Scandals fraught with questions of race, sex and power driving calls in Virginia for the departure of the state’s three top elected leaders.
Virginia’s state government seemed to come unglued Friday as an embattled Gov. Ralph Northam made it clear he won’t resign and the man in line to succeed him was hit with another sexual assault accusation and barraged with demands that he step down, too.
Top Democrats, including a number of presidential hopefuls and most of Virginia’s congressional delegation, swiftly and decisively turned against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who stands to become the state’s second black governor if Northam quits.
“Fairfax can no longer fulfill his duties,” the Democratic caucuses of both the state House and Senate said in a joint statement.
The developments came near the end of an astonishing week that saw all three of Virginia’s top elected officials — all Democrats — embroiled in potentially career-ending scandals fraught with questions of race, sex and power.
Northam, now a year into his four-year term, announced his intention to stay at an afternoon Cabinet meeting, according to a senior official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
In so doing, Northam defied practically the entire Democratic Party, which rose up against him after a racist photo on his 1984 medical school yearbook surfaced and he acknowledged wearing blackface in the 1980s.
Later Friday, the governor issued a statement to government employees saying, “You have placed your trust in me to lead Virginia forward — and I plan to do that.” Signaling plans to resume business as usual, he also announced more than a dozen state board appointments.
Meanwhile, a second woman accused Fairfax of sexual assault Friday, saying the Democrat raped her 19 years ago while they were students at Duke University. A lawyer for Meredith Watson, 39, said in a statement that Fairfax attacked Watson in 2000.
The statement said it was a “premeditated and aggressive” assault and that while Watson and Fairfax had been social friends, they were never involved romantically.
