Greetings all. Excited to share a new interview we just completed with Don Scott, the inspiring Speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia. A video recording is above and a transcript is below.
Speaker Scott reviews the very productive legislative session they’ve had this year with their new, bigger majorities and a new Democratic Governor, Abigail Spanberger. They have gotten so much done in such a short period of time, and put this new power they have to good use for the people of Virginia. It’s wonderful to hear him review the progress they’ve already made this year.
But the bulk of our discussion is about Vote Yes, the April 21st ballot initiative to redraw Virginia’s map to fight back against Trump’s illicit power mid-decade redistricting power grab. Speaker Scott was instrumental in getting this initiative on the ballot, and provides us an update on the campaign. The bottom line - he is optimistic, but of course we cannot take anything for granted and need to keep working it everyone.
A version of this post was sent out earlier today, by mistake, just to our paid subscribers. This one is for all members of the Hopium community - as it should be! Sorry for any confusion peeps.
Winning Virginia next week will be another critical momentum building step for the pro-democracy movement, coming after our big in Hungary last night, and as we head soon into the general election. So I am asking every Hopium member to commit to do something to help us win next week. You can learn more about how to volunteer in these closing days from anywhere in the country here, and if you live in Virginia you can learn about how to vote early here (early voting ends April 18th).
This Thursday we’re hosting our second Hopium Vote Yes phonebank with our partners Network NOVA and Rural GroundGame. We had hundreds of people join us last Thursday night for the first one, made over 50,000 dials, and members of this plucky and patriotic community reached over 5,000 voters in just a few hours. Our goal is to double those numbers this Thursday; and note that when we reach 5,000 voters, or 10,000 this week, we are reaching far, far more than that as each person we contact will contact many others in these critical, closing days.
Sign up for our phonebank this Thursday at 530pm here - let’s blow this one out everyone!
Here’s what Hopium community member John P said about our phonebanks last week:
I did the phonebank for VA last Thursday and am signed up for the one this Thursday. A quick word to my fellow “oh god I could never be a telemarketer” introverts. This ain’t that. You won’t be trying to sell someone something they don’t need or get them to part with money. It’s calling people who are most likely to vote yes anyway, and just encouraging them to vote, giving them information like polling location if they need it, and really just letting them know that another human being really cares about their vote.
Check it out. The folks who put this on are a lot of fun, with good energy, and you’ll start off with an inspiring talk from Simon. Then a really good (I’ve had some phonebank trainings, this one’s top notch) training on what to do, background information, and so on. Then you start making calls, but always with the Zoom call still open in the background so you can get questions answered, report good calls, or get support if you get the rare unhappy call.
For me, it’s really rewarding. I always get people thanking me for volunteering, and a lot of people who plan to vote soon. I usually have at least a few calls where I feel that I helped someone get information they needed, or was able to at least support the idea that their vote mattered. The best part is when I relax a little after the first few calls and I’m just talking to another person on the phone as one human to another. Hope to see you there!!
Enjoy this conversation with one our nation’s most capable legislative leaders, volunteer for Vote Yes, and let’s go win this one everyone! - Simon
Bio - Don Scott, Speaker, Virginia House of Delegates
Born in Houston to a single mother raising six children, Don’s journey took him from the U.S. Navy, through law school, and eventually to the halls of power in Richmond. Along the way, he’s faced hardship, beat the odds, and never stopped fighting—for justice, for opportunity, and for people who’ve been counted out.
Elected to the House of Delegates in 2019, Don quickly emerged as a bold voice for change. In 2022, he became House Democratic Leader, and in 2024, made history as the first Black Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates 405 year history.
As Speaker, Don is a fighter for all Virginians—delivering record investments in public schools, expanding access to health care, and creating real economic opportunity for working families.
Learn more about Speaker Scott here and here.
Transcript - Simon Rosenberg and Speaker Don Scott
Simon Rosenberg:
[Welcome everyone. Joining us today is…] our good friend Speaker Don Scott. Welcome, Speaker.
Speaker Don Scott:
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Simon Rosenberg:
I know we’re in the final days of this incredibly important vote.
Speaker Don Scott: Yes.
Simon Rosenberg:
So I know you’re limited on time. I’m so grateful you took the time to be with us. Tell us how it’s going. I mean, we’re trying to help you close strong. We’re pushing people to canvass and to do phone banks. Give us your sense eight days out on this thing.
