Episode 49: Can states fight political gridlock?
Last month, we had what felt like a national election only in Virginia. These were state elections, but the focus was on national concerns. Terry McAuliffe framed his gubernatorial campaign as running against Donald Trump as much as Glenn Youngkin. And of course, there was all the ginned up fear about Critical Race Theory, fueled by national right-wing groups.
When Bold Dominion launched in 2019, we were struck by how many people closely follow national politics but know very little about how our own state government works. Or the power of state government to impact people's lives.
David Toscano has written a book about exactly this: Fighting Political Gridlock: How States Shape Our Nation and Our Lives. He's the former Democratic leader in the Virginia House of Delegates, representing the 57th District from Charlottesville.
Machine-generated transcript:
Nathan Moore 0:00
This is Bold Dominon, an explainer for state politics in the changing Virginia. I'm Nathan Moore.
Well, last month we had a national election, but only in Virginia. By that I mean that Virginia held state elections for Governor House of Delegates and so on. But the races were heavily centered around national matters. Terry McAuliffe framed his gubernatorial campaign as running against Donald Trump as much as Glenn Youngkin. Feelings about President Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan trickled down. And of course, there was all the ginned up fear around Critical Race Theory. It was mentioned more than 2000 times on Fox News this summer after being pushed hard by national right wing propaganda organizations.
When I started this podcast, I was struck by how many people closely follow national politics, but know very, very little about how our own state government works, or the power of state government to impact people's lives.
David Toscano has written a book about exactly this. And he should know. He's the former Democratic leader in Virginia House of Delegates representing the 57th district from Charlottesville. And now he's also the author of Fighting Political Gridlock: How States Shape Our Nation and Our Lives.
I sat down with David Toscano for this whole episode of Bold Dominon. Later in the episode, we'll explore the power of state legislatures and how citizens can interact with them to make a difference. But here in the first half, we dive into the powers of state governments, and how states can shape national priorities.
Well, David, the title of your book is fighting political gridlock. And while I was reading through it, I was actually struck by how it kind of feels like a love letter to state government in some ways, like the the kinds of political impact that we can have at the state level. How can states have an impact even when Washington is gridlocked?
David Toscano 1:53
If first, everybody seems to be so consumed with what's going on on the federal level, that they lose track of what the very big decisions are being resolved at the state level. And they're being resolved every day that a legislature is in session so that even while Virginia is not in session, right now, I think there's some 30 legislatures around the country that are presently passing bills on everything from criminal justice, to education, to their state budgets. These are things that affect people's lives much more than they realize.
Nathan Moore 2:27
It's almost sounds like fighting political gridlock is turn your attention to the states.
David Toscano 2:32
Yeah, I mean, a perfect example is the recent discussion about the Voting Rights bill in the Congress. Most people who have watched the federal dynamic for a long time, would understand that the chances of passing a Federal Voting Rights Act in this climate are pretty minimal. So what you've got to do is fight the battle at this in the state level, at the state level, because most of the rules about voting are determined in the States. And in Virginia, for example, just in the last session, the legislature under democratic control passed a pretty expansive Voting Rights Act for Virginia, when there are a number of other states that are trying to enact better voting rights measures. Not all states have been doing it though. And in the red states, there's been a desire to restrict voting rights. So it's not, you know, it's a mixed bag.
Nathan Moore 3:31
I mean, that is one of the things that I think is challenging about looking at the state at state level politics is, yeah, we can do better in our state, does that leave people behind?
David Toscano 3:43
Well, that's the risk. And I mean, you really have to have a sort of umbrella set of rules, an umbrella set of norms and values in the country as a whole in order to keep it together. And are the great thing about the US Constitution is it just gives us a framework where we can resolve some of these issues. Let's take Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, all of these states in recent years, have passed laws that are designed to try to attack Roe versus Wade and overturn reproductive rights that are granted under that decision and return all abortion issues to the states. But part of the reason we have a US Constitution is so that if there is a dispute, people can litigate it and take it through the federal process to the to the US Supreme Court. But you can't have all having all states having all these different rules. And there's no umbrella operation of sort of the political guardrails because then you could split the country in two and that would not be a very good thing. You know if we can come back to this voting rights issue, because this is really a key issue. A lot of people don't realize that all of the rules about voting are not made by the federal government. They're made by the states. All the rules about redistricting are not made at the federal government level are made in the states by state legislatures. And the subtitle of my book is how states control the country. That's a classic case. If you are drawing lines as a state legislator, if you have voting provisions that are that tend to suppress the vote, you are making determinations about who has the best chance to get to Congress, and therefore making decisions that affect policy at the federal level.
