Episode 31: What have Democrats done with two General Assembly sessions?

Another session of the Virginia General Assembly has come to a close. This marks the second year that the House of Delegates, the State Senate, and the Governorship were all in Democratic control. That’s the first time in decades -- a change so remarkable that it inspired us to start this podcast in early 2020.

So what did the General Assembly manage to pass this year? And what has the blue legislature managed to achieve more broadly with two sessions in power? To answer those questions, we talk with state Delegate Sally Hudson, as well as journalist Peter Galuszka.

 Episode Transcript

Nathan Moore: This is Bold Dominion, an explainer for state politics in a changing Virginia. I’m Nathan Moore.

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Well, it’s the anniversary for a whole lot of things this week as we pass the one-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic shutting everything down. We mourn the lives lost—ten thousand in Virginia alone. We mourn the economic wreckage for so many workers; we mourn the hardships and depression and anxiety, we mourn a year of inequalities growing worse in education and so many other areas.

In spite of it all, we have some glimmers of hope on the horizon: vaccinations are going up and case numbers are going down. And if I may be so bold, we might even see glimmers of hope in Virginia’s legislative process. The General Assembly adapted to unprecedented circumstances to deal with the multiple crises affecting the state.

So another session of the Virginia General Assembly has come to a close. This marks the second year that the House of Delegates, the State Senate, and the Governorship were all in Democratic control. That’s the first time in decades… A change so remarkable that it inspired us to start this podcast in early 2020.

So what has the Old Dominion managed to achieve in these last two Assembly sessions?

Peter Galuszka: Well, I think as you're seeing, you're seeing, you know, steady progress towards a newer Virginia. A Bold Dominion, shall we say? (laughs) No, but you're really seeing and the momentum is there. And two years ago was a huge change for the state and now it's unfolding.

NM: That’s friend of the show, Peter Galuszka. He’s a journalist based in the Richmond area. In the second half of this episode, we’re taking a bird’s-eye view of Virginia’s progress on energy, environment, business, and labor... the good and the bad of the lawmaking process during these troubled times.

But first, we turn to another Bold Dominion regular -- Sally Hudson, who represents Virginia’s 57th district in the Virginia House of Delegates. Sally walks us through the meat-and-potatoes of what got done this session: the bills that passed, the ones that failed, and the ones that may come around next time.

Sally Hudson: Well, as usual, we get a lot done in a very short amount of time. Some of the most historic steps for Virginia, I think have to do with criminal justice reform. Once again, we ended the death penalty in the former capital of the Confederacy, in a state that has executed more people than almost any other. We passed major expungement reform in the Clean Slate Act that will, for the first time, give people with prior convictions an opportunity to close those records, so that they no longer face barriers in housing and employment and credit, which is such a huge priority for so many people I've heard from. We will be restoring voting rights automatically for people with felony convictions, which has been a major form of voter suppression in Virginia and across the country.

So a lot of work that was brought up in the Special Session we did last year finally came to fruition. And of course, we lay down the tracks to legalize cannabis possession here in Virginia. So just on the criminal justice front alone, huge steps.

Aaryan Balu: How about COVID relief and budgeting stuff? How did that all look this time around?

SH: So other major steps that were in the budget to directly address the COVID crisis were resources and support to streamline the vaccination process and make it possible for more people to participate as vaccinators. There's a lot of important money going into our schools, both to raise salaries for educators and staff and also to make it possible for us to serve more students over the summer. There's a lot of important work in there for paid sick leave for home health care workers. So you know, I think that obviously as the COVID crisis stretches on, all of that touches the state budget in so many ways.

AB: What were some of your priorities in the session, and how did they fare overall?

SH: One of my top priorities for the session was to work on unemployment insurance reform, because it was the number one reason that constituents called me last year. We had one in six Virginians get laid off and apply for unemployment at some time in the last year. And so a lot of people found themselves navigating a very broken system. And so we did some important things to try to make that system better in the short run.

