Q&A: VanValkenburg discusses housing, education and life in the Virginia Senate
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In 2017, Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg (D-Henrico), embarked upon a political journey when he sought, and won, the 72nd District seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. The Glen Allen teacher split his time in the classroom and the House during his three terms. After winning his election this past November to represent Virginia's 16th Senate District, VanValkenburg recently reflected on his new journey as a state senator and shared some of the legislation he hopes to see passed during the 2024 session.
Capital News Service: What are your preliminary thoughts on the 2024 General Assembly being that the session has now had a couple of weeks under its belt?
Schuyler VanValkenburg: I think we’re in the kind of big picture sense still and wait and see mode. Because there’s a lot of major things that are working their way through the system, whether that’s the budget and what the budget’s gonna look like, particularly around public education, talking about a regulated market for marijuana, the talk about the sports stadiums. So I think there’s still kind of a lot moving its way through the system, and really a lot of the bigger decisions are gonna be made in the coming weeks and the coming months. But everything has started off well, and I think from the perspective of the Democratic majority, I think we’re moving good things forward on gun violence prevention, on public education, on health care. And so hopefully at the end of the day, the governor and us are able to work together to move the ball forward a little bit on some of those items. But yeah, we will see, right? And I think kind of the biggest unknown of the whole session is ultimately where the governor is gonna land on some of these issues.
CNS: You took former delegate [Jimmie] Massie’s seat in the Virginia House of Delegates back in 2017 and won your election this past November to become a state senator. What has that transition been like from delegate to senator?
SV: It’s been pretty seamless. Ultimately, it’s the same job, but it’s a different body obviously, but you’re doing the core same things. I think the difference between the Senate and the House is kind of – so far of course – is twofold. One is, there’s less of us, so we have more work, right? The pace is faster, which I like. You’re involved in more policy areas in the Senate than you are in the House and I like that. And I think the second kind of big picture difference is we’re a lot less top-down in the Senate because we don’t have a strong speaker figure. And I think that that kind of allows for a little bit more collaboration, a little less partisanship in the day-to-day. So those have been the two differences, but it’s been a pretty seamless transition and looking forward to just kind of continuing my priorities. Priorities I had in the House are roughly the same priorities I’m gonna have in the Senate. So it’s been good.
CNS: You’re a teacher, as well as a senator, spending time at Glen Allen High School. What has your time as an educator meant to you?
SV: Oh yeah, I love being a teacher. How many people can say they like their job more in year 19 than they liked it in year one? And I think being a teacher is a great help for being a legislator because to be a teacher, you have to teach the class that you have. You have to try to reach every kid in that class – including the most skeptical member of the class. You have to adapt because every class is different. You have to always be learning because if you’re not always learning your own content, right? You’re not modeling the behavior you want from your students. And so I think all of those traits are, I think, good traits for the legislature. It’s a similar thing trying to build coalitions, trying to speak to the most skeptical person, always adapting to the new circumstances. And so, always trying to learn about policy areas that you’re interested in or that you don’t know enough about. And so, yeah, I think teaching and legislating go well together, but I certainly think teaching government and civics has helped me along the way of getting into this second career so to speak.
CNS: You mentioned public education. Have you felt that having those years in the classroom have helped you with things such as education policy in your duties now?
SV: Oh certainly, right? I mean, we are a part time legislature. Everybody has their background and everybody has their experience. And certainly I’m able to understand education policy at a concrete level that most of the legislature is not able to because I understand how it’s gonna impact students or how it’s gonna impact schools or teachers. And so, it’s been a big advantage in that space to be able to see all the policies we’re debating and discussing and moving forward from that lens. And just like trial lawyers have that if they’re in the courts of justice committee or nurses, doctors have if we’re talking about health care policy, I’m able to have for education.
CNS: You’re working on several bills which deal with education, firearms, casinos and even sports betting. Are there any Senate bills in particular that you are passionate about and hope to see make progress during this year’s session?
SV: I continue to carry legislation to try to ensure that we’re properly funding our public schools. That’s one of the big reasons I got into this line of work back in 2017. And we’ve made a lot of progress since then, but there’s still a ways to go. And so gotta continue to carry legislation to try to prioritize that. I know I’ve got a bill to ban legacy preferences in colleges that I think is gonna pass and get signed and I think is the right thing to do for students going into college. And this year, one of my new points of emphasis that I think is gonna be incredibly important moving forward, is housing. The Richmond region, but really all of Virginia, has a housing problem, and we need to be proactive and really solve it before it becomes a crisis, because otherwise, housing’s gonna be incredibly unaffordable. We’re gonna see young people leave and move to other states. It’s gonna hurt our economy. It’s gonna hurt our communities. And so, as a legislature, we really need to be focused I think on housing in a way that we haven’t been in the past because it’s becoming unaffordable for a young person to buy and rent in the Richmond metropolitan region – Henrico, Chesterfield, Richmond City. And that is not a place that we should want to be in.
CNS: Finally, sort of looking ahead in the coming years, you mentioned housing and education, but what do you hope to accomplish in your term as senator?
SV: One of the things I think is the most important thing we could be doing is change the funding formula for public education. It’s a really wonky topic and nerdy topic, but basically the way we fund public education at the state level right now is ineffective and we desperately need to change it, and we have some momentum to do so. And so I’m hoping by the time we get to the end of a four year senate term, we will have been able to, if not fully complete the job, be really close and be near. Getting that funding formula change, it would do a lot of good for kids across the Commonwealth. I think that’s one. I think two is getting in front of this housing crisis and really ensuring that we are working to make housing affordable. I think that that is something that if we don’t do it in the next decade, we’re gonna spend 20 years digging ourselves out of a hole, and I don’t think we should want to be in that place. And third is, I hope we are able to pass more gun violence prevention legislation. We got a start on that in 2020, but we know there’s more work to do. We’re gonna see a bunch of laws come through the legislature this year that will pass. I hope the governor will sign ‘em. We might have to wait ‘till the next governor, but I’m hopeful we can do that too because once again, we know that that’s something that’s unfortunately, it’s a problem that’s getting worse, and we can choose to make it better. We can choose to pass legislation that will lessen gun violence and I hope ultimately we end up doing so.
