Tag: Governor Ralph Northam

Categories
News

In brief: Gubernatorial scandal, history of blackface, Long’s good deeds and more

The 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook spread that torpedoed Governor Ralph Northam. Eastern Virginia Medical School/TNS via ZUMA Wire

Ralph Northam’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

Up until a week ago, Governor Ralph Northam had great approval ratings. Then last week hit, and with the fallout from a photo of a person in blackface beside someone in a KKK robe on his page in the Eastern Virginia Medical School 1984 yearbook, we’re not sure whether Northam will still be in office by the time this paper hits stands.

January 30: Northam, a pediatric neurologist, discusses on WTOP a bill that would have eased restrictions on late-term abortions, which he said are rare and occur when there are severe fetal abnormalities or the pregnancy is nonviable. His comments about how those cases are handled drew accusations that he was advocating “infanticide”—and may have enraged a medical school classmate, who tipped off far-right website Big League Politics, according to the Washington Post.

February 1: Big League Politics publishes a four-paragraph story about Northam’s yearbook photo. That’s followed by a report that while at VMI, Northam’s nickname in that yearbook was “Coonman.”

February 1, 6:10pm: Northam releases a statement apologizing for the photo. “I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now.”

11:15pm: Virginia House Democrats call for Northam’s resignation.

February 2, 9:58am: Delegate David Toscano, “with the heaviest of hearts,” says, “It is now clear that while the governor has done many good things in his career, and has been fighting for those most in need throughout his public life, he has lost the moral high ground at the core of his leadership.”

10:31am: The Democratic Party of Virginia says Northam should resign immediately.

12:20pm: City Councilor Wes Bellamy, who faced condemnation in 2016 for offensive tweets he’d made during his early 20s, says on Facebook he knows “firsthand what it feels like for something that you said in your younger years to come back and haunt you,” but he says Northam should resign.

2:30pm: Northam holds a press conference and says it wasn’t him in the photo—but that he did use shoe polish to appear as Michael Jackson in a dance contest in San Antonio in 1984, in which he moonwalked. He says he didn’t understand that blackface performances were offensive until a campaign staffer in 2017 told him they were, the Post reports.

3:30pm: Residents of historic African American community Union Hill denounce Northam’s commitment to racial justice, noting that he removed two members of the Air Pollution Control Board who had questioned Dominion’s plans to build a compressor station in their town. (The permit was later granted.)

6:44pm: Current U.S. senators and former Virginia governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, along with Congressman Bobby Scott, say it’s time for Northam to go.

February 3: Northam attends his Eastern Shore church, the predominantly black First Baptist Church Capeville. That evening, he meets with his cabinet.

February 3, late evening: Big League Politics turns its sights on Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, who would take over if Northam resigns, claiming he sexually assaulted a woman in 2004, an allegation Fairfax denies.

February 4: Protesters demand Northam resign.

A brief history of local blackface

UVA Glee Club photo session, 1917. Ralph Holsinger albert and shirley small special collections library

Blackface has a long history in America, and especially in Virginia, as Rhae Lynn Barnes, a Princeton University professor of American cultural history, pointed out in the Washington Post this week. A sampling of our city’s not-so-proudest moments:

1886: University Minstrel Troupe donates proceeds of a minstrel show to build the UVA Chapel.

WWI: A university-sponsored minstrel show takes place on the steps of the Rotunda.

1924: A Charlottesville Elks minstrel show runs ads ridiculing black soldiers (the same year the Lee statue is erected).

1970s: A Charlottesville Lions Club minstrel show is so popular it is recommended in city guidebooks.

2002: UVA’s Zeta Psi and Kappa Alpha Order fraternity members co-host a Halloween party where at least three students show up in blackface.

