Who’s Your… Momnibus?

Rich Meagher: Welcome to RVA’s Got Issues, the show that brings you the people and ideas that are reshaping greater Richmond. I’m your host, Rich Marr. When people think of politics, if they think of politics, then they probably think of the federal government in D. C. And there’s even more reason to do that today with a firehose of chaotic news out of Washington. 

But there’s vitally important political work going on right here in Richmond, and many people in RVA don’t even know it. The Virginia General Assembly, our state legislature, is passing a budget and hundreds of laws that directly affect us here in RVA on any number of issues, including dealing with chaos in Washington. 

Archival Audio: These aren’t just bills. These aren’t just budget amendments. They’re a lifeline. They represent a commitment to saving lives. strengthening families and providing hope to communities across Virginia. 

Rich Meagher: Luckily, we’ve got the right guide to the General Assembly. We’re here in VPM’s Capitol studio with Michael Pope. He’s a veteran reporter whose work has appeared everywhere from the Alexandria Gazette, Packet to the New York Times. He’s also host of a new podcast from VPM and the Virginia Public Access Project called the Virginia Press Room, where he talks each week with an all star panel of local journalists about the latest news in Virginia. 

Michael, welcome.  

Michael Pope: Long time, first time, as they say. It’s great to be here.  

Rich Meagher: Good. It’s great to have you here. Michael, you’ve been reporting from the General Assembly just in general in Virginia for years. What’s different about what happens in the General Assembly as opposed to like the news that comes out of Washington? 

There is a lot of partisanship. I mean, if  

you think about all of the kind of hot button social issues, you find all the Dems voting one way, all the Republicans voting one way. I mean, like, if you take gun violence, for example, that’s a totally a partisan issue, um, or abortion rights, contraception. There are a lot of issues that just fall right on party lines. 

But then there are a bunch of stuff that happens in the chaotic fire, fire. What do you say? Fire hose fire hose of stuff that happens here in Richmond that. Doesn’t always fall on party lines. The best example from this session. There was a lot of talk about a new casino in Northern Virginia and Fairfax County. 

And, man, people were all over the map. The Republicans were divided right in the middle. The Dems were divided right in the middle. The Fairfax County delegation was divided in the middle. So it’s not  

everything is totally partisan around here. So there’s an election this fall, speaking of partisan divides, right? 

The Senate gets to sit out, but all 100 members of our House of Delegates is up for election. And plus there’s the three big statewide races, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, and Governor. So how is that election? Casting a shadow on what’s happening right now in the General Assembly.  

Michael Pope: It casts a huge shadow because the General Assembly is controlled by Democrats and they are sending a bunch of bills to the governor that they know he’s going to veto. 

People call them brochure bills. It’s an election year and they’ve got to have stuff to put in their brochures. And the governor, by the way, loves to veto stuff. He is the holder of, this is the, this is a big deal for Virginia, which obviously goes back, you know, hundreds of years. He holds the record for the most vetoes. 

And by the way, he loves that record, too. He loves talking about that. He’s Dr. No, you know, with the veto pen. But, you know, he’s likely to veto, Expanding contraception, collective bargaining, unconscious bias, raising the minimum wage, battery storage, EV charging stations.  

Rich Meagher: And there’s lots of procedural wrangling going on, too, right? 

So the Democrats passed a couple of constitutional amendments. They don’t get added to the Constitution because they need another vote next year. And then the people get to decide. That’s part of the calculus here, right? It’s an election year and we want to Pass these things and make the case vote for us so we can make them real next year. 

Michael Pope: Yeah. And the process is actually designed to make them election issues, but the way the process is set up, you pass them with one general assembly, and then you have to have an election before the general assembly passes it a second time. Okay. And then it goes to the voters. The governor, by the way, is totally cut out of this process. 

So, you know, he would have vetoed expanding or codifying abortion rights, but he doesn’t even get that chance because it’s really this General Assembly and the next General Assembly will make that decision.  

Rich Meagher: And even there’s a little bit of like theater. The Democrats were sending votes to the Senate. To force gubernatorial candidate Winsome Sears to cast a vote against something that they can use in their brochures this fall. 

Michael Pope: Totally. Yeah, actually, that was about contraception, that particular bill. Senate Dems engineered a tie so that they could get her to break the tie and vote against contraception. And then they reconsidered it and passed it anyway. So the fact that it was a tie was not the final outcome, but they did force her. 

into a vote that they can now talk about on the campaign trail.  

