WASHINGTON — Following a 2019 legislative session shrouded in scandal, Virginia lawmakers return to Richmond next week for a reconvened session.
Also called a “veto session,” legislators consider some of the governor’s amendments and vetoes of bills passed by lawmakers during regular session.
In addition to legislation, some lawmakers are also preparing to pick up where the regular session ended, according to sources, and address the sexual assault cases involving the state’s embattled Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax.
Before session closed, Delegate Rob Bell (R-Albermarle) said he will schedule a committee meeting to allow Fairfax’s accusers to testify.
Dr. Vanessa Tyson, a California professor, accused Fairfax of forcing her to perform oral sex in a hotel room during the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.
Meredith Watson, through a spokesperson, said Fairfax raped her while they were students at Duke University in 2000.
Fairfax denied the claims and repeatedly said both encounters were consensual.
Dr. Tyson and Watson have demanded Fairfax resign and they requested a hearing with lawmakers.
“We are working on it and hope to have an update soon,” said Director of Communications for the Virginia Speaker of the House, Kirk Cox.
Dr. Tyson’s lawyers did not immediately respond to our request for comment about the hearing status or her talk with prosecutors in the Boston-area.
“There is a recurring theme of at least, when women come forward, of this deliberate attempt to undermine that person’s credibility,” Tyson said previously at a panel discussion at Stanford University on sexual assault. “Perhaps we have to reshape how we understand consent, and how we teach it to society as a whole.”
Watson’s spokeswoman, Karen Kessler said,” We have not heard anything about a hearing, and still believe that is the correct forum for Ms. Watson and Dr. Tyson.”
Sources said House Republicans are trying to work with Democrats to determine the appropriate response.
On Feb. 24, the last day of session, Fairfax stunned his colleagues with a fiery speech.
From his rostrum in the state Senate chamber, Fairfax strongly defended himself, comparing himself to a Jim Crow-era lynching victim.
He mentioned legislation the General Assembly passed expressing, “profound regret” for lynchings in the state between 1877 and 1950. Fairfax said his critics are behaving similarly. “Where 50 years ago, had fingers been pointed at me in the exact same way, it would be a very different outcome,” he said.
“I’ve heard much about anti-lynching on the floor of this very Senate, where people were not given any due process whatsoever, and we rue that, and we talk about hundreds, at least 100 terror lynchings that have happened in the Commonwealth of Virginia under those very same auspices. And yet we stand here in a rush to judgment with nothing but accusations and no facts and we decide that we are willing to do the same thing,” Fairfax said.
Fairfax is still on paid leave from his law firm, DC-based Morrison Foerster, which has retained outside counsel to conduct its own investigation into the claims against Fairfax. The status of their investigation is not clear.
A spokesperson for Fairfax said, “he is doing events around Virginia.”
Fairfax attended a Women’s History Month event organized by the NAACP Hampton Branch Tuesday night.
He is still asking law enforcement to get involved.