One is that we made it easier for the VC to contact people via phone and email, so that they will no longer be exchanging letters which they had to by law. We made sure that going forward, no one will be cut off from their benefits, once they start flowing, without a hearing. Because we heard from so many people who started getting payments, and then they stopped without warning and they were just left in limbo for months. And they finally get to the end of the line and have a hearing and wrap up some small misunderstanding with the state data in a day or so. And so that was really a due process violation for those people to have to wait without a hearing. And so we ensured that that won't happen anymore.

And I also carried a measure that will forgive overpaid unemployment benefits to a lot of workers who got them by mistake. In the very early days of COVID, when the rules around unemployment at the state and federal level were changing so fast, lots of people applied in good faith, and then found out months after they got paid, that for some reason, they weren't eligible. And they'd long since spent the money on rent and gas and groceries. And so you have people, many of whom were not working super highly paid jobs to begin with, find themselves facing a debt collection letter for the state, because the state made a mistake, and they paid money that they thought was rightfully theirs. And so we'll be waiving close to $20 million in debt for people who found themselves in that position because they don't have the capacity to pay back. So that's some of the work that we did on unemployment.

Also important work on SNAP, which is the primary way that folks get assistance with their groceries. We'll be expanding SNAP eligibility in Virginia, and feeding a few 10,000s more families by taking advantage of some federal language. So a lot of things to try and make it easier for folks to make ends meet. Did a lot of important work on evictions, which was a major challenge in the last year and continues to be. So lots of things to try to make our community and our economy more resilient in the face of our current challenges.

AB: Obviously, this session was a little bit...not abbreviated, but there was a tighter focus. You had a limited number of bills that you could carry, I believe. What were your focuses, in addition to the unemployment thing?

SH: So I carried a bill to remove the ban on abortion coverage on our state health insurance exchange. Carried a bill to retire Virginia's coal tax credits, where we were putting about $300 million into propping up a fossil fuel industry instead of investing in a sustainable economy and environmental transition for southwest Virginia.

I carried a bill to crack down on illegal evictions, and to hasten those cases on court dockets so that people can stay in their homes. I carried legislation to remove the felony penalty for drug possession in Virginia, because we know that locking people up for five years doesn't help with addiction. A lot of--a wide range of topics, but all of them important, I think.

AB: So as far as energy reform in general, was there anything there of note that we passed or did not pass?

SH: Well, there was a big package of bills that passed that are a huge step for Virginia to encourage the transition to electric vehicles. So Virginia will be joining the states that now have what we call Clean Car Standard, which will mandate that a certain share of the vehicles sold by car dealers in Virginia qualify as low or no-emissions vehicles. We also put a lot of planning into the infrastructure required to support those cars. So having chargers distributed around Virginia so that people can't get caught without being able to charge up no matter where they are. So that was all very important.

The big energy package that didn't pass this year with some work that I carried along with several of my colleagues in the House--across party lines--to help bring down the cost of energy bills across the board. In Virginia, we have some of the highest energy bills in the country. Virginia's paying, I think, top six among all of the states, and that is largely because we have documented overcharges from our monopoly utilities like Dominion Power. And over time, the utility has really been writing the laws that handcuff our state regulators from lowering prices. And so there are provisions embedded in state law that basically say: "the state corporation commission can't lower the price, you have to keep paying us this much, even though energy has gotten cheaper."

So a group of us got together and tried to carry legislation that would unwind those traps. It turns out the Senate was not willing to follow us there yet this year. The Senate is still very friendly to a lot of corporations, but particularly to utilities. And so those bills were sort of dead on arrival, the second they got to the Senate despite wide bipartisan support in the House.

AB: I mean, it's kind of become a refrain now that a lot of things go to die in the Senate, even though it is a Democrat-controlled legislature at this point.

So another thing that was I believe killed was the campaign finance bill, or reform bill. I know we talked about this a little bit the last time we spoke. I mean, what happened with that and what can we do going forward?

