RICHMOND — Virginia's General Assembly met inside the State Capitol Monday for the first time in about 500 days, and in some ways it was like lawmakers had never left.

       Even with coronavirus infections climbing to more than 1,000 new cases a day around the state, senators and delegates crowded into the marble hallways, shook hands, high-fived and sat eating at their desks as a special session to spend federal coronavirus relief money and appoint judges got underway.

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       There were, however, some noticeable changes.

       The most obvious was in the Senate, where 39 members (one was absent) sat at desks surrounded on three sides by large panels of plexiglass. Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant (R-Henrico) strolled around the chamber decorating the panels with decals of birds and butterflies.

       Va. General Assembly convening at Capitol for first time since pandemic started

       In the House, the entrances to staff offices were shielded by plexiglass panels, but otherwise the 99 delegates in attendance, with one absent, sat elbow-to-elbow. New plexiglass dividers arrived by the end of the day for the lawmakers’ desks.

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       House staffers and Democratic members were almost uniformly masked; the Republican side of the chamber exhibited virtually no masking at all. In the confines of their boxed-in desks, the senators were mostly unmasked, but on the dais, Senate staff and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D) covered up.

       The House had been convening online-only since last spring in an effort to avoid infection, while the Senate had been meeting in a socially distanced setting at the Science Museum of Virginia.

       House Democratic leaders said there was no discussion of returning to the virtual session even though coronavirus numbers are rising, fueled by the highly contagious delta variant; state law allows the online meetings only during a time of emergency, and Gov. Ralph Northam’s (D) declared state of emergency expired at the end of June.

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       House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax) kicked off the session with a simple message.

       “Two words,” she said. “Welcome back.”

       The members erupted with cheers and applause. When they settled down, Filler-Corn cautioned that “our work is not yet done .？.？. The recent rise in new cases and the spread of the delta variant remind us of the need to stay vigilant.”

       Spending $4.3 billion in federal relief money is “an incredible opportunity to keep Virginia on the road to recovery and emerge even stronger than ever,” she said.

       But as the House lurched forward through a series of recesses, members quickly lapsed into arguments over process. Republicans objected to an edict from Democratic leadership that no members would be allowed to propose committee amendments to the spending plan already put forward by Northam.

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       “It is very ironic,” said Del. Robert Orrock (R-Caroline), “that in Virginia, the cradle of democracy, on the anniversary of the actual signing in 1776 of the Declaration of Independence [that] I don’t see us operating as a democracy, but rather as an autocracy.”

       Being unable to amend the budget bills means “we are being shut out, on our side, of the process,” Orrock said.

       Del. Luke Torian (D-Prince William), who chairs the Appropriations Committee, responded heatedly to Orrock’s remarks, pointing out that nine GOP members serve on the budget panel. For 10 years of Republican control of the House, Torian said, Democrats “had limited input” on the budget but still supported it with their votes.

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       “My door has always been open,” Torian said, chastising Republicans for not making themselves more involved. “The letdown is not from the majority party, the letdown is from their own leadership,” he said.

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       Partisan tensions appeared to be lower in the Senate, where its newest member sat for the first time in the ornate chamber: Sen. Travis Hackworth (R-Tazewell), who won a special session in March to fill a seat left vacant after Sen. A. Benton Chafin Jr. (R-Russell) died of covid-19 in January. Hackworth took part in a one-day “veto session” in April, but that was at the science museum.

       By the end of the day, the spending bills were voted out of House and Senate budget committees and sent to the floor in each chamber, where they will get their first debates and be open to floor amendments on Tuesday.

       A few dozen protesters gathered in front of the Capitol ahead of the day’s session to demand that Virginia conduct a “forensic audit” of the state’s 2020 election. President Biden won the state by 10 points.

       The protest was organized by a group called Audit Virginia, whose website advertised the event with ominous rhetoric.

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       “The time is now for freedom loving American Patriots to coalesce and push back as hard as necessary to remove the Marxist, Communist, Satanist, Atheist, Luciferian oppressors from our daily lives,” it says.

       Mary Lindgren of Midlothian, 65, joined the group, sporting a cowgirl hat bedazzled with shiny red beads arranged to spell “Audit.”

       “It’s a passionate group. It’s not a violent group,” she said. “Good grief, a lot of us have gray hair.”