michael Pope

Welcome to season two of Transition Virginia, the podcast documenting the ongoing transition of power in Virginia. I'm Michael Pope.

Thomas Bowman

And I'm Thomas Bowman. Today on the podcast, the 2021 Session of the Virginia General Assembly.

Michael Pope

Lawmakers will be considering abolishing the death penalty, legalizing marijuana and restoring rights of people convicted of felonies.

Thomas Bowman

They'll be voting on things like giving teachers a raise, reallocating money for public health, and even removing the statue of Harry Byrd from Capitol Square.

Michael Pope

So we've got the best guest to help us walk through the Governor's State of the Commonwealth Address and help us understand what we can expect this year. She's one of our favorite guests from season one, and she's helping us launch season two. She's the lobbyist for the city of Alexandria, Sarah Graham Taylor, thanks for joining us.

Sarah Graham Taylor

Always good to be with you. Thank you so much for having me back. Congratulations on season two. Feels like it was just yesterday. It feels like you started this a lifetime ago. So congratulations on making it this far.

Michael Pope

I appreciate you saying that but don't congratulate us quite yet, because we still have lots of room to crash and burn. So let's get started with it.

Sarah Graham Taylor

Speaking of General Assembly Session...

Michael Pope

Let's start with the mechanics here, the elephant in the room, which is having all this thing virtual. And then let's get the obvious out of the way here. It sucks. Nobody's happy with it. The House is meeting virtually and the Senate is meeting at a space away from the Capitol, where they can socially distance. The Governor delivered his State of the Commonwealth Address to a mostly empty House Chamber, where he said this...

Ralph Northam

In a normal year, when I say something that my friends like, they stand up and cheer. And that's a nice feeling. And at the same time, the other side of the aisle, they sit quiet. But I know that you're secretly cheering in your hearts. So here's some good news. Tonight, you don't have to be quiet. If you're watching from home, when I say something that you like, feel free to stand up and cheer me on. Nobody has to know.

Michael Pope

I love the mental image of Republicans secretly standing up and cheering the Governor in their comfy pants as they're at home. Although I really doubt that happened. By the way, I doubt the Governor should give up his day job to go into comedy, so just getting that out of the way. Sarah, we've been through this once before. The Special Session was a virtual Session for the most part. And you did all of your lobbying via zoom, how did that work out?

Sarah Graham Taylor

It's terrible. And whether the outcome is what you wanted it to be, and whether you get where you wanted to be with your legislation, your ideas, the process of getting there, the process of lobbying right now, or advocating, is just it's terrible. I mean, this is a business built on relationships. This is a business built on, you know, looking somebody in the eye and poking your head in their office and grabbing them quickly, you know, in between meetings. It's just not the same doing it by text or email or phone call or zoom. And, and I don't like it very much.

Michael Pope

One of my favorite things to do during the Session is to hang out outside the Caucus rooms, where I can catch the members coming and going to their Caucus meetings. And I can frankly, ambush them with questions they probably don't want to answer. Why did you vote for this? Why did you vote for that? Why did you do this? Why didn't you do that? And I've got complaints from people's, the communications people, saying they don't like me ambushing the members as they're coming and going, but that's their job to answer the questions. So now I'm at a point where I'm sitting here in front of my computer, waiting for them to return my calls, which is not ideal.

Sarah Graham Taylor

No, it's I mean, and, you know, we're sort of in the same place, too, where, you know, you know, just the way the schedule works, and the way everything runs, everything is much faster, everything is much tighter, everything is much more compressed right now. And, you know, I, for example, I have a bill in a committee at eight o'clock on Monday morning that got docketed on Friday at 4pm. And so now, I'm trying to decide to make my phone calls to the members of that committee, calling them on a Sunday night just seems wrong. It just seems rude and inappropriate. But when we're working on a schedule like this, it's just what we've got to do. And you know, instead of me being able to, you know, lurk outside their office on Monday as they walked to the committee room, to make sure I have my headcount, right, I've got to call them on their cell phone on a Sunday afternoon. And I mean, it's just not ideal, and it'll, we'll survive, it'll be fine. But it's certainly not ideal for any of us.

