The Transition Team checks its voicemails
Michael and Thomas are back from the break and excited to tease what's coming in Season 3. They also have some voicemails and other housekeeping to catch up on, including one from Frank Mahoney of the Carpenter's Union on wage theft and general contractor liability.
THE NEWS: Philip Van Cleave of the Va Citizens Defense League wants the new Republican administration to repeal laws the organization thinks are legislative overreach - like local prohibitions on guns at local parks, DMVs, and polling places. Lower on their priority list is to repeal the Red Flag Law that takes guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. What are the chances of those measures getting to Governor Youngkin's desk?
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Thomas Bowman
And I'm Thomas Bowman.
Michael Pope
And this is Transition Virginia, the podcast that's been examining the ongoing transition of power in Virginia since way back in February 2020. Now, of course, we've got a new transition of power, and also a new name for the podcast.
Thomas Bowman
Michael, you have been teasing this for so long.
Michael Pope
Yeah, I guess I have. Well, that's because we're not ready to announce the new name just yet. Although, January is just around the corner. So I suppose we're going to be making that announcement sometime pretty soon, right?
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. And we did promise that we would tease some of these announcements out until the new name. So is there anything that we can tell our listener right now?
Michael Pope
Well, Thomas, it's all highly classified. And we're working on so many projects right now. Most of them we can't talk about.
Thomas Bowman
Tease.
Michael Pope
It is a bit of tease. Yes, I know. Although there is one thing that we can talk about on the podcast, which is, listeners, we are looking for an advertising manager, somebody who can sell ads on Transition Virginia, someone who could be a brand ambassador, and represent us to people who might want to buy advertisements on your favorite podcast.
Thomas Bowman
And more importantly, serve as a wall between me and Michael and advertisers. Right?
Michael Pope
Yes, a wall with a golden door.
Thomas Bowman
So if you think that you can do that, we're looking to hire part time through the company that Michael and I started, Jackleg Media.
Michael Pope
And we, also, can announce that we've got a new social media intern, someone you should be nice to. Thomas, who's that?
Thomas Bowman
Our new social media intern is Emily Cottrell. And you might recognize that name because they get credited at the end of many of the shows for being the person who writes out our transcripts. And that got them a foot in the door when we decided that we needed help with somebody to manage, specifically, our social media. So be nice to us on Twitter, because it may not be me and Michael, you might be talking to Emily from now on.
Michael Pope
Okay, let's get to the news. After years of advocating for the authority to ban firearms from local parks and government buildings, local governments across Virginia finally got the ability to take action last summer, and many did. Here where I live, in Alexandria, the city council installed new signs that say, "No firearms allowed," at all the city parks. Now that Republicans are taking control of the Executive Mansion, and the House of Delegates though, many gun rights enthusiasts are hoping that local authority will be ended. Here's part of my conversation with Virginia Citizens Defense League President Philip Van Cleave.
Philip Van Cleave
I don't want to have to be in a position of going, "Oh, geez, I'm going to Alexandria. I was going to meet somebody in the park. Oh, can I carry a gun there?" And that's only a recipe to get somebody like me, who doesn't commit any crime, inadvertently into trouble, and you're disarming me. So if something did happen in the park that day, I would be helpless when I didn't need to be helpless.
Michael Pope
Now advocates for preventing gun violence say local governments should be able to determine what's in the best interest of their local communities. One is Lori Haas, The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
Lori Haas
Gun owners, for the most part, are law abiding citizens. And I believe that they're more than capable of learning the laws for whatever jurisdictions they're planning to visit.
Michael Pope
Now many gun rights enthusiasts want Lori Haas removed from the Crime Commission, which makes recommendations on bills that deal with firearms. Now, Thomas, Lori Haas tells me that she has no plans on stepping down before her term is up next summer. So what kind of action, if any, can we expect on preventing gun violence next year? What kinds of new laws do you think Republicans are going to try to introduce and get through the General Assembly?
