IN THE NEWS:

Governor Youngkin recently proposed an amendment to a bill that would allow non-utility third parties to compete to operate offshore wind turbines. The amendment had lots of support, but the General Assembly rejected it without a vote.

Labor leaders want to make sure Virginia's labor history is part of the history standards currently under consideration by the Virginia Board of Education.

Virginia's budget negotiations are still apparently at a standoff, as lawmakers adjourned their one-day reconvene session this week without voting on the budget. Local organizations are still waiting to see exactly how much money they'll have to budget around next year.

Chaz Nuttycombe of CNalysis joins us to discuss his forecast for a host of Virginia races that'll be on the ballot this year.


At the Watercooler:
- Cong. Jennifer Wexton revealed a recent Parkinson's diagnosis.
The Dept. of Elections revealed they accidentally provided user data to an unauthorized third party, but claim they recovered the data before it was accessed.
- The latest fundraising numbers for key Senate races provide some insight into how they might shake out.


TRIVIA: Name the seven states that were once part of Virginia.

Episode Transcript

Michael Pope  

I'm Michael Pope.

Thomas Bowman  

 I'm Tom Bowman. 

Michael Pope  

And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast that is ready to reveal the new CNalysis forecast prediction changes. Thomas, we've got five CNalysis forecast prediction changes that we're going to reveal on this podcast. 

Thomas Bowman  

Shout out to Chaz Nuttycombe, who just released a bunch of awesome numbers on the districts in the House and the Senate in Virginia. 

Michael Pope  

But you'll have to wait until after the commercial to hear them. Because we have a lot of other stuff to get through first. So let's get to the news. 

Turbine competition, the Clean Economy Act calls for more than five gigawatts of power generated by offshore wind by 2034. But who should own those dozens of turbines? Harry Godfrey at Advanced Energy United says the government recently proposed an amendment to a bill that would have significantly changed. 

Harry Godfrey  

Right now, under the law, the utility would certainly own and operate that and would likely go about developing that as well. The governor's amendment expands who could bid on that own and operate it, not necessarily just the utility. Still, they would undertake the financial risk of doing that for a third-party provider. 

Thomas Bowman  

The amendment had some support, including groups that don't often agree with each other. Still, members of the General Assembly rejected it without even voting. And Stephen Haner at the Thomas Jefferson Institute says that was a mistake. 

Stephen Haner  

It is the only one in the United States owned directly by the utility. The pattern everywhere else is that a third-party company, a third-party developer builds the turbines and owns the facility. Dominion is the only utility that will own one of these things directly. And that's very dangerous for consumers because that means all the risk is on Dominions, customers. 

Michael Pope  

It's not every day we've got Harry Godfrey, Stephen Haner, and Glenn Youngkin on the same side of an issue; strange bedfellows here. 

Thomas Bowman  

And let's be clear, Michael, the fundamental reason why this amendment and these amendments got passed by for the day, and in this case passed by indefinitely, is because apparently, nobody informed Glenn Youngkin that it's common courtesy to tell the bill's chief patrons when you plan to amend their legislation. 

Michael Pope  

I know there is lots of support for bringing competition to wind turbines. Some specific businesses are interested in being part of that marketplace. I would expect this to come back around the next general assembly session. 

Thomas Bowman  

I would also expect it to come around because another problem with these amendments is they weren't necessarily germane. That legislative policy staff also apparently forgot to tell the governor that amendments need to be related to the bill's original intent, which was to prioritize locally manufactured parts. So those weren't relevant. But Michael, I would also respectfully disagree that this is bad for consumers. There are two models in the United States for developing wind farms under consideration, and both are experimental. One is the third-party company; a developer goes and builds these farms and then leases the electricity to a utility company like Dominion. While that does offload some risk, that also locks in ratepayers for the same rates for sometimes up to 25 years. And the problem with that is that it starts off pretty expensive because you have to pay for the construction and infrastructure you're building. But then, once it's there, it gets really cheap, so locking us in for 25 years would not necessarily be an advantage to ratepayers. 

