Episode 26: What happened in Virginia this year?

2020 has been one of the longest, most painful years in most of our lifetimes. While it's impossible to do justice to every story that struck Virginia this year, we're covering a few of the biggest changes across the state over the last twelve months.

To help, we're joined by Michael Pope and Thomas Bowman of Transition Virginia, a state politics podcast covering many of the same topics. In this roundtable retrospective, we discuss the coronavirus pandemic, the state legislature's response to calls for criminal justice reform, and the economic fallout yet to come.

Happy holidays, folks. We'll see you in the new year!

 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 folks, it’s been a hell of a year--for the world, for the country, and certainly for Virginia and everybody listening at home. 2020 has hit all of us with enough social, political, and economic upheavals to fill a lifetime, and more news stories than we could possibly cover... even if this podcast posted every day instead of every other week.

But we’ll give it a shot. To help us do a year in review this week, Bold Dominion is crossing over with the podcast Transition Virginia. That’s another Virginia state politics podcast that started at the beginning of this year. And it documents the transition of power in Virginia now that we have Democratic majorities in both houses of the General Assembly.

Sound familiar? Right. Bold Dominion and Transition Virginia have both done episodes on Virginia elections, Black Lives Matter, legalizing cannabis, and more. Each with our own flavor, but still. We’re pals.

So this week’s episode is basically one big roundtable with me and producer Aaryan Balu, as well as Transition Virginia co-hosts Michael Pope and Thomas Bowman. You can find a longer version of this discussion over at their website, Transition VA dot com.

Without further ado, let’s jump into our 2020 retrospective.

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Michael Pope: Well, let's get right into it. Guys. I think there was one story, the most obvious story that dominated everything. That is the Coronavirus. I think one thing that was perhaps a positive for Virginia, is that we've got the only governor who's also a medical doctor. And I think it's possible--I think it would be fair to say that actually helped Virginia in this crisis. Does anyone agree or disagree with that assessment?

NM: Yeah, I mean, I think Ralph Northam, early on in this thing, you know, he took some lumps here and there for how things were handled. But all in all, I do think that having that medical background certainly helped inform his decisions from kind of a public health perspective. And partly, we got lucky, right? You know, Virginia...it's not like we had no cases, right, it's been still not good. But it has not been the sort of complete disaster of some other areas. And you know, I think his leadership as a doctor, partly, but I think also just having a clear, consistent person who's communicating well about the stuff, you know, and you can contrast that very obviously with DC where the response was...I mean, everything from conspiracy theories to pretending it didn't exist to, you know, all the other sort of disastrous communication that Trump was involved with.

Thomas Bowman: So this is the one thing that I've been studying in my consultancy since the pandemic began. And I do have a little bit of shade to throw, not so much at Northam, but at the entire process. And a few really heavy criticisms, frankly. One pulled us out of lockdown way too soon, succumbing to pressure from the business community, who mistakenly believed that we could reopen the economy. And anybody who was paying attention to the science could tell you that wasn't going to be the case. But for one, they should have had a public mask order this whole time. We would not necessarily be where we are today, if they had done that. And also, indoor dining and allowing that to continue is ridiculous. That's the number one highest risk activity, keeping gyms open, houses of worship open. These account for over 50% of Virginia's cases. The most recent one is the curfews. There is no science behind curfews, and there is a lot of science that it's not the--it's not the time that matters, it's the activity that matters, right?

So I actually, doing messaging in my day job, have a really big issue with arbitrary and capricious public health orders. I think that the governor would have been far better served just from doing the things that the CDC has recommended from day one. And sticking to the science and letting the, you know, letting the results speak for themselves. Because you can't negotiate with a virus. It's just looking for hosts to infect. It doesn't care the words that come out of your mouth or your rhetoric or who you vote for. In history and looking back, you'll just be far better served, doing what you need to do from the start. So that those are my bones. But I would say Virginia, of course has fared better than many of its southern neighbors. But at the same time, we could have done better.

Aaryan Balu: I want to push back a little bit. I mean, far be it from me to spend a lot of time defending Ralph Northam for anything. But I have a lot of sympathy for governments that have reopened, especially now in these latest months of the pandemic. Without any sort of top down like money coming into individuals and businesses...you want to talk about indoor dining. Like there's no doubt that indoor dining is a significant, you know, spreading event for Coronavirus. But if those businesses, like small businesses closed down now after, you know, a paltry $1200, and then you know, now we're getting $600. Like they will shut down permanently.

TB: Oh, yeah.

AB: And so like, it's hard to fault--I find it hard to fault, a state government for keeping those sorts of businesses open. Because I mean, livelihood is important, especially for business owners.

