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Episode Notes
In the face of ever-worsening climate change, it takes more than paper straws and recycling to make a dent in our carbon emissions--it takes policy on a national, state, and local scale. So what does local climate action look like? How do cities and counties set policy in the realm of housing, transportation, and energy to reduce carbon emissions and prepare their communities for a changing climate?
To answer that question, we talked to Bill Eger, Chief Climate Policy Officer for Arlington County, Virginia. He leads Arlington’s Office of Climate Coordination and Policy, whose mission is to "amplify, coordinate, and add capacity to the County’s ongoing responses to the climate crisis."
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Episode Notes
We’ve all heard of machine politics. Tammany Hall. Boss Tweed. Right in the heart of New York City, the Gilded Age, an era synonymous with corruption in America’s history. But Virginia has its own slice of machine-politics history: under the control of Harry Byrd, Sr., the Byrd Machine controlled the state government for the better part of fifty years.
Who was Harry Byrd? How did he gain total control of the government? And what are the lasting impacts we feel today? To answer these questions, we're joined by friend of the show Michael Pope, author of The Byrd Machine in Virginia: The Rise and Fall of a Conservative Political Organization.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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Episode Notes
The 2023 primary results are in...and they're pretty interesting. Many incumbents held onto their seats, but some challengers won key victories--Democratic Senators Joe Morrissey and Chap Petersen were defeated by Lashrecse Aird and newcomer Saddam Salim, while Republican Senator Amanda Chase lost to Glen Sturtevant. If you're looking for a narrative to explain what happened, you'll probably find it somewhere in the results.
And all of this comes against the backdrop of a huge shift in the General Assembly. New district lines, tons of retirements, and all one hundred and forty seats up for re-election in a few months. So what should we take away from this week’s results, and what should we look forward to in the November general election?
To break it all down, we're joined by journalist Michael Pope and Democratic strategist Thomas Bowman. They're friends of the show and the hosts of Pod Virginia, a fellow podcast breaking down Virginia politics.
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Episode Notes
The United States saw over 44,300 deaths from guns in 2022. And as the last year has made painfully clear, Virginia is not immune. Our state has been rocked by the horrific shootings in Charlottesville, Chesapeake, and Newport News. But even so, almost no meaningful gun safety legislation passed the General Assembly in the 2023 session. House Bill 2387 established tax credits for people who purchase gun safety devices, but that was about it. That’s a departure from 2020 and 2021, when Democrats in the House and Senate passed a bevy of legislation aimed at reducing gun violence. Yet while those were important changes, there’s still a long way to go. So, what do Virginia’s gun laws look like now? And what can be done to end gun violence in the state? To help answer those questions, we talk to Andrew Goddard, Legislative Director at the Virginia Center for Public Safety, and Brian Moran, who served as Virginia Secretary of Public Safety from 2014 to 2022.
To learn more, check out the Virginia Center for Public Safety's Research Resources.
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Episode Notes
Whether coming for school, work, or to escape bad situations at home, immigrants are a vital part of Virginia’s culture and economy. So today we’re digging into the opportunities and the obstacles facing immigrants and refugees in the state.First, we talk with Freddy Mejia, Deputy Director of Policy at the Commonwealth Institute. His work covers state-level policies that affect marginalized groups in Virginia. He walks us through who’s immigrating to Virginia, and how they fit into the larger tapestry of the state. Then, we talk with Harriet Kuhr, Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee in Virginia, about what refugee resettlement looks like on the ground.
Learn more about how immigration status can affect access to health coverage in Virginia
Find out how you can volunteer with the International Rescue Committee, or learn more about their Charlottesville or Richmond offices.
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Episode Notes
As the Bold Dominion team works on an upcoming episode, here's one from the vaults -- a Bold Dominion classic covering the perennially important, yet frequently misunderstood, Dillon Rule. This episode originally aired in February 2021.
