Virginia's congressional Democratic delegation have hinted at a possible pathway for easing a week-old political crisis that has embroiled Governor Ralph Northam and two fellow Democrats at the top of the state's executive branch. A statement issued on Thursday by US Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, and signed by seven other Virginia Democrats from the House of Representatives, still called for the governor to resign over incidents in the 1980s with racist overtones. But it suggested a readiness to forgive the embattled state attorney general, Mark Herring. Northam, 59, and Herring, 57, both white, have apologized in recent days for separate incidents during the 1980s in which they darkened their faces to imitate black performers. Northam additionally was revealed to have had a racist photo printed on his medical school yearbook page. Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, an African-American, has meanwhile been accused of forcing himself sexually on a woman 14 years ago. He denies the allegation, saying the encounter was consensual. All three men have come under pressure to resign. If Northam were to step down, the Democrats would lose the governorship to the Republican speaker of the House of Delegates, who is next in the line of succession. But the group indicated they were withholding final judgment on Herring, widely seen as showing more sincere contrition, while he continued efforts to mend fences with Virginia's political establishment. While saying they were "shocked and saddened" to learn of Herring's past, the US lawmakers described him as having "earnestly reached out to each of us to apologize and express his deep remorse" and said he was holding "in-depth discussions with leaders and others in Virginia." Herring, who has expressed intentions to run for governor, is seen by some as more sympathetic in part because he went to the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus to confess his blackface experience before it became public, and because the episode occurred when he was just 19. Northam, by his own admission, was 25 when he donned blackface to masquerade as pop star Michael Jackson. His transgression was compounded by the disclosure that his yearbook page bore a photo of one person in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit. Northam initially said he was one of the two individuals in the picture, then changed his story to say neither was him. As for Fairfax, the congressional Democrats said the sexual assault allegations against the lieutenant governor "need to be taken very seriously," but stopped short of demanding a formal investigation. A firestorm of scandals embroiling Virginia's governor and two fellow Democrats at the top of the state's executive branch spread to the Republican leader of the state Senate on Thursday as US President Donald Trump weighed in to stoke the political crisis. Trump, who has weathered a wide range of scandals involving himself and members of his administration, predicted the turmoil in Virginia over racially offensive behavior and alleged sexual assault would help flip the state back into the Republican column in the 2020 presidential elections. The improbable scenario of the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general all forced by scandal to resign has raised the prospect of the Democrats losing the governorship to a Republican — Kirk Cox, who as speaker of the House of Delegates is third in the line of succession under the state's constitution. The fallout has been most intense for Northam, a former US Army doctor whose medical school yearbook page was revealed to show a photo of one person in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan costume. Trump, who previously called for Northam's resignation, commented on the widening scandal again on Twitter. "Democrats at the top are killing the Great State of Virginia," the Republican president tweeted on Thursday. "If the three failing pols were Republicans, far stronger action would be taken." Trump's tweet came hours before state Senate majority leader Tommy Norment confronted an unflattering disclosure from his own past — acknowledging a media report that he was managing editor of the 1968 Virginia Military Institute yearbook, which is awash with racist images and slurs. Legislators in Richmond, the state capital, continued to go about their business amid hushed speculation that more politically damaging personal history would be exposed. The widening upheaval has stirred an outcry across partisan lines in Virginia, which in many ways is still grappling with a history of slavery and racial segregation and its legacy as the heart of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Cox, 61, the House speaker, asked by reporters on Thursday whether anything in his past might disqualify him from the governorship, said: "I have never appeared in blackface." Norment, the Senate majority leader, in a statement issued after The Virginia-Pilot newspaper first reported on his role in the yearbook that contained racist images and slurs, condemned blackface as "abhorrent in our society," but stopped short of apologizing for the racist content published in the yearbook he helped oversee. "As one of seven working on a 359-page yearbook, I cannot endorse or associate myself with every photo, entry, or word on each page," Norment wrote, adding that he did not appear in or take any of the photos in question. Norment also said he had supported the academy's racial integration that year. — Reuters