Nathan Moore 5:42
We've got no national system of who's qualified to vote, we've got no national system of how we draw our lines. I mean, how, how do we have such a system where where we actually have different rules by state for some of these things.
David Toscano 5:58
And that's the way the founders wanted it. They gave a lot of power to the states, and they supposedly had an umbrella federal system that was going to help keep it all together. But it doesn't doesn't always work that way. You know, it is interesting, the United States Constitution doesn't explicitly guarantee people the right to vote, even though almost every single state constitution has language that says that all elections shall be free, and have no power shall interfere with the exercise of suffrage. That's a pretty powerful statement. And you only find it in state constitutions. You don't find it in the federal constitution.
Nathan Moore 6:38
Talking about partisan redistricting, which is a very common thing around the country. You know, you mentioned in the book, you talk at some length about the coordinated national strategy by the Republican Party to just gerrymander the hell out of out of state congressional districts. How is redistricting connected to this nationalization of state politics, you write about?
David Toscano 6:59
The Republicans after Obama won in 2008, they had seen that election as potentially a watershed election, a number of national Republicans felt like they could never win a national election again, because the demographics, it just changed. And so they said to themselves, well, we can't win the presidency, the only way we can control the country is through the Congress. And the only way we can do that it's in the state legislatures. And so they invested large amounts of money, National Republican dollars into the process of getting control of state legislatures, and they were incredibly effective. The Democrats have sort of caught up, they had their own legislative redistricting commission. So you know, the both parties are now playing that game. And if you look across the country, you know, the the Republicans in the drawing maps now for a couple of months, and they're drawing them away to protect their their interest. And people are saying that the redistricting itself is going to lead to the Republicans reasserting control of Congress in the midterms. So that's how it plays out. And when the nationalization comes in, everybody is always thinking, what is this going to do to the national dynamic, they're not thinking about what it will do to the state, people vote for a candidate based on whether there's a D after their name, or an R after their name. And they don't even necessarily the one person stands for. And that's a nationalization point of view.
Nathan Moore 8:32
There is so much money and so many forces on the national level who have you have an interest in nationalizing state politics. And there's actually one I wish I wish you'd actually written a little bit more about you mentioned them is the the American Legislative Exchange Council, that the huge, hugely moneyed, Koch brothers funded organization that basically provides boilerplate bills to state date houses across the country and then lobbies for their passage. It's almost like a backdoor way of getting new laws passed across the country.
David Toscano 9:01
And that's consistent with some of the people's views about how you control things. They put up these bills that can be used in any legislature. And then they get all as many of those bills passed, so that even though they couldn't change the federal laws, they can change everything at the state level. And the Koch brothers have been really good at doing that. There's a wonderful book called State captcha, anybody who is interested in this issue of national money flowing into state legislative operations, pick up that book.
Nathan Moore 9:36
There's two kind of parts of this I want to bring together here. And juxtapose you've got a line right in the first intro of your book. You know, we say at a time when Washington is proved unable to move decisively on many issues, state houses are beehives of activity and innovation, creating opportunities to move this nation in a positive direction. At the same time, I'm also hearing that really big money and outside groups is also a real factor and might even say problem What's your take on all this?
David Toscano 10:02
Big money is a big problem in state governments do it, especially in Virginia, when there is no there are no, the No Limits on contributions that can come into the state, Virginia has some of the more lacks contribution laws in the country. And our basic views, Ben, if you publish, who gives the money, that's good enough. And as a result, we were spending incredible amounts of money on state delegate races where the state delegate gets paid $17,600. But they're a race after race after race, where they're spending a million dollars to get that seat, it's having an impact, because your least mo are more likely to pick up the phone, if somebody calls you, if they gave you $25,000.
Nathan Moore 10:52
You have a chapter where you use the old Louis Brandeis quote, that states are the laboratories of democracy. What does that mean to you?