Thomas Bowman
Michael, I don't think there's going to be a super coordinated effort from the Republican Party this year, because they've been very consistent in saying that they did not run on guns and abortion. They ran on local issues. They ran on, of course, you know, fake issues like Critical Race Theory, but they never once talked about guns and they didn't talk about abortions. And because there's a good chance that they're going to have to run in districts that they don't know what they'll be yet, in 2022, a federal year, that they don't want to rock the boat on an issue that had lost them the suburbs for many, many cycles before they were able to finally get some gains back by having an energized base. I don't think that there will be an organized effort, but that doesn't mean there won't be an effort. Definitely individual members of the General Assembly are going to propose certain laws. And I think what you're going to see is exactly the way it used to be, when the Republicans controlled the House and the Democrats control the Senate in the past. You will have the Republicans passing really hardline, right wing bills, and you will have the Senate where they go to die, because they won't even get out of Committee.
Michael Pope
So one thing that struck me about my conversation with Philip Van Cleave, at the Citizens Defense League is I was trying to get a sense of what their priorities are. So among the gun enthusiasts, you know, like, what, what is their top priority, and what's their secondary priority, and what's, sort of, later on down the list? So their top priority is getting rid of these new laws that they feel like disarmed them. So any of these bills, now laws, that say you can't have a gun in a local park, like this local control thing, they want to get rid of that, this, that's one of their top priorities. But so is any bill that bans guns at the DMV, or the rest stops, or bans guns in like a school board meeting, or polling place, those are all like the top priority of the Citizens Defense League, and the gun enthusiasts, is getting rid of those laws, that sort of, what they feel like, disarm them. Secondary, so lower on down their list, is like the Red Flag Law, which is new. And of course, they don't like, and they'd like to get rid of it. But that's not their top priority, which is interesting, because if you go back and look at the vote totals for when the Red Flag Law passed, they needed the Lieutenant Governor's tie breaking vote to do that. So basically, if they ever were to get that bill onto the Senate floor, they could very easily overturn the Red Flag Law, the votes are there to do it if they could get it out of Committee. But it's interesting to me, that's not their top priority, their top priority is this local control thing, and making sure that they can bring their guns to the DMV, and the rest stop, and the school board meeting, and the polling places.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. And Michael, I was just talking to one of my lobbyist friends, and this person said that one of the ideal outcomes, this was before the election, their ideal outcome was for there to be divided government. And why? Because when we have divided government, nothing passes unless everyone can agree. And so any of these divisive issues are most likely dead on arrival. Why? Because the Senate Committee is stacked with Democrats, and the House Committee is going to be stacked with Republicans. Most likely, we don't know what the Committee makeups going to look like yet. But what we do know, is that with a stacked Democratic Committee, it doesn't matter how it would do on the floor. It's never going to get that far.
Michael Pope
All right, well, it's time to check our voicemail. So our first voicemail is from Frank Mahoney, he's Communications Director for the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Atlantic Council of Carpenters. He left us this voicemail about our discussion of Attorney General, Mark Herrings indictment of two labor brokers, who are accused of stealing wages from workers at the new General Assembly Building. Now, you may recall that we were wondering why the AG would go after the labor brokers, the small fish, essentially, instead of the general contractors, which is where all the money is at. Here's what Frank Mahoney said about our discussion on Transition Virginia.
Frank Mahoney
I did want to clarify something about general contractor liability. Virginia does have GC liability on the books. In 2020, actually, Adam Ebbin had Bill SB 838. It was signed into law. It states that general contractors shall be jointly, and this is, by the way, both civilly and criminally, for unpaid wages by subcontractors at any tier. So a worker who's working for laborer, can sue their subcontractor, and any upper tier contractors, if they're not paid the wages legally due to them. It also means that a prosecutor can do the same when pressing charges on behalf of the state. AG Herring took an amazing first step, when it comes to workers rights in Virginia. We did not see this type of action before, these subcontractors should be held accountable. But it is still the thought process of the Carpenters Union that, as we educate the public on wage stuff, and how it affects everyone in the Commonwealth of Virginia, we need GC's held accountable for hiring these labor workers.
Michael Pope
Now, Thomas, I'm wondering, as someone who used to work in this field, what's your thought on this issue of Herring going after the small fish, the labor brokers, but not the general contractors, where all the money and power is at?