TB: So there's a guy named Andy Slavitt, who is Obama's top doctor. And he's been going around probably since the summer, and saying governments should use their bonding authority to pass what he calls bar bonds. But essentially, these are small denomination bonds that we could be purchasing or investors could be purchasing, that would go to small businesses to effectively pay these small businesses to stay closed. And this would be something of course, that you could pass in all 50 states separately, because you're right: there's no leadership coming from the federal government. But I look at the self-inflicted economic pain as a measure of lack of creativity, and just reacting to events rather than having a strategic plan to stay ahead of the curve.

NM: I kinda hear both of you on this, really. I think this is one of those times when, you know, we're doing a podcast on state politics. And we do--we want to find out how Virginia works, why Virginia does the things it does. But this is one of those where the role of the federal government was really, really critical. And it completely fell down on the job. I mean, without a coordinated national response, the states are gonna do their best, but you know...I mean, the only entity with the power of the purse, the financial muster to pull this off in a way that would have kept people from hurting really badly, economically, is the federal government. And it was, I mean, you know, Mitch McConnell's GOP just basically held the sort of aid package hostage until they turned it into a defense spending bill with tax deductions for three Martini lunches. I mean, you know, it's really, without that role, without actual leadership--that's for people and not for, you know, the profits of the biggest coffers--at the national level, I don't know what Virginia could have done that much better. Yeah, I agree, Thomas, a few things, but, you know, really, it's a complete, falling down on the job and the Trump regime.

MP: So COVID, of course, was the top story. But it wasn't the only story. There was another thing that was on the ballot in November, that passed: the very controversial constitutional amendment creating a redistricting commission, a bipartisan redistricting commission. Importantly, not an Independent Redistricting Commission. I think for many years, lots of people were saying all these political boundaries--for the House of Delegates and the State Senate, and even Congress should be drawn by a quote unquote, "independent" group of people. You know, like retired judges, that sort of thing. And that did not happen.

Instead, we got this crazy hybrid system that involves law makers and citizens working together to draw these maps and this carefully designed process to balance the commission equally between Republicans and Democrats. Thomas, I know that you were critical of the amendment as it was going through the process of the election. Do you...what do you think is going to be the end result of this thing now that it's passed?

TB: Well, one, I think the end result is that nobody is going to be happy. And by the way, I do not believe that's necessarily the mark of a good compromise. Look at all the applicants to this redistricting commission. They are overwhelmingly wealthy and white, which presumably would've have basically come up with the same result as the legislature itself. And, you know, they've got a very compressed timescale, and they don't have maps yet. So we'll see. I'm not hopeful that will get a satisfactory result.

MP: Well, you say you're not hopeful that we're going to get a satisfactory result. But like, what would be satisfactory? I mean, I--well, Nathan, I'll put the question to you. What would be a satisfactory result for this commission?

NM: Well, I just, you know, I would even back it up just a little bit to say, Yeah, I do really appreciate that they were trying to solve a problem that has been a real problem and made much worse in the last decade or so. And that's gerrymandering, right, where whatever political party is in charge in Richmond has, after each census, drawn the maps--both for US Congress, the House districts and for the state Senate and state delegates' districts--drawn those maps in a way that, you know, the...Let's say the Republicans are in charge. Well, they'll draw the map so that Democrats have like a super majority of voters in a small number of districts. Like, for example, Sally Hudson's district around Charlottesville here. You know, it's like 85% Democrats or 80%. Democrats. Meanwhile, all the districts around it are just a comfortable majority Republican, so like 55%, 54%, that kind of thing. And so it packs all the party--all the voters from another party into a smaller number of districts. Ergo, the majority of districts vote for the party that's currently in power.

Now, that's...I get really tired of the “both sides” stuff. But in this case, both sides is appropriate. Both parties did do that, historically. The bigger issue is that the Republicans, after the 2010 Census, led by Ed Gillespie, really kind of put it into overdrive. I mean, it was like, really, really tailor made to maintain a Republican majority as long as possible. And would have worked except Trump was such a divisive figure that the Democrats managed to overwhelm it. And that sort of suburban exurban voting patterns have really shifted toward Democrats in Virginia over the last decade. I mean, as far as what would be satisfactory, I think, an actually independent commission that didn't end up being essentially run by lawmakers still, but just a smaller number of lawmakers. Yeah, I don't know. I don't have like a great alternative to this.