Michael Pope  

Yes, Dominion Energy has the scale to be, you know, have these turbines been part of their operation? And there's some efficiency built into the scale. On the other side, a business interest here says, should this one utility have a monopoly on this marketplace? Or are there other businesses that could get a piece of this action? 

Thomas Bowman  

It's also not great for those who want more renewable energy built by taking that infrastructure away from Dominion. That means that they lose control over design specifications. Sometimes they lose control over other parts of the procurement process. And they're no longer able to leverage those investments. This is the big problem. They couldn't leverage their investments in infrastructure to build future renewable energy projects. And so that would make it really difficult for Dominion to secure favorable financing terms and limit the growth of renewable energy in Virginia. And so if you're thinking, wait for a second, what is the right thing to do? The bottom line is it was messy; it was far easier to not even vote on it than to put people on record one way or the other for what most people would consider a bad bill. 

Michael Pope  

Well, this is something that we will continue discussing on Pod Virginia, the marketplace for these wind turbines, but for now, let's move on to our next story. Look for the Union labels. So after World War II, workers at the Virginia Electric and power company (now known as Dominion Energy) workers of Vepco threatened a strike. So then Governor Bill Tuck responded by conscripting all the utility employees into this state militia and then threatening them with a court martial if they failed to show up for work. Well, that averted the strike. And then, the governor asked for a joint session of the General Assembly for a new law to undermine the power of unions. Here's archive audio of Governor Tuck from 1947. Describing this proposal to a joint session of the General Assembly. 

Governor Bill Tuck  

The Right to Work deal is designed to preserve the liberty of the individual worker. It would ensure that his right to earn a livelihood for himself and his family would not depend on the whims of an arbitrary, evil, or despotic union leader. 

Thomas Bowman  

Now, labor leaders want to ensure Virginia's labor history is part of the history standards currently under consideration by the Virginia Board of Education. Brian Peyton of the Teamsters is one of the many union leaders who held a press conference last week demanding that Virginia labor history be taught in Virginia classrooms. 

Brian Peyton  

Labor history is our history. Hard-working men and women of this country built this country and kept this country running. 

Michael Pope  

So, Thomas, the update to this story is that the labor leaders got what they were looking for. The history standards and the parts that they were interested in making sure have been added back to the history standards. They were specifically the labor leaders looking at items involving the progressive era, how unions gained strength during the Progressive Era, and then also the Industrial Revolution and the role of unions in the industrial revolution. So good news for labor leaders across the Commonwealth of Virginia is they added that labor history to the Virginia history standards. 

Thomas Bowman  

What's also interesting about that victory is labor history is basically the history of various civil rights movements and their accomplishments. If you think about the 20th century, for example, labor was integral to desegregating workplaces. They were also intersectionally allied with groups like the NAACP, which needed civil rights, and women's organizations fighting for their civil rights to have a bank account and own property. 

Michael Pope  

The thing that strikes me about the specific line items that these labor leaders were interested in is that they show the labor movement's growth. So the Progressive Era is when labor unions gained strength, and the industrial revolution is when unions gained strength. The part people should perhaps consider adding to the history standards is the anti-labor movement and the role of Bill Tuck in the right-to-work law. As you know, the Bryd machine has shaped the current shape of union power in Virginia. 

Thomas Bowman  

Yes. And because it was shaped by the Bryd machine, you can be confident that racism has something to do with why we have the right to work in Virginia. 

Michael Pope  

Okay, well, let's move on to our next news story. The Late Caboose, leaders of the money committees, and Governor Glenn Youngkin passed a two-year budget last year. Now senior members of the General Assembly are working in secrets to crafting amendments to that two-year budget. But apparently, there's no rush because lawmakers adjourned their one-day reconvene session in April without voting on the budget from a Republican Delegate David Ramadan is now at the Schar School at George Mason University. 

David Ramadan  

They duke it out through the budget and then wait till the last minute to see who's gonna give in on what and then horse trade on others. And in general, they ended up working it out. 

Michael Pope  

Maybe they'll work it out by the end of June, but maybe not. 

Scott Surovell  

We already passed the budgets to your budget, so we will get a budget whenever the Senate feels like it. 

