How Ralph Northam Won
The Virginia governor appeared in blackface and is going to survive the scandal.
Remember Ralph Northam? When reports first broke earlier this month that the Virginia governor's medical school yearbook page featured a picture of someone in blackface standing with someone in a Klan Kostume, and he said he was the guy in blackface, but then rescinded this admission, and then held a crazy press conference where he almost moonwalked for reporters before being saved by his wifeāwell, the political consensus was that Northamās career was dead in the water. Practically his entire stateās Democratic apparatus turned on him in a heartbeat. So pervasive were the calls for his resignation that some pundits prematurely congratulated the party for expunging him.
There was only one problem: As Jonathan Last pointed out at the time, Northam himself had no incentive to resign. Instead he's chosen to stick it out and try to make amends for his past misdeedsāwhatever they wereāfrom the comforts of the governorās mansion. Three weeks later, the governor is weakenedāhis approval rating in-state has cratered to 17 percentābut he seems to have weathered the worst, and the national media has moved on, as is their wont.
It thus now falls to state legislators to decide whether theyāll go to the trouble of turfing the guy out of office. As it turns out, thatās a vanishingly unlikely proposition.
By way of preamble, itās important to note that the Virginia Senate canāt just impeach Northam for being an embarrassment. According to the Virginia state constitution, grounds for impeachment include āmalfeasance in office, corruption, neglect of duty, or other high crime or misdemeanor.ā Northamās apparent blackface antics from decades ago may have robbed him of his moral authority as the stateās highest elected official, but it probably doesn't satisfy any of those particular standards.
Thisāand the fact that Virginia governor's are limited to one termāpartially explains why prominent lawmakers such as Republican Kirk Cox, the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, have stopped short of calling for Northamās impeachment, preferring instead to suggest he should resign: āI think thereās a rightful hesitation about removal from office, because obviously you have to consider that to some degree youāre overturning an election,ā Cox said earlier this month. āThatās why we have called for the resignation. We hope thatās what the governor does. I think that would obviously be less pain for everyone.ā
However, questions about legal standards for impeachment are secondary. You only get to them if you begin with the political will for impeachment in the first place. So far, it seems there isnāt any. And that's for two reasons: Justin Farifax and political expediency.
If Northam was impeached, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax would be his replacement. And a few days after the Northam scandal erupted, even more serious accusations came to light about Fairfax allegedly having sexually assaulted two women in the early 2000s.
More than anything else, itās the allegations against Fairfaxāwhich he deniesāthat have brought the momentum against Northam to a screeching halt. Itās not just that Northamās offense pales in comparison to the crimes Fairfax is accused ofāalthough lawmakers justifiably balk at the prospect of trading in the former for the latter. āIf Fairfax had not had a scandal, he would be governor right now,ā Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato told The Bulwark. āBecause the pressure on Northam would have grown, not diminished. It was the Democrats backing off, realizing they were about to install a governor who was essentially being accused of rape by two women. You think itās bad now? Imagine what wouldāve happened under that condition.ā
Just as important is the air of uncertainty the Fairfax scandal has sown. At least some of the facts in Northam's case are clear: He admits he wore blackface at least once during his youth. Meanwhile, the allegations against Fairfax are a nightmare of he-said, she-said uncertainty, the facts of which may never be fully established.
If it were the governor who was accused of the greater crime and his potential successor who was accused of the lesser, you could easily see how lawmakers might argue that the prudential thing to do would be to impeach the governor, out of an abundance of caution if nothing else.
As things are, however, lawmakers are frozen in a very hard spot: Unable to move against Fairfax until the accusations against him are fully evaluated, and unable to move against Northam until the Fairfax situation is fully resolved.
The other reason lawmakers are unlikely to move against Northam is that 2019 is an election year for state lawmakers in Virginia, and neither party thinks it helps their electoral case to make impeaching Northam their project this year.
āThe instant this assembly adjourns, which ought to be sometime this weekend, theyāre off campaigning,ā Sabato told The Bulwark. āThe last thing they want to do is to get involved with this if they can avoid it, or have an impeachment trial, or anything else. That will be the next decision-making point, unless itās something happening to Fairfax, in November.ā
And once the electionās over? Well, then each party will have a new reason to want to keep Northam around. If Democrats retake control of the state government, they may very well reason that Northamās threat to the party has passedāafter all, heās not likely to be a bigger drag in 2020 than he was in 2019. Meanwhile, if Republicans manage to retain control, Northamās stumbles will likely have been a significant reason whyāand theyāre unlikely to take a desperately unpopular Democrat out of the public eye any sooner than they can help it by trying to impeach him.
All of which is to say that itās a perfect storm of unaccountability in Virginia: Northam has less and less motivation to step down every day. And no one in a position to push him has the incentive to do so. Which means the likeliest scenario by far is that the governor, blackface or no blackface, will be around for the remainder.