Thomas Bowman

You know, Sarah, you bring up a really interesting point. And I had kind of theorized before going into the Session, that lobbying would be dominated by the 10 or 20, lobbyists that had text message privileges with pretty much anybody. And how does that impact maybe like an activist organization, trying to advance their cause? I mean, does this stunt the balance of power even more?

Sarah Graham Taylor

I think it's, I think it has the potential to. I don't know if that it that it will, because I do think for a lot of members, they are very sensitive to that fact, and are really trying to correct for it in with their own behaviors and the choices that they are making, and, and opening up ways for folks who used to rely on driving to Richmond, showing up for a, you know, a Lobby Day, bringing all their members down. I think for a lot of members, they're really looking for ways to create opportunities for these folks to still have access, and that there's, you know, sort of an active effort to, to, to not let, like you said, you know, the folks who have text message privileges, win the day. I do think it, you know, for activist organizations, and, you know, and smaller groups and other folks, I mean, even, you know, local government lobbyists who you know, aren't exactly, you know, high on the food chain of lobbyists, you know, we've really had to spend the interim doubling down on our electronic relationships with members and aides and, you know, filling your cell phone with phone numbers and alternate email addresses and finding out people's preferences about how they want to be contacted, and when and in what format. You know, that was a lot of the interim work this year, as opposed to driving around the state and, you know, checking in with people and building relationships. It was really figuring out how the, you can use your contact list to, to replicate, if not, if not exactly, but how you use your contact list to to get the job done this Session.

Thomas Bowman

Fascinating. Well, one of the biggest issues this year is likely to be the death penalty. Democrats have wanted to end the death penalty in Virginia for years, and now the Governor is on board. This is how Northam frames the issue.

Ralph Northam

Virginia has executed more people than any other state, more than 1300 people. And here's another truth, a person is more than three times as likely to be sentenced to death when the victim is white than when the victim is Black. Now, some of that is because Virginia is an old state, 401 years of history. But it's also true that we're near the top of the list in the modern era, too, since federal law allowed executions to resume in the 1970s after a long moratorium.

Thomas Bowman

So Sarah, is this actually going to happen? Is Virginia going to join the 22 states that have ditched capital punishment?

Sarah Graham Taylor

I think that's really still kind of an open question. I think this is one of those issues where having leadership from the Governor's office, helps sort of identify a priority for Democrats as a whole. However, you know, he's not going to be here in a few months, and the rest of them are, and so I think there is still some room to figure out whether or not that's going to happen. I mean, I think someone like Senator Dick Saslaw, for example, you know, I think Dick Saslaw is an example of someone who has sort of come full circle on the issue, and now when he speaks about it, you know, having been a very big death penalty proponent, and now talks about, you know, not a you know, just like you don't parent when you're angry, that perhaps, you know, using the death penalty in you know, in all in every case is more about about anger than it is about justice. And I wonder how many other folks have sort of made that made similar turns, even, you know, further. And we might see that play out this year in abolishing the death penalty. I think when you look at the math on it, you know, 22 states have already done it. We're getting close to that tipping point of it being, you know, just something that is generally done in moderate and more progressive states. And so, you know, I think a state that has evolved into a state that has already passed that tipping point politically, I would expect to see some of these issues that have been waiting for that tipping point, to come over as well. And I think that penalty is one of them.

Michael Pope

Do you think it's more likely than not that Virginia would abolish the death penalty this year?

Sarah Graham Taylor

I would say yes, more likely than not. If I was a betting woman, and I am, and you asked me where to put my money, I would put my money on abolishing the death penalty.

Michael Pope

That would be huge, abolishing the death penalty would be a major milestone for this General Assembly. But, that's only one of two really major milestones because the other one would be legalizing marijuana. Now, last year, Virginia decriminalized marijuana. And now the Governor says it's time to take the next step.

Ralph Northam

One of the early leaders of the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency was clear, that marijuana laws should be written explicitly to target people of color. And so they were, and they've been targeting people for years. It's time to join 16 other states and make marijuana legal, and end the current system rooted in inequity.