 

Quote of the week

“For all the evils in the world, I think apathy is the most dangerous.”—St. Anne’s-Belfield and UVA alum/Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Chris Long upon receiving the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award for his charity work

In brief

A12 going forward

City Council approved a resolution to commemorate the tragic events of August 11-12, 2017, on the second weekend in August with Unity Days. Events will take place on the Downtown Mall, Market Street, Court Square, and McGuffey parks, and on Fourth Street (conveniently making it impossible for any other group to try to hold a rally in those places on the anniversary).

Parole denied

For the 14th time, convicted murderer Jens Soering learned last week that he’d been denied parole. He’s been locked up for nearly 30 years for the 1985 slayings of Derek and Nancy Haysom, though his supporters say recent DNA evidence proves he isn’t responsible. In a new episode of the podcast “Wrongful Convictions,” Jason Flom interviews John Grisham and Sheriff Chip Harding, who believe Soering is innocent.

Charlottesville 12 death

Regina Dixon, one of the first 12 children to integrate Charlottesville schools following Massive Resistance in 1958, died January 27 at age 66. Dixon was 7 years old when she started school in 1959 at Venable Elementary, where a historic marker commemorates the event. She died following a five-year battle with cancer, according to her obituary.

Preston Avenue deux

In December, City Councilor Wes Bellamy called for a new moniker for Preston Avenue, which was named after Confederate soldier and slave owner Thomas Lewis Preston, UVA’s first rector, who met with Union generals and kept Charlottesville from being torched. City Council unanimously voted February 4 to rename the street—to Preston Avenue—for Asalie Minor Preston, a black educator who taught in segregated schools in the early 1900s.

Categories
News

The work goes on: What’s happening in the General Assembly

With so much going on in the executive branch, it's easy to neglect what's happening in the General Assemblyl as the session hits its . midpoint. File photo.

With Richmond in turmoil over Governor Ralph Northam’s blackface past and assault allegations against Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, it’s been hard to focus on the legislature. But the session is halfway through, and February 6 is crossover day, when each house sends the bills it’s passed to the other chamber. Here are some survivors—and some that didn’t fare so well.

Alive

New lines

After years of killing redistricting bills—and a federal court ruling that House of Delegates districts were racially gerrymandered and federal judges must draw new districts for this fall’s election—Republicans, including Speaker Kirk Cox, are suddenly on board with an independent redistricting commission. The Senate passed a constitutional amendment for a bipartisan commission, 40-0. The amendment must pass again in the next session, and will then go before voters.

Mental health in jail

The death of Jamycheal Mitchell, a mentally ill inmate who died of possible heart failure and major weight loss in the Hampton Roads Regional Jail four months after being arrested for shoplifting $5 worth of snacks, prompted Delegate Rob Bell to carry this bill, which sets standards for mental health care in jails. It made it out of one House committee January 29 and now goes to the House Appropriations Committee.

No excuses

A bill that would allow in-person absentee voting a week before an election—without an approved excuse—made it out of the House’s notorious Privileges and Elections Committee, where the Equal Rights Amendment died in subcommittee. Voters would still have to meet state-approved reasons to vote earlier. A more expansive bill, which would allow absentee voting 45 days before the election without an excuse, passed the Senate 40-0.

“Hearing-impaired” axed

After lobbying by advocates who don’t like the term “impaired,” “deaf or hard of hearing” and “hearing loss” could replace “hearing-impaired” in Virginia Code following the House’s unanimous approval of HB2131. The measure now goes to the Senate.

180 days of Airbnb rentals

A Senate bill that would allow Fairfax County homeowners to do short-term rentals for 180 days a year, up from the county’s current 60-day limit, passes the Senate February 4. Albemarle County is currently considering regulations that would limit homestay rentals to 45 days a year—and the owner must remain on the property.

Dead

Tax clarification

Virginians are poised to get hit with higher state taxes because their tax code doesn’t mesh with new federal tax law. If you take the $12,000 personal deduction on fed returns, you can’t itemize on state returns and are faced with Virginia’s much lower $3,000 standard deduction. An emergency bill failed in the House February 4, leaving the state unable to process returns.