Rich Meagher: For sure. All right, let’s talk about some of the specific issues that we’re seeing come up this year that may be of particular interest to our listeners. I think the big thing that’s on people’s minds right now is the bigger political context of what’s happening in Washington and how that’s affecting pretty much everything, right? 

New executive orders every day, mass layoffs, possible budget cuts. How are the legislators in Richmond trying to plan around this ever changing situation in DC?  

Michael Pope: You know, this actually reaches into all kinds of areas that you wouldn’t even necessarily think about as being a Washington issue. A good example of this is speed cameras. 

There’s all this talk about not just speed cameras, but license plate readers. So these are the cameras that See that your car is here in downtown Richmond at this hour, and then, you know, later today, you’re at the Publix, you know, doing your grocery shopping. And so these license plate readers can follow you around and track your movements. 

Well, what if the federal government wants that? information about when you went to the grocery store and what if they’re trying to deport you and they’re following your whereabouts? There’s been a lot of talk that reaches into all kinds of areas that might not seem directly related to.  

Rich Meagher: So it’s like hanging over everything almost, right? 

But there are specific things that are happening, right? The Speaker of the House, Don Scott, set up some kind of emergency committee. What’s that group supposed to be looking into?  

Michael Pope: Well, just a wide variety of different kinds of things that might come up, everything from immigration to unemployment benefits for federal contractors. 

There’s a long list of stuff that may be influenced by this. The speaker also put Republicans on that committee, too. So this is a bipartisan group.  

Rich Meagher: Yeah, although there’s been some kind of partisan wrangling about this. Glenn Youngkin is seen as being fairly close to Trump, right? It’s just appointed to run a group of governors that Trump put together. 

Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the things that the Democrats are hitting on is this idea of unemployment or workers, right? There’s a lot of workers here in Richmond who might either work directly in a federal office or work remotely in D. C. And they might lose their job. Are there any efforts to help these folks beyond this emergency committee? 

Michael Pope: Well, there certainly was a lot of discussion about this last week in terms of expanding. Unemployment benefits to federal contractors, so not full time employees, but people who are contractors of whom there are many, this is a really big industry, and they have currently not entitled to unemployment benefits, and there was this long effort extended debate last week in the Senate, what they ended up doing is kind of killing it quietly with the clause,  

Rich Meagher: right? 

The clause, like a little statement that says that every bill has got to go to, if it’s going to cost money, it’s got to go to the particular committee in the Senate that’s going to take a look at it. And that’s where things often die.  

Michael Pope: Yeah, the clause is like, in terms of grammar, it’s a clause, but it’s often used as kind of like the claws, right? 

Uh, basically dragging something to a place where it’s not going to see the light of day. 

Rich Meagher: There’s been at least a little bit of bipartisanship. One of the bigger packages or ideas that’s come out of the General Assembly this year is the Momnibus package. An omnibus package is usually a bunch of bills combined. So this is the momnibus, a bunch of bills about maternal health, particularly for black mothers. 

It was a democratic idea, expanding health insurance coverage for like doulas and midwives, expanding training for doctors, reducing waiting lists for childcare, a bunch of stuff. But it does seem like there’s been some bipartisan Youngkin has signaled that he might be willing to support this stuff. What should we expect from these momnibus bills when they get to the governor’s desk? 

Michael Pope: Well, I would imagine If you take an issue like child care, that is wildly popular. This is an election year on the campaign trail, expanding access to child care is something that Democrats and Republicans can talk about. Then there’s this crisis of maternal mortality for Black women, which is, you know, obviously something that has a bipartisan group of lawmakers interested in taking action. 

Um, I will note it’s a little unusual. To have omnibus bills here in Richmond. I mean, it’s very popular in Washington, D. C. Right. Where they always talk about the train. There’s only one train that’s leaving town and you want to get on the train. So everything in Washington is an omnibus bill. It’s the reverse here. 

Everything is very specific with some exceptions.  

Rich Meagher: This is an exception. The mom, the business passed, but sometimes it’s more up in the air. What’s going to happen with something in case in point data centers, right? There’s been lots of concerns here in Hanover County. The Board of Supervisors recently rejected a proposal that was even approved by their own planning commission for a data center. 

What’s the General Assembly doing about it this year?  

Michael Pope: There was a Last year by the group that does research for the General Assembly, which is the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, known affectionately around here as JLARC. And so the JLARC report really spelled out a lot of environmental concerns you got to think about in terms of the energy that’s going to be hogged up by these things and all the water that they require as well. 

