Virginia House Democrats vote to remove their leader
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia House Democrats voted Wednesday to remove their caucus leader, months after an unsuccessful election cycle that saw the party lose full control of the state government.
The 48-member caucus voted by secret ballot to remove Minority Leader Eileen Filler-Corn, who previously served as Virginia's first female House speaker, according to lawmakers and staffers who spoke with reporters shortly after the vote.
The membership voted against removing caucus chair Charniele Herring, lawmakers said. No immediate vote was held on who would fill Filler-Corn's role.
The vote on whether to remove the two women came after a campaign led in part by Del. Don Scott, an attorney and two-term House member from Portsmouth. Scott resigned a caucus leadership post, vice-chair for outreach, on Sunday and called for the election to remove Herring and Filler-Corn. He nominated himself to take over Filler-Corn's role and nominated two young, progressive members to serve along with him.
Scott and delegates Sally Hudson and Dan Helmer, whom he had nominated, all refused to comment Wednesday.
Filler-Corn, who served as the first female and first Jewish speaker of the House of Delegates for two years after Democrats flipped the chamber in 2019, conceded her role immediately. She called leading the caucus “the honor of my life.”
“Our caucus is made up of 48 talented and diverse individuals and I look forward to working with them to retake the majority,” she said in a statement.
Filler-Corn, who represents part of Fairfax County, was first elected in 2010. A strong fundraiser, she led the Democratic caucus during the national scandal and party strife that exploded after the 2019 discovery of a racist photo on former Gov. Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook. She...