It’s been decades since two Hampton Roads Democratic state senators, Louise Lucas and Lionell Spruill, were out of the public eye.

Lucas launched her political career in Virginia by winning a Portsmouth City Council seat in 1984. Spruill, a Chesapeake native, first won a seat in the Virginia General Assembly in 1994.

Both legislative stalwarts rose from poor backgrounds to become ambitious, long-standing powerbrokers in southeastern Virginia. On June 20, one will be out of a job.