Sen. Kamala Harris (D.-Calif.) is holding up Virginia’s Gov. Ralph Northam as a role model for all other governors around the nation, following Northam’s signing of legislation that will allow people to vote without showing a photo ID and makes election day a state holiday.
Only a year ago, Harris called for Northam to resign, saying “the stain of racism should have no place in the halls of government.”
Now she has taken a different position.
“Every single governor should follow his lead,” Harris said in a tweet the sent out this Monday that included a link to a story in The Hill.
The Hill story carried the tweet headline: “Virginia governor signs legislation making Election Day a state holiday, and dropping voter ID requirement."
The first paragraph of the story in The Hill said: “Virginia will no longer require voters to show a photo ID prior to casting a ballot and the state will join a handful of states across the nation in making Election Day a state holiday, Gov. Ralp Northam announced Sunday.”
In early 2019, Northam became the focus of national attention when it was reported that his page in the 1984 yearbook of the Eastern Virginia Medical School showed a picture of two men—one in blackface and the other in a Ku Klux Klan robe. Northam admitted to being one of the men in the photograph but did not specify which one.
“Virginia’s governor acknowledged on Friday that he was photographed more than 30 years ago in a costume that was “clearly racist and offensive” — admitting that he had dressed either as a member of the Ku Klux Klan or in blackface — but resisted a flood of calls for his resignation from national and state Democrats,” the New York Times reported on Feb. 1, 2019.
“I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now,” Northam said in a statement at the time.
“Mr. Northam,” the Times reported, “issued his statement hours after the photograph — which was included on his 1984 yearbook page from Eastern Virginia Medical School and appeared alongside other pictures of himself — became public. Neither person in the black-and-white photograph was identified, and Mr. Northam, a pediatric neurologist, did not confirm which costume he had worn.”
That same day, Sen. Kamala Harris called on Northam to resign.
“Leaders are called to a higher standard, and the stain of racism should have no place in the halls of government,” Harris said in a tweet sent out on Feb. 1, 2019.
“The Governor of Virginia should step aside so the public can heal and move forward together,” Harris said.