Speaker Don Scott:
I feel extremely good. This feels like November 2025 when we just won. We expanded our majority in the House of Delegates here in Virginia from 51 seats out of 100 to 64 seats out of 100, something we hadn’t done since the 80s. I believe Trump’s policies are so bad that Virginia is going to come out… I hear people saying that this is really close… and I don’t want to give anybody a false sense of confidence, but I think we are going to win this thing a lot bigger than the pundits believe.
The energy is there. The voters are angry. Every time Trump opens his mouth with some of the ridiculous things that he’s saying, Virginians are paying attention. They know he is not focused on them. He’s at MMA events. He’s posting pictures of him as, you know… in the iconic visions of Jesus, he’s healing folks and turning water into wine, allegedly, while he’s also making war and leading the war against Iran. So I think people have had enough of his show. And I know he thinks that. And I think his policies are so bad… he doesn’t want anybody to talk about his policies. He wants to try to continue to cause distractions. And I think Virginians are going to come out with a resounding yes on the constitutional amendment for temporary redistricting because of Donald Trump’s request to Texas, Missouri and North Carolina.
Simon Rosenberg:
So we’re pushing our community into a phone bank that we’re hosting Thursday night. But if people want to help you canvass or make calls, how do they find out where they can go?
Speaker Don Scott:
I mean, I think they have to go to [Virginians for Fair Elections]. That is the key. Go to that site. There are folks that want to do phone banking. They want to do calls. They want to get out signs. I’ve got so many requests for signs, and to go to the early voting precincts. Every locality has early vote. You can go there to help, encourage folks to vote, bring your friends. I would tell people if you voted already, that’s what we need. The earlier you vote, the better. So then we can spend all of our energy getting our folks to the ballot. The earlier we get those votes in, the better. And if you voted, tell five friends and hopefully you’ll get those five friends to tell five friends, because that’s what this is. This is people driven. And it’s a direct response to MAGA’s power grab that we have to do this. We have to respond.
Simon Rosenberg:
Well, you know, we had hundreds of people last Thursday night making calls and people were really excited about the enthusiasm that they received on the other end. I mean, when you’re calling up voters, they’re not always, you know, happy to hear from you, as you know, right? And people, though, felt that the people they were reaching last week when they made calls were glad to hear from us and were excited about the opportunity. So it seems like there is a good vibe, you know, just from our community’s experience, just calling last week.
Speaker Don Scott:
Yeah, that’s a great vibe because people are going to their gas station and pumping gas, and people are very motivated to come out and vote against now $4, almost $5 a gallon. People are very motivated when they see prices of groceries going up higher than they would ever were when we had just regular COVID inflation. Now, after COVID, we never thought we’d see this type of level of inflation again, but Donald Trump has somehow managed to do this. And he somehow managed to do something that I didn’t think was possible. You know, Canadians are nice people… he pissed off Canadians… you know, you got to work hard to piss off Canadians. And so, you know, now, what he’s doing in the Strait of Hormuz, basically saying, hey, look, he’s going to close the streets off even to our allies. You know what I mean? We’ve never seen anything like this. So I think folks, when they hear that, they can go out and do something to stand up to this guy, they’re going out enthusiastically and doing it.
Simon Rosenberg:
So, you have a new governor, and you had a tremendous mandate from your incredibly successful election in November. Just review for people listening today who may not know, what did you get done? What are you most proud of? What are you happiest about… about what’s happened so far in the legislative session?
Speaker Don Scott:
You know, the number one thing that I think the governor ran on and that I think we focused on, not just fighting Trump, not just running against him, but running for something, running for everyday hardworking Virginians.
And that’s what we’ve been able to deliver. We’ve been able to take the grocery tax out. We cut taxes. So, you know, [Governor Spanberger] did a press release basically saying she didn’t sign the bills that the General Assembly didn’t pass raising taxes. So there were no taxes raised. She voted to lower costs for Virginians, make housing more affordable, specific bills to lower the cost of housing, specific bills to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Imagine the federal minimum wage right now is $7.35. $7.35, which Donald Trump has increased the price of a pound of beef higher than $7.35. So you can’t afford a pound of beef in Donald Trump’s America for the federal minimum wage. She has signed a bill to more than double that minimum wage to $15 to help hardworking families who are getting started.