Thomas Bowman
Alright, well, first Frank Mahoney, thank you so much for that message, and that nuance and clarification. And I'm really glad that I missed this one. And I've never been happier to be wrong. I guess we were starting a podcast around that time in 2020. As far as why go after the small fish and not the big fish, well, the big fish have a lot more money, they have lawyers on payroll, and you're most likely going to have a settlement that doesn't impact any case law, the way that you might want it to. It's easier, is the other thing. Now, Frank is right, we absolutely need to educate the public on wage theft, and how it does affect you, and me, and anybody who's one, paying taxes, but two, using anything that's being built using stolen wages, because when you have bad practices, and bad actors, from general contractors, you're not just seeing stolen wages, you're seeing them cutting corners elsewhere, and you want good businesses in Virginia. When you have people playing by the same rules, then you can actually compete on things like value, on things like real costs. You're able to compete on a level playing field. If you have people who are cheating, why in the world would you want people who are cheating, building your General Assembly building, or anything else where people are going to be using day in and day out?
Michael Pope
Isn't that fascinating? This is my favorite part of the story is that the building we're talking about, is the new General Assembly Building, where they're going to have all their committee meetings to talk about worker misclassification, and wage theft. That's the building at issue here. Just fascinating.
Thomas Bowman
You know what else they do in the General Assembly building, is they write the budget. And when you have general contractors stealing wages from their workers, you're recovering less revenue and payroll tax, if you are the state government. And so you are actually depriving every single resident, and citizen, of the Commonwealth of Virginia, from the services that revenue would be paying for. And so like, once again, just goes to show you, you don't want a bunch of cheats. We don't want bad business in Virginia. We want good businesses.
Michael Pope
You know, the other thing that strikes me about this discussion is that Frank Mahoney brings up Senator Ebbin Bill SB 838, from way back in 2020, which of course, seems like a different planet. This is pre-pandemic, General Assembly session, when the Democrats had just taken control, and Ebbin had this bill to create liability for general contractors. If you go back and look at the vote total there, it was a tied vote on the Senate floor. Joe Morrissey voted with the Republicans, and Lieutenant Governor Fairfax broke the tie, and sent the bill over to the House and was signed by the Governor. So the thing that's operative about that is, that what if Republicans wanted to undo general contractor liability, they've got the votes on the Senate floor to make that happen. The only thing standing in the way of that, is getting the bill through the Commerce and Labor Committee, which Democrats have stacked, really, in their favor. The vote total in the Commerce and Labor Committee is 12 Democrats to three Republicans. So it seems like any effort to undo general contractor liability would have to get through the gauntlet of the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, and that 12 to three vote, which seems like a hill they're never going to get over.
Thomas Bowman
No and also, look, nobody likes cheats, not even non union contractors, because you don't have to be a union general contractor to lose out on a bid because your competitor was cheating by stealing their employees wages or misclassifying them. So that's not really a partisan or a union or non union issue. That is a good business, bad business issue. So I don't know that this is really going to be the top target of Republicans, even non union Republicans, or anti union Republicans, because like, who wants to stand up for bad business, and cheats, and reduce the revenue that the Virginia General Assembly has at its disposal? That's not what they want to present to the public. You might say that they're renting the House of Delegates right now. Because we don't know what the new lines are going to look like. We know that Northern Virginia is going to get two seats, presumably Democratic. And now you're back at parity and who knows what the energy is like in a federal year?
Michael Pope
Well, you could say we're all renting the space that we're in. Thomas Jefferson once said that, "The Earth belongs to the living." In this case, you could rearrange that a bit and say that the General Assembly belongs to the current majority. And as we've all seen, since we launched this podcast last year, that could change with the next election, which of course could be as soon as next year. Okay, let's take a break. When we come back, we've got another voicemail from a dedicated listener. He wants to know about the new Republican majority in the House. But first, Thomas, Thomas, wait, hold on a second, I think we've got some breaking news from the mind of Steve Artley.
And we're back on Transition Virginia. We're catching up on some of the voicemails that we received over the holiday. Now, quick reminder, we want your voicemails, you can respond to anything you've heard on the show. You can agree with what we said, or disagree with what we said, maybe you've even got your own points that you would like us to consider. It's really easy to submit a voicemail, all you need to do is record a clip of you speaking into your smartphone, and then send us the audio file. It's really just that easy. Okay, so our next voicemail comes from one of our dedicated listeners, Robert Nelson of Alexandria. He heard our episode reacting to the election results, and he had this question about how Republicans are interpreting the election results.