Virginia politicians like to talk about freedom and local control. So why are local governments sometimes prohibited from addressing local challenges?The reason is called the Dillon Rule.If you’re a political news junkie, you’ve probably come across this, but most Virginians stare at me blankly when I mention it.Basically, the Dillon Rule says that local governments only have powers that are explicitly granted by the General Assembly. (As opposed to “home rule,” where local governments are free to make any policy that isn’t prohibited by state law.)How does this affect our local governments and our state as a whole?To answer that question, we talk to Richard Schragger, the Parre Bowen Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law and the author of City Power: Urban Governance in a Global Age. We also talk to Andreas Addison, a member of the Richmond City Council and a lecturer at the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, who has dealt with the Dillon Rule as part of his legislative experience.
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Episode Notes
This week, we tackle criminal justice and incarceration in Virginia from two angles: for one, what injustices are criminal justice reform advocates trying to fix? For two, how can we help incarcerated people stay out of prisons and live better lives?
To answer the first question, we spoke with Rob Poggenklass, interim executive director of Justice Forward Virginia about the causes of mass incarceration and the ways that legal and societal hurdles create injustice in the law.
For the second, we spoke with John Donnelly, Vice President for Instruction and Student Services at Piedmont Virginia Community College. He runs the Higher Education in Prison program, which provides a college-level education to students behind bars, allowing them to earn a college degree while incarcerated.
To learn more:
Justice Forward VirginiaPVCC HIgher Education in Prison ProgramCollege Behind Bars | PBSThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.
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Episode Notes
Here on the podcast, we like to keep tabs on Dominion Energy. As the largest of only 2 publicly regulated utilities in the state, Dominion is a monopoly. The caveat is that it’s a state regulated monopoly, meaning its rates and profits are monitored by a regulatory agency called the State Corporation Commission. But the SCC’s power has eroded the past few decades, thanks to a variety of bills that have been pretty soft on Dominion.
This year’s General Assembly changed that trend. In the final days of the session, the General Assembly passed sweeping legislation on Dominion. Among other things, it changes how profit margins are set and strengthens SCC oversight. That can mean pretty big things for both Dominion, and for ratepayers like us. To step us through the new legislation and its impact, we talk to Charlie Paullin, energy and environment reporter for the Virginia Mercury.
But, that’s just the latest news — and energy policy is measured more in decades than in years. One big inflection point happened back in 2020, with the Virginia Clean Economy Act. The law set a variety of energy standards, including that our energy providers be 100% renewable by 2050. But setting the standards and meeting them are two different things. So we talked to Kim Jemaine, policy director at Advanced Energy United, about the opportunities and challenges of the Clean Economy Act.
This episode is special in other ways as well. This marks the last episode of Nathan Moore as the host of Bold Dominion. Today, Nathan hands off the baton to a new host, Aaryan Balu. You’ve heard his voice before… he was Bold Dominion’s first Assistant Producer, going back more than three years. Welcome back, Aaryan!
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Episode Notes
Maine does it. Alaska does it. And since 2021, Virginia can do it too, in certain city and county elections. It’s ranked choice voting, which works exactly how it sounds: voters rank their favorite candidates in order. If no candidate wins over 50% of the vote, it triggers an instant run off election. The last place candidate’s votes are transferred to the voters’ second preference. And so on, until someone wins the majority.
Proponents see it as a way to diversify candidate fields, even reduce polarization. It means that the ultimate winner will have a broader base of support, or at least more than 50% of the vote. And it also gives 3rd party candidates more of a fighting chance.
For the past few years, ranked choice voting has been used in Republican party caucuses in Virginia. And this June, Arlington County will be the first Virginia locality to use it, in their county board primaries. If all goes well, Arlington may stand as an example for other cities and counties across the state.
Sitting down with us today is Elizabeth Melson, president of FairVote Virginia, and Sally Hudson, who represents Charlottesville and Albemarle County in the House of Delegates.
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Episode Notes
The 2023 General Assembly session drew to a close last Saturday. And with divided majorities in the General Assembly, it was a little underwhelming. Despite a year of big, hot topic issues, little was accomplished on abortion rights, gun control, or even setting up a market for cannabis. So after six weeks, we find ourselves more or less back where we started. To understand the perspective from inside the GA, we talk with Senator Barbara Favola, who represents parts of northern Virginia.
