Bold Dominion

It’s almost Christmas. But for millions of Virginians, worries about housing costs temper the celebrations. Nearly 3 in 10 Virginia households cost burdened, paying more than 30% of their income for shelter. This week, we look at how cities across Virginia - and America - have zoned their way out of 'missing middle' housing over the last 80 years. And what some cities in Virginia are doing to address the problem today.

Last month, we had what felt like a national election only in Virginia. These were state elections, but the focus was on national concerns. When Bold Dominion launched in 2019, we were struck by how many people closely follow national politics but know very little about how our own state government works. Or the power of state government to impact people's lives.

David Toscano has written a book about exactly this: Fighting Political Gridlock: How States Shape Our Nation and Our Lives. He's the former Democratic leader in the Virginia House of Delegates, representing the 57th District from Charlottesville.

This week on Bold Dominion, we talk about the power of state legislatures, how citizens can engage with them, and how states can shape national priorities.

Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin campaigned on a raft of culture war issues. But it still takes the General Assembly to pass new laws, and Virginia's State Senate still has a Democratic majority. So what powers does the Virginia governor really have? What can a governor do even without new legislation?

This week, Bold Dominion sits down with a pair of UVA politics professors for a deeper look at these civics questions that are suddenly relevant to Virginia.

Virginia's 2021 Election Day has come and gone. And Republican Glenn Youngkin will be the next governor of Virginia. Not only that, but it looks like Democrats have lost their majority in the Virginia House of Delegates. So what happened?

To answer that question, our crew from Bold Dominion joined up with the crew from the podcast Transition Virginia for a special crossover episode.

There's an underlying principle to Virginia politics that often goes unmentioned--it's called the Dillon Rule, and it effectively says that local governments only have powers that are explicitly granted by the state. How does this affect our local legislators and our state as a whole?

This is a reprise of an episode that originally aired in February 2021.

Early voting in state elections has already begin in Virginia, and they'll all be counted on November 2. This week on Bold Dominion: What are the stakes in this year's Virginia gubernatorial election? Why does it matter? What’ll actually change if McAuliffe wins? Or if Youngkin wins?

But it's also bigger than just Virginia. Our state elections are being driven at least partly by the national political picture. And how the outcome will send signals to national political leaders.

Here in Virginia, many of us have been shielded from the worst effects of climate change. So far. But we know - or we should know - that the planet is burning. And that without major policy changes, it’s going to get much worse. And so much human suffering could follow.

So what’s a state to do? What policies can Virginia enact? After all, this is a global issue, and the operations of one mid-sized state can feel rather small in the grand scheme of things.

For many years, Virginia’s answer was ‘not much.’ The state wasn’t doing a whole lot to address the root issues around climate change. But with Democratic majorities in the General Assembly for the last two years, that has started to shift. Lawmakers and activists are championing the fight to keep our planet fit for human habitation. So how exactly does meaningful environmental change happen?

For Episode 43 ("Where did Virginia's state constitution come from?"), producer Katherine Hansen talked at length with UVA Law professor A.E. Dick Howard, who wrote the current Virginia constitution. For the full civics experience, we're offering that full interview here as a bonus episode this week.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Virginia’s current state constitution - one of seven that has governed the Old Dominion. This golden anniversary arrives during a critical juncture in both Virginia and our nation.

In this episode, we talk at length with esteemed UVA law professor AE Dick Howard, who wrote Virginia's current state constitution. Prof. Howard discusses our state's rich constitutional history and where that history brings us today.

“The Virginia Way” is an old-fashioned ideal here in the Commonwealth--the notion that our public servants have so much integrity that we don’t need laws to regulate money that goes into the political process. As a result, we have almost no campaign finance regulation--a fact that's been exploited by aristocrats and corporations for decades, if not centuries.

In this episode, we sit down with state Delegate Sally Hudson and author Jeff Thomas ("The Virginia Way: Democracy and Power after 2016") to discuss the history of the Virginia Way and how the culture of Richmond might be changing in a new era.

This is a reprise of an episode that originally aired in July 2020.