Michael Pope

Now, I think it's pretty clear that Northam must have been listening to our Transition Virginia podcast with Jenn Michelle Pedini and Matt Laslo where we go into great detail about all of this. Sarah, walk us through what kind of decisions need to be made. So it's not just as simple as poof, it's legal now, like you have to create an infrastructure for all this stuff. What specific things do lawmakers need to do to make all this happen?

Sarah Graham Taylor

The fact that these bills are over 400 pages, I think, speaks to the number of issues that need to be addressed when you're doing something as major and as with real big wholesale changes, like legalizing recreational marijuana. You know, we're looking at everything from, you know, what is the structure for the state dealing with the regulation of it, you know, is it going to go through the existing ABC regulatory environment? Is there gonna be a separate regulatory environment? You know, who's gonna have the responsibility on the state level for the regulation of it? And then, you know, trickles down to how are localities going to deal with this, with regard to retail, with regard to, you know, where people can sell this product? You know, there'll be code and planning and zoning and all sorts of issues. You know, one of the questions is, you know, will localities have to choose whether or not they want retail in their locality? Will it be an opt in for a community to say, "We want this in our community," or will it be an opt out and say, it is assumed that it will be in every community unless a locality opt out of that? You know, so that's a that's an issue. There's the issue of taxation. There's how much it will be taxed, at what rate? How will the taxes be distributed? You know, there's the the social justice angle of this whole thing where it's, how will this new environment work to offset impacts on populations that were previously over policed, based on marijuana sales and or use? So you know, will it be that it will be easier for minority groups to get retail licenses? Will there be set asides? Will there be bonus points if you are a minority business owner? There's questions about with regard to the taxes, you know, will the money be set aside for full on, you know, as I think Lee Carter has described that as your reparations? Or will the monies be distributed in such a way that it is to, again, impact communities that have dealt with over policing on the issue of marijuana? I mean, there's the public safety issue, there's a public health issue, there's a juvenile justice issue, there's a ton of angles to this, and it's incredibly complicated. This is one of those bills that when I assigned it to the subject matter experts in the city, I think I clicked on every single department except for our city department that runs our city museums. And other than that, I think everybody needed was, you know, asked to take a look at this bill, just because the implications are so broad and so vast and coming to resolution and conclusion and you know, some sort of middle ground on this issue is going to be a big deal. And I think it's really incredible, and I use that word very, for reason that we started this issue, we started talking about it last year. You know, we talked about, you know, decriminalizing, and we said the next step was, you know, was making it legal. But we didn't get the reports from Jay Lark and this working group that was set up, until November or December. And so we have gone from an idea, to a series of questions, to some recommendations, to a 400 page bill, in under a year. And for that, to be an issue like this, an issue is complicated is to be fully baked, see, I should be writing for the Governor, like this, to be fully baked in this period of time, is really is really, I think, kind of unprecedented. And I think there's still probably a lot of work to be done to come to this being done and ready to get passed.

Thomas Bowman

Okay, well, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll examine the restoration of rights, funding public health, and the ghost of Harry Byrd.

Michael Pope

And we're back on Transition Virginia, we're joined by Alexandria lobbyist, Sarah Graham Taylor. And we're walking through the Governor's State of the Commonwealth Address to get a sense of what we can expect this year. Now, one of the issues Northam talked about was restoring the rights of people who have been convicted of felonies.

Ralph Northam

I've made it a priority, restoring civil rights for more than 40,000 people. And I have pardoned more Virginians than any Governor in our Commonwealth's history. But that shouldn't be up to one person. And you shouldn't have to ask for your basic civil rights to be restored. So I'm proposing to change Virginia's Constitution to make that process automatic.

Michael Pope

Sarah, explain what the Governor is talking about here and how this would work. What kind of rights would be restored and what kind of felons are we talking about?