Things aren’t entirely over yet… lawmakers are still considering amendments to the state's two-year budget. The House and Senate have very different ideas of what to do with Virginia’s significant budget surplus. House Republicans want to give that surplus back to taxpayers through a billion dollars in tax cuts. On the other hand, Senate Democrats want to use the money to boost social programs that have been under-funded for many years. Particularly public schools. Here to walk us through this is Laura Goren, Director of Research and Education Policy at The Commonwealth Institute.
Check out more information on Virginia’s budget process and how the two proposals compare on The Commonwealth Institute’s website
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Episode Notes
In Virginia, incarceration is expensive. In prison and jails across the state, inmates have to pay to communicate with family members. They also have to pay for extra food, clothing, and sanitary products in the prison commissary. And with the highest prison wages only 45¢ per hour, the burden of paying these fees often falls on inmates’ families.
Last year, Virginia’s General Assembly organized a work group to study fees inside state prisons. They delivered a 50 page report, called “Reduction or Elimination of Costs and Fees Charged to Inmates in State Correctional Facilities.” Among other things, the report called for the elimination of fees for emails, video chats, and phone calls. It also called for the elimination of up-charges at prison commissaries and an increase in how much the state spends on prisoner meals.
In this year’s Assembly session, lawmakers introduced some bills to implement these changes, in both state prisons and local jails. However, both bills failed in the Republican-majority House of Delegates.
To help us dig deeper, we talk with Irene Shin, who represents the 86th District in the House of Delegates, and Fran Bolin, the Executive Director of Assisting Families of Inmates.
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Episode Notes
After two years of Democratic control, Virginia's elected government is now divided once again. The result? A lot fewer laws likely to pass this year.
This podcast started partly as a response to the media cycle that covered the General Assembly--every year around this time, there was a parade of stories about bills being introduced… and then they’d quietly die in committee. Or a bill that would pass in one chamber … and then quietly die in the other. Hardly anything ever translated into meaningful laws. Why were things like that?
This week, we talk to two state reporters about the structural and historical reasons for the General Assembly's inaction and the media coverage that follows: Peter Galuszka, a Richmond-based journalist who has covered the state for decades, and Michael Pope, a reporter covering the General Assembly and the head of the Virginia Capital Correspondents Association.
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Episode Notes
In 2021, Glenn Youngkin rode the idea of “parents' rights” to victory in his gubernatorial race. And now, Virginia conservatives have latched on to the idea as a tactic for banning books, attacking public education and starving publicly funded institutions.
The fight for public education is playing out right now in the General Assembly, as a whole host of parental rights bills work their way through the legislature. We spoke with Lisa Varga, Executive Director of the Virginia Library Association, about the chilling effect those books could have on educators--and how librarians have been dealing with the recent slew of criticism.
Then we talk to Bob Peterson, a lifelong educator, President of the Milwaukee School Board, and founder of the magazine Rethinking Schools, a grassroots magazine for social and racial justice in education. He gives us the bigger picture on the right-wing project: tracing attacks on education all the way back to 1954's Brown v. Board, the influence of dark money, and ultimate endgame of destroying the public sector.
Related Links:
VLA Advocate Mailing ListUnite Against Book BansThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.
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Episode Notes
The General Assembly starts its 2023 session next Wednesday--with Republicans in control of the House of Delegates for the first time since this show started in 2020. In this episode, journalist Michael Pope explains what we should be looking out for as lawmakers meet next week--especially what we can glean from the governor's state budget proposal.
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Episode Notes
As we approached the new year, we found ourselves feeling a little reflective. So we made a special episode for you. In “Best of 2022”, Nathan and Alana sit down to discuss some of our favorite episodes from this year on the podcast. Join us as we look back on the big issues of the year, from the overturning of Roe v. Wade, to Dominion Energy’s outsized influence, to how citizens can craft legislation.
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Episode Notes
For decades, Virginia was one of only three states in the country that banned public sector collective bargaining. That meant teachers, healthcare workers, and first-responders couldn’t have a say in how their contracts were written, leading to lower pay and poorer working conditions compared to unionized workers.
But things have changed. In 2020, the General Assembly repealed that prohibition, a historic moment for workers’ rights in Virginia.