Robert Nelson
Based off of what you're hearing, does the Virginia GOP see their victory is due to a successful move to the center, or are they now feeling their conservative votes, and we should all prepare for a bunch of right wing initiatives to come out of the House of Delegates?
Michael Pope
Yes, Robert Nelson, you should totally prepare for a bunch of right wing initiatives to come out of the House of Delegates. I do not think that Republicans have interpreted this as a victory for moderation or moderates. If you look at the reaction of the American Conservative Union, to the Republicans retaking the House of Delegates, they put out a list of things they wanted to see undone. They want to undo the Voting Rights things the Democrats did. They want to ban abortion coverage for the State Health Insurance Exchange, they want to re examine all those gun control laws, some of which we just talked about. They want to look at this new law about racism as a public health crisis. They want to look at overtime wages, they want to look at this plan for low emission program for vehicles. And so, you know, I think rolling back the environmental stuff that the Democrats did, looking at some of these issues of labor, certainly anything involving guns and firearms, that I mean, I think those are all things that are going to receive a lot of debate. But at the top of the list, Thomas, at the top of their list, is education, and things revolving around education. I think we're gonna see a lot of debates about transgender rights, and the role that transgender students play in public schools across Virginia. There's the vaccines, and mandates involving vaccines, and masks. And then, of course, there's Critical Race Theory, not taught in Virginia schools, but that doesn't mean they won't try to ban it, and I'm positive, they will try to ban it. And I think that's kind of low hanging fruit, because it's pretty easy to ban something that's not taught. And so I think for Republicans, it would be an easy win for them, because it's, it's pretty easy to ban something that's not taught anyway, and they get the, you know, political gain of banning it. And there's no real cost to doing that, because it's...you're banning something that actually isn't taught. So, I mean, I would imagine those are the kinds of things that we will see the House Republicans get into in this upcoming session.
Thomas Bowman
Well, I'm glad you were able to say all that, Michael, because I haven't heard anything nearly so detailed from the Republicans I've talked to, which, I'll be it, limited, but the people I've spoken with, of course, more of like the insider lobbyist, or like higher tier activist crowd, they're still processing the fact that they actually won. I don't think most of these people expected Terry McAuliffe to lose. And so in some ways, they're the dog that caught the car. And I know the leadership is not interested in bringing back all of the, the socially divisive things, and the politics of the 90s and early 2000s, they would much rather leave that in the past. Now, not all of their members are going to let them. And so what you might find is that the House leadership, who feels like they need to have their caucus that they can barely contain, have their crazy bills passed, they're going to be counting on Senate Democrats to kill those bills in committee, because they don't really intend for them to ever pass. And we had a very similar dynamic, on the flip side, when Democrats finally took control. So based off what I'm hearing, they don't believe that there is a mandate for conservative rule, they feel like Terry McAuliffe scored an own goal. They feel like they know that they have to keep it buttoned down for at least one year, while we wait on the new district lines. So because of that, the logic is to not go crazy. Now, just because that's the logic, doesn't mean that's what's actually going to happen. And when you get into Session, you know, your plans never survive first contact with the enemy. So who knows what's going to happen when you get into Session?
Michael Pope
You know, you mentioned that there might be this, there probably will be this, tension between the House leadership, and sort of the more conservative elements of the new incoming, you know, House Republicans. I always get the sense that, on the House side, there's a lot more discipline, in terms of the leadership telling the members what to do, and exerting, you know, some sort of control over them. You don't really see that on the Senate side. Thomas, you used to work in the House. Why is it- explain the dynamics there? Like not just Republican/Democrat, but like, how is it leadership is able to exert so much control over all of their members on the House side?
Thomas Bowman
Well, of course, this is a brand new Speaker, so every Speaker is going to handle things a little bit differently than the past one. And you saw a lot of that, what you're referring to, is the way the Republican Caucus operated under Speaker Howell, and Speaker Howell he was never shy about removing people from committees that screwed up his own plans. He was never shy about punishing people, the Speaker wields a lot of power, they can do things, especially in the majority, that really hurt members who stepped out of line, not just pull them off committees, or rearrange them, they can not come to bat for them, if they get primaried or seek out a primary challenger and fund them. They can basically pull all their funding, and their money, you know, because if you're a lobbyist, and the Speaker comes to you and says, "Don't you dare give a dime to this person," they're not getting any money from the Lobbyists Core, from the Lobby Core. So there's a lot of just like, really dirty tricks that you can play in politics, when you have power. And the Republicans are always better at them than the Democrats.
