The Democratic leadership in Virginia is in such turmoil at the top that the commonwealth’s constitutional line of succession would put the Republican speaker of Virginia’s House of Delegates into the governor’s chair.
That speaker is Kirk Cox, a veteran politician who is pro-life and pro-gun, and was aghast at Governor Ralph Northam’s now notorious advocacy of infanticide just before photos surfaced of Northam in blackface.
The latest news that Northam (shown) appointed a small-town mayor convicted of drunk driving and domestic violence to a state board could doom the governor, which leaves two Democratic successors as grievously wounded as Northam.
Problem is, the first is Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, who is accused of sex assault. The second is Attorney General Mark Herring. Having urged the governor to resign over his blackface photos, Herring confessed to being a racial jester himself. He too dressed in blackface.
If all three go down, Cox becomes governor.
The Latest
Big League Politics, which broke the blackface and sex-assault stories, divulged another of the governor’s goofs this morning. One of his appointments to the State Emergency Medical Services Advisory Board has a criminal record.
Richard Orndorff Jr., the mayor of Strasburg in the northern Shenandoah Valley, has racked up multiple criminal convictions in Shenandoah County Circuit Court.
In April 2015, court records show, he pleaded guilty to drunk driving. A judge sentenced him to 60 days in jail, all suspended, and suspended his driver’s license for a year.
Court records also show that Orndorff twice pleaded guilty in 2004 to misdemeanor assault and battery of a family member. He received a year’s unsupervised probation for each crime.
Big League Politics reported that “FOIA records show that Northam’s office was warned about Richard Orndorff’s past.” The website did not provide details.
The news that Northam appointed a convicted criminal to a state board, knowingly or not, comes on top of the uproar about photos that show him dressed in blackface. The website uncovered that story last week.
After the Northam images surfaced, Herring said Northam had to step down, which would have put Fairfax in the governor’s seat. “It is no longer possible for Governor Northam to lead our commonwealth, and it is time for him to step down,” the attorney general huffed.
But then, on Sunday, Big League Politics scored hit No. 2: The allegation that Fairfax sexually assaulted a woman at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, the ugly details of which surfaced yesterday when the woman issued a statement through her attorneys.
That news likely puts an end to Fairfax’s ambitions, which didn’t, in the end, help Northam.
Also on Wednesday, Herring fessed up. He, too, had donned blackface in his salad days.
Cox Record
Right now, journalists are undoubtedly combing the yearbooks of every politician in Virginia for incriminating photos, Cox included. Whether they will look for black politicians in white face is unclear, but at any rate, Cox is a solid conservative.
The NRA gave him an A rating, and he earned perfect scores from the Virginia Family Foundation and the Virginia Society for Human Life. Business and conservative groups gave him top marks as well.
“I really do feel like we’re at a crossroads in Virginia,” he told a GOP meeting about Northam’s support for infanticide, the Washington Post reported. “ I think the Democrats have been very, very clear … that their goal is to flip this legislature, flip this House of Delegates and this [abortion bill] will become law.”
Cox said Northam’s remarks were “hard to believe,” the Post reported, and “asked whether he truly believed Northam was advocating infanticide, Cox said, ‘He was very clear in what he said, and I think that was very disturbing.’”
After the furor erupted last week, Cox actually left his speaker’s dais to deliver a floor speech, “something he said no other speaker has done in his 30 years in the legislature,” the Post noted:
Invoking the biblical story of David and verses in the book of Hebrews about God being the builder of all things, Cox said he was horrified last week when the New York state legislature passed a law to make late-term abortions easier to get.
“Governor Northam vowed to enact [the same law] if Democrats take over the House and Senate in 2019,” he said….
“I will never stop fighting for the promise of life, as long as I hold a gavel, as long as I can speak in this microphone.”
Photo: AP Images
