by Jonathan Mususa, politics and government reporter
As his first term comes to a close, Delegate Chris Obenshain (R–Blacksburg) is preparing to seek another two years in office.
A Montgomery County native, U.S. Army Reservist and former county prosecutor, he entered the 2023 race for the then-new 41st district, containing Blacksburg and rural parts of Montgomery and Roanoke counties. He faced Democratic nominee and Roanoke Delegate Sam Rasoul’s former chief of staff Lily Franklin and won by a margin of 183 votes.
As a freshman legislator, Obenshain joined a Republican caucus that had just narrowly lost control of the House of Delegates. The Commonwealth has since had a fairly evenly divided government, with Republicans in all three statewide positions – Governor Glenn Youngkin, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, Attorney General Jason Miyares – and Democrats narrowly controlling both houses of the General Assembly.
He and Franklin will face each other again in November.
Also, for those who are wondering, he is indeed one of those Obenshains. The late former Virginia Republican Party chairman Richard Obenshain was his uncle and State Senator Mark Obenshain (R–Harrisonburg) is his cousin.
In an interview at his office in Blacksburg, Obenshain spoke about his role as a Delegate, his experiences as a freshman legislator in Richmond, and his approach to public service.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Why would you say you ran for Delegate at the first place?
Really just wanting to be involved to try to make my community a better place. I’ve lived here in Montgomery County for a number of years, I’ve got three kids here – two in the schools here in Montgomery County – and my family’s been here for almost a hundred years. So I really love this community and saw it as an opportunity to really try to continue to make this part of Virginia a great place to live and to work and for people to come and raise their families like I have.
In the wake of your election victory, you said in the Facebook post after the result that “the closeness of this election reflects the division we see across our nation.” Do you see your role as a Delegate for this community as helping to ameliorate those divisions in some way?
Absolutely. As a delegate, I represent everyone who lives in this district. I don’t just represent one party or the other. I represent all of those 80,000 people that make up the 41st district. Some of those folks have very different views about what kind of policies they want for the state of Virginia and so, as a Delegate, it’s really my role to engage with those different groups.
I welcome all kinds of different folks with different policy viewpoints into my office during the legislative session. I meet with folks on opposite sides of a lot of different issues and I appreciate those conversations because it helps me to understand what people are thinking, what their desires and hopes are for their families and their communities.
Let’s get to talking about your tenure. How would you say that your experience as a Delegate compares to you were expecting before you took office?
I think largely it’s what I anticipated. I’ve had the opportunity to work in state government before I ran for the House of Delegates. I’ve worked in the Attorney General’s Office in Richmond for eight years so I knew a little bit about state government and kind of how it worked. So a lot of it was similar to what I expected.
The difference is really, during the legislative session, the pace. Our legislative sessions in Virginia are very short: 45 days in odd years, 60 days in even years. So it’s not a lot of time. Bills are moving very fast. For me, the biggest adjustment was adapting to the pace of things and how quickly things move and making sure that I was ready and had read up on the bills before they come to the floor.
What are the best and worst parts of your job?
The worst part of the job is definitely being away from my family during the week. Like I said, I’m a dad of three kids – two of them are in school – and, during the legislative session, I’ve got to be in Richmond during the week. I envy those legislators from the Richmond area who can go home at night and have dinner with their families because I’m three and a half hours away from home. That’s the toughest part of being a legislator: that separation from family.
But the best part is, again, really getting to represent my community and be a voice for my community. I really enjoy when I have the chance to visit with people from back home during the legislative session or after the session. I get to come back home and talk to folks about the things that we’ve done in the legislature from raising teacher and law enforcement pay to cutting taxes, passing legislation that helps people in a variety of different ways. Those are the great opportunities and the things that I really enjoy doing, being able to represent my community and make some positive change for this region.
What would you say to someone who is perhaps considering a run for public office, maybe even for Delegate?
If you’re interested in public office, the most important thing is to become a part of a community. Identify the community that you wanna be a part of and that you want to give back to. If you do that, if you get engaged in your community and you become involved in local issues, then those opportunities, they’ll come around.
I didn’t have any design on running for the House of Delegates. Again, this is home for me. It’s where my family’s been for almost 100 years. I came to work in the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office and have been in this community for a while. Then redistricting happened. A new district gets drawn and the opportunity is created to step up and do a different job.
I decided to take that step at that time, but I wouldn’t have been in that position to run for this seat in the House of Delegates if I hadn’t made this my home and been a part of this community.
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