David Toscano 11:00
Well, it means that states have the ability to be flexible, and think about creative, innovative approaches that the federal government would have a hard time doing, because it just takes them so long to do anything. Here's an example. We have known for 50 years that our health care system is not even though we deliver high quality care, it's a very expensive system, it's not run the way it should. And there are a lot of people don't have access to the care, we've known that for a long time, people have tried to push for a federal solution. But then all of a sudden, a state comes along Massachusetts, and they take an idea that says that everybody ought to be forced to have insurance. And that anybody everybody ought to be paying into the pot, so that we can insure more people at lower cost, it was called the individual mandate. And they passed the first individual mandate, state insurance program in the country, reduced the uninsured percentages dramatically. And this was became the model of the ACA, the Obamacare in DC four years later. So that's an example of, of a state innovating an approach the federal government could not do, and then that that became the model for the federal system. So the Feds can't do very much. But the states have been innovative. They've been that let those laboratories of democracy that are trying to create solutions, that were the Feds haven't been able to do it.
Nathan Moore 12:35
That one of those areas where it's been a big issue in the latest governor's race here in Virginia, is education. How do you see this unfolding at the state level these days?
David Toscano 12:45
Well, it's a function where the federal government has very little involvement and less than 10% of all money flowing for education at the K 12 level comes from federal government. And every state and this is fascinating, because every state has a different way of approaching how you fund education. That's one place where the state plays a role. The other place is it plays a role in policy. And this is where things are going to start getting hot in the next couple of months. Because all of this stuff about books that are in schools, and whether the degree to which parents ought to have a say in their kids education, those decisions will be made at the legislative level, or at the bureaucratic level in the state. And that's going to affect how, what your how your child gets educated.
Nathan Moore 13:43
And I think, you know, conservatives have known that for at least a century. I mean, he talked about the the textbooks that were adopted in that last cause narrative for history books, how kids grew up framing their understanding of the world, as long as the long game.
David Toscano 13:56
It's a huge issue. And you know, we and it does raise sort of the issue about what's the proper role of the state versus the locality. And so then you get you get into this issue, should there be, you know, some regular standards have cut across all jurisdictions.
Nathan Moore 14:15
We've talked about kind of the relationship with state and national quite a bit. So the nationalization of state politics, but really, that that relationship between the state and the local going down to the smaller scale. And so the Dillon rule, we've talked about that some here on the podcast, but but take me through again, what does that mean?
David Toscano 14:31
The Dillon rule, the essence of it is, is that the state is supreme. And unless the state allows a jurisdiction to do something, that jurisdiction can't do it. So when I was in the legislature, there would be things on affordable housing that I would want to have allow Charlottesville to do but were permitted by state law. And I would go and ask for what's called enabling legislation to enable locality to do that. And then the majority of the country, Dillon rule predominates. But not every place in the country, there are some states that have what's called Home Rule to some extent, which means that localities can control most everything. But even there, the state still has the ultimate power, and it's called preemption in the state can intervene to stop a locality if they don't like what that locality is doing. So it's not just Dillon rule states, it's every locality where a state can preempt that locality from doing what the state doesn't want us to do.
Nathan Moore 15:38
Yeah. And then there is a I like how you put it, you know, in some ways, the Dillon rule versus Home Rule states. In practice, those aren't always all that different in how it kind of unfolds. But really what is different is how much a state acts to preempt local control. David Toscano is the former Democratic leader in Virginia's House of Delegates, and he's the author of fighting political gridlock, how states shape our nation and our lives. We're back with the second half of my interview with David in just a moment. You're listening to Bold Dominon, a state politics explainer for changing Virginia, visit us online at Bold dominon.org. I have a friend who's trying to get into state politics, well tell him about this show, and then subscribe. You can find us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever find podcasts are served up. While you're there, go ahead and leave us a five star review. We like those Bold Dominon is a member of Virginia audio collective, online at Virginia audio.org. Check out all the podcasts from the collective from science to history to music to community affairs, we amplify the voices of people in our community and help them tell stories that matter. You can listen and subscribe at Virginia audio.org. And hey, if you want to start a podcast yourself, we accept those to just check out the information over at Virginia audio.org. Let's get back to my interview with David Toscano. He's got a new book called fighting political gridlock that sees state governments as places that can shape policy at all levels, and hopefully get us past the dysfunction in Washington. And the second half of today's show, David talks more about how regular people can take action to shape our civic lives. Let's talk about voters a little more and kind of how we get people more engaged with state politics in a constructive way. The fact is, there's there's a real disconnect between citizens perceptions of where important decisions happen versus where those decisions actually happen. Why is there that disconnect?