Sarah Graham Taylor

My understanding of this is that they're, you know, when it comes to restoration of civil rights, it's everything from your gun rights, to your voting rights. And there's really kind of a myriad of other ones in the middle there. But what the Governor is looking at, so right now, in order to get your civil rights restored in Virginia, you have to petition the Governor's office. But that whole system is based on the goodwill, for lack of a better term, of each Governor to have that system in place and it;s not explicitly laid out in code. So even the petition part of it is not explicitly laid out in code. What the Governor, and what some others in the Legislature in the House have been proposing is, to have it be an automatic system, that once you have served your sentence you have made, you know, right by the community based on you know, the sentence that you that was given to you, that your civil rights would be automatically restored once you have sort of reached that threshold in your evolution as a as a after having committed a felony.

Thomas Bowman

Okay, one of the hidden problems that was revealed by the pandemic was how Virginia's public health agencies are funded. The Governor says we're still funding public health like it's 1980.

Ralph Northam

The formula should have been updated all along, but it wasn't. And that has created winners and losers. So this year, we're taking action. I want to thank Delegate Lamont Bagby for sponsoring legislation to address this. We'll make sure the localities that need more resources, get them, and no one will get less.

Thomas Bowman

Okay, what is the current formula for how local governments get money for public health? And how does Delegate Bagby's bill change that?

Sarah Graham Taylor

So my understanding of Delegate Bagby's bill and the Governor's corresponding money in the state budget, is that the goal is to re visit the formula as it exists right now. And the formula, as it exists right now, is really intended to, as he mentioned, you know, this is this is a formula that has been in place since the 80s, and was last tinkered with back in the 80s, at least. And what we found today, especially in a very, very critical public health environment, is that the formula, as it exists right now, just does not account for the needs of any, quite frankly, community in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We have rural communities who are not getting enough money to either serve populations that are highly impacted by these public health issues, and that could be anything from COVID, to other issues of public health in less dire times. But when rural areas in Southwest Virginia, for example, are really disproportionately impacted by COVID, and they don't have the staff to deal with it, their local government doesn't have the revenue to just, you know, make up the difference to bring on more staff, they're forced to do more with less and, you know, local, local governments feel that all the time. We are constantly forced to do more with less. However, public health is one of those areas where, I'm guessing, nobody wants any part of the state and any community in the state right now, to be doing more with less. Urban areas have a similar problem, or have their own problem when it comes to these public health formulas, where we are given, you know, this set amount of money, and it may not be enough for us to attract people to serve in jobs in public health up here and pay them enough, because the money is not properly regionally scaled. You know, the amount that it costs to attract a physician or a nurse or some other public health worker to Northern Virginia is significantly more than it would be to attract that same public health practitioner to another part of the state. And so we are then forced, as a locality, to make up the difference in order to, not just attract, but retain highly qualified folks to work in our in our health department. And so what what it looks like the Governor and Delegate Bagby and a lot of folks in the Legislature, who've sort of seen the bright light that COVID has shined on our public health system, is that we need to go back to the drawing board and redo the math. And quite frankly, I don't know how you do it because it's not something where you can, it's not a per capita issue. It's not a, you know, it's not based on any one individual incidents, you can't base it on, you know, COVID cases, because COVID cases might not translate to other, you know, public health issues down the road. We've seen with funding for localities, when it comes to schools, that very complicated formulas tend to not always work terribly well. So we're hopeful this won't be some overly complicated formula that keeps...We want to make sure that this formula works for all communities across the Commonwealth. And, you know, we like hearing that the Governor says, you know, nobody's going to get less. But we're hopeful that there will be ways to make up for the different kinds of impacts that localities across the Commonwealth feel from the current formula.

Michael Pope

Well it kind of sounds like Lake Wobegon where everybody is above average, right? I mean, like how can you create a formula where rural areas get more money? Oh, and also urban areas also get more money? I think that's-

Sarah Graham Taylor

And growing areas get more money, but also areas that are issue you know, dealing with fiscal stress, get more money. It's an incredibly- when you're looking at it through all the possible reasons that a public health agency could be having issues with their budgets and their you know, staffing and all these other things, I think the fact that there are so many different reasons for it in so many different parts of the state is going to make coming to some magical formula that works everywhere really, really challenging. So I'm...god bless whoever is going to be figuring this out. But it's it I don't believe it's going to be an easy lift.