Thomas Bowman  

That's Senator Scott Surovell, appearing on Pod Virginia the night of the veto session. 

Scott Surovell  

We could amend this budget in July, August, October, and even December if we wanted to. 

Michael Pope  

Among those closely following the budget negotiations are people like those on City Councils and Boards of Supervisors School Boards. They all got to pass their budgets. And are looking to the state, which has been a little bit dysfunctional here and not handing over a budget. So Thomas, what do you make of this standoff with no end in sight? 

Thomas Bowman  

The definition of politics, Michael, is who gets what and when. And nowhere and Virginia's Code Section is more readily apparent than the budget. Michael, the schools know how much money they have because it was a two-year budget. As a Caboose Budget, this provides members an opportunity to realign priorities according to new revenue collections that may or may not move certain line items up or down. 

Michael Pope  

One thing I think that's also going on here, one of the dynamics, and you heard a little bit of this in our game show from the night of the veto session, is that the Democrats might have an interest here and running out the clock and preventing the governor from having the time to make amendments. 

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, not just making amendments. But if you think about it, from the point of view of just the partisan machinations and the negotiations that have to happen here, over a third of the General Assembly is not coming back next year. If you think about it, then if we again, let's tease Chaz's districts that he's done. 

Michael Pope  

stay with us, because we're talking about it after the break. 

Thomas Bowman  

But it looks like right now, Democrats are on track to have to pick up four of the competitive districts in the Senate and also take the House. And so if you're looking at a budget negotiator, you might want to do it in November or December after the election, when the outgoing majority party is very weak. 

All right, well, that was a great tease to what we're going to talk about coming out of the commercial. So let's take a break. When we return, we will finally hear from Chaz Nuttycombe of CNalysis. He's here to reveal the latest forecast updates for election 2023. He's making five changes, four favoring Democrats, three in the Senate, and two in the House. So stick with us, and we will be right back.

Alfonso Lopez  

Hi, this is delicate Lopez. You're listening to Pod Virginia with Tom Bowman and Michael Pope, the best podcast about Virginia politics in the history of mankind and podcasts.

Michael Pope  

All right, we're back on Pod Virginia, and it's finally time to hear from Chaz Nuttycombe of CNalysis he's here to reveal the latest forecast updates for election 2023. 

Thomas Bowman  

Let's start in Tidewater, Virginia, where Delegate Emily Brewer has a Republican challenger raising a lot of money. The Democrat in that race is incumbent Delegate Clint Jenkins, the Democrat who unseated House Appropriations Chairman Chris Jones back in 2019. CNalysis move this race from toss-up to tilt Republican. Chaz tells us that the Clint Jenkins campaign is lackluster. 

Chaz Nuttycombe  

Clint Jenkins is just running a very sleeper of a campaign. I mean, the Republicans are just running circles around him. But not only that, Jenkins has always been not really that energetic of a campaigner. I mean, he's only got a spot in the House of Delegates because a district's partisanship pretty much saved him. 

Michael Pope  

So that's the one forecast change that benefits Republicans in the race with Emily Brewer. All the rest of them favor Democrats, including this next one, which is in the Fredericksburg area where Delegate Tara Durant is seeking the Republican nomination. So she was the Republican who unseated Delegate Josh Cole back in 2021. And now she's hoping to move over to the Senate. But the Democrat in the race is Matt Strickland. And Chaz tells us the dynamics in this race are shifting from lean Republican to tilt Republican. 

Chaz Nuttycombe  

We move that leftward. The Republicans still have to nominate their candidate, and the Democrats, so we'll see what happens. Suppose Durant loses the Republican nomination there, and Litchfield loses the Democratic nomination. In that case, I think that's a pure toss-up race. 

Thomas Bowman  

Let's go to Northern Virginia and Senate District 30, where Delegate Danica Roem hopes to move from the House to the Senate Republicans are seeking the nomination here but just tell us that they don't have much of a chance. 

Chaz Nuttycombe  

We moved that from likely Democratic to very likely Democratic. So from an 8 and 10 chance of Rome winning to a 9 and 10 chance. I just don't really see the Republicans having a strong nominee here like, just like a nominee that can compete with Danica Roem. 

