Episode 52: What to look for in this General Assembly session?
The General Assembly is starting its 2022 session this week. Legislation is the meat and potatoes of Virginia politics, so grab a fork and knife. Might want to put on a bib, too. It can get messy. In this episode, Delegate Sally Hudson explains what to look for amidst our new divided government. Plus: Virginia's List founder Amy Laufer wants to help you follow bills, make an impact, and be a part of renewing our democracy.
Machine-generated transcript. Blame the AI for any errors.
Nathan Moore 0:00
This is Bold Dominon, an explainer for state politics and changing Virginia. I'm Nathan Moore.
Nathan Moore 0:09
So this is a special episode of Bold Dominon. It's actually special for two reasons. One is that the General Assembly has started its 2022 session. Legislation is kind of the meat and potatoes of Virginia politics. So go out there and grab a fork and a knife, you might want to put on a bit too, it can get messy.
Nathan Moore 0:27
The other thing that makes this episode special is that it's Bold Dominion's second anniversary. We started this podcast two years ago, when Democrats swept into majorities in both houses of the General Assembly, plus they had the governorship. I knew interesting things will be happening, that something was changing in Virginia. But I also knew there was a lot I didn't know about state politics here in the Commonwealth. And I saw a problem out there. I've got a lot of friends who follow national politics, like it's a team sport. They know the latest outrage. They may also know some things about local issues, city councils, school boards, but by and large, a lot of state politics, how it actually works, is lost on people, even those who are plugged into news and current events otherwise, the thing is the state politics here in Virginia at the state level, that's where a lot of the power actually sits that affects people. So we produce Bold Dominon. Not just to explain state politics, although explainers are great, but also to give regular folks like you and me the tools to participate, to be a part of the decisions that really affect our lives.
Amy Laufer 1:34
I would recommend anybody that has some passion, you know, there's always a group that's advocating for that. If there's not a group already organized, organize your own. Actually, that's kind of the beauty of the internet. At this point, it's easier to find each other.
Nathan Moore 1:50
That's Amy Laufer, she's the founder of Virginia's List, a political organization that supports progressive women running for state office. And she herself was a candidate for state senate in 2019. We'll hear more from her in the second half of the show about how regular citizens like you and me, can follow the general assembly and have more impact. But first we turn to Sally Hudson. She represents the Charlottesville area in the Virginia House of Delegates and is an old friend of Bold Dominon. Actually, she was on our very first episode two years ago. Sally starts off talking about the big news items we might expect from the new Republican majority in the State House of Delegates.
Sally Hudson 2:29
We know to expect a lot of action from them on education, given the governor's campaign, and what we've heard from them so far. And for Democrats, that's going to mean playing a lot of defense on some very scary proposals that will would hollow out our public schools and inject a lot of the really divisive and exclusionary policies that that we've heard them trumpet.
Nathan Moore 2:58
You know, Democrats held the governorship and both houses for just those two years. On education, and in other areas, too, what work didn't get done, what's what's going to stall out now.
Sally Hudson 3:09
So Democrats raise teacher salaries some, but not enough. By my measure. I've been very frustrated about this. And I don't think we made a meaningful dent in the staffing shortage that was already widespread in Virginia and of course, has only grown worse, during this COVID era, Virginia teachers still get the least competitive pay in the country, full stop bottom of the barrel dead last. And it's partly because they don't get enough state support for really professional salaries. And it's partly because Virginia has a lot of really pricey places to live. And the combination of those two means that teachers in Virginia make competitively less than their peers, all over the country. A lot of what Democrats were able to get done in the first two years was about rolling back bad laws that had been erected over the years, like barriers to reproductive health care, or barriers to clean energy investment, you know, all sorts of terrible traps in our criminal justice system. But the work of investing in building up our better social services was something that got put off until what would have been the next two years and the voters didn't give us those two years back.
Nathan Moore 4:23
With with the Republican majority in the House, and of course, Glenn Youngkin in the governorship. What, what do you see being rolled back from that side in the next year or two?
