Check out the video, below, which shows Virginia Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax (D) recognizing Sen. Emmett Hanger (R-Augusta County). Hanger then proceeds to pay “tribute to the memory” of Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson and moves that the Senate adjourn “in memory of” said Confederate general. Note that at the end of the video, as the camera moves back to where Justin Fairfax normally stands, he’s no longer there? The reason: as the Washington Post reports, Fairfax commented that he “just wanted to, in a very respectful but very definite way, make it clear that these were not adjournment motions that I felt comfortable presiding over, and I was not going to do it.”
Personally, I want to commend Justin Fairfax for his actions today, which were both appropriate and classy. I just wish that we didn’t have Confederate-revering dinosaurs like Hanger in the Virginia State Senate in the year 2018…