(*Hint* It’s what we’ve been talking about all along.)
Co-authored by PWC Supervisor (Occoquan) Kenny Boddye and Ali Symons
George Floyd’s murder wasn’t an accident.
Neither was Breonna Taylor’s, Ahmaud Aubrey’s, or Tony McDade.
This isn’t just in reference to the deliberate, willful acts of brutality and violence which led to their deaths, either. George Floyd’s murder was made possible by systemic racism woven into the very fabric of our society, and normalized in the minds of his killers by centuries of laws and policies driven by white supremacy. In eight minutes and forty-six seconds, Black Americans and their allies worldwide watched over four hundred years of oppression play out before our very eyes.
Four hundred years of oppression cannot be undone, but the systems and laws that perpetuate it can be. They must be.
Without a doubt we stand with Black Lives Matter and others in calling for a comprehensive reform of policing, accountability, and approach to public safety. The prison industrial complex – and the for-profit corporations that support it – have been dictating the nature of law enforcement for far too long. VAJD believes that investing in communities creates healthy, equitable, and thriving conditions for working families throughout Virginia. The idea of reprioritizing state and local budgets away from over-policing and toward education, health services and other areas is not a new one, but it has also been made mainstream by recent events. Black Lives Matter has a number of resources that explore this idea further.
With this expanded awakening in the general public to the reality of police brutality, and racial injustices against predominantly black and marginalized communities, there is also a growing understanding about the interplay of white supremacy and regressive policy positions. That is why true progressive policies are intersectional and seek to root out longstanding injustices such as systemic racism. There were bills in the 2020 VA legislative session earlier this year that would have gone farther towards addressing structural racism in one way or another; however, many of them failed to pass despite a Democratic majority. Let’s review some of them here.
Criminal Justice Reform
Virginia’s criminal justice system is built on a foundation of slavery, Jim Crow, Massive Resistance, and the deliberate infringing of the constitutional rights of people of color, particularly Black people. Mandatory minimums, three strike laws, and other punitive measures have been in the Code of Virginia for decades in order to remove Black men from society and ensure that any generational wealth they may have been able to create is denied to their families and descendants. The War on Drugs doubled down on existing penalties against even the simple possession of marijuana, with architects of these laws knowing full well that they would be disproportionately enforced against communities of color. (Learn more about VA’s criminal legal system & issues that need reform from Justice Forward VA.)
This year, the General Assembly finally made strides toward reforming Virginia’s criminal justice system, but several measures were slow-walked or killed outright even when committees are now controlled by Democrats. Here are just a few bills that would have gone a long way to truly transform Virginia’s Jim Crow Justice System (Sources from ACLU VA 2020 Legislative Report and Justice Forward VA Legislative Priorities for 2020):
- Sentencing reform for jury trials. Our juries lack power to suspend prison time or recommend alternatives to prison (i.e. probation, drug treatment, etc.). They aren’t allowed to see sentencing guidelines or learn local sentencing customs. They’re simply told to impose incarceration, without being given information necessary to impose it fairly. [taken from Justice Forward VA] Both HB279 & SB326 were deferred by House Criminal Justice: Criminal SubCom to 2021. These bills would have allowed juries to recommend leniency in sentencing, giving them the tools to seek justice, not just convictions.
- Marijuana has been Decriminalized, but NOT Legalized. Marijuana laws are enforced more harshly on Black people and communities of color. Although the General Assembly said they “decriminalized” marijuana, the fact is that possession is still illegal, only the penalty has changed. This means Black people will likely still be subjected disproportionately to police stops based on the “smell of marijuana,” and a loophole in the law allows police to choose, regardless of the amount of marijuana involved, to arrest anyone they suspect might have an intent to distribute marijuana, even if it’s just to share with a friend. The new law, effective July 1, defines juveniles in possession as delinquents (i.e. criminals) subject to juvenile detention rather than treating them as “children in need of services.” [taken from ACLU VA] HB1507 continued to 2021 in House Court of Justice. (Learn more about why legalization is still needed at Marijuana Justice’s website.)
- Ending Cash Bail. (See here for detailed explanation of cash bail.) This system pretty much penalizes you for being poor. Prosecutors can put cash bail on you while you’re waiting for your trial. So, if you can’t afford to pay for bail you may end up waiting in jail for months just waiting for trial even if you are in fact not guilty of the crime. In the meantime you would not be able to go to work, likely to lose your job, and then unable to make your rent, car payments, and other debts due. It’s a cascade that folks already struggling with economic insecurity often do not bounce back from. HB820 was laid on the table in House Appropriations: Transportation & Public Safety SubCom and HB1461 was left in House Court of Justice.
