by Brandon Jarvis and Molly Manning
For Virginia’s freshman lawmakers, the first General Assembly session was a crash course on the inner workings of state government.
The first time Del. Justin Pence rose to speak on the House floor, he was nervous.
“I did a lot of listening, not a whole lot of talking,” the freshman Republican from Page County recalled after his first General Assembly session. “When I talk, I want it to be worthwhile.”
Across Capitol Square, several first-year lawmakers were navigating their own introductions to life in Richmond — learning parliamentary rules, juggling family responsibilities and
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