Dems face delicate choice in Va.
It’s a question of impeaching black leader accused of sex abuse as 2 white officials admit racist conduct
RICHMOND, Va. — Justin Fairfax’s refusal to resign as lieutenant governor of Virginia in the face of two allegations of sexual assault has presented Democrats with an excruciating choice: whether to impeach an African-American leader at a moment when the state’s other two top leaders, both white, are resisting calls to quit after admitting to racist conduct.
Less than a week after Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring said they wore blackface as young men, Fairfax on Friday faced a second assault accusation in three days. He is now under intense pressure to resign or face impeachment, transforming what had been a crisis for Virginia Democrats into a searing dilemma for the national party.
The political turmoil for Democratic leaders this weekend is unfolding at the intersection of race and gender, and risks pitting the party’s most pivotal constituencies against one another. If Democrats do not oust Fairfax, at a time when the party has taken a zero tolerance stand on sexual misconduct in the #MeToo era, they could anger female voters.
But the specter of Fairfax, 39, being pushed out while two older white men remain in office — despite blackface behavior that evoked some of the country’s most painful racist images — would deeply trouble many African-Americans.
“I think the Democratic Party would lack credibility if they followed a double standard,” said Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., who is head of the Congressional Black Caucus. Bass said that both Northam and Fairfax should step down.
On Saturday, an adviser to Fairfax said the lieutenant governor was deeply distraught over the allegations and had no intention of resigning. Fairfax, who says he is innocent, wants an independent investigation to ensure both sides are heard and their stories assessed, said the adviser, who spoke under condition of anonymity to share private conversations. But there is no apparatus for such an inquiry in Virginia.
“It’s a nightmare right now,” said Rep. A. Donald McEachin, D-Va., who can trace his history here back to Revolutionary Warera slaves.
“We’ve worked hard on the Democratic brand for so many years,” he said, “and now we have to deal with this.”
Almost all of Virginia’s Democratic leaders and lawmakers on Friday night called on Fairfax to resign, and a legislator vowed to introduce articles of impeachment if Fairfax did not quit by Monday.
The state Democratic Party, after a conference call of its steering committee Saturday morning in which there was near-unanimous support for Fairfax to resign, issued a statement saying he no longer had “their confidence or support” and should quit.
Northam also insists he will not resign. He does not face an imminent impeachment threat, and neither does Herring, the attorney general and second in line to the governor, who has been effusively apologizing for once wearing blackface. The governor, in an interview Saturday with the Washington Post, said he intends to use the remainder of his term to pursue racial reconciliation and has been reading books like The Case for Reparations by TaNehisi Coates and Alex Haley’s Roots to learn more about experiences of African-Americans.
Just how far Virginia Democrats go to confront these three statewide officials — who swept into office in 2017 on the first wave of backlash to President Donald Trump’s election — will send a signal about how committed they are to taking a hard line on racial and sexual transgressions, and will echo well beyond this state’s borders.
Women and African-Americans have never been more politically powerful: The Democrats’ 40-seat win in the House midterm elections in November, as well as their 2017 triumph in the top Virginia races, was powered in no small part by those voters. And with Republicans barely hanging on to their legislative majority in the Virginia Capitol, Democrats were counting on the same two blocs to propel them to victory in this fall’s election of all 140 delegates and state senators.
Ultimately, some Democrats here said, they must begin the process of emerging from the wreckage that is the executive branch of Virginia state government by turning to what is perhaps their most loyal constituency: black women.
And barely hours after Meredith Watson came forward Friday saying she was raped by Fairfax in 2000 when they were students at Duke University, several senior Virginia Democrats began making the case that should Northam continue his refusal to resign, he ought to appoint state Sen. Jennifer McClellan to replace Fairfax if he quits or is impeached. (It is not certain that Northam could appoint any successor to Fairfax, scholars said, because of conflicting provisions and interpretations of the Virginia Constitution and state law.)
McClellan, who is black, is a longtime Richmond legislator who was already thought to have statewide ambitions and has a close relationship with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., the 2016 vice presidential nominee.