Michael Pope

Well, speaking of things that are not an easy lift, let's talk about expungement. This is an issue that has been flummoxing Democrats for quite a long time. House Democrats are pushing for an automatic process to expunge old convictions. Senate Democrats want a petition based process, where you'd likely have to hire a lawyer, and go to court and miss work to do it. Now the Governor wants the House and Senate to figure it out. This is what he said in the State of the Commonwealth.

Ralph Northam

It's time to act during this Session, to have the robust debate about how to best conduct the process of expunging people's records. This will make our system more just, and equal, and it needs action this Session.

Michael Pope

Important to point out that the Governor did not weigh in by taking sides in this debate. Sarah, we're likely to see a rerun of this. This is a replay of the same debate that happened last year, before the pandemic. The debate happened again during the Special Session. Is 2021 the year that they finally get this resolved?

Sarah Graham Taylor

I think this is one of those issues that some clear leadership from the Governor's Office might have been helpful in sort of determining a path forward. And again, not that the Governor is going to be around much longer, but I think that that's some clarity as to what the best path forward was whether the Senate and House then came to agreement based on that is always up for debate. But some clear leadership from the Governor's office, I think this one would have been would have been helpful. You know, there is a pretty big gap between the Senate and the House on this issue. And I don't know that this is one that gets resolved this Session.

Michael Pope

Nobody wants to back down, right?

Sarah Graham Taylor

Exactly. We're really, there's a real standoff between the House and the Senate on this. And quite frankly, there's the problem with this is that there's really no compromise position. You can't, or it's much harder to come to a compromise position. It would be much harder to say, "Okay, here are, you know, there are certain ones that you need to petition for, there are certain ones that are automatically expunge. And because then you set up a system where people are constantly trying to come in and change which ones are in which categories. And so I think that's one of the problems is that there's really not a very simple, clear, compromised position, because it tends to come down to concern about certain crimes, or about certain categories of crimes, and that it comes down to that and then it's, you know, which pot does it go into? And again, I think some some leadership from the Governor's office would have been helpful in in moving this the ball down the field. But I don't know that I have heard anything during this interim, this very brief interim, between the Special Session and now, that leads me to believe that there has been any significant shift on this issue that would change the outcome between now and however many days we have before the end of Session.

Thomas Bowman

Okay, let's take another break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the budget, the Byrd Machine, and the insurrection.

And we are back with Season Two of Transition Virginia. We're joined by the one and only, Sarah Graham Taylor, the Legislative Director for the City of Alexandria, and one of the world's foremost experts in raw sewage. On that issue, let's talk money. Back in 2018, teachers got a raise. It was the largest single year pay raise in 15 years. Last year, lawmakers approved a 3% pay raise, but that was unallotted when the pandemic reshuffled the deck. In the weeks before the Session started, Northen said if revenues improved, the one time bonus should be converted to a permanent raise.

Ralph Northam

Tonight, I have good news. Revenues look good and we're going to have more money than we thought. We need to make this teacher bonus a raise and make it more than 2%.

Thomas Bowman

As someone married to a teacher, amen to that. The budget is a lot of moving pieces. What are the pieces that need to fall into place for teachers to get a permanent raise this year?

Sarah Graham Taylor

It feels to me like the biggest thing is nobody else deciding that they want to come for the same pot of money that the Governor is intending to use for teacher pay raises. And that there is clarity that this is recurring money, this is not one time money, and that this is money that's going to be around in order to continue to pay teachers. That, I think, is the biggest challenge, is being very clear that this is money that's going to stick around, because funding a raise with one time money is not a great idea. And it seems like something that the folks in the administration would not do. I mean Aubrey Lane's, pretty much a genius when it comes to all this budget stuff and would never put one time money towards a recurring cost. So I think that's the biggest thing, though, is you know, and then seeing if other people are fighting for the same pot of recurring money. You know, is there, you know, are we talking about public health practitioners? Are we talking about, you know, ongoing needs in our business community, which I mean, there's lots of folks who would come to the table for recurring money. You know, is there, are there competing needs when it comes to broadband in unserved and underserved communities? Are there competing needs when it comes to other costs and expenses related to our schools? But let me just say that having come from a state where you know, before I came to Virginia, I lived in Oklahoma, and I worked in legislature in Oklahoma. And you know, I lived in a state where there was a teacher walkout and the teachers rallied at the Capitol for more funding for schools, and raises, and, you know, we're 48th in the nation in teacher pay and probably even lower that than that an actual investment in education. I've lived the cautionary tale of underpaying teachers, and I've lived the cautionary tale of underfunding your schools. And if there really is money, for, recurring money for teacher pay raises, it is one of the smartest investments that the Commonwealth will make, ever. And when you think about other things, you could spend this on, "Oh, we could do universal pre-k. Oh, we could do you know, tons and tons of broadband, all these other things that could impact our our kids." None of that is as valuable if you don't have highly trained, committed, dedicated, well compensated people in your classrooms actually teaching our children.