SH: Sure, so I think campaign finance reform is a good example of an issue where both the House and Senate still have room to grow. There's a lot of ways that Virginia is the Wild Wild West of campaign finance. We have no ban on corporate contributions. We have no ban on the personal use of campaign funds. We have unlimited contributions from many donors and so there's a lot of work to do for comprehensive campaign finance reform in the Commonwealth. The only real step we took this year was to agree to study it one more time.

So Delegate Bulova from the Fairfax area carried a bill that will convene a study around campaign finance reform in the coming year. Now, we have many studies just like that already sitting on the shelf that tell us what's wrong with Virginia's campaign finance system. Granted, there's always more to learn and more wrinkles to discuss. But there are a few low-hanging fruit that we had hoped would pass this session. In particular, a ban on personal use of campaign funds, which is so very rare to Virginia. But the Senate was not willing to do that this year, and so that one died there.

I think that there's still a lot of things I think about good governance reform and the relationship between government and business that will require a pretty big cultural change in the other chamber before we can make headway.

AB: I mean, do you get any sense that's happening or likely to happen in the next couple of years?

SH: Well, every Senator is on the ballot in two years. So that's the next real opportunity to shake things up, as always.

AB: What are some of your priorities looking forward to the rest of this year and to next year?

SH: A lot of things. There's always a lot to get done! Big projects ahead in the year on school finance reform, there's big profit projects on the Dillon Rule. There's other big projects on energy. I mean, we do a lot a lot.

I think in the shortest term, the next goal posts that we're all kicking for is the reconvene session, which happens in April. And that is our opportunity to work with the Governor to amend bills that passed that we think may not have landed on quite the compromise that everyone hoped at the end of the regular session.

In particular, the one that we are all--I mean, I think a lot of us are most excited about seeing further progress on very quickly, is to accelerate the legalization of marijuana in Virginia. Right now, the bill that we were able to agree on last month would end the penalty for simple possession of cannabis in 2024. And there's a lot of folks in both chambers, who believe that we can go ahead and do that right now in July of 2021. And then work over the coming years to continue the longer-term work of appropriately regulating commercial cannabis sales, which is different from the personal possession. So it would still be illegal to distribute drugs, we would be working to set up regulations for commercial distribution. But in the meantime, we can stop penalizing people for having small amounts of cannabis in their possession.

We took a small step in that direction last year by decriminalizing marijuana, which means you can no longer do jail time. It was more like a traffic ticket, what we call a civil penalty. But in the months since that law took effect, we know that that law is just replicating all the patterns of racial injustice that we've seen in the past. So black Virginians are four times more likely to be cited for cannabis possession even under the new scheme. And so there are places like here in Charlottesville that have not been issuing those civil penalties, and the sky hasn't fallen. So we know it's possible to simply stop right now the penalty for simple possession and to continue to work to build up a commercial framework.

So that a lot of us who think that we should do that now because there's no reason to continue to perpetuate the unjust disparities in that system in the near term.

NM: Sally Hudson represents the Charlottesville area in the Virginia House of Delegates. Stay with us… in the second half of this episode, we’re zooming out to examine broader trends in the Virginia legislature with Richmond-based journalist Peter Galuszka.

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So thanks to Sally Hudson, we’re more-or-less up to date with what the General Assembly got done in their session just last month. In the end, as expected, it’s kind of a mixed bag. Really necessary fixes in some areas of need, but not always the extent that some of us would like to see.

But how about a longer view? What have our legislators done more broadly, now that Virginia has had a Democratic-run legislature for two full sessions?

To answer that question, we turn to another Bold Dominion mainstay -- Richmond-based journalist Peter Galuszka. In the second half of this episode, Peter and I discuss the broader trends -- the areas where our lawmakers made changes for the better… and where things are still business as usual.

PG: Well, I think what you're seeing here is a really big trend towards progressivism, and you're seeing it now in Washington with Biden's administration. I mean, just the Stimulus Act is a really--when you think about it just a couple months in office to get something like that with $1.9 trillion worth? I mean, that's really amazing. And then you've got, you know, vaccines coming in. So there's a lot more optimism right now.

