Herring released a statement saying he dressed like rapper Kurtis Blow, an acknowledgment that instantly deepened a crisis in the state’s Democratic Party. The governor, Ralph Northam, under siege over a racist photo in his medical school yearbook, admitted last week he once blackened his face as part of a Michael Jackson costume. Just two days later, Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, the other one of Virginia’s three statewide officials, faced an allegation of sexual assault, which he denied.
“Because of our ignorance and glib attitudes — and because we did not have an appreciation for the experiences and perspectives of others — we dressed up and put on wigs and brown makeup,” Herring said in a statement Wednesday.
Herring said he was “deeply, deeply sorry” but did not indicate if he would remain in office. He resigned Wednesday as the co-chairman of the Democratic Attorneys General Association.
Just hours after Herring’s statement, Fairfax’s accuser, Vanessa Tyson, went public with her claims that Fairfax had assaulted her at the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston.
“What began as consensual kissing quickly turned into a sexual assault,” Tyson said in a statement released by a law firm, adding: “Mr. Fairfax forced me to perform oral sex on him. I cannot believe, given my obvious distress, that Mr. Fairfax thought this forced sexual act was consensual. To be very clear, I did not want to engage in oral sex with Mr. Fairfax, and I never gave any form of consent.”
Northam has not been seen in public since Sunday, a day after he revealed he had once worn shoe polish to dress as Michael Jackson at a dance party. At the same time, he retracted his earlier admission that he had participated in the yearbook photograph, which showed one person in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe.
Nearly every major state and national Democrat has called on Northam to resign. Herring is second in line to become governor after Fairfax. If all three men were to resign without immediate replacements, Kirk Cox, the Republican House speaker, would become governor.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.