Michael Pope

Well, moving from the fungible to the symbolic, let's talk about symbolism and statues. Now the Governor has celebrated the removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee from the Capitol and called for Richmond to reimagine Monument Avenue and come to grips with the horrors of part of the city known as the Devils Half Acre. He also took some people by surprise by saying this.

Ralph Northam

Virginia also continues to celebrate a man who worked against integration. Yes, Democrat, Harry Byrd, the architect of massive resistance, which closed public schools to children like Barbara Johns. It's time to stop this celebration, too, and remove this monument from this Capitol Square.

Michael Pope

Now, last year, there was a freshman delegate by the name of Wendell Walker that got himself into some hot water by introducing a bill to remove the statue of Byrd. Now his purpose for doing this, was to troll the Democrats. He was surprised when Democrats said, "Hey, that sounds like a really good idea. Let's do that." His bill never made it out of the Rules Committee last year. But now it's back. Sarah, are we finally going to say goodbye to Harry Byrd?

Sarah Graham Taylor

Again, if I was a betting woman, and I am, I would put my money on yes, Harry Byrd being evicted from the State Capitol grounds. You know, I know there's an eviction moratorium out there, but I'm guessing that it probably doesn't apply to the Harry Byrd statue. See, I should be writing for the Governor, come on people.

Michael Pope

Now, you may have just committed an assault on the statutes. So you want to be careful for your criminal liability there.

Sarah Graham Taylor

That is the flip side of this right now, is you know, it's very complicated how we deal with our statues. But I think that does go to the point that there has been a lot of focus on not just the issues of, you know, social justice, and racial justice, and criminal justice reform, and all these issues that our community, but there's been a lot of focus on the symbols of those things in our community, and how protecting, and amplifying, and contextualizing and what it is that we do with these symbols. And it really feels like you know, the the General Assembly has gotten to the point where they're, they do not believe that there is any value for that symbol on the Capitol Grounds, regardless of context, or whatever else you can do to it. And I would expect to see it vacate the Capitol Grounds in the near future with action from this General Assembly.

Thomas Bowman

One last question about the insurrection at the Capitol and it's lingering consequences here in Richmond. Republicans are trying to figure out how to appease constituents who support insurrection, while also being part of the government. Three House Republicans have been kicked off key committees, and a Senator is facing censure. This is how Northam addressed the issue.

Ralph Northam

Tonight, I say to every elected official in Virginia, you can be part of our Democratic institutions, or you can use false hood to try to destroy them. But you can't do both.

Thomas Bowman

Sarah, do you think we're likely to see any Republicans change course and admit they were wrong for supporting an effort to overturn the election? Is it possible we might even see some people get on board with approving a censure for Senator Amanda Chase, who called for Trump to invoke the insurrection act and use the military to conduct a new election?