And I think that the Democratic control of the General Assembly in Virginia has really helped things along. This session, for example, there are two really big deals that came along, and one was abandoning the death penalty, which is huge--I think it's the only southern state that's ever done it. And also, another big thing is there's been a lot of work done on a state Voting Rights Act, which is really important, because in other parts of the South controlled by Republican legislatures like Georgia, there's a big wave to disenfranchise voters, especially minorities.

NM: Yeah, I do think that there's an interesting turn--and I'm not the only one to sort of look at it and notice it--but sort of an embrace of the idea of, you know, government being bigger and operating for the benefit of people again.

PG: Yeah, I mean, you know, in Virginia, it's always been, there's always been a kind of an idea that, you know, government is bad, regulation is bad, taxes are bad. And, you know, that really reflects the views of the managers. The people of the, you know, nouveau-agrarian societies, shall we say. You know, a very constant group of oligarchs who ran everything. And they wanted to do so on their terms.

But as the state's demographics change, with more people coming in--more diverse people, that's being reflected in the views. And they're the ones who actually want work. One example is like, I think the state's going to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour. And you know, and the economy is actually doing fairly well, believe it or not.

NM: Sure, sure okay. Let's jump into that. But yeah, I do want to talk about sort of the bread-and-butter pocketbook issues for people here in Virginia. And you talked about the economy doing well. How is Virginia's economy transforming right now?

PG: Well, it depends. I mean, the big givens are: will the vaccines work? And if they do work, and people actually get them, you're going to see, you know, the two possibilities for the state's economy, according to Christie Mira [spelling unknown]. She's a Richmond-based economist. It's either V-shaped meaning after going down a lot, it goes way up a lot, or K-shaped, which means that it kind of goes up and down at the same time. So what you're seeing right now, you're seeing a lot of strength and transportation and construction and things like that. And of course, state government and federal government are still pretty strong.

But you're seeing, of course, big hits in retail and restaurants and things like that. But in any event, one of the things that is really telling is that Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, said that over the next two years, Virginia may have $730 million in windfall funding unexpectedly from tax revenues going up.

And so how's that happening? Well, I mean, just take construction, for example. I know where I live in suburban Richmond, there's a real boom, I mean, of everything--multifamily, single family, and housing prices, according to Virginia realtors have gone up from a medium of like $295,000 in 2019 to $349,000 in this year. But I'm just saying right now, that inventory is really tight. Young people, for example, who want to get inexpensive housing, starter houses are can't find them.

NM: Well, yeah, we just you just described a 16-17% increase in median home value in one year.

PG: Right? Well, two years, actually.

NM: Two years. Right.

PG: Yeah. So yeah, that's just happening. And that's, that's what's really driving a lot of this stuff. You know, we'll just see, of course, the big issue, the big question is when restaurants and retail will come back.

NM: This notion of a K-shaped recovery from the economy seems to have a lot of traction. The idea that for professional-class folks, I mean, it didn't really get that bad, and you know, they're gonna rebound just fine and do great. For a lot of the lower-wage jobs in the first place. They are remaining lower wage, you know, like retail, a lot of the food service stuff, and that there won't be as much of a recovery for them. It's like the social inequalities by sort of income level are going to come to--

PG: Get worse.

NM: --even get worse. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

PG: Yeah. And I think you're right. I mean, I know that--and what's really another burden is that the COVID burden on minorities and poor people is worse. It's hard for them to get better access to medical care, to get tested, to deal with these things. And even when you're using like pharmacies like Walgreens or Kroger or CVS, I mean, it's all based on the web. And a lot of poor people don't have a computer, or they don't have Wi-Fi or internet. And so that's really disproportionately bad for them.

