Two women who have accused Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of rape lost their bid Tuesday for a public hearing to tell their stories to the state legislature.
Virginia House Speaker Kirk Cox announced that Democratic lawmakers blocked proposals for a bipartisan hearing the women had demanded.
“There should be no mistake about what has happened here: the alleged victims are seeking a bipartisan hearing; Republicans are seeking a bipartisan hearing; Democrats in the House of Delegates are refusing to allow that to happen,” Mr. Cox, Colonial Heights Republican, said in a written statement.
Vanessa Tyson and Meredith Watson, who accused the Democratic lieutenant governor of raping them in separate attacks more than a decade ago, increased the pressure for a public hearing this week in interviews aired on “CBS This Morning.”
“I want some action from the Virginia legislature,” Ms. Watson, a single mother from Maryland, said in a Tuesday broadcast.
However, lawyers for Ms. Tyson and Ms. Watson told the speaker’s office that they would testify only at a bipartisan hearing.
Mr. Cox’s statement dashed their hopes for a hearing when the Virginia General Assembly briefly reconvenes Wednesday to address the governor’s vetoes and amendments to bills passed during the regular session that ended Feb. 23.
Mr. Fairfax maintains that he did nothing wrong and that the sex with both women was consensual.
Bucking resignation calls from fellow Democrats, Mr. Fairfax said he is the victim of a political hit job and a rush to judgment that he called a “political lynching.”
“If you have to hold someone down, it’s not consensual,” Ms. Watson said in the