Sarah Graham Taylor

I mean, I think one of the things that you said in your in your intro there was that that we have members of the Legislature who are looking to appease their constituents who support insurrection, and I think that goes to the heart of the problem here. I don't know that anybody should be appeasing constituents who support insurrection. And anyone who is using rhetoric that appeases them in their supportive insurrection, to some degree, supports the insurrection itself. And so there's really going to have to be, I think, a kind of fish or cut bait moment here for a lot of folks, where they need to decide which side of history they're on. And I think in the Virginia General Assembly, the Amanda Chase issue, the Senator Amanda Chase issue is really one of those moments. And there has not been a lot of patience among her own Caucus for her shenanigans, for lack of a better word. And that was when her shenanigans were much less scary. But the fanning of the flames of insurrection, I think, for some members, may go too far. The question is whether that leads them to the point of saying, "This is too much, we will have no more. We are officially scolding you for this. And we want to hear no more." That's still up for debate. I do think it's interesting that, you know, while her committee assignments, to this point, had been fairly neutered, over time, for lack of a better word, and, you know, she wasn't sitting on Privileges and Elections, she wasn't sitting on Commerce and Labor, she wasn't sitting on, you know, Finance or, you know, a lot of highly influential committees. I am surprised that, to this point, really the only official act to respond to her efforts and her behavior, and her rhetoric has been this opportunity for censure. So I guess we'll see in Privileges and Elections this week, what happens with the censure resolution? I've on the daily been checking who's been adding themselves as co patrons, to see who's getting on board and see if we see any, any of the Republicans get on board ahead of the meeting and their vote.

Thomas Bowman

Any interesting names?

Sarah Graham Taylor

No, not to this point. Although I do think it's very interesting that sort of the first people out the gate, were maybe a couple of your sort of obvious, you know, progressive Northern Virginia, you know, folks. It was, you know, Adam Ebin and, and John Bell and a couple other folks. But the fact that George Barker was one of the first people on board, that Senator George Barker was one of the first people on board with the censure resolution, I think, points to some folks who really, truly are worried about the decorum and the Senate as a body. You know, I used to work in the Oklahoma General Assembly or the Oklahoma State Senate, and one of the things that I was told right out of the gate, even though I worked for the minority party, was that part of my job was to do what was best for the Senate as a whole, and what was best for the Senate as a body, and as an institution, and to sort of protect the institution, while I'm working to achieve the goals of my Caucus. And I think that's one of the things with this, with this censure resolution, and sort of with whatever they do going forward, with whatever the Speaker does, you know, going forward on the House side, that it really needs to be focused on the protection of the institution, and how it operates, how it works, and that there are still ways to achieve your goals without chipping away at the institution. You know, there are ways to disagree without being disagreeable. And there's ways to do that without really damaging the institution and the collegial nature, the camaraderie the you know, that we can disagree without being disagreeable piece of being a legislator and legislating.

Michael Pope

You know, on a historical note, it's worth pointing out that the only precedent here for censure is back in 1987, when a senator by the name of Peter Babalas, was censured for killing a bill that would have harmed one of his clients. So you have to imagine, back in 1987, they were really walking a fine line, because so many lawmakers who of course, have day jobs, do things that might help them in the professional world, every day, the General Assembly is in Session. So I bet there are a lot of people sort of wondering if that was the smart course to take in 1987. Now, in 2021, I think the case against Amanda Chase is probably a little more cut and dry, right? So you mentioned that you're a betting woman, Sarah. So are you betting in favor of censure of Amanda Chase?

Sarah Graham Taylor

Yes. If you if you had had me put down a marker on this one, I would bet in that the Senate moves ahead to censure Senator Amanda Chase. Yes.

Michael Pope

Well, one last question before we end the podcast. I really appreciate your time for and helping us launch Season Two of Transition Virginia, which is what else you're looking at? I know you've got a long list of things that you're personally advocating for, for the City of Alexandria. Anything else that we didn't talk about that you want to bring up at this point?

