Ralph Northam

Ralph Northam (2018)

Ralph Shearer Northam (born September 13, 1959 in Nassawadox , Northampton County , Virginia ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party . He has been governor of Virginia since January 13, 2018 , after serving as lieutenant governor from 2014 .

Career

Ralph Northam graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington . He then studied medicine at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk until 1984 . Between 1984 and 1992 he was a major in the United States Army . During this time he took advanced training courses specializing in paediatrics (child and adolescent medicine). During the Second Gulf War , he treated wounded soldiers in the American military hospital in Landstuhl . In 1992, Northam opened a pediatric practice in Norfolk.

Politically, Northam joined the Democratic Party . He served in the Virginia Senate from 2006 to 2014 . 2013 he was on the side of Terry McAuliffe for lieutenant governor elected by Virginia. He has held this office since January 11, 2014. He was Deputy Governor and Chairman of the State Senate. For 2017, Northam announced its own candidacy for the post of governor. At the Democratic Primary in June 2017, he was able to prevail with almost 56 percent of the vote against former Congressman Tom Perriello . In the main election on November 6th of that year, he won over the Republican Ed Gillespie with 54 to 45 percent surprisingly clear. Northam succeeded McAuliffe as head of state government on January 13, 2018. Justin Fairfax , who also belongs to the Democratic Party, was elected as his deputy . In his cabinet , the governor appointed after taking office for the first time in the history of Virginia's more women than men.

Controversy

Northam caused a stir in November 2018 when he met two members of the Air Pollution Control Board of Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality shortly before the vote on a controversial natural gas compressor station for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline ”was suspended.

In early February 2019, he came under fire after a page from a student yearbook from 1984 appeared that portrayed him, the then 25-year-old medical student. On this page there was also a photo of a person with a blackened face next to a person in Ku Klux Clan air. After the picture was published, there was a lot of media coverage, and Northam was called on many times - including by prominent Democrats - to resign. Northam admitted that he was one of the two people in the photo at the time and publicly apologized for the "clearly racist and offensive" presentation, but declined to resign despite demands from other politicians, including his predecessor and party colleague Terry McAuliffe from.

Web links

Commons : Ralph Northam  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ralph Northam at the Senate of Virginia (English)
• Project Vote Smart (English)
• Virginia Public Access Project (English)

Footnotes

1. ↑ Jonathan Martin, Alexander Burns: With Virginia, Voters Give Democrats First Big Wins of the Trump Era. In: The New York Times , November 6, 2017.
2. ^ Ralph Northam assembles a majority-female cabinet, a first for Virginia. In: The Washington Post , January 11, 2018.
3. ↑ With compressor station decision pending, Northam replaces two members of state air board in: www.virginiamercury.com, November 15, 2018
4. ↑ Alan Blinder, Jonathan Martin: Virginia Governor Admits He Was in Racist Yearbook Photo. The New York Times, February 1, 2019, accessed February 2, 2019 . 
5. ^ FOX: Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe calls on Northam to step down. Retrieved February 3, 2019 .