Michael Pope
Is the track record for the Republicans that they actually carried through on that, or was that mainly threats during the Session?
Thomas Bowman
Well, people got pulled from committees, that can happen in the Session. And the other thing is, it only needs to happen once.
Michael Pope
That usually- that rarely happens mid Session, though. I mean, like your- that would be the next session, you would be pulled from a committee, right?
Thomas Bowman
It only needs to happen once, and the threat of violence is often just as effective as violence itself.
Michael Pope
Why don't we ever see that on the Senate side?
Thomas Bowman
Oh well, I mean, the Senate is a lot older, they're a lot more long term in their thinking. There's only 20 of them, and they're on every single committee together. They spend a lot of time in the same room, and even within their internal Caucus, there's a lot of divisions. So they're not together, they're, you know, if you're the Senator from Hampton Roads, and you happen to be in the same party as a Senator from Tazewell, well, like that doesn't necessarily mean you have all that much in common. You're just under the same party label. And what you're going to find is that pet interests rule the day and personalities and relationships, because that's the only way you'll get your stuff passed. If you want to play a hardball game, well, that gets you one hardball game. And you're never going to get anything else.
Michael Pope
Well, it's always struck me that on the House side, you always see this discipline. And Republicans, as you laid out, very well, did this when they were in power. Democrats also did this when they were in power on the House side. You just don't see that on the on the Senate side. And I'm just trying to put my finger on, like that list that you just laid out, about taking people off committees, and making threats about the election, and giving lobbyists orders about who they should fund, and who they should not fund, they could do that on the Senate side. Why don't they?
Thomas Bowman
Well, you need the votes on the Senate side, you don't have the same dynamic in the Senate, you need every single member of your Caucus to be willing to vote for anything that you bring up. So any one extreme action like that, doesn't, necessarily, help you, especially in a Senate that's so close. When you bring up the things that the Republicans were able to do, you're talking about a time when there were 60 Republican votes, and they could afford to have some disgruntled members. You know, when you get a lot closer, party discipline matters, but it's also harder. And so I don't know what the Republicans are going to govern like with 52 members. We passed Medicaid expansion when the Republicans were up by one last time. So I don't know what you're going to get from Speaker Gilbert yet. He is pretty hardline conservative, but then you've also got the Majority Leader being Terry Kilgore, who is a well known wheeler and dealer, and I kind of wish that their roles were reversed. But they are what they are.
Michael Pope
Yeah, well, I'm glad you brought that up, because, you know, Kilgore strikes me as kind of a business conservative, you know, like a more of a Mitt Romney type. And so it would be really interesting to see what that dynamic is, in terms of the Republican, the new Republican leadership in the House, and then what their relationship is, with these way more conservative, you know, freshmen that are coming in. And I think you pointed this out earlier, I think you're right, there's going to be some tension inside the Republican Caucus between the leadership who wants to chart a course for you know, what they believe to be the future. And then a lot of really conservative members wanting to push them, way to the right, in terms of bringing back a lot of these socially divisive issues from the 90s.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, and the Majority Leader, he's not a firebrand, my best read on Terry Kilgore, and I don't know him that well, personally, but my best read on him is that his primary concern is that the people in his district have good jobs or access to good jobs. It's why he was such a defender of the coal industry. And, you know, setting aside what I think about all of that, as far as the environmental justice side of that goes, coal mining jobs, are union jobs, and they were good jobs, and there were just fewer and fewer of them over the years. So I get why he was trying to defend them, if you represent that kind of district. You know, it makes a lot of sense. Kilgore is a very interesting person, and he's somebody that Democrats can work with, knowing where he stands. He just wants good jobs for his people. So that's all for this episode, hit us up on social media or get in touch at transitionvirginia.com. There, you can check the transcripts for this episode and find links to support the show on Patreon. Special thanks to Emily Cottrell who transcribes every one of these so they're accessible to everyone.
Michael Pope
Thanks for listening to Transition Virginia. If you like what you heard, give us a five star review. It helps other people find the show. We'll be back next week, so subscribe to the show so you don't miss a single episode.
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