This story was reported and written by VPM News.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger wasted no time signing a handful of executive orders during her first week in office, many tied to her "Affordable Virginia Agenda."
The former CIA officer, postal inspector and federal lawmaker has built her political career on national security expertise, bipartisan problem-solving and a penchant for appealing to voters across party lines.
Last weekend, the Democrat from Henrico County stepped into an office long shaped by tradition — and until now, held exclusively by men — when she was sworn in as Virginia's 75th governor. She is the first woman to be elected to the role.
In December, VPM News' Keyris Manzanares interviewed the governor, where she talked about how her administration will measure success in the promises she made to voters across two years of campaigning.
This interview has been lightly edited for style and clarity.
Keyris Manzanares: As you reflect on your campaign and where you are now, what are you promising Virginians?
And how will your administration really measure that success?
Abigail Spanberger: Along the campaign, I talked about issues of affordability, the priority of strengthening our public schools, and overall just strengthening our communities.
My focus will be a relentless focus on taking every action possible through the administration, through executive action, and certainly in working directly with the Legislature to move policies and initiatives forward that will impact people's lives, bring down costs and contend with some of the root causes of cost increases:
- housing supply and constrictions within the housing market that have driven up costs;
- lack of enough energy generation;
- and certainly going straight at the challenge of health care costs continuing to go up.
And you know, there will be challenges — certainly in light of the bills and the actions taken on Capitol Hill — Virginia is going to have to be nimble and reactive. But I will be laser-focused on all that I'm doing as it relates to lowering costs and delivering on that promise of really hearing people and being responsive.
These are the challenges: Not enough housing, not enough health care providers, not enough child care slots that ultimately drive up costs.
Keyris Manzanares: When it comes to affordability, you've said that you want to take executive action. Why do you think that's the best approach, and what gaps do you think can't wait for the General Assembly to solve?
Certainly, much of what we will move forward on will be through legislation in partnership with the General Assembly. In mid-December, I rolled out the affordability agenda and actual pieces of legislation that I want to move forward during this session.
But importantly, the lens of affordability from — how is it that the secretary of commerce and trade is looking at bringing business and investment to Virginia? How can that person play a role and have a lens of, "How can I be an advocate for increasing housing supply or increasing access to child care or increasing supply of child care providers?"
How can the secretary of health and human resources work in tandem with the secretary of education to make sure that we're meeting the needs of the future as it relates to health care workforce?
Because these are the challenges: Not enough housing, not enough health care providers, not enough child care slots that ultimately drive up costs.
And so through executive action, through ensuring that every person within my administration is thinking on a daily basis, "What else could I do, or could the departments and agencies I oversee do to bring down costs, or to make life just a little bit easier for people?"
That, in addition to legislative action, I think, is how you keep a relentless focus on affordability.
Can you tell us some of that legislative priorities that you've put together? What are your top three?
They fall into the same three categories that anybody who's heard me along the campaign trail, would recognize: housing, health care, energy.
In the energy space, we need to increase generation, but we also need to leverage other tools — such as battery storage — so that we are leveling out demand on the grid, ultimately to the benefit of the rate payer. So we've got a bill, in addition to other bills focused on energy affordability, ensuring that we're expanding battery storage.
As it relates to prescription drug pricing under the larger health care umbrella, really reforming the middlemen entities and their ability to drive up costs, specifically pharmacy benefit managers.
It won't have the immediate impact of lowering costs, but as we're working to bring greater transparency and ultimately pull out some of the control that those middlemen entities have, the end result and intention is to drive down costs.
And then on housing, we have a number of bills focused on increasing housing supply and also ensuring that affordable housing remains affordable and isn't — as we have seen in many places across Virginia — bought up, sold off and ceases to be affordable. Not just impacting, you know, the former residents of that community, but also driving up costs across the larger community.
As you reflect on these priorities, where do you think you know you'll gain the most bipartisan support?
And where do you think you'll get the most tough negotiations — where you're going to have to do a little bit more legwork to really get that legislation across?
The bills that we're moving forward with on health care, I think many of them will be quite bipartisan, in part, because some of the most hardest-hit communities as it relates to potential hospital closures, lack of provider access, the real impact on small or community-based pharmacies.
Many of those impacts are felt in more rural communities that might have a Republican legislator representing them. So I think there's great area for bipartisanship there.
As it relates to housing: You know, I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all, and so I expect that some of my bills will be very bipartisan. Others might be regional in who supports them.
And a similar case on energy, I think that there's some places where there will be regional agreement, some places where there might be better party alignment.
But the overall principle is of lowering costs and addressing the real challenges: You look at where the highest rate spikes have occurred in the energy space, and it's far-Southwest Virginia.
The General Assembly will take up a lot of your time and energy. But what else are you looking forward to in those first 100 days?
I'm really looking forward to getting engaged with state agencies and with the secretariats. Within our state agencies, there's so much work that drives the day-to-day experience of Virginians.
Ensuring that every place where we can improve that user experience — whether you're an individual who is getting veterans benefits and working directly with the state through DVS; or whether you are someone who qualifies for Medicaid and are going through that process of verifying who you are and your eligibility; whether you're trying to renew your license through the DMV.
The engagement that citizens have with our state government, it happens everywhere, all around us. And so I look forward to ensuring that the Cabinet secretaries that I've appointed hit the ground running, and that we do everything that we can to really strengthen the work and the focus of our state agencies.
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