- Felony larceny threshold was slow-walked going from $500 to $1,000, which still lags behind the national average. Sadly, lawmakers failed to overturn the three-strikes petit larceny law (SB807 — died in House CJ: Criminal SubCom), which means a person convicted of petit larceny three times becomes a felon regardless of the circumstances or the amount stolen (e.g., could be three bags of chips stolen on three occasions). [taken from ACLU VA] Being able to categorize folks as “felons” allows the criminal justice system to continue to feed the prison industrial complex that relies on incarcerating more (predominantly black) folks in order to make a profit and justifies its own existence.
Affordable Housing
Criminal Justice Reform is low-hanging fruit in the current climate, but is not the only way in which we must achieve true equity. Virginia’s housing laws and regulations are built on 19th and 20th century principles of segregation, redlining, and criminalizing poverty. In addition to allocating additional funding to statewide and local Housing Trust Funds, the General Assembly can enact legislation which is aimed at making zoning laws more fair, protecting renters, and expanding tools for rent control.
HB151 & HB152 would have gone towards addressing the issue of affordable housing, and by default the segregation and discrimination of communities by race. (See these articles for more in-depth discussions about reforming zoning laws here and here.) Both were left behind in House Counties, Cities, & Towns: Land Use SubCom.
While the General Assembly should not be dictating to localities how they handle land use policies, such as Accessory Dwelling Units, enabling legislation would allow them more flexibility.
On the opposite side of this equation, we have HB1345, which was a vital step toward demolishing a segment of Richmond – and the historic Shockoe Bottom community – in order to build a new Dominion (Navy Hill) Coliseum and attract the racist named Washington Football team, “The Redskins”. You can read more about that scandal here. Luckily, that bill did not pass due to the tireless efforts of our friends at Richmond For All.
In addition, COVID-19 has revealed that communities of color are much more vulnerable to utility cut-offs, service disruptions, and evictions as a result of late payments or income insecurity. The General Assembly has the authority to pass laws which provide additional guardrails in these areas, as well as provide guidance to state regulatory agencies to put people ahead of the profits of landlords and utility providers.
Voting Rights & Fair Redistricting
There’s a long tradition of using voter suppression as a tool for disenfranchising black folks in America in order to limit their political power. From poll taxes, to literacy tests, to physical intimidation at the polls, to purging voter rolls, to voter ID laws, to limiting the number of polling locations. It doesn’t get more institutionalized racism than that. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was meant to end all the shenanigans.
“The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 to ensure state and local governments do not pass laws or policies that deny American citizens the equal right to vote based on race. On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court swept away a key provision of this landmark civil rights law in Shelby County v. Holder.” — from the Brennan Center.
Since 2013 we’ve witnessed the return of aggressive voter suppression in many states and it is a massive threat to our democracy. The VA General Assembly made some progress on taking down barriers to voting in 2020 such as removing requirements for a long list of excuses in order to absentee vote and enacted same-day voter registration. Unfortunately, the GA did not manage to pass the Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote (SJ8) for all Virginians who are eligible to vote. Currently, VA is one of only 3 states that permanently bans folks from voting after a felony conviction. Automatic restoration of voting rights upon the completion of someone’s sentence is a basic first step toward making formerly-incarcerated people whole. Ideally, VA needs to amend the Constitution to enshrine voting as a right which cannot be infringed or stripped due to any reason.
Gerrymandering is also another way of diluting the voices of voters by allowing elected officials to choose their voters rather than the other way around. Each vote matters less when the outcome of elections is predetermined by how districts are packed to be safe for one party over the other. And because community segregation evolved from racist policies like redlining, racial Gerrymandering is very much a real thing. The Constitutional Amendment for fair redistricting that just passed in the GA is controversial and likely to further disenfranchise black voters. Having passed in 2 consecutive legislative sessions, it now goes to the VA voters as a Referendum. (See this article for more details) Ending Gerrymandering is vital to the health of our democracy. The work continues.