And I know, talking to various journalists and lawmakers about it, and sort of party activists about it--there was, you know, definitely difference of opinion. Some people said: "Oh, hey, it's a step in the right direction, but definitely has problems, but at least it's a step in the right direction." Others were like: "You know, it actually doesn't really improve things that much at all. And now, we're never going to come back to it. So, you know, what's, what's actually better?" And cynically, I know, some Democrats too, who are like: "Hey, we've been stuck with the gerrymandered districts against us for a long time. Why are we giving this up?"

MP: Yeah, totally. Democrats will say that in private, they won't say that when you turn on the microphones. So you know, Thomas thinks that if no one is happy, that's not necessarily a sign of success. I'll turn that into a question for Aaryan. So like, if the Democrats are unhappy with what comes out of this commission, and the Republicans are unhappy with what comes out of that commission, is this a sign of success for the commission? Or is Thomas right, that's not a sign of success?

AB: Whether people are happy--whether lawmakers of a particular political party are happy has very little to do with whether this is actually a good thing or a bad thing. I'm sure that Democrats and Republicans in the legislature will have plenty of reasons to dislike whatever the districts end up looking like. But we just...I don't know if those districts are going to be fair or unfair, or how they're going to turn out. I, like Thomas, was pretty critical of the amendment kind of right at the end, I realized this was not something I was a fan of. And I think it is just consolidating power in a group of people who aren't necessarily any better or more independent than what the legislature would look like.

NM: Michael Pope and Thomas Bowman are the hosts of Transition Virginia, a podcast that’s documenting Virginia's transition of political power now that the state has Democratic majorities in the General Assembly. This year-in-review crossover episode continues after a short break.

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You’re listening to Bold Dominion, a state politics explainer for a changing Virginia. Visit us online at BoldDominion.org. Have a friend who’s trying to figure out Virginia state politics? Tell them about this show. And then subscribe in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever fine podcasts are served up. And while you’re there, why not leave a five-star review? 

Bold Dominion is a member of the Virginia Audio Collective, online at VirginiaAudio.org. Check out all the podcasts from the collective, including Museum Minute. Is podcasting a visual medium? Henry Skerritt, Margo Smith and Matthew McLendon say "Yes!" Every week these curators of the University of Virginia's museums take us on a quick audio tour of one of the works in their museum. That’s Museum Minute, available at VirginiaAudio.org.

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In the second half of this episode, we’re continuing our roundtable discussion with Michael Pope and Thomas Bowman, hosts of the Transition Virginia podcast. We’re drilling down into what got done in terms of criminal justice reform, and what we might see from Virginia’s legislature in the year ahead.

Here on Bold Dominion, we edited down the conversation to like a half hour. But if you want to hear the four of us prattle on for a whole hour, you can listen to the longer version of this conversation at TransitionVA.com.

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MP: So another very important thing that's happened this year is all of the criminal justice reform, the policing reform that's come out of the Black Lives Matter movement, which includes removing Confederate monuments. You know, this is--there was so much legislation to come out of the General Assembly, it's actually impossible to even talk about it all. But I will just sort of name the top-line thing that for me anyway, I think it’s one of the most significant things--is the ban on pretextual policing. So you know, it used to be that a police officer could pull you over because they smelled marijuana. Well, guess what? They pulled over black people because they "smelled marijuana." Or they could pull you over because there was something dangling from your rearview mirror. I think if people are listening to this podcast right now, as they're driving, they probably...they, it's likely they've got something dangling from their rearview mirror like a parking pass. Well guess what? Police used to be able to pull you over and use that as an excuse. And guess what they pulled over black people. So the fact that they changed the laws on pretextual policing so that's no longer a primary offense where they could pull you over, it's now a secondary offense. So they can no longer pull you over because of the smell of marijuana, they can no longer pull you over because you have something dangling from your rearview mirror. That's a significant step.

The lawmakers also changed the way jury trials work. So you can now have a jury trial, but not be sentenced by the jury. You can have the judge issue you a sentence. And this is a very important development because juries are notorious for having ridiculous sentencing. And so people would avoid having a jury trial because they didn't want to be sentenced by a jury. So this is a change that will have far-reaching consequences for the criminal justice system for many, many years to come. Some failures that are worth talking about. The most significant is chokeholds. So one of the big things the Black Lives Matter movement was very concerned about was banning chokeholds. Well, guess what? Lawmakers did not ban chokeholds. They want to tell you that they banned chokeholds, but they created a limitation for chokeholds that allows police officers to use a chokehold if they feel like their life is in danger or anybody else's life is in danger, which means they've got an out and they're going to use that at every opportunity. So this chokeholds thing was not nearly as strong as it could have been, or advocates wanted it to be.