So if you’re going to put one of these in your community, that’s jobs, but there’s also a lot of environmental concerns. And then you mentioned the zoning concerns. You know, one of the things that was debated this session was basically not allowing local governments to deny them. Those efforts were not successful. 

However, I mean, this is an ongoing thing that we’re going to be talking about this again next year, I’m sure.  

Rich Meagher: Right. And that’s the thing about a lot of these bills is that they come back next year. Still, there’s a lot of things that die. We’ll keep using the word fire hose here, but it really is like that in the General Assembly. 

Literally, you know, 1,000, 2,000 bills come through. Many of these do not make it out of the House or the Senate or die somewhere else. So there are a few big issues that did not pass this year that maybe were a little surprising. Like, I think there’s been some motions and movement towards legalizing marijuana, um, like creating a market for it, creating a retail market for it. 

Michael Pope: Well, to be fair, that actually did pass the house and the Senate and is going to the governor, but he is extremely likely to veto it. In fact, the governor himself said this in his state of the Commonwealth address. He said, you already know what my thoughts are on this issue. He vetoed it last year. It’s very likely he’s going to veto it again this year. 

But Virginia is in this really weird position because marijuana is legal. But nobody has a license to sell it. So there’s this weird gray area that we’re in. And by the way, nobody’s happy with this gray area. It’s this is Republicans don’t like this and Democrats don’t like this, but they cannot agree on how to fix this problem. 

Rich Meagher: So, so we’ll be gray, a gray market for another, another year. One other issue that I think is kind of in the air around here that we didn’t see much action on was this idea of skill games, right? Their opponents call them neighborhood slot machines, but it’s these convenience store gambling machines. I mean, just tons of people, tons of, of, of ads. 

I see ads for this all the time on TV and on the internet, but it doesn’t seem like anything’s happening with those things.  

Michael Pope: There was some discussion about legalizing skill games in terms of a. Budget item, but that did not survive into the final compromise and the governor certainly not going to add it. 

So yeah, the discussion over skill games is over for this year. Last year, it was a huge issue. I remember going into these committee rooms 100 percent full, standing room only, of supporters. Because, you know, there are lots of small business owners that own these convenience stores. They want the revenue from these things. 

Right. And they showed up in force. And it did get through the process. It didn’t end up passing. Interestingly enough, regardless of if the General Assembly makes them legal or not, they’re still in your convenience stores, right? I mean, these companies that run these things, they basically have taken the strategy of, we’re going to do this, and you can try to file a lawsuit to stop us, but we’re going to make lots of money in the meantime. 

Rich Meagher: Anything else you see as a key issue coming out of this session, especially for our listeners here in RVA?  

Michael Pope: One issue that I was following in particular is junk fees. If you’ve ever gone on to one of these online apps and tried to buy a 6 hamburger, at the end of the transaction, it’s not a 6 hamburger, it’s like a 16 hamburger. 

It has a convenience fee on it. You got the convenience fee, and the this fee, and the that fee. And so, The 6 price tag is not really telling you what the cost is. So there’s legislation that got out of the General Assembly. The governor is now considering it that would force transparency. So it would say you can’t advertise a 6 hamburger. 

You have to say it’s a 16 hamburger. Um, another bill that I’ve been following. It involves shackling of youth in courtrooms across Virginia. So there are a handful of sheriffs that as a policy decision, shackle all of the youth that comes into courtrooms. So we’re talking about juvenile domestic relations courtrooms, regardless of what the charges are. 

This has alarmed many lawmakers. And so there’s a bill on the governor’s desk now that the sheriffs would no longer have the ability to indiscriminately shackle all the youth. The judge would have the say on that.  

Rich Meagher: We’ve been talking about the General Assembly, but we keep touching on the governor, right? 

And I think people are really interested in, he’s in his last year. What’s next for him? What are you hearing about what is going on with Glenn Youngkin these days?  

Michael Pope: Well, he definitely wants to craft a legacy, and he is running out of time to do that. He, I’m sure, would like to cast himself as someone who works to lower taxes, and having a thriving economy, you know, basically all the kind of central core Republican themes. 

Lots of talk about him maybe joining the Trump administration. I don’t really know about that. Um, the, there also lots of talk about him potentially running against Mark Warner, you know, Mark Warner is up for reelection in 26. And so that would be one heck of a campaign.  

Rich Meagher: Yeah, and I guess the veto pen is still the biggest power that he’s got left this year to try and make a mark on what’s happening in Virginia politics. 