NM: So I want to talk about some of the some of the bills and measures that have passed in the Virginia General Assembly over the last couple of years. Things that are related to economy, environment, business, labor...you mentioned earlier, the minimum wage going up to $12. That'll happen over the next three years. Now, a lot of Democrats had campaigned on getting the minimum wage up to $15 an hour, but we didn't get there. Take me through this issue.

PG: Well, I mean, the thing is, it's sort of in the same category as Right-to-Work, which is long than a mantra in Virginia, that you don't want unions, and you want to do everything you can to weaken them. And the idea that if you do raise the minimum wage that all boats rise? I mean, they say that no, no, no, you'll just be screwing people out of jobs that they need. But then again, if you keep that mentality, you know, people in the lower end of the income revenue stream, will stay there. And that's the whole point.

But anyway, among the bills that, for example, on the environment that I find are very interesting and progress has been made, are...for example, one thing is, of course, the Virginia Clean Energy Act, which is really gathering momentum in the last couple of years. And that the idea is to make the state carbon neutral by 2045. And this has been embraced by even Dominion Energy, Virginia Energy. Is that because they're putting up a very large wind turbine farm off Virginia Beach, which is gonna the one of the biggest in the country, and we're taking a lot of hits for it. But I mean, it's kind of...they're really have changed, and they're being forced to change by things like the Clean Energy Act.

NM:Yeah. Take me through exactly what the Virginian Clean Economy Act…what's involved in that besides carbon neutrality in the next 25 years?

PG: Well, it's just a lot of different things. It's going to, you know, make it easier to develop infrastructure for renewables, I think I believe it's going to make you know, paneling on homes easier, and affordable. And there are a number of other things that they've done, you know, many legislatures in the country, you know, really give regulators more power over electric utilities, such as Dominion. And there's been moves to do that, to give the SCC more teeth, although it's not really getting anywhere. So these are a few there a few more things we can talk about. But those are some of the biggies on energy and environment.

NM: Yeah, yeah. I think you and I have talked before about how there was such a bottleneck of proposals and things to kind of move Virginia forward that just, you know, for years and years and years, when, you know, Bill Howell and the Republicans were in charge of the Assembly, he just said no. And so now in two years, Democrats have passed a lot, but there's a lot that they haven't done.

And I kind of wanted to, you know, sort of mentioned a couple of those--you mentioned one in passing, which was getting the State Corporation Commission to have some power again. To actually regulate rates and earnings from Dominion. That did pass the House in the General Assembly, but then the Senate--with some members with very close ties to Dominion--Senate said no.

PG: Yeah, I know. And the thing is, is that it's not just a Republican deal there, because there's a number of Democrats who also get big money from Dominion and have over the years. And that's where they finally...you know, in the old days--in the Howell days, and earlier, when the Republicans controlled the legislature--everything would get killed in committee. And of course, everybody was being bankrolled by Dominion and other, you know, interest groups. And, uh, for example, just take for getting 400,000 Virginians on expanded Medicaid was shot down for something like four years repeatedly until Northam finally got it passed. And that's the kind of breakthrough you're looking for. But I don't know what's going to happen with the SCC, because Dominion still, even though Dominion is decidedly greener than it used to be. It's still pretty much in control.

NM: Well, and that's the thing that I was struck by too when you were talking about the Virginia Clean Economy Act. Yeah, that makes some positive changes that address climate change. But, you know, if Dominion supports it, is it a bill that goes far enough?

PG: Well, it's kind of a kabuki theater kind of thing. You know, they all of a sudden Dominion is painting itself as a super green company. I don't know. It's gonna be interesting to see how far it really goes.

NM: Democrats had campaigned on something that was more like a Virginia version of the Green New Deal that would go further on climate change issues, environment issues. What's standing in the way of that?

PG: Well, as I say it's the same the same thing. I mean, you have Republicans especially in the Senate who--and Democrats, too--who you know want to see things Dominion's way. That's stopped it and also a lot of the old school you know, people in the in the chattering classes are still saying that they don't really believe in climate change. They think that things like RGGI and auctioning off carbon credits wrong. They keep on bringing up the expenses to the basic taxpayer--or not, actually the ratepayers for all this stuff. And everyone's predictions are way across the chart. I don't know what to make of them. Yeah.