David Toscano 17:40
We're not doing enough to educate people, though. It's important. The education runs the gamut. It's got to start when kids are young. But but also, it has to do with things like you're doing and newspapers and media. I am the leaders try to reach out to their constituents and educate them what's gone going on. It's not just one single thing, it's a lot of things. You know, when I first got to Richmond, every day in the legislature, in the chamber, there would be 567 news reporters, by the time I left, you might see two in the room. And that that is having an impact on people understanding that their state government is doing this, that or the other thing, people don't hear about it as much. And that's what we got to think good news around the country is you're seeing a lot more nonprofit news organizations popping up. So good things are happening. But more has to happen.
Nathan Moore 18:37
Yeah, the, the erosion of media of record does seem to have a real impact. I mean, it media is, you know, almost entirely private in the United States. But it is a core part of democracy functioning.
David Toscano 18:51
And you when you say of record, that's a really important distinction, because we got a lot of media out there that social media, you know, when we talked about media record, we're talking about people who are journalists who are trained to get several sources for a story to check their sources. You had editor editors looking over their shoulder to probe to make sure the story was right. Now, anybody just says I want to publish as being hit the button and it's gone. And that, that makes it very difficult for traditional journalism, very difficult for people to assess the truth of what they are seeing out there.
Nathan Moore 19:31
I want to move to the conclusion that you talk about here, you talk about civility, and not necessarily civility in the sense of just like being polite and always getting along, but civility as sort of a way of engaging in civil life. What are the sort of principles of disagreeing better that you want to put out there?
David Toscano 19:50
Well, I mean, one thing is humility, understanding you don't have to answer for every darn thing. Secondly, is dynamism. And that is that you don't Just accept what somebody tells you even if they're yelling at you. I mean, you try to figure out exactly what they're saying. And you, you push back, I mean, it's very hard for a leader to push back against a constituent that they think might be totally off the wall. And to do it in a fashion that embraces that other person's humanity, even though you're telling them that they're essentially wrong. And I think that we've got to, we've got to recognize our own problems and our own own deficiency. But we can't let I guess the basis of both parties get control by basically just shouting at us. And and I think that's part of some of the problems we're having here locally, is that we're letting some people take control of a process in a way that shuts down other people from embracing and engaging in the process. Because it's not just about the people who are totally aggrieved having their say, it's also engaging people who want have a say, but want to feel, shall we say, safe in a place where they can say it? So civility isn't just politeness it's it's, it's, it's more than that. It's an engaged, engaging process where disagreement is recognized. And the humanity of the person who's making the comment is, is recognized as well.
Nathan Moore 21:32
I appreciated the Section Two on on sort of reinforcing political guardrails. And a couple examples he gave, and that's a good political guardrail that I feel like has been entirely broken since Donald Trump.
David Toscano 21:45
Well, I think so too. I mean, you're called First, the introduction of my book is called the fight of our lives and details. How political discourse during the Trump years really went down. I mean, it's been a problem. I mean, Trump didn't create it. It's been there for a while. But it is incumbent upon leaders in political life to basically stand up to that and say, No, we're not going to do this, all of this issue about election integrity. And the failure of Republicans to acknowledge that Joe Biden was fairly elected, is having a tremendous impact on our perception of legitimacy of our elections. You know, to his credit, Younkin said that Biden was elected, and he's our president, but he still use the word election integrity in a lot of his stuff. Terry McAuliffe was reinforcing the guardrails. I mean, he lost not by too many votes. But he, he didn't didn't say that the election was stolen from him. He, you know, he said, The lecture was fair and square. And I just lost. And, you know, that's the way this country works. And right now, there are a lot of people, especially in the Republican arena, who so bought into the big lie, they can't really acknowledge that our election process is pretty darn good. And what they're doing is potentially undermining people's perception. That's legitimate. And that's very dangerous. Because once that goes, you know, authoritarianism is right behind, it's coming to us.
Nathan Moore 23:24
It's a chilling thought that you close with, and really very much connected. My question here is, how do you how do you operate a liberal democracy? Where there is disagreement, and the one who loses stepped aside for a minute? How do you how do you do that when one side is acting in that kind of bad faith?