Workers’ Rights
Virginia touts being the #1 state for business, but is nearly dead last for workers. This is also rooted in the commonwealth’s history as a slave state and the seat of the Confederacy – slave labor made up the predominant workforce in Virginia for over a century, and so workers were viewed as expendable. Workers’ rights are intimately tied to the ability for the working class, that includes many in the black and brown communities, to build long term economic wealth and security. The Right to Work (RTW) movement is rooted in Jim Crow and racism; Vance Muse of the Christian American Association – and one of the chief architects of this movement – once said that allowing labor unions make it so “white women and white men will be forced into organizations with black African apes . . . whom they will have to call ‘brother’ or lose their jobs.” and anti-strike laws as a means to allow “peace officers to quell disturbances and keep the color line drawn in our social affairs”. (Read more about repealing RTW here)
This year, the General Assembly had the opportunity to repeal RTW, and institute additional protections for workers, but they chose not to. Measures that would have begun to dismantle Virginia’s racist worker laws included:
- Repeal “Right to Work”. HB153 was left in House Appropriations. (See this article on how the bill died)
- Raising the Minimum Wage. SB7 & HB395 raised the minimum wage to $9.50 per hour beginning May 1st, 2021. This is no where near a livable wage. We need to raise the minimum wage to $15.
- Paid Family Leave. Almost everyone at some point in their lives gets sick, starts a family, has to care for a sick or elderly family member, or just needs to unplug for mental health from time to time. We are human. We are not machinery that can just be switched on and off. For those living from paycheck to paycheck, taking sick leave without pay could mean losing their job, going hungry, or inability to pay rent / mortgage / car loan / student debt. Black communities are most vulnerable by default of being the most marginalized as the result of long term structural racism. (Learn more at Family Friendly Economy VA) HB825 was left in House Appropriations and SB770 was passed by indefinitely In Senate Finance & Appropriations.
Climate Justice
Environmental racism has also been a staple in Virginia – and across the country – for centuries. When formerly-enslaved Black Americans were not given their promised forty acres and a mule, they took to buying land where they could, or settling where the freedmen’s bureaus could negotiate. Since white-owned banks, former slave owners, and other white aristocrats owned a large majority of the land, however, freedmen and their descendants were often sold land that had poor soil and poor drinking water. During the industrial revolution and the 20th century, the buildings which produced the most pollution were often built in poor black communities, with little regard for air quality and run-off. This has played out in modern times with the controversial fracked-gas pipeline projects in Virginia – the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline. A natural gas compressor station – one of the largest of its kind – was proposed as part of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (Dominion Energy is the biggest shareholder) and was designated to be built in Union Hill, Buckingham Co., an area settled by freedmen after the Civil War and is still inhabited by their descendants.
Our reliance on fossil fuel energy generation and accompanying infrastructure has been used to divide and weaken communities of color. While the General Assembly has passed a few new clean energy initiatives this year, they missed a huge opportunity to completely reframe Virginia’s energy grid and deliver on the promise of environmental justice. In 2020, the VA General Assembly favored the VCEA (HB1526 & SB851) over the Green New Deal Act (HB77 — left in House Appropriations). The biggest distinction between the 2 policy approaches to addressing the climate crisis is that the VCEA is the classical approach of attempting to address a problem in a way that doesn’t touch the status quo while the GND would have effectively addressed the climate crisis (by enforcing a fossil fuel moratorium for new infrastructures) AND ensured that the economic benefits of transitioning VA to a clean energy economy is equitably distributed to frontline communities. The authors of the GND approach recognize that the climate crisis is also borne out of socio-economic inequity and racial injustices and therefore must be addressed concurrently with efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Opting for the VCEA is like making a good effort to remove water from a leaky boat without attempting to fix the holes that keep letting more water in. It also does nothing in terms of addressing structural injustices, like racism, that prioritize the ability of corporations to enrich themselves at the expense of polluting the planet and marginalized communities.
The NAACP has written extensively about how the effects of current environmental policies have disproportionately impacted black communities and other communities of color.
Taxation & Funding of Public Infrastructures & Services
On a macro level, we also have to understand what budgets and taxes mean to different segments of people, and the historical context of how taxes have or haven’t been used especially in the South.
To many, taxes are viewed as a necessary burden and part of the social contract. They want to make sure their tax dollars are going to things that are necessary to the safety and common good of others (schools, first responders, roads and basic amenities, etc); it’s once we get beyond those bare bones needs that people start to disagree.
Here’s the thing, though – taxes and how they are allocated have also been a tool of oppression; they have been used as an economic way of dis-empowering certain communities for the benefit of others.
Lee Atwater notoriously said, “You start out in 1954 by saying, “[N-word], [n-word], [n-word].” By 1968 you can’t say “[n-word]” — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N-word], [n-word].”
