Next in line for Virginia? AG Mark Herring will be governor if Northam and Fairfax go

Source: Washington Examiner | February 4, 2019 | Naomi Lim

Virginia’s attorney general could become the next governor as the state’s top two officials have become embroiled in separate controversies over a racist photo and a sexual assault allegation.

Mark Herring, 57, indicated last year he would contest Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial primary ahead of the 2021 election. But the lawyer and former state senator may not have to wait that long as Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, 59, deals with increasing pressure to resign after an image of a man in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood included on his 1984 medical school yearbook page last week went viral. Northam apologized at first for the photo but later said it wasn’t him in the picture.

Northam’s immediate successor, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, 39, was confronted with his own controversy on Sunday when a woman came out with an allegation that he sexually assaulted her at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Fairfax’s chief of staff and communications director issued a statement denying the woman’s claim in the early hours of Monday morning. Fairfax told reporters later that day their tryst was “a 100 percent consensual” sexual encounter.

Herring, now in his second term, would be next in line if Northam resigns and Fairfax steps aside.

Herring has used his time since entering office in 2014 to push for a range of progressive polices in Virginia. The University of Virginia and University of Richmond graduate advocated for marriage equality by arguing in 2014 that the commonwealth’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, refusing to defend challenges to it filed in federal court. He also unsuccessfully tried to limit the recognition of out-of-state concealed carry gun permits in his jurisdiction.

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