Gideon Tucker, a 19th century lawyer, newspaper editor and politician, is famous for one insightful phrase: “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”
Although Tucker was from New York City, a lot of people in rural Virginia likely identify with that phrase, particularly when a Democratic majority holds sway in Richmond — not so much because they are Democrats (although that may be the case for some) but because in our modern political alignment, Democrats have little connection to the rural parts of the state.
There are now no Democrats in the General Assembly who represent a predominantly rural district. Some might have some rural localities in their district — state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, represents Amherst, Nelson and part of Louisa county, for instance, but the bulk of his constituents are in and around Charlottesville. That naturally leaves most voters in the rural parts of the state — who overwhelmingly vote Republican — feeling somewhat disenfranchised.
Here’s a look at how some legislation specifically affecting rural Virginia is faring in this year’s session. You’ll note that I focus on economic issues, not social ones.
1. Solar farms
The Virginia Clean Economy Act, which passed in 2021, mandates that the state’s utilities convert to a non-carbon electric grid. That’s set off a wave of investment in solar farms, which are, by definition, exclusively in rural areas, and generally concentrated in Southside, where the phrase “solar farm” is often greeted as an epithet. “Solar factory” might be a better phrase in the eyes of some. We have some rural localities that have embraced solar — they see more tax revenues. Others have enacted restrictions on the amount of land that can be developed for solar, or, sometimes, outright bans.
That puts them in direct conflict with the state’s overall solar goals and prompted Deeds and Del. Richard “Rip” Sullivan, D-Fairfax County, to introduce legislation that would allow the State Corporation Commission, not local governments, to rule on siting for certain large renewable projects. That bill raised alarm bells all across rural Virginia.
Those bills have now been delayed for a year, but they’ve served as a kind of warning shot against rural governments reluctant to develop solar. As I pointed out in a previous column, the opposition to solar isn’t driven by climate deniers, it’s driven by people who fear that acres upon acres of solar farms take agricultural land out of production and change the character of the county from rural to industrial. There are also some practical considerations: Solar development runs the risk of skewing a county’s score on the dreaded Local Composite Index, the state’s school funding formula, which attempts to determine a locality’s “ability to pay” for its own schools. (Not very well, as we’ve also seen in some cases.) State Sen. David Marsden, D-Fairfax County, has suggested exempting solar from the LCI formula, but all that involves more work than can be done in the compressed schedule of a legislative session.
This is one of those issues where the two parts of the state don’t often understand each other very well: The votes for the Clean Economy Act all came from legislators in metro districts, who aren’t going to get these industrial-scale solar facilities.
2. Secretary for rural affairs
This shows the power of an idea. A University of Virginia law professor and one of his law students (who has since graduated) authored a report on rural Virginia in a law review article. One of the things that Andrew Block and Antonella Nicholas mentioned was the idea of having a cabinet secretary dedicated to rural Virginia as a way to call high-level attention to the issues in the rural parts of the state. I wrote several columns about that, and former state Commerce and Trade Secretary Michael Schewel wrote one about why it was a bad idea.
That attention prompted two legislators — one Democrat, one Republican — to introduce legislation to study the idea. The House put off the measure by Del. Israel O’Quinn, R-Washington County, until next year. However, the Senate unanimously passed the version by state Sen. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg (one of those urban legislators whose district includes some rural counties). We’ll see what happens to her SJ 21 when it gets to the House; will it get put off until next year like O’Quinn’s version did or will Senate passage prompt the House to give it new consideration?
3. Sales tax for schools
I’ve written about this in previous columns so I’ll just hit the highlights here. Rural localities — and some urban ones, too — have the hardest time paying for their schools. The rising cost of construction has made it especially hard for those districts to renovate old schools or, if needed, build a new one. That’s why the oldest school buildings in the state are typically in rural localities or central cities. There’s nothing inherently wrong with an old building, except for the fact that they often need more maintenance and lack modern facilities. A few years ago, Pulaski County built a new middle school (good for Pulaski). Before that, its aging facility only had wiring to support one electrical outlet in a classroom. That might have been fine in the pre-computer era, but not now. The poster child for school maintenance issues is Prince Edward County, where one room of its elementary school has been usable for years because of a leaky roof — and the cost of replacing it is more than the county can bear. (The county administrator estimated that property taxes would have to go up by about 25%.)