David Toscano 23:41
Oh, boy, that's the question that's going to face us for the next decade. I mean, there are some people out there who say, look, the Democrats got to learn how to fight and because the Republicans are not fighting fair, and that we got to play on their battlefield. And I, I understand that point of view, and I think you got to figure out a way to fight against things you disagree with, but as soon as we lose our lose track of our norms, things like lying in public and misrepresenting facts and we, we set that we keep that dynamic going. The only way you break the cycle is to act differently. And maybe it's Pollyanna ish of me, I don't know, or maybe it's just getting older, but I think it is the only way to break the cycle. And it's gonna take leaders on both sides gonna take Democrats, for example, when they get control of the Virginia Legislature, again, at overreach and you do what you need to do to protect your constituents. But proportional representation in committees in legislature, okay. You don't have to have that rule. You it used to be the Democrats would have 20 Democrats on a committee in two Republicans And the Republicans changed that rule in 2000s, the Democrats could have changed the rule to not have proportional representation. They didn't do that. There was discussion about doing that, but they didn't do it. So that was a great thing that they just kept in place. The filibuster, however, is not going outside of the guy guardrails, you should we should get rid of the way we do the filibuster nationally. And there's no historical precedent for us doing it the way we do it. Now, this is not in the Constitution, this notion that somehow it's sacrosanct is ridiculous. And actually, it's funny, here's a place where you could look to the states, because the states almost never have filibusters, because they have rules that allow you to cut off debate at the appropriate time. So you can keep moving through your docket and get stuff done. Look to the states.
Nathan Moore 25:53
Yeah. It's tricky. David, I'm kind of with you. There's this part of me that really wants for liberal democracy to work and the way that that, you know, Schoolhouse Rock version of it taught us. And then the other part of me that knows it really is about just power.
David Toscano 26:11
You know, and the power is so tempting. I mean, when you get in the majority, is so tempting to do everything you wanted to do, even though you're not sure that the bill you wrote actually operates the way it's supposed to. And you got a lot of that stuff that happens. When a group that has been in the wilderness for a long time takes over. There are a number of bills, I think my Democratic colleagues who say, Oh, my God, I don't really I don't, I wish I looked at this a little more carefully. There's some things in here, I don't think is so good. But they want to pass these things in that. So they passed a lot of things, and they, and they passed a lot of really good things. So my compliments to them. And then
Nathan Moore 26:59
I want to get your advice for sort of regular folks, people who aren't lawmakers. Maybe they follow national news. Maybe they've just started listen to this podcast. They're people who voted in the last election, chances are they're voting against the other party. That negative polarization that you talked about, how do you get from negative polarization to constructive engagement?
David Toscano 27:19
For the average citizen? I think if they watch how the system operates, they'll realize there are there things that are quaint about the state system that allows people to participate in a way that can actually have an impact. I've seen bills come before committees, where an individual person just shows up while the bill is being heard. And when they ask for the public comments, which they do they do that in state legislatures. All over the country doesn't happen in Congress, somebody come to the Dyess and say, Have you thought about this? Have you thought about this? And they could they derail the bill? I've seen this happen several times. And and if it doesn't derail the bill, and allows the legislators to take a step back and say, Wait a minute, here, this doesn't do what we thought it was going to do. The other thing is, there are a lot of bills that's state legislators vote on they don't really care with one way or the other on that bill. So if they get a letter or an email from a constituent or a phone message from a constituent say vote no. That's the only one they get, they might just vote no, because they haven't really looked at it very carefully. And then no vote could lead somebody else to take a look at that bill. Maybe even the governor's office and say, Wait a minute here, there's a problem with this bill, and then they fix it. So that these are opportunities that people have that they wouldn't think they'd have, unless they're watching the system. And you can do it all online now cuz you just watch these things online, and then jump in. So you can't do that at the federal level. You can watch but you can't say anything.
Nathan Moore 28:58
And if you if you ever had a thought to yourself, like there ought to be a law. You can contact your local representative that that's sitting in the State Senate or the House of Delegates and what's the best time of year if somebody had an idea for a new bill? What contacts their lawmaker and what August September?
David Toscano 29:16
Best times in the summer, yeah, summer, people are not as busy and if you get you get into the fall, things start to heat up.
Nathan Moore 29:24
David Toscano is the author of fighting political gridlock, how states shape our nation and our lives. He's the former Democratic leader in Virginia House of Delegates representing the 57th district from Charlottesville. Thanks to him for joining us this week, as well as our producer Catherine Hanson. My name is Nathan Moore, and I'm the host of Bold Dominon Find us online at Bold dominon.org. And don't forget to subscribe, just a click away