Michael Pope: He loves that veto pen. Yeah. I also think the matchup between Mark Warner and Glenn Youngkin would be really interesting because they have such a similar profile, right? Like super wealthy guys whose first gig in politics was being governor. So, What should our listeners do to find out more about what’s happening in state government? 

Well, the Virginia Public Access Project is your go to place because you get all the headlines from all the news sources in Virginia. So your fire hose is a little less chaotic because you’ve got the headline and the sort of net graph. What you find in state houses across the country is a dwindling supply of reporters covering state house news. 

We have seen in recent years here in Virginia Kind of the opposite of that. It’s not dwindling. It’s growing. Um, we have new members of the press core. So that’s one of the things I’m really looking forward to with my new podcast, The Press Room, is getting them around the table and talking about what they’re reporting on. 

Rich Meagher: Michael Pope is an author and journalist based in Alexandria, although we don’t hold that against him. And he’s the host. Hey, you know what? Alexandria has got issues too. It’s true. And the host of the VPN podcast, the Virginia Pressroom. Thanks, Michael.  

Michael Pope: Thank you.  

Rich Meagher: Michael just talked about new members of the Virginia Press Corps. 

Well, we’ve got two of them right here in the studio. When we come back on RVA’s Got Issues. 

It’s not just the professionals of the Virginia Press Corps who are keeping tabs on our state legislators. Virginia Commonwealth University, VCU, runs a program called the Capital News Service. where students at VCU’s Robertson School of Media and Culture get hands on experience reporting on the biggest news stories in Virginia. 

So for our community spotlight, we’re joined today by two students in this CNS program, Sarah Hagan and Andrew Curley. Sarah, Andrew, welcome.  

Andrew Kerley: Hi, thank you for having us.  

Sarah Hagen: Yeah,  

Rich Meagher: so you both work for the capital news service at VCU What does that actually mean?  

Andrew Kerley: So we go down to the General Assembly and we track bills we see what committees they’re going to we show up to the committee and we see what legislators and Lobbyists are saying about these bills, and we write about it. 

We write about the issues. We write about the controversies. And after we’ve written the article, it gets sent out through the newswire. So a lot of different news outlets around the state can publish it.  

Rich Meagher: So what does that do for you as aspiring journalists? Sarah, you said that’s what you want to do for a living. 

What’s the benefit you get from taking a class like this?  

Sarah Hagen: First of all, it’s so cool to see your name on a byline of a publication that you’ve read before. So like, if you write about something and it gets published in the Virginia Pilot, and that’s like more 757 Hampton Roads, Newport News, I think. And you’re from there, it’s super cool. 

Like, I read this growing up and now I’m part of that. So it’s really cool getting to see your name on the byline, getting published in places that you used to read. And also. Getting clips is one of the most important parts of being a journalist and when you’re applying for jobs. So having something like CNS that gives you the chance to go out and report on the General Assembly on local government that a lot of people don’t know about. 

It really gives us that valuable experience that a lot of people wouldn’t get if we didn’t have something like this.  

Rich Meagher: So what are some of the things that you report on things you’ve been following in the General Assembly Andrew?  

Andrew Kerley: I’ve always been interested in criminal justice reform, prison reform, so I’ve written about a really interesting bill, uh, this was last year actually, that would have cheapened the cost to conduct a phone or video call. 

When you’re in a prison. So interesting stuff like that. I just wrote about the bill that would create a food pantry program on different state universities so that they can address food insecurity because there’s all so many students in college who are surviving off of ramen noodles.  

Rich Meagher: And Sarah, what about you? 

What have you been covering?  

Sarah Hagen: I’ve always been passionate about education. So that’s something that I really wanted to look into coming into CNS, but I ended up kind of going in a different direction because the first article I wrote for CNS was about a bill that would create a firearm violence intervention and prevention center. 

It had failed, I think, two times in previous years, delegate Cia Price had introduced it. But this year it finally passed the House and the Senate in the committee meeting. There was a father who spoke up his son. injured in the Virginia Tech shooting. So listening to a story like that, even though I didn’t get to talk to him personally, it was very impactful because, I mean, gun violence is something that affects so many people these days. 

So getting into, like, the nuts and bolts of that story and seeing how it affected people, that was really interesting and a really special first article for me. And it got Published in a couple of different places, which was cool, because it’s like, wow, people are reading what I’m writing,  

Rich Meagher: right? And it’s having an impact. 

So not to sound like your parents here, right? But a major kind of broad story is that journalism is, I don’t know, dying, right? Corporate buyouts, job cuts, the collapse of newspapers. So, uh, I wouldn’t exactly ask the question why you’re jumping on the Titanic after the iceberg has hit it. But why journalism? 