Over the years, we’ve seen twin bills to deal with this. One would give Prince Edward County the ability to hold a sales tax referendum to raise money for schools (under Virginia’s system of local government, that power has to be granted by Richmond, and a random collection of localities already have been granted that power). The other would give every locality in the state that power. When Republicans ran the House of Delegates, both those measures failed, even though the one dealing with Prince Edward County was introduced by a rural legislator. This year, with Democrats in charge of both houses, the statewide bill has passed both chambers — introduced by Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, in the House and state Sen. Jeremy McPike, D-Prince William County, in the Senate. (Fun fact: Rasoul is a member of the Rural Caucus, even though his Roanoke district is definitely not rural.) Both bills have picked up support from many (although not all) rural Republicans, who see this as a) a practical measure to help their districts and b) a case of local governments know best. We’ll see what the governor thinks when this bill gets to his desk. He won’t like signing a bill that could lead to tax increases (even though he’s proposed a sales tax increase as part of his tax plan that also calls for reducing income tax), but he won’t like being labeled as the governor who denied Prince Edward County kids the chance to go to school in a building where the roof doesn’t leak.
I should also point out this: Sales taxes are regressive taxes so even if localities had this power, it means that we’d be expecting some of the poorest localities in the state to enact a regressive tax. The solution would be more school construction funding from the general fund, but neither party has shown much interest in that over the years.
4. Tax relief in certain localities
Here’s a curious bill that hasn’t gotten much attention. State Sen. Travis Hackworth, R-Tazewell County, has SB 564, which calls for the Department of Taxation and the Commission on Local Government to study “the need for income tax relief in double distressed localities in the Commonwealth that have experienced significant loss of population since 2013” and report back by November. The legislation doesn’t quantify “significant,” but Hackworth told me he envisions -9.8%, because that would bring in the 10 counties that have lost population the fastest. I don’t have the figures for population since 2013 but the census figures for 2010-2020 would put most of the coal counties in Southwest Virginia on that list, plus some rural counties elsewhere — Bath County lost -11.03% during that time, Sussex County lost -10.41%. Hackworth hopes that the study will lead to actual income tax relief that could help reverse those localities’ population losses.
Hackworth’s bill passed the Senate 38-1, with only state Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke County, in opposition. We’ll see what the House thinks. As a fan of data, I’m always in favor of studies.
5. Cannabis
I hate to keep harping on this but somebody needs to. One of the key things to look out for in the rival bills moving through the legislature — each of which would create a legal retail market for weed but in different ways — is which one does the best job at making sure some of those new cannabis-related jobs come to rural Virginia. There’s some dispute about that, of course. The House version requires licenses for cannabis businesses be distributed on the basis of senatorial districts, which means a guarantee that rural areas would get some of those jobs — and the key jobs aren’t in retail, they’re in cultivation and processing. The Senate version simply gives preferences to licenses in certain economically distressed areas, which brings in a lot of rural Virginia but doesn’t write in a specific quota. Both versions allow for localities to opt out of retail cannabis via a referendum — however, the House version also allows localities to ban any “marijuana establishment,” meaning not just retail sales but the whole supply chain. The Senate calls for referendums only on opting out of retail stores, meaning a locality could ban a store but not other parts of the supply chain. The Senate version also allows outdoor cultivation; the House version allows state regulators to ban marijuana farms.
If your sole interest is creating jobs in rural areas, you want some combination of these two bills — yes on outdoor growing and license distribution by senatorial districts, no on the ability for a local referendum to ban supply chain jobs even if they opt out of retail. (The analogy would be a “dry” county that still has a brewery that ships its product elsewhere.) Of course, if you think retail cannabis is a bad idea to start with, you don’t want either of these bills to get signed into law.
6. ‘Skill’ games
These electronic games — which opponents consider “neighborhood slot machines” — have been controversial but bills to legalize them (and tax them) are moving forward. I’ve written before that when they were legal, and taxed, certain rural areas benefited disproportionately from them — and the games produced enough revenue for some of those localities to hire multiple teachers.
7. The budget
Each chamber’s budget-writing committee — House Appropriations and Senate Finance — will release their drafts on Sunday. Typically, each chamber will then approve its budget, vote down the other chamber’s and then appoint a conference committee to work out the differences. It’s in the budget that a lot of issues get addressed apart from legislation. In the past, for instance, the budget set aside funds for Interstate 64 east of Richmond, but not for Interstate 81 that runs through the western part of the state. Western legislators are clamoring to address that inequity, and I notice that Gov. Glenn Youngkin last week name-checked I-81 when he mentioned how revenue produced by the proposed sports arena in Alexandria might get used. Cardinal’s Markus Schmidt will be on duty Sunday to pore over the two budgets to see what details they contain.
So, how does all this add up? Ultimately, that’s a matter of political taste, so feel free to do your own math.