Mandatory ultrasounds

Delegate Kathy Tran’s bill that removes some medically unnecessary procedures required for women seeking abortions, including first trimester ultrasounds, doesn’t make it out of a Courts of Justice subcommittee, with Delegate Rob Bell one of the 5-3 votes to table the bill on January 28. The bill’s hearing set off a firestorm that engulfed Tran and Governor Ralph Northam when he described what happens in rare third-trimester cases of serious fetal abnormalities or unviability on WTOP.

Blouse v. shirt

If it’s a man’s shirt, it must be cheaper.

Dry cleaners can continue to charge women more. A bill that would have established gender-parity in dry-cleaning pricing died in an all-male House Courts of Justice subcommittee 6-0, according to VCU’s Capital News Service.

Student reporters

Freedom of the press protections for student journalists didn’t make it out of a House subcommittee. The bill, carried by former WDBJ reporter Delegate Chris Hurst, would have prevented blatant censorship, which typically involves criticism of the school administrations.

Categories
News

‘Bittersweet’ bills: Governor signs legislation that could save the next girl

John and Sue Graham were in Charlottesville for Governor Ralph Northam’s signing of legislation that could have saved their daughter’s life. Eze Amos

The parents of two young women who were murdered here were among those in the dignitary-filled room June 21 at Charlottesville’s Central Library, where Governor Ralph Northam signed legislation expanding the collection of DNA for misdemeanor crimes that, had it previously been in effect, could have saved UVA student Hannah Graham and Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington.

Many there remembered the frantic search for Graham in 2014 as the school year began, and despite hundreds of searchers, it was five weeks before her body was found. Morgan Harrington disappeared in October 2009, while here for a Metallica concert. Her body was found three months later in the same part of Albemarle County as Graham’s, an area known to their killer, Jesse Matthew.

Northam’s daughter was at UVA at the same time as Graham. “These tragedies are very difficult,” he said. “We can only imagine.”

But, said the governor, “We can make changes.”

The legislation was spearheaded by Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding, who’s long been a proponent of DNA databanks, and who originally prodded the state to fund its database in the ’90s. While everyone convicted of a felony goes into the database, Harding has pushed for collection of DNA for misdemeanor convictions, and says that 70 percent of first-time violent felons had a previous misdemeanor conviction.

“Three years ago, [Morgan’s mother] Gil Harrington worked with me and we got nine misdemeanors added, including exposing yourself, which is what Jesse Matthews Sr. did,” says Harding. Familial DNA would have linked to his son, who was convicted of a brutal 2005 attack in Fairfax, “and Morgan Harrington would never have been killed.”

In 2017, the Grahams joined Harding to urge the Virginia Crime Commission to study misdemeanors linked to violent felonies, and it identified seven more. “Of those, we only got funding for two—trespassing and domestic assault,” says Harding. Jesse Matthew was convicted of trespassing in 2010, and had his DNA been collected, “it would have prevented Hannah Graham’s death,” says the sheriff.

Brian Moran, Virginia secretary of public safety, noted, “DNA can convict the guilty, and maybe even more importantly, it can exonerate the innocent.”

The governor also signed a bill that requires fingerprints for those arrested for trespassing and disorderly conduct.

Delegate David Toscano, Governor Ralph Northam, Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran and Delegate Rob Bell were here for the signing of legislation to collect DNA for trespassing and assault. Eze Amos

Northam called the bipartisan legislation an example of the Virginia way: “The Virginia way is working together.” House Democratic Leader David Toscano carried the bills, which got support from Republican Delegate Rob Bell, who was present and who chairs the Courts of Justice committee. Republican state Senator Mark Obenshain carried a similar version in the Senate.

John and Sue Graham came to Richmond “again and again,” said Toscano.

After the signing, Sue Graham said, “What happened to Hannah won’t happen to another young woman in the same way.”

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Harrington, who founded Help Save the Next Girl. “So many points along the way, this legislation would have stopped Jesse Matthew. It’s too late for Morgan.”