Sally Hudson 4:32
So I think that we're in better position to protect our progress than we are to make new gains, because the Senate is still in democratic control. And that's going to be a backstop on some of the most important progress that we made on essential liberties, like the right to vote, like the right to make decisions about your own body with reproductive health care, those things are not going to get unraveled by this Democratic Senate. But there are at least a couple senators who do not share I think a lot of the economic priorities of the rest of the Democratic Party when it comes to doing better by working families and all the many people who provide essential services. And so that's where I think there's going to be more potential for bipartisan action, where you've got some senators on the Democratic side who will break with their their colleagues.
Nathan Moore 5:26
I'm reminded of the US Senate right now, where the Democrats have a pretty narrow majority. You've got Joe Manchin, who all of a sudden has become the most powerful figure there because he can just say no and block anything is a one man, Prime Minister in a way, who's the Joe Manchin of Virginia. coming ahead, moving forward, see, Joe Morrissey,
Sally Hudson 5:44
Joe Morrissey and Chap Peterson, we have to Senator Morrison, Senator Peterson.
Nathan Moore 5:49
And what do Chap and Joe... What's their, what's their story? What are we going to hear?
Sally Hudson 5:54
both of them are more inclined to cut taxes, they're less likely to provide support and protections for workers and more likely to loosen regulations for business. And, you know, I should say, I also work closely with both of those senators. On other projects, I will be working with Senator Morrissey on some criminal justice reform, because he's been a very active advocate for a lot of the the most important work we've done in the assembly on that Chap Peterson is one of the strongest opponents of Dominion spending, and its stranglehold on politics in Richmond. So, you know, these, these are key players in rich in politics, who also hold views that I think a lot of your listeners do on some topics. So that I think it's a good example of how people who sit right at that margin with sort of eclectic political preferences, and a really powerful in a divided government, because they're on the same side of just about everybody on something, and so they can trade with anyone.
Nathan Moore 6:59
How is the assembly actually going to work this term? With with that split majorities,
Sally Hudson 7:06
it's gonna come down to very personal politics, and to the personalities of a handful of key players. In a divided government, the most powerful people are the ones who are willing to play ball and trade, on horses on something they want for something they'll give up. And so it's not a time where purists can be especially influential. It's a time for folks who are willing to hop back and forth across those caucuses to cut deals.
Nathan Moore 7:37
Yeah, it's funny, in the last 60 seconds, I've heard your tone of voice be sort of very disappointed sounding and then sort of hopeful sounding. I mean, what do you How you feeling going into this session?
Sally Hudson 7:48
Well, I think the hope that you're hearing is that I'm very practical about policy. The landscape in Richmond has changed dramatically in the last two years. But the goals that I think people in our community elected me to pursue are the same. And so my job is to continue to go work on those projects, and define the productive margins for making progress on them in this very strange and sort of challenging setup. And so that means I've got to look for opportunities to work on projects with the people who want to work on them. And that just means on every bill, you got to figure out how to count to half plus one, you know, you need 51 votes in the House and 21 votes in the Senate. And you have to figure out ways to bring coalition's of people together to get there. You know, and I'm I'm a big believer that when you're trying to pass bills, you got to get along where you get along, and everybody can get in the boat for their own reasons, you don't have to all agree about why the bill needs to pass. But if you can count to 51 and 21, then you've got yourself a plan. And so the reason that I'm hopeful is that I do share some values and projects with all of the senators in some ways. And I'm going to be working as hard as I know how to try to put together progress where we can get it.
Nathan Moore 9:07
I'm reminded of an interview I did a couple months ago actually with your predecessor David Toscano about his new book about fighting political gridlock, which is kind of like a love letter to state government, in some ways, is a little a little rose tinting, at times maybe. But he does argue that states can and should serve as, as examples and also as laboratories for our national politics, that at the state level, you can sort of still get along well enough to make things happen. What do you what do you think about his take?
