WaPo: “Don L. Scott Jr. has been in the Navy, in law school and in prison, and that unusual path has brought him to the doorstep of someplace completely new:
Scott, 58, of Portsmouth, became the first Black person chosen to become Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates since the body’s origins in 1619, the same year the first Africans arrived in chains on Virginia’s shore.
The selection of Scott as speaker-designee during a Democratic caucus meeting Saturday, widely expectedfollowing the party’s majority win in Tuesday’s legislative elections, sets up the likelihood that Black lawmakers will run both chambers of Virginia’s General Assembly, another historic first. Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R), the first Black woman elected statewide in Virginia, presides over the state Senate, where Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) is the first Black woman to serve as president pro-tempore.”