Why now? Are you two pursuing this kind of thing?  

Sarah Hagen: I asked myself that a lot since I got to college. I’ve just really found that I love reporting on stories in my community because especially local journalism, you see how that affects people that you’re telling their stories that otherwise wouldn’t get told any other way. 

And that’s so special to me. And I think journalism is always going to be around. People are always going to be telling stories. People are always going to need their stories to be told. I think at this point, it’s just if you’re in journalism, you’re going to have to be in it because you love it. It doesn’t matter whether you’re getting paid peanuts or whether you’re like in a national newsroom and getting paid six figures. 

So it’s rough, but I think I’m okay with being on a sinking ship for now.  

Andrew Kerley: It’s not just dying. I think that’s kind of a blanket statement. It’s changing. People are kind of sick of establishment media. If the last few years of politics haven’t made that clear and things just look different now, you know, people aren’t reading newspapers, but they are listening to podcasts. 

People are watching Tik TOKs and Instagram reels, but. At the same time, we shouldn’t be all doom and gloom, there’s definitely a pathway to get the news out there, we just have to level with our audience.  

Rich Meagher: So how do you think about reaching out to these people, you know, maybe your fellow students, but also other people who aren’t reading newspapers, how does that inform your work? 

Andrew Kerley: I do a lot of live tweeting or xing or whatever you call it now, um, posting on Instagram blue sky and that sort of gets people interested and they share it. And then maybe they might go and read the full story. It’s not just like migrating to the preferred medium of the people, but it’s also like speaking their language. 

And this is something all journalists learn, but I think it, you know, gets away from some people is just like talking in a way that they, you know, Understand talking about the issues that they care about and not the issues that we think they care about.  

Sarah Hagen: Yeah, I think it’s difficult because a lot of especially people that might work at legacy media or older journalists that want to hold on to their ways. 

You can’t we have to develop as things change if you just look at back How journalism courses a couple decades ago and how they are now social media is part of our curriculum You post your story online. You also post something about it on Social media because it’s just a different way of reaching out to people You see those infographics online, especially on Instagram, they get shared around everyone’s stories. 

Those are supposed to be a jumping point onto reading, doing your own research, but for a lot of people, that’s their first and last stop. So rather than condemning people for that, I feel like we have to work around that and be like, okay, how much information can we get in this digestible approach and how can we get people to go further beyond that if we think we can? 

Rich Meagher: So if you could, let’s say a bottom line here for our listeners. What’s the worth of this work? Why is this so important to you? You clearly both have passion for reporting. What’s so big a deal about this work that you do?  

Andrew Kerley: There’s all these things about what journalism is. Journalism is the fourth estate. 

Journalism is the first draft of history. And it’s all true. We need it. And so much of it happens in spaces where the two of us happen to be on college campuses down at the General Assembly. Um, and, you know, we need that, that documentation so people know what’s going on.  

Sarah Hagen: Local journalism is important, and I think national news is great, but locally, You just want to know about the issues that are affecting you personally. 

We have the benefit of being in Richmond, so we’re right next to the General Assembly, so we’re able to go down and see it. But a lot of people that live up in NOVA or they live further south in Virginia, they don’t know what’s going on at the General Assembly because they don’t really think about it. 

And I think us covering these issues that people normally wouldn’t think about, they might not even know what’s happening and we’re able to bring that to the forefront. Or for people that this issue is affecting them and nobody will listen and we’re able to listen, I think that is more important than anything is telling these stories that normally couldn’t be told. 

Rich Meagher: Sarah Hagan and Andrew Curley are students at VCU, but are also real working journalists with the Capitol News Service. You can find their reporting and a number of local media outlets, but also at VCUCNS. com. Thanks to you both.  

Sarah Hagen: Thank you.  

Rich Meagher: Thank you. 

That’s our show. Thanks to our guests, Michael Pope, Sarah Hagen, and Andrew Kerley. Find out more about our show and tell us about your issues at our website, rvasgotissues. vpm. org. Remember to tell your friends about us Share a social media post or leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform. 

RVA’s Got Issues is produced by Max Wasserman and Rachel Dwyer and edited by Steve Lack. Our intern is Cate McKenzie. Our theme music was composed by Alexander Hitchens. Meg Lindholm is our executive producer. Steve Humble is VPM’s chief content officer. I’m your host, Rich Meagher. Thanks for listening.