Sally Hudson 9:39
So I absolutely share the front end of that, which is that states need to be laboratories for innovation. And you know, I think that's one of the biggest reasons why I ran for office is I felt like we were living in a very energetic and innovative community that wanted to be a part of pushing Virginia to move further and faster on the biggest problems of our time. And so that state government has both tremendous potential and responsibility to do that is spot on. I think. I think that sometimes folks who have been around Richmond for a long time, overstate just how productive the attitude of how how well, people in Richmond get along with each other really serves the people we serve. I think there's an old guard who sort of cares more about not ruffling feathers than they do about making sure that we deliver real progress for the people of Virginia. I think that maybe the difference between us is that I believe that we all have to figure out how to put together coalition's to make progress on important issues while at the same time not compromising on the kind of core values of everyone's district. That means there are some battles that our district won't win this session.
Nathan Moore 10:55
Right. You know, Glenn Youngkin's transition into the governorship. He's been appointing a number of different cabinet members, the one for the Environmental Protection Services. I mean, that agency is a former Trump appointee and coal lobbyist, certainly not the most pro fossil fuels business kind of guy you can get. But a lot of his rhetoric, youngins rhetoric has sounded more like Mitt Romney than like Donald Trump. How are Democrats strategizing to counter Glenn Youngkin's agenda?
Sally Hudson 11:26
Let me say first, that personnel is policy, especially for a governor who's never been in government, because he's gonna need a lot of people to actually handle the nuts and bolts of getting bills passed, because he's going to be brand new to it. And so I think that we should judge the new administration, by the new people who are put in these posts, because they're the ones who are really going to be driving policy. So I think we should all be very scared by the appointment of Andrew Wheeler, to this post. And I also think that any Democrat with a clean conscience should be doing everything we can to fight that nominate it, it is difficult to block a nominee, but it's not impossible. And I think this is one where we have to hold the line, because the planet is depending on us. And so are all of the people living on it.
Nathan Moore 12:14
What's your take on the rest of Youngkin's appointees so far?
Sally Hudson 12:19
it's a lot of the consultant plus a lot of people who haven't been around government, a lot of people with backgrounds in in tech and finance. And I think there's probably a lot of very sharp minds, I don't know them well yet. And there are places where we will find common ground to work on, I do think that they're going to discover that governing is harder in some ways than running a business because you don't have free rein, because you do require the consent of a lot of people. You know, it's not like taking over a company where you just can hop in and clean house, there's a lot of institutions that you have to navigate in governing. And so, you know, I'm not typically a betting woman. But if I were to make one prediction, it would just be that this administration is going to oversell how fast, they can do whatever they want, that they're going to have a day one agenda, and we're going to be 100 days in and still looking around, and not seeing a lot of what they promised would change overnight when they got an office.
Nathan Moore 13:22
Well, and Democrats are gonna play a role in slowing that down, I assume, and yourself in the rest of the caucus? What do you what's, uh, how are you strategizing around that, to counter it to stop it to play the defense?
Sally Hudson 13:36
You know, I think right now, there's also a lot of soul searching going on in the Democratic Party, because we did lose the majority in the House. And I think there are different views from different wings of of our big tent about how to do that. And I think this goes back to the question that you asked me about, you know, how well do people get along? And how productive is that in Richmond, I think there's more appetite from the folks who were elected in the last two to four years to, to really stand up for our values and draw hard lines and say there are some non starters. And there are some people who are more inclined to say, that's not the Virginia way he was elected to be the governor. It is our job to, you know, give him as much support as we can while we learn to, you know, develop those relationships. And, you know, I think we're gonna see how that that difference in philosophies plays out in the next couple of months.
Nathan Moore 14:33
Sally, thank you for taking the time this week to talk with me. Good luck in Richmond this year. Any last takeaways for what's coming up in the session?
Sally Hudson 14:44
I think the biggest thing that folks are going to feel is whiplash, because the last two years there has been so much to celebrate. You know, it was it was tough some weeks to tell people about what was the most important thing that got done, because we just saw dominoes Ball on progress that Virginians had been waiting for, for literally decades. And now we're going to turn back around into a place where progressives especially, are going to be very frustrated by not just the slow pace of change, but in seeing some of that work attacked. And we're gonna do our best to make sure it's not unraveled. Our challenge is to both in that moment, figure out ways to be as productive as we possibly can on problems that can't wait. And, at the same time, continue to rally support to dive back into the fray and win back a house majority and three years down the line. The governor seat as well, because we won't get back to that good stretch we just lived through unless we went back some seats and that's the reality of politics.