NM: Peter, I want to shift a little bit to talk about health care, talk about tax code. These are things that we haven't--that the state didn't make a bunch of progress on. So you know, looking at expanded Medicaid, sure, that was sort of a gimme in the first year where Democrats had power. it had been sitting there languishing for more than 10 years after Obamacare. So Medicaid was expanded, but then a bill filed by Ibraheem Samirah to study the cost of universal insurance for all Virginians, well, that that died in committee with opposition from both parties.

PG: Yeah. Well, one thing about expanding Medicaid that made it finally work is that, don't forget that 90% of it is federal money. Right? So it's, that's what...but no, this is still thing. And there are things to really sort of open up, you know, to better regulate healthcare, to allow some kind of, you know, government option. That has always been...and don't forget, healthcare, and Big Pharma and big healthcare, the big hospital companies like Carilion, Bon Secours, and the others are always going to fight that. Because they want to keep their monopolies as best they can. And that is still going to be very tough to get through.

NM: Yeah. Virginia, though, does have a sort of uniquely regressive tax code, where the the top bracket with the highest rate is for all income over $17,000 a year, which includes the vast majority of Virginia income earners. And so then lower and middle-income earners are paying the same tax rates as higher income earners. That still hasn't changed. Even with two years--

PG: It hasn't changed. And that's kind of an important point, you're still vestiges of the really old Virginia, where you have upper classes controlling everything and keeping their burden down by putting such rates on people less capable of affording it.

NM: You know, Peter, I'm struck, and you and I have kind of talked about this a little bit in the past, but the state assembly--General Assembly--did pass a number of measures that were really important in a lot of ways. Some cultural, some criminal justice, some "other": you know, like voting rights, so the Virginia Voting Rights Act, slow path toward legalizing cannabis, ending capital punishment, ending discrimination based on LGBT status in the state. I mean, these are all sort of positive, liberal measures. But when it comes to a lot of economic issues, what I'm hearing is, you know, some advocates who say "We need this. This is what will make things right," and then the state's like: "Eh...we'll go halfway there."

PG: Well, you know, it's a half empty, or half full thing, you know. Is it better to have a half full? Probably. Think so. But then again, it's not gonna...it's just gonna be incremental. That's all.

NM: So the decisions from this year and last year at the General Assembly level, the sort of political economy of the state and as it evolves...what are today's decisions gonna make Virginia look like in five years? Ten years? Twenty years?

PG: Well, the big thing, of course, this year are the elections for Governor and Lieutenant Governor and all that. You know, you have the GOP is in great disarray. And I see problems for the Democrats too, because, you know, you've got a really big field out there.

NM: Peter, what...as far as the decisions from the General Assembly sessions, new policies have been enacted, and kind of the overall political culture of the state. Where's that taken us?

PG: Well, I think as you're saying, you're seeing, you know, steady progress towards a newer Virginia. A Bold Dominion, shall we say?

NM: Awww...now you're just speaking to the studio audience.

PG: No, but you're really seeing it. And the momentum is there. And two years ago was a huge change for the state and now it's unfolding.

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NM: Peter Galuszka is a journalist in the Richmond area and a regular here on Bold Dominion. Thanks to him and state delegate Sally Hudson, who represents the Charlottesville area.

My name’s Nathan Moore, and I’m the host of Bold Dominion. Big thanks as always this week to our producer Aaryan Balu. And thanks also to our assistant producers, Rachel Liesendahl and David Hunt. Find this show online at BoldDominion.org. Go ahead and subscribe… it’s just a click away.

And hey! We’re always on the lookout for topics for future episodes. Send your ideas to our email address -- Bold Dominion@virginia.edu. That’s BoldDominion@virginia.edu. Or direct message us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Keep social distancing, y'all. And I’ll talk with you again in two weeks!