Sarah Graham Taylor

I mean, I think one of the things that I've been I've been fairly surprised by is the fact that there's been very little really big holistic look at the issue of broadband access and affordability in the Commonwealth. And, you know, we keep you know, this is one of those issues where we sort of have competing interests. You know, we have unserved areas, folks who do not have currently have broadband, and for whom, you know, the state investment in that is vital. But then there's also, you know, underserved areas, you know, there are folks in communities across the Commonwealth where either you don't have access to it, you can't afford it, or what you can afford, is not fast enough for you to do your virtual school or to, you know, work from home, or to do a telehealth appointment, or to do some combination of these things together at the same time. So I've been surprised that there hasn't been sort of more clear, actionable proposals coming out of the General Assembly to sort of deal with the full spectrum of the issue of broadband access and affordability in the Commonwealth. I think, you know, just like, you know, we talked briefly, and we've talked before, about, you know, water quality, and, you know, and you know, how we tend to pit water quality against water quantity, and a lot of cases when it comes to state investment. And I think that this is another one of those cases where, you know, we're unfortunately pitting unserved areas and underserved areas against each other for resources. And that's not really fair to anybody. But yeah, I've been really surprised that there hasn't been, you know, I, the Governor has mentioned it before, you know, broadband is a priority. We've heard, you know, Delegate Herring, you know, talk about broadband as a priority. You know, we've heard Delegate McQuinn, and several other other really, you know, influential, thoughtful members say that this is a priority and sort of speaking to it through the COVID lens. And what we've seen through COVID, that sort of been revealed to us. And I've been surprised that we haven't seen more actionable legislation to deal with the challenges related to broadband accessibly ability and affordability in the Commonwealth.

Michael Pope

You know, the Governor did mention broadband, he actually devoted part of his speech. I didn't pull the audio of that, but he specifically talks about investing $50 million in each of the his budget years for broadband. Do you think that might help out?

Sarah Graham Taylor

So the problem with that money is it goes into the Virginia I think it's VEDA and VEDA is specifically for unserved areas, again, which is great and important, and not something that I want to be competing with, you know, when we're talking about underserved areas. And that's, you know, the the VEDA money is intended to get to folks who legitimately don't have broadband access. But again, there are folks in, you know, their kids and families and, and folks throughout the Commonwealth, who are dealing with not having, either not having it because of where you know, the building that they live in, or that they are or that they can't afford even the lowest cost, you know, plan from a broadband provider. Or even worse is, they can afford that lowest cost, then they make choices to pay for it, or their school district pays for it for them or whatever. But when they get it, it's not enough to do what we're asking people to do. Right now, you know, doing school to school from home, doing work from home, doing telehealth appointments, you know, Skyping with grandma in the, you know, in the nursing home, or, you know, all these other things that we do online right now, I think we are going to over time have to get to a point where we stop talking about broadband as a luxury and start talking about it as a as a necessity. And whether or not the Commonwealth gets to a point where they start dealing with broadband as a utility on versus a luxury item.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, that sounds great. It's really important to point out to for low income people on the $10 a month, Comcast or Cox plan, it only gets 25 megabytes per second Mbps. And that's not enough to do digital learning to have an online classroom to do a zoom meeting or to participate in your digital online government. Right. So yeah, it's it's not just what places don't have broadband, but it's also what places don't have fast enough broadband. And yeah, making it a human right seems like in the age of information seems like a pretty smart thing to do.

Sarah Graham Taylor

I mean, I think about my house right now. And you know, on on the daily, we have one adult, at least one adult home working from home, we have three children doing virtual school, and heaven forbid one of them like on breaks and wants to, you know, play Pokemon Go and you know, walk around the neighborhood on our Wi Fi at the same time. I mean, that would not work if we did not have the luxury of being able to access a much faster broadband speed and you know, for folks to be told that lowest cost thing is going to work for them in today's environment. It really really isn't enough. And that's hard. And I get it. Again, we don't want to be competing, you know, because there are people who don't have any broadband access. And I completely understand that we don't want to be competing for monies that would serve folks who do not have it at all. But at some point, there needs to be some way to have some clarity about what it is that we need with regard to broadband and ensuring that broadband is being treated as such as a need and not as a luxury anymore.

Thomas Bowman

All right. So that's it for this episode. If you have comments or questions about what you just heard, or maybe you only want to tell us what you think about the show, write us an email and send it to us at TransitionVApodcast@gmail.com so we can read it on the air. Subscribe to Transition Virginia anywhere pods or cast, follow the transition team on Twitter @TransitionVA and find us on the web at transitionvirginia.com. Don't forget to like and subscribe so you can enjoy our next episode of Transition Virginia.