And then she’s done everything in our power to make sure we have a budget when it’s finally agreed upon that’s going to help cover some of the costs from the cuts from the one big BS bill, to put money back into nutritional assistance, to put money back into the healthcare subsidies… Trump is spending billions of dollars a day, to be able to spend in Iran, but he wouldn’t spend that same money to continue to pay for health care here for Americans and Virginians. And so we’re going to step in here for the state government to try to fill some of those gaps.
And that’s what we’ve done. And I’m proud of that. I think that’s why people elected Abigail Spanberger by 15 points, a huge mandate so that we could get this done. That’s why the voters of Virginia awarded the General Assembly House of Delegates with 64 seats from 51 to 64, because they wanted us to get these things done and we’ve delivered.
Simon Rosenberg:
Well, and also, despite being a southern state, you took very aggressive action against ICE and DHS. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because there’s been a lot of interest in that.
Speaker Don Scott:
You know, a couple of other things, too. Before I get to that, we also passed a constitutional amendment, the only southern state to guarantee reproductive health for women, and women will have bodily autonomy, and that’ll be on the ballot this November. We passed the constitutional amendment that will go to the voters this November. A right to contraception, we passed that bill this year. The governor’s already signed it. It’s a big deal about women’s health care. Women’s health care is good for all of our health care.
And then on regarding our health, we just tried to restore the status quo in law enforcement. Let law enforcement use their resources to go after violent crime and not chase little kids down at school and separate them from their parents. So what we did was just put us back in the norm where we were previously. Contrary to popular belief, state officials and local officials can still cooperate with ICE. They just have to do what they’ve always done, which is get a warrant. No warrantless searches. No violations of Fourth Amendment rights here in the Commonwealth of Virginia and hopefully not in the United States.
So we’ve done things to make people feel safe when they go to the courtroom, make kids feel safe when they go to school or daycare. This is not rocket science. This is common sense. And this is how it was before Donald Trump came in office with his Gestapo-like ICE agents.
Simon Rosenberg:
Yeah, I mean, the overreach here is so… illegal, I mean, just the scale of the overreach. And you notice, by the way, nationally, it’s like they’re trying to put all this ICE stuff behind them. They don’t talk about it anymore. The DHS secretary’s disappeared, right? They know that they really screwed up here, and they created significant overreach on an issue that was at one point real, something that was strong and, you know, a core part of their agenda. Which they now seem to be running away from. And to your point, this is just common sense stuff you guys did. There was nothing radical or crazy.
Speaker Don Scott:
Nothing radical or crazy. I mean, what was radical and crazy is that MAGA was accepting that American citizens were being murdered in their streets for nothing. We lost lives in Minneapolis because of ICE’s irresponsible behavior, and two American citizens, Ms. Renée Good and Alex Pretti, were gunned down in cold blood. And so that is what is abnormal. What is normal is that people would go to school or go to the court to testify, and because they’re an immigrant, they wouldn’t be harassed simply because of their immigration status. They’ve deported legally legal immigrants here in America. That’s who they deported. They’ve separated families. And so we just wanted to restore law and order here in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Good old fashioned safety for our community and law enforcement doing the right thing, which is deporting violent criminals after they’ve gone through the system and cooperating with them to do things right. And that’s what we’ve done here in Virginia. I’m proud of that, part of the work that we’ve been able to do here.
Simon Rosenberg:
Well, you guys are setting the tone for the nation. I mean, an incredibly productive legislative session while also working on this ballot initiative that is going to push back against Trump. We’re really grateful for your leadership and, you know, one of the things I’ve always been so impressed by was just your passion, your intensity, your energy level. You work so hard, Mr. Speaker. It’s great to be on your extended team out here in Hopium land. Any last pitch for people to get involved? Because we got eight days to go. We’ve got to bring this thing home.
Speaker Don Scott:
Hey, Simon and Hopium world, we need you to stand up right now. If you hadn’t done anything, this is the time to do it. If you’re worried about our country being at war, in a war where we’re sending our men and women into a war zone in the Middle East that we don’t know when it’s going to end, with no exit strategy, if you’re worried about the oil and gas prices going up, if you’re worrying about grocery prices going up, if you’re worrying about just the dysfunction of our government right now…
Here’s the time that you get to stand up and stop and say no to what Donald Trump is doing. The Republicans in Congress, they won’t do it. Here’s our chance to do it. We know they won’t do it. They’re too afraid of it.
Simon Rosenberg:
Okay, my friend. Good luck next week. And we’re going to be right by your side in these final eight days.
Speaker Don Scott:
Thank you, Simon. I’ll see you soon. Take care my friend.
