Mitch Smith and Sandra E. Garcia

<h1>When state legislators moved to honor Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, Fairfax left the Senate dais as a form of quiet protest. </h1>

And after a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, Fairfax offered his support for efforts to remove a statue of Lee.

Fairfax, the second African-American ever to win a statewide election in Virginia, finds himself surrounded once more by the commonwealth’s painful racial history. As calls mount from both parties for the resignation of Gov. Ralph Northam, a white Democrat whose medical school yearbook page included a photo of people in blackface and in Ku Klux Klan robes, Fairfax is next in line for the state’s highest office.

Fairfax, a 39-year-old Democrat who presides over the state Senate as lieutenant governor, a part-time post, has built a reputation as an affable and effective politician who can speak passionately about racial divisions while also appealing to a broad base of voters.

Should Northam resign soon — and for now, he seems to have no intention of doing so — Fairfax’s ascendance could help Democrats repair some of the mounting political damage, or at least change the conversation, in time for next year’s presidential election. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont were among the potential Democratic presidential candidates who posted hopefully about the possibility of a Fairfax governorship.

“Governor Northam has lost all moral authority and should resign immediately,” Biden wrote on Twitter. “Justin Fairfax is the leader Virginia needs now.”

Among Democrats in Virginia, the message about Fairfax was much the same.

“He’s got charisma; I think he’s got vision; he’s got stick-to-it-iveness,” said Rep. A. Donald McEachin, who called Fairfax’s approach to discussing racial issues “a breath of fresh air” and who urged Northam to step aside.

In the dizzying hours since the yearbook photo surfaced Friday, Fairfax — who would be the state’s second black governor — has treaded cautiously in the public eye.

Northam, who at first apologized for the yearbook photo, changed course Saturday in a strange, lengthy news conference, insisting that he was not either of the people depicted. But even as Northam resisted calls to resign, he acknowledged having once applied shoe polish to his face to imitate Michael Jackson in a dance contest.

After the governor spoke, Fairfax issued a statement saying that Northam’s actions “at the very least” indicated “a comfort with Virginia’s darker history of white supremacy, racial stereotyping and intimidation.”

“At this critical and defining moment in the history of Virginia and this nation, we need leaders with the ability to unite and help us rise to the better angels of our nature,” Fairfax said in the statement, which did not call for Northam’s resignation. A spokeswoman for the lieutenant governor did not respond to a request to interview him.

Fairfax, a married father of two, grew up in Washington, in a neighborhood that he described on his campaign website as having shifted “from a close-knit middle-class community to one ravaged by a growing drug epidemic, increasing violence, and dwindling economic opportunities.” He attended Duke University on a scholarship, graduated with a degree in public policy and got a low-level job on Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, compiling briefing books for Gore’s wife, Tipper.

“There was just sort of a dynamism and kind of an ebullience to him,” said Bruce Jentleson, a Duke professor who worked in the State Department during Bill Clinton’s presidency and who helped Fairfax get the job on the Gore campaign.

From there, Fairfax’s career moved fast. He graduated in 2005 from Columbia Law School, where he worked on the Law Review, and served as an intern and clerk for a federal judge in Virginia, Gerald Bruce Lee.

Lee, who later officiated at Fairfax’s wedding and administered his oath of office as lieutenant governor, recalled one occasion when he granted a prisoner’s handwritten habeas corpus petition because of an advanced legal analysis that Fairfax had performed as an intern.

“I knew that he wanted to be engaged in impactful work as a lawyer, and I detected early on that he was also interested in public service,” said Lee, who is now retired.

Zuberi Williams, who worked as a clerk for Lee alongside Fairfax, recalled staying up late at night with him talking through legal issues in the case against Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a U.S. citizen who was charged and ultimately convicted of training with al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush.

“When you’re thrown into the fire like that at age 24, 25,” said Williams, now a state court judge in Maryland, “it’s like baptism by fire.”

When the clerkship ended, others picked up on Fairfax’s political potential. He worked for a time for John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina and vice presidential candidate, who described his ex-aide in an email Saturday as “bright, idealistic and a natural leader.” When Fairfax returned a few years later to work as an assistant federal prosecutor in Virginia, Lee said, some in the courthouse referred to him as “Senator Fairfax.”

“If he becomes governor, he’ll combine the sunny, inclusive style of President Reagan and the hope and inspiration of President Obama,” Neil H. MacBride, the former U.S. attorney who hired Fairfax and assigned him to help lead a sex trafficking task force, said in an email Saturday.

Fairfax made his first bid for public office in 2013, running a close second in the Democratic primary for attorney general. He is in the liberal mainstream of the party on most policy issues, from gun control and abortion rights to addressing climate change and raising the minimum wage.

Republicans have been less entranced by Fairfax over the years — he has been criticized especially for supporting a “Medicare for all” health care system — but few of them seemed eager to speak ill of him Saturday.

During the 2017 race for lieutenant governor, Fairfax’s Republican opponent, Jill Holtzman Vogel, said during a debate that he was not informed enough “to talk intelligently” about campaign issues. The National Rifle Association has given him an F rating.

Several Republican state legislators replied to emailed requests for interviews about Fairfax on Saturday with statements calling on Northam to resign, or did not immediately respond at all. The Virginia Republican Party, which called for the governor’s resignation, declined to make of any of its leaders available to discuss Fairfax.

For Democrats, who by Saturday afternoon had mostly abandoned Northam, the prospect of a Fairfax governorship loomed as a tantalizing alternative to what seemed likely to be months of controversy and unflattering news coverage with Northam still in office.

Seeking to avoid that, Susan Swecker, chairwoman of the Virginia Democratic Party, called for Northam to step down and “let Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax heal Virginia’s wounds and move us forward.”

Who is Justin Fairfax, Virginia's lieutenant governor

When he was sworn in last year as Virginia’s lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax kept in his pocket the document that freed his great-great-great-grandfather from slavery.

Who is Justin Fairfax, Virginia's lieutenant governor?

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Mitch Smith and Sandra E. Garcia

Articles written by the author

Who is Justin Fairfax, Virginia's lieutenant governor?