Nathan Moore 15:52
Sally Hudson represents the 57th district in Virginia is House of Delegates. Stick around in the second half of this episode. We've got Amy Laufer on the line to talk with us about how to follow this year's legislation in Richmond and how to plug in to renew our democracy.
Nathan Moore 16:15
Listening to Bold Dominon, a state politics explainer for a changing Virginia, visit us online at BoldDominon.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. Hey, while you're there, go ahead and leave us a five star review. Bold Dominon is a member of Virginia audio collected 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. Well, Virginia's General Assembly meets just two months out of the year. And this your session just kicked off. Every year news outlets around the state cover the assembly session, but honestly, it kind of feels like somebody just opened a fire hydrant. There's just too much water to make any sense of it. Our next guest has some tools you can use to plug in understand state politics better and maybe even help have some impact.
Nathan Moore 17:25
Amy Laufer is the founder of Virginia's list. She's also the current chair of Albemarle, county Democrats and a former State Senate candidate. How did you? Why did you decide to make the jump from from local politics, local school boards to state level politics?
Amy Laufer 17:42
Because honestly, I saw a lot at the school board and not just school board, but Board of Supervisors, City Council's a lot of their mandates are from the state. And if you look only about 12% of elected officials on the state level ever have local experience. And I think that really impacts the decision making on the state level, understanding how localities are going to implement it the budgetary impacts, I think having a local experience helps the decision making process at the state level.
Nathan Moore 18:19
Regulatory folks citizens who are out here in Virginia and and looking at the General Assembly, from my own experience, I know I'll read the news, or I'll see something on social media about like a slurry of bills that that's been introduced, it's like, you know, how many of these actually stand a chance? How do I even follow what happens to them? I mean, as a citizen, what are some tools that we can use to even see what's going on and be involved?
Amy Laufer 18:45
Well, it depends on, honestly, how much time you want to spend on it. So talking about people being involved in state politics, I would recommend anybody that has some passion, you know, there's always a group that's advocating for that, you know, following groups that follow the bill, sometimes it's a bit easier. The League of Women Voters, they always put out a newsletter of what they're following, and they track voting rights bills, which I think is really important. Of course, Moms Demand Action. You know, all of these groups, you know, Virginia prison Justice Network, they will give out, like kind of their summary of what's happening and have calls to action to actually call your legislators. But if you really want to get into it, you could go on the listserv, which actually tracks the bills.
Nathan Moore 19:42
When you say the list server, you mean that lis.virginia.gov?
Amy Laufer 19:47
Yes.
Nathan Moore 19:48
Yeah. And that is it's a it's a it's a handy Bill tracker, old database software system that seems to still get the job done as far as you know, seeing what's happening with these different bill.
Amy Laufer 19:58
Yeah, exactly. I Actually, it's it's very easy to use. If you know the patron of the bill, like either who sponsored it, you can look that bill up that way. Or you could go by just looking up the topic, education, police reform, you can track bills that way as well. But you're right, of course, the committees meet first, and then they decide whether they're going to continue on. And now they actually track the votes at the committee level, it used to be that, you know, these things happen without anybody knowing. So
Nathan Moore 20:33
it was just voted up or down in a subcommittee, and that was the end of it. Yeah.
Amy Laufer 20:36
Right. And nobody knew who voted what. Actually, and I will say, what's the pandemic, a lot of this stuff is live streamed. So you know, you can be, you know, at your leisure, kind of looking at what the committee does, which kind of was a high point, I think of all of this, allowing for more transparency.
Nathan Moore 21:00
What I'm hearing you say from some of these earlier answers is that really, you know, being at the interested citizen, is fine, you can find out information you can you can even stream video stream, a live committee hearing, but to actually have an impact to go from information gathering to possibly effective advocacy, you got to get in with some group?
