Giving Compass' Take:

• As young legislators stream into statehouses and city hall, Graham Vyse examines their political differences - from each other and older legislators. 

• What support do new legislators need to ease their transitions? What are the benefits of having young legislators? 

• Learn how younger generations can help to heal America. 

More than 800 millennials ran for state legislative seats in 2018, and roughly 275 won, according to the Millennial Action Project, a nonpartisan group that supports young people in politics.

“This will be the largest class of millennials in a new legislative session,” says the group’s president and founder, Steven Olikara.

These fresh faces in statehouses, along with other young newcomers in city halls, span the political spectrum.

Caleb Hanna is certainly one new legislator who doesn't fit neatly in any box. As a young black child growing up in West Virginia, he was inspired by former President Barack Obama. But when he successfully ran for his state's House of Representatives at the age of 19 last year, he did so as a Republican. He won despite opposition fliers from the Ku Klux Klan.

Hanna’s politics have been shaped by his father's loss of his mining job, which he came to blame on Obama’s environmental policies. Today, Hanna talks about a Christian conservatism of “God, guns and babies” and says he supports President Donald Trump “100 percent.”

Despite their ideological differences, Celock says young lawmakers tend to have some things in common.

“The one thing we definitely see from young elected officials is enthusiasm,” he says, “a willingness to get involved, try new ideas, but also to work with everybody and have a bipartisan approach.”

Read the full article about young legislators by Graham Vyse at Governing Magazine.