But it’s not without its quirks. Collective bargaining isn’t required across the state — it’s up to localities to pass collective bargaining ordinances. Plus the law itself is pretty vague, leaving it up to localities to hammer out the rules and framework. Which means depending on where you live, what you can and can’t bargain over can look pretty different.
So today on the show, we’re looking at the state of public sector unions in Virginia. Helping us out is Mel Borja, Worker Power Policy Analyst at the Commonwealth Institute. We’re also joined by David Broder, president of SEIU Virginia 512, and Vernon Liechti, president of the Albemarle Education Association.
Explore The Commonwealth Institute's interactive map of labor history in Virginia.
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Episode Notes
This year, the average price of a single family home in Virginia crossed the $400 thousand dollar mark. Virginia’s urban populations are expanding without the housing supply to keep up. Staring down skyrocketing prices, many people are forced to accept that homeownership won’t be in their future.
Confronting this goes beyond building more housing... that’s only one arrow in a quiver full of policies that could make housing more affordable. And we need to consider all of those policy arrows in the quiver.
One such arrow is Community Land Trusts, or CLTs. CLTs trace their origins back to the Civil Rights era and are grounded in a philosophy of racial justice. We talk with Erica Sims, CEO of the Maggie Walker CLT in Richmond, about CLTs’ radical vision of "permanently affordable housing."
But first, we talk with Wyatt Gordon, a reporter covering housing, transportation, and land use at Virginia Mercury. He breaks down the "missing middle” housing debate going on in Arlington, and how "missing middle" housing reframes visions of homeownership.
Click here to learn more about Charles Sherrod, co-founder of the first Community Land Trust "New Communities."
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Episode Notes
From the school board meetings in Loudoun County to pushes to ban "racially divisive" books in schools, conservatives have been relying on one concept in particular: “parents' rights.” Glenn Youngkin latched onto parents’ rights during his campaign and rode it to victory over Terry McAuliffe. Other Republican candidates across the country have taken note. During the midterms, many GOP candidates have declared themselves strong supporters of moms and dads.
But this catch-all phrase "parents rights" is being used much more broadly than its legal precedent. Youngkin typically cites a 2013 Virginia law that stemmed from a court ruling regarding sperm donors and custody issues. So how did we get from a case about in vitro fertilization to parents rights being the basis for all sorts of stuff? And what does Youngkin's rhetoric portend for the political future?
To help us figure this out, we speak with Bekah Saxon, a UniServe director at the Virginia Education Association, and Graham Moomaw, a state-house reporter for Virginia Mercury.
Find Graham Moomaw’s article covering the history of parents’ rights here.
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Episode Notes
Here at Bold Dominion, we typically focus on the machinations of power, money, and lawmaking in Richmond. But Virginia also sends 11 lawmakers to the U.S. House of Representatives. And all of them are on the ballot on Tuesday, November 8th.
That means Election Day is less than two weeks away. If you're a Bold Dominion fan, you probably already know that. Maybe you even voted early. But if not, make sure you vote. You can even do same-day registration at the polls, thanks to recent changes to Virginia voting rules.
Today, we're joined by fellow politics podcasters Michael Pope from Pod Virginia and Chaz Nuttycombe from CNalysis. They help explain how the midterm races are going and what they mean for our country.
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Episode Notes
Here at Bold Dominion, we pubish a new episode every two weeks. We have seventy something episodes under our belt, and still so much more to talk about. Keeping up with politics is a year-round job.
But for Virginia legislators, it’s not actually year-round. In odd numbered years, lawmakers are in Richmond for 60 days, and in even years, just a month. That’s often extended by a few more weeks. But in most years, Virginia legislators start in mid-January and are packed up and ready to head home by March.
Why so short? And what does that mean for Virginia politics?
To unpack this, we'll be talking with Randolph-Macon politics professor Richard Meagher, as well as Richmond Times Dispatch reporter Charlotte Rene Wood (we'll discuss reporting she did with Charlottesville Tomorrow). We'll also get to hear from Virginia Delegate Kelly Fowler, representing the Virginia Beach area in District 21.
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