Because Black people in our country are *still* in the midst of accumulating wealth that was deprived from them as a result of 400 years of slavery, Jim Crow, Massive Resistance, and other racially-driven terrorism, our communities don’t have the same resiliency to deal with cuts to the social safety net that others have. It’s not as common for us to have the generational wealth to homeschool or send our kids to private school if the public school system isn’t properly funded. We’re a lot less able to access the type of private health insurance and benefits that can make up for cutting locally-administered health services, substance abuse support, and housing services.
So by cutting taxes and underfunding the programs that are supported by them, many folks think that they are making up for it by keeping more money in the pockets of taxpayers. It only works that way for *some* people though, not *most* of the communities that actually depend on social programs to survive. An example: If your family doesn’t have the means, time, or expertise to take care of someone with developmental disabilities, and programs for that community are cut to keep money in that family’s pocket, are they really better off? Probably not.
There are many people in our community that believe cutting taxes and lowering tax burdens during a pandemic is how we keep the most families afloat because of the idea that it lessens monthly or bi-annual payment burdens. But that doesn’t take into consideration the programs lost as a result or the tax dollars that would then go to emergency services when someone has no other recourse.
Campaign Finance Reform (Money in Politics)
All of these issues have been tabled, killed, or slow-walked in Virginia and elsewhere in large part due to the corrupting influence of money in our political system. Virginia has essentially no campaign finance laws at the state or local level other than mandating disclosure, and so large donors and corporations have the ability to buy more access and influence with elected officials. This is another way in which power was consolidated among the rich, land-owning white men of the South – one had to be wealthy enough to run, or know enough wealthy people to run. Black Americans and other communities of color were only granted the full right to vote in 1965, and have also not had nearly the same opportunities to build generational wealth or the corporate resources necessary to run for office or influence those who have been elected.
Over the past few years, the issue of campaign finance reform has become a key tenet in progressive reform in Virginia. Due to the aforementioned devastating role of utilities and fossil fuels on communities of color, the ability of Dominion Energy to contribute to candidates, elected officials, and political parties is of particular concern.
Here are some of the bills that would have curtailed the influence of corporate special interests:
- Prohibiting contributions from public service corporations, like Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power. HB111 was left in House Privileges & Elections and SB25 was killed in Senate Privileges & Elections (NAYS–Howell, Vogel, Reeves, Chafin, Ruff, Spruill, Peake, McDougle, Surovell, Mason).
- Campaign Finance Disclosure Act. HB848 was continued to 2021 by House P&E on a voice vote (not recorded).
- Public Campaign Financing for local level offices. HB851 was laid on the table in House P&E: CF SubCom.
- Campaign contribution limits. HB895 was left in House P&E and SB488 died in Senate P&E (NAYS –Howell, Vogel, Reeves, Chafin, Ruff, Spruill, Peake, McDougle, Bell–9)
There’s a reason policies that lead to big structural changes often face such resistance from elites and establishment politicians regardless of political party. For much of Virginia’s history, money has been much louder than even political ideology, and bold changes challenge the status quo. Power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, as well as the institutional apparatus that is dependent on that power. In our commonwealth and country, that power and wealth has been traditionally held by white, landowning men and the corporations they hold sway over. Back during the founding of our nation, those corporations took the form of the plantation economy; now, they take the form of predatory lenders, utility monopolies, big banks, the fossil fuel industry, and much more.
If we are to truly achieve a more just and equitable society, and address structural racism at its roots, we must ensure that the “haves” share some of the wealth they have accumulated over the decades and centuries. This means they would have to adhere to environmental regulations that protect frontline communities instead of prioritizing outsized profits. This means they have to actually pay their fair share of taxes to help fund the many public services and infrastructure such as schools, public transit, social welfare programs, etc. This means they have to pay their workers a living wage and allow for paid family leave. This means they need to be willing to live alongside folks of different socioeconomic backgrounds and higher density so that others can afford to live closer to their workplaces and benefit from better funded public services, like schools, public transportation, and libraries. This also means they can no longer donate obscene amounts of money to politicians and political parties, which has only led to unequal influence over the laws that are passed.
The VA State General Assembly will be convening a Special Session in August when they will be looking into taking action on various criminal justice and policing issues. The VA Legislative Black Caucus has issued a statement of the priorities for this special session. Please contact your VA State Senator and Delegate and urge them to support it. VA House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn has promised to take action on police reform during this special session. (See here)