Virginia GOP leaders accuse Northam of being ‘paralyzed’ by protest violence because of ‘confusing past on racial issues’

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As hundreds of protesters in Richmond, Virginia, assemble for a fifth straight night of demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s death, top lawmakers in the state’s Republican Party decried the response of Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam.

In a statement released Tuesday only moments after Northam addressed the protests that have veered into rioting, Virginia House Republican Minority Leader Todd Gilbert and Senate Republican Minority Leader Thomas Norment said inaction from the governor could be linked to “racial issues” in his past.

“This Governor is so paralyzed by his own confusing past on racial issues that he is incapable of effective leadership at this critical moment,” Gilbert and Norment wrote.

Northam, who was at the center of a scandal in 2019, when an unearthed college yearbook photo showed him either in blackface or a Ku Klux Klan hood, said he was on the side of the protesters who defaced several Confederate statues along Monument Avenue and sparred with police along the city’s main corridor of Broad Street.

“Today, Governor Northam faced the people of Virginia for the first time since four days of protests, looting, and vandalism struck our cities,” read the statement. “Hundreds of people were arrested after rioters did untold amounts of damage to homes, businesses, and public property. At the same time, otherwise peaceful protesters were tear-gassed for no reason. And the best our Governor could come up with was a half-hearted hope that people would stop being violent.”

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“Virginians need leadership,” continued the statement. “They need someone who will hear their voices and take action, someone who will simultaneously step up to ensure their homes and businesses are protected. Today, Governor Northam has shown himself unprepared and ill-equipped to do any of those things.”

On Monday, Virginia Republican Party spokesman John March said Northam and Democratic Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney had “allowed the capital to burn” and that the inaction of both lawmakers to quell the violent protests “underscored the incompetence” of Democratic leadership in the state.

Northam announced on Tuesday that Virginia will proceed to phase two of reopening the state as the influx of infected patients from the coronavirus has failed to materialize.

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