Michael Pope  

So those are the three changes in the Senate Districts; Senate District 17 with Emily Brewers, Senate District 27 with Tara Durant, and Senate District 30 with Danica Roem. Now let's move to the House where Chaz has two interesting changes. 

Thomas Bowman  

In Blacksburg, Democrat Lily Franklin is raising more money in House District 41 than Chris Obenshain. Chaz says the Obenshain name gives the Republicans an edge. Still, he's moving the seat from solid Republican to likely Republican. 

Chaz Nuttycombe  

The Obenshains is definitely a political dynasty in Virginia Republican politics. But I think there's an outside chance, even though this district narrowly voted for Trump in 2020, that Democrats may be able to win it. 

Michael Pope  

Wow, Lily Franklin potentially beating Chris Obenshain out in the Blacksburg area would indicate a huge win for Democrats. For the final race, we want to talk about this last change where see CNalysis is changing. The forecast is in the Williamsburg, James City County area where we've got Delegate Amanda Baton running for reelection. So the Democrat of the race is Jessica Anderson. And Chaz tells us that he's moving this race from likely Republican to lean Republican. 

Chaz Nuttycombe  

This will still be an uphill battle for Anderson and the Virginia Democrats for this seat. It voted for Republicans in 2021 and 2022. But it did vote for Biden, and the seat is trending leftward. 

Michael Pope  

So yeah, those are the five changes that C analysis is making here on Pod Virginia Thomas; what's your reaction to these new forecast predictions? 

Thomas Bowman  

That is right in line with some of the thinking I've heard and had myself; thanks so much, Chaz, for supplying us with that and everybody in public. 

Michael Pope  

Alright, well, let's move on and play some trivia. All right, so last week, we asked you nothing. We actually forgot to ask a trivia question last week? 

Thomas Bowman  

We sure did. And that stinks. Because we had actually prepared a pretty cool one. 

Michael Pope  

Yes. Well, we do have a trivia question this week. So feel free to chime in on all the socials. 

You can't win if you don't play. 

Yeah, but I don't know what we're winning. But it's just our name-dropping you on Pod Virginia. All right. So this one is tough. This one is really tough. Here it is; name the seven states once part of Virginia. Can you name all seven? 

Thomas Bowman  

I wrote them down when we were going over it, but definitely not. 

Michael Pope  

I don't know if I could ever get this before I saw it in print. 

Thomas Bowman  

I tried to guess this. And I think I got about five of the seven. 

Michael Pope  

Okay, good. 

Thomas Bowman  

You would be really surprised what the two of them are. 

Michael Pope  

Yes, two of them are very, very surprising. So I actually came across this in a book. And then, recently, I happened to be at the James Madison Museum of Orange County Heritage to talk about the Bryd machine. And helpfully, they had a map on the wall that had all seven of these states. So we will talk about that next week. 

Thomas Bowman  

If you think you know, hit us up on social media. 

Michael Pope  

All right, let's head over to the listener mailbag. Thomas, go ahead and open up that Pod Virginia mailbag. What are our listeners talking about? 

Thomas Bowman  

Heather @winterpersists liked our Game Show episode with Marcus Simon, Scott Surovell, Alfonso Lopez, and Sarah Taylor. She especially loved how spicy Marcus was with his language. Me too, Heather. 

Michael Pope  

Yes, that was a fun recording episode, and the language got spicy. There it is sometimes. And Sarah Taylor tweeted about that game show with a link, which was helpful so people could listen to it. Jason Melendez saw that and said, " I can't believe I haven't listened to Pod Virginia before. I love this. So yeah, that's great. 

Thomas Bowman  

Yeah, welcome aboard, Jason Melendez @jasonmelendez. We're happy you found us. And we hope you continue to like what we put out? 

Michael Pope  

Yeah, like @ndngenuity, who on Twitter responded to our discussion about the scholarships for victims of massive resistance and their defendants. So this is what was on Twitter: how do they determine which of us was denied an education? My public school was closed in Norfolk, but a group of parents banded together to hire out-of-work teachers for tutoring groups, which were not segregated. 

Thomas Bowman  

Hmm. Do we know the answer to that question? 

