Shortly after a second woman emerged Friday night to claim she had been raped by Fairfax, who is the highest ranking black official in the state government, Delegate Patrick Hope, a northern Virginia Democrat, said that he would file legislation to impeach the lieutenant governor if he did not resign by Monday. And on Sunday, with Fairfax refusing to quit, Hope circulated a resolution that would have directed a House committee to determine whether allegations of sexual assault against Fairfax by two women, Meredith Watson and Vanessa Tyson, were grounds for impeachment.
But on Monday, Hope backed off after black lawmakers demanded on a conference call of House Democrats that there not be a rush to oust Fairfax when the state’s white governor and attorney general are refusing to resign after they admitted wearing blackface in their youth.
“Sometimes we have disagreements in the family, but we always are close-knit and we always come together,” Hope said, acknowledging he was pressured to abort his effort to impeach Fairfax. “Everyone wants the same outcome here.”
As the scandal engulfing Virginia’s three state elected officials entered its second week, it was clear that Fairfax, who denies both allegations, is in the gravest jeopardy. Four of his employees — two in his state office and two of his political aides — have quit, and he rushed out of the Capitol with state police Monday at the end of the state Senate’s session to avoid answering questions about the resignations.
In an interview, Hope called for “a public hearing and a Virginia investigation” into Fairfax.
But his colleagues in the legislative black caucus, who have been agonizing over what to do about all three of the state’s executives since racist images from Gov. Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook surfaced, believe the claims against Fairfax should be litigated in a legal setting.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.