Policy Matters: December 4, 2025
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Transcript
20 segmentsGood morning and welcome to Policy Matters, your window into Virginia politics with VPAP. It's our monthly roundup of the top political headlines from across Virginia, powered by VPAP's daily e-newsletter, VA News. I'm Benjamin Netanyahu Dolly, and joining me this morning is VP's executive director, Chris Piper. Good morning, Chris. Hey, good morning, Ben. So glad to be here. Yeah, well, the last time we talked was just before the November election, and we've had a leadership change and a lot of things that are going to be happening as a result of that election coming up. So what did we learn from election night? Well, Ben, it was pretty historic night. Virginia elected its first female governor, the first Muslim lieutenant governor, and the first African-American. Attorney General, which is pretty historic. And in addition to that, the Virginia General Assembly went from 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans to now 64 Democrats and 36 Republicans. This is the largest majority Democrats have had in the House of Delegates in well over 20 years. So it is a pretty historic night. We did an analysis of how the margins change. changed from 2021's gubernatorial election to Abigail Spanberger's 2025 election. And every single county and city trended more blue in 2025 than in 2021. It was a pretty resounding 15-point victory for Governor Abigail Spanberger and a huge night for Democrats overall. So we are looking forward to what they have on the agenda coming up. Well, we know just before the election, they had that big redistricting special session here in which they did vote to pass that bit. And now it has to be debated again and passed again in the next session and then voted on by Virginia residents. What do we see that going now with these big Democratic victories? Yeah, well, it's certainly been the Democrats controlling the House and the Senate. And, you know, the constitutional amendments don't require a governor's signature, but certainly having. A Democrat in the governor's mansion is going to help push these priorities forward. But you're right. That vote had to happen before the election. Another vote, according to the Constitution, has to happen after the election in order for the amendment to be brought to the people for a vote. That is likely to happen unless dynamics change. that would, in the Democrats' mind, not require them to hold this special vote. But this would be a special election, probably sometime in the early spring, that would put the question to the voters. If the voters were to decide that they do want to redistrict here in 2026, the General Assembly would get to work doing that more than likely. They would move the normal June primary. back to likely in August and they would vote for candidates on the new congressional district lines. And we hear of VPAP in 2021 and 2022 and they were moving the lines for the House and the Senate and the
congressional districts, we had interactive maps where you could really see the impact of the new lines on your representatives. And of course, VPAP will be right there in the thick of it to provide that information again, should this pass and should they end up redistricting and moving congressional lines around. And over the last few years, I know that Democrats have had a lot of priorities that have passed in the Assembly but faced Governor Glenn Youngkin's veto. What do we think are some of the priorities Democrats are going to have this time around with a Democrat in the governor's office? Right. Governor Glenn Youngkin famously or not famously, depending on your point of view, was the red wall and many priorities from the Democrats and the General Assembly were passed. And Governor Glenn Youngkin had record numbers of vetoes for any previous governor in modern history. And so now the Democrat in the executive mansion. And a large majority in the House of Delegates, I'm sure we'll see many of these priorities likely making it up and signed by the governor of those. Specifically, we'll be following the retail marijuana legislation that has been vetoed numerous times by Governor Glenn Youngkin. So we can expect likely that some sort of retail marijuana. Law will be passed and into effect this later in 2026. Other priorities of the governor during the campaign, of course, a lot of talk about affordability, housing affordability, energy affordability, and as well on the budget. The federal cuts to the workforce, as well as other cuts and inflation have put a strain in the eyes of the Democrats on the budget, and they want to be prepared for any negative impacts to the budget. So we'll be seeing a lot of legislation, I'm sure, around that, a lot of discussion. regarding the budget. And again, housing affordability as well is going to be a pretty big issue, hot button issue that we'll see in the General Assembly. All right. And on a slightly sadder note, this will be your final segment for Policy Matters with us as you're moving out of the executive director position. One, I just want to say thank you for all of the detail and information you've given us over the past several months with this segment. So best of luck, and what are you looking forward to moving forward?
Well, I tell you, Ben, this has been one of the highlights. I've enjoyed getting to know you and working with a VPN team to share this information about what VPAP provides to the general public. I'm just excited. This is a tremendous team at the Virginia Public Access Project. They're going to continue to do great things. My successor, Kat Anthony, has a wonderful background. deep experience in the nonprofit leadership world. I think she's going to be a great success. And I don't expect that you'll see so many changes at VPAP that you won't recognize it. I think it's going to continue on being the strong presence that it's been. As for me, I'm excited to go back into elections world and work with election administrators across the country. and to ensure that everybody gets the opportunity to vote as long as they're legally eligible to do so. So it's exciting times for VPAP. It's exciting times in Virginia, and I'm looking forward to see what's next. All right. Well, it's certainly been great having you on, and we'll look forward to talking to Kat moving forward. So thanks for breaking everything down again for us one last time. And for our listeners, you can always catch up on what's happening in Virginia politics and sign up for updates at vpap.org. You're listening to VPM News. Thanks, Chris. Thank you, Ben.