Michael Pope  

Yes, well, yeah, we do. Because I looked up the way that the code defines eligible students. So there are two things. One is you have to have lived in Virginia between 1954 in 1964. So that's the Bryd machine era of massive resistance. And the other was that you had to be unable to quote, begin, continue, or complete his education in the Commonwealth's public schools. So the language in the code doesn't say anything at all about being Black or being an African American or being a minority, just that you lived in Virginia and that you were denied at some point public education. 

Thomas Bowman  

So if you think you might be eligible, consider contacting your local elected officials, specifically your Delegate, because they might be able to help you get in on that. 

Michael Pope  

Yeah. Old Fashioned constituent service there. Wow. All right, let's head over to the water cooler. Thomas, what's the latest you're hearing around the water cooler? 

Thomas Bowman  

Alright. Well, we've got quite the rundown. So Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton, from the 10th district in Northern Virginia, revealed a recent Parkinson's diagnosis. Also, the Department of Elections revealed they accidentally provided your user data to an unauthorized third party. 

Michael Pope  

What? 

Thomas Bowman  

Yes, but they claim they recovered that data before it was accessed. 

Michael Pope  

Okay, woof, yikes. 

Thomas Bowman  

And, Michael, what are you following? 

Michael Pope  

These new campaign finance numbers give us the contours of the politics in many of these key races. I'm specifically looking at a couple of tight Senate races worth discussing, including where incumbents are being outraised by their challengers. So out in the Chesterfield area, we've got incumbent senator Amanda Chase, who is being outraised by Tina Ramirez and Glen Sturtevant. She is coming in third place with less than $200,000, Ramirez raised $350,000 Sturtevant $344,000. Interestingly, that incumbent senator Amanda Chase is being outraised by her competitors. Another undefined that you want to look at is Senator Joe Morrissey. Lashrecse Aird has outraised him; she has raised $575,000 versus Morrissey's $570,000. So she raised about $5,000 more than him. Anytime an incumbent has been outraged by a challenger, that's worth looking at. And then you've got other incumbents raising significant money against their challenger. So I'm looking at Creigh Deeds, who has raised almost twice as much money as Sally Hudson. And then, in Northern Virginia, we've got George Barker, who has raised twice as much money as Stella Pekarsky. One of the things I'm interested in following here on these fundraising numbers is the performance of incumbents. Some are falling behind, like Amanda Chase and Joe Morrissey, and then you got others that seem to be raking in the dough, like George Barker and Creigh Deeds. 

Thomas Bowman  

Well, in the House, one that stood out to me because I saw it on Twitter, which is real life. Was the primary in the district that incumbent Delegate Kelly Fowler plans to run for? After saying she was not going to seek reelection. So in that district, Susan Hippen, who Fowler had previously endorsed, raised way more money than incumbent Kelly Fowler. 

Michael Pope  

Alright. Well, let's celebrate some birthdays. We've got two birthdays this week. Monday, April 24th, is the birthday of Delegate Margaret Ranson, and Sunday, April 30th, is the birthday of Congressman Bobby Scott. So happy birthday, Congressman Scott and Delegate Ranson, and one more thing to celebrate before we go. Dedicated bus lanes, Thomas. Have you ever taken a bus with dedicated bus lanes? You got them there in Richmond; you gotta BRT going right along Broad Street. 

Thomas Bowman  

I have. Why do you ask? 

Michael Pope  

Well, dedicated bus lanes are a very hot topic, and tonight, Monday, April 24th, Agenda Alexandria will be discussing a controversial BRT proposal on Duke Street in Alexandria to make room for rapid bus transit along the Duke Street corridor in Alexandria. So this event is free. It's open to the public. It's tonight at the George Washington Masonic Memorial at 7pm. So come on out. We'd love to see you at the Masonic Memorial. 

Thomas Bowman  

Well, Alexandria is getting quite the makeover regarding public mass transit. Recently, they unveiled a brand new Potomac Yard Metro Station. 

Michael Pope  

Brand new metro station. Yeah, it's pretty exciting. Go check it out. That's it for this week's episode of Pod Virginia.