And then there's also the issue of expungements, where the Democrats in the House and the Democrats in the Senate could not agree on how to do expungements. And so they didn't do it. And that had actually happened during the regular session before the pandemic. And then they came together in a special session, and they had the same disagreement, and they could not figure it out. And so they once again, punted, and so we still have no action on expungements. Hopefully, we'll see something in 2021. But I guess we'll have to see. A lot to unpack here with criminal justice reform and Black Lives Matter and even Confederate monuments. What do you guys think the highlights were?

NM: Well, certainly the reforms you mentioned are probably the most concrete things to come out of it. I actually was wondering if you all--what you all thought about how the Black Lives Matter movement in Virginia will...that's when you know, your podcast cover that our podcast covered that...How is that gonna--what can we look ahead to 2021 in terms of some of the demands of that movement and what comes of them?

AB: I mean, we're gonna get an answer to that relatively quickly with the legislative session coming up in January. I know Sally Hudson talked on the podcast about how what we got done in the special session was kind of like a down payment or a promise or, you know, a holdover until we could get some boots on the ground in January. So I don't know what it's gonna look like. I am hopeful that we get something a little more progressive than that first step that we got this August, but I mean, we'll have to see in the next month or two.

TB: My guess is that it comes back up in the...at least in the Democratic primaries with right now two black women, and Justin Fairfax also running for Governor. Terry McAuliffe put somebody to death, right? When he didn't necessarily have to. This is going to be something that is going to be a clarion call in the Democratic primary if they want the support from the black community, especially if that nominee is not black. So I think we're we've got more to hear on it.

NM: You know, when we look at the the demands of today's Black Lives Matter movement, now, it's it's a wildly disparate movement. It's not as if there's one organization that you can look to, but a lot of those demands are encapsulated really nicely in the national movement for Black Lives website has a platform that's published. It's a remarkable political document. There's a lot in there about policing and criminal justice. Also a lot about, you know, symbols of racism. Okay, so that's something that we've certainly tackled here in Virginia. Richmond has removed a lot of its Confederate monuments, and the Lee statue is, I think, still languishing in court. Back here in Charlottesville, it feels like statues have been talked about to death for the last four years or five years even. And, you know, we've got one removed, the others are basically scheduled to be removed.

And, you know, I was talking with Don Gathers about that--he's a preacher here in town, and sort of one of the leaders in Charlottesville's black community. And, you know, he and I have talked about this a couple times where it is important that symbolism of these things as you approach, as you walk downtown, as you enter the, like, legal space where things have to happen, you know, in a court. To have these figures looming over you as you do that is, is really a scar and a stain on our community. And so yeah, it's a cause for celebration to have them removed. It's a...it makes you feel buoyant, he said, from a live broadcast we did from the removal of the Johnny Reb statue.

At the same time, you know, other things that are desperately needed, other demands that are in that movement for Black Lives platform...we haven't even scratched the surface yet things. Like you know, self determination, economic empowerment, you know, the stuff that's gonna really affect the material lives, you know, the sort of bread-and-butter jobs and healthcare kind of conditions of black Virginians. That still has an awful long way to go. I mean, we're not even having conversations about most of that stuff yet.  You know, one thing that was kind of interesting to me is you know, you all are reporters and Aaryan and I have been doing this podcast and, you know, the special session this summer. Now, granted, there are several things about the special session that were special besides the name. It was happening during COVID. It was responding to really acute issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement, but it went on forever, right? It convened in August. It didn't officially end until November. And so maybe it was actually longer than the regular session.

MP: You know, one thing that's important to point out about that is during a regular session, the lawmakers meet every day. They don't meet on weekends, necessarily, although sometimes that happens, but even on like MLK Day, they will be meeting. They didn't do that for the special session. There were some weeks when they would only meet one day a week. And even that was like a pro forma session. So it was a very leisurely paced for that special session, they did not they didn't have the schedule that they would normally have for a session which made it drag on way longer. It's actually--that's actually how Congress deals with it.

NM: Of course, of course, and I don't discount any of what you just said. At the same time, though, there have been some murmurings and I've heard these conversations occasionally, about really a need for...I mean, Virginia is a modern tech economy with a lot of things going on and more than 8 million people these days. It's not sort of an agrarian space where little changes, and "we can meet, you know, for 30 days, once a year to make a few little changes around the edges." I mean, there's some stuff that comes up that the state needs to address.

And so yeah, there has been some talk about, you know, do we move toward a system with a more year-round professional legislature? Or do we keep doing this kind of citizen legislature model, where, you know, everything gets slammed into just a few weeks, and then everybody goes home to some other job that they are somehow able to leave for six or eight weeks?

TB: Yeah, I think you really hit the nail on the head earlier, too. This counts for Virginia, although our Constitution has been updated more recently, but this counts for Virginia and the federal government. You know, if I've learned one thing from 2020, it's that a piece of paper written in the Enlightenment Age is no basis for an adequate system of government in the age of information. Life moves too fast. You can have computers identify smart policy now, right? Faster than humans, like, sitting and pushing pencils can come up with. So, you know, I'll extend that to some of the stuff that some of the bureaucracy in Virginia, too. The unemployment office was overwhelmed. It's still overwhelmed, and it's still not paying out what people are owed. And it's still processing stuff from, like, claims from July.

You know, this is humiliating, in my opinion, for any government, Republican or Democrat. And, you know, there's not really a partisan blame here. It's been neglected by both parties forever, you know, since it was created, and nobody's gone to the mat over expanding unemployment benefits, right, leading up to 2020. And so now when we're in a crisis, we're realizing that, yeah, in addition to a part time unprofessional legislature not being adequate--by the way, there's no Congressional Research Office or Congressional Budget Office or equivalent in Virginia, right? So when you get a fiscal impact statement from an agency or the administration, generally speaking, you don't actually know if that's true. But when the governor doesn't want a bill to pass, and any governor doesn't want a certain bill to pass, they can spike the fiscal impact statement, it is just a thing that they can do and have always been able to do to prevent something from passing. And then the ledge just kicks things over to administration--or to appropriations to go die, just like they did with the Right-to-Work bill. Right. It had a bunch of Democratic votes, and then just died without a hearing. The bureaucracy as-is is just completely inadequate.

NM: And Thomas, I just wanted to echo that, too, with the unemployment claims. I think what 2020 has taught me or shown me is that every trend that was already there, everything, every sort of problem or issue that we might have had, has just been brought into really, really stark relief. And so, you know, lagging on sort of administrative capacity to deal with this kind of thing that's playing out in unemployment. And just exactly the ways you said, I mean, people--the office is barely answering their phone now, because they've been so overwhelmed with like, literally millions of claims over the last nine months.

But then other things, too. I mean, in general, the economic inequality, minimum wage issues, poverty issues in Virginia, I feel like are incredibly underreported. And the other one that's gonna blow up in our faces, honestly, pretty soon--I'm afraid--is the eviction crisis that's going to happen. I mean, there's been a moratorium on evictions for the last what, half a year, maybe? But, you know, unless that's extended, and even--eventually, it will not be there. Eventually, the moratorium on evictions will go away. And you'll have people who owe five, six, seven, eight, ten thousand dollars in back-rent...where's that money gonna come from? You're gonna have a glut of people out in the streets really quickly. People who don't have work, people whose unemployment claims, sort of expanded unemployment benefits are also going to hit their cap, and people who are going to be homeless. And so I mean, this is not going to be a small problem, it's going to be an awful lot of people having to deal with this at once.

MP: Thomas, what's in your crystal ball for 2021?

TB: Well, you know, poverty and food insecurity is in my crystal ball, in addition to the eviction crisis. So just to color it a little bit more 35% of all Americans are having trouble or can't pay their rent, or they're behind on their rent, or they're in forbearance or something like that, this, this just came out on CNN the other day. And that number is higher in DC, by the way, which is not too far away, where it's in the 60% threshold. And that actually, you know, if you can't pay your mortgage, or pay your rent, that says that not only are you most likely unemployed, meaning that real unemployment is nationwide at 35%.

But there are other problems that you have, like you can't buy--you're going to have trouble buying food, you're going to have trouble paying your electric and water bills. And the insecurity created by poverty is a national security concern. You know, we're already seeing it in the political extremism happening right now. And giving people a stake in the economy is the fastest way to decrease political extremism. And so I think that things get worse politically, not better in 2021. Unless we can really attack poverty and all of the things that it goes with.

NM: Michael Pope and Thomas Bowman are the hosts of Transition Virginia, a podcast that’s documenting Virginia's transition of political power. Find them online at TransitionVA.com, or wherever you get your podcasts.

My name’s Nathan Moore, and I’m the host of Bold Dominion. Huge thanks as always to our producer Aaryan Balu. Find this show online at BoldDominion.org. Go ahead and subscribe… it’s just a click away.

And hey! As the year wraps up and the holidays fade into memory, we’re always on the lookout for topics for future episodes. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Send your ideas to our email address – BoldDominion@virginia.edu. That’s BoldDominion@virginia.edu. Or direct message us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. 

Happy new year, y’all, and make sure to keep social distancing. I’ll talk with you again in 2021!