Amy Laufer 21:22
Well, I think that's an easier way to go. Obviously, your voice is your voice, and you can use it on your own. But I do think having a group that's advocating for your, you know, things you care about, and being involved with them, I think it gives a larger impact. Certainly,
Nathan Moore 21:44
I'm reminded of an old sociologist who talked about the real sources of power, and you know, there's there's military power, there's organized capital, and then there's this organized people, you know, and if you're not part of an organized, collective of some sort, the power doesn't exist. I mean, how do you how do we translate our individual efforts into collective power?
Amy Laufer 22:06
Well, I think absolutely getting involved with some of these groups. And I would also say, get involved with the campaigns. You know, there's an election every single year. And, you know, even though I am kind of a political person, I really follow this closely. I have a lot of friends that aren't. And I think the, especially during campaign times, talking about getting involved and volunteering with a campaign. I know it's scary. But I think the alternative is even scarier when we lose the election, and we can see what's on the line. So I would say, obviously, any, any AI, you know, anything you're passionate about, there's certainly going to be a group about it. And if there's not start one, I mean, that's why I started Virginia's list. I wanted to support women, but not only just women, it's just a diverse background of experience. Anyway, so if there's not a group already organized, organize your own actually, that's kind of the beauty of the internet. At this point, it's easier to find each other. You know, all jokes aside, I really do think democracy is on the line. And for those people that kind of don't want to be involved on the ground level of campaigns for people that they believe in, I think it's almost not enough to vote anymore. Like, of course, you must vote that's the bottom, you know of it. But you know, making phone calls, knocking doors, and if you don't even want to do that, just sending an email to your friends or text messaging them and making sure that they go out and vote. We're at a critical inflection point of our country. Every level is fighting a battle right now locally, school boards, Board of Supervisors, our general assembly members, our Congress, people, it's this is an all level fight.
Nathan Moore 24:14
At the state level, what does the fight look like this year next year?
Amy Laufer 24:18
I would say the key issues we're going to have are voting rights, women's rights to health care. And I would also say our education system.
Nathan Moore 24:30
I mean, those are certainly the big issues. What what makes those critical to our democracy in our lives today?
Amy Laufer 24:36
Well, certainly voting rights. You know, the right to vote is the whole point of a democracy. So any way that they can add restrictions? I think they will. And we should be fighting against that because we want everybody to vote. In fact, what we saw last election for the President, where we made it easiest to vote we had the most partisan spacian Quite frankly, isn't that the point of a democracy is to have everybody vote. I think also, allowing our government to put restrictions on women's rights is the gateway to more restrictions on different groups. Like we should understand that that's what that is impeding any woman's right to their freewill. And their livelihood should just concern all of us. Because I do believe it's a gateway into other forms of restrictions to human rights. And then in terms of education, obviously, I think that we had a lot of anger about the schools closing. And I don't think we adequately addressed that anger and kind of explained and made assurances that we were going to have the proper funding, the proper safety measures to open. And, and I think that Republicans just came in on that issue, and really harnessed that anger.
Nathan Moore 26:12
Any other key takeaways to look at or look for this, this General Assembly session?
Amy Laufer 26:17
If you listen to some of young kids, our governor like young kids, proposals on his budgets, the one bright spot, I think we can see is that the schools should be getting money for CIP, capital improvement program. Thank you. You know, the truth is, most of our schools are from either the 60s or earlier, we have very few schools across the we have 139 localities, right, and there's only a handful of them that have more modern facilities. He also said that he would do a raise for teachers. I think that hopefully that will come to fruition. So I think there could be some bright spots, but I do think that we have to really just understand that because other issues I was talking about are gateways into other restrictions.
Nathan Moore 27:09
Amy Laufer is the founder of Virginia's list the current chair of the Albemarle county Democrats and a former State Senate candidate, thanks to her and also to Delegate Sally Hudson. My name is Nathan Moore, and I'm the host of Bold Dominon Find us online at BoldDominon.org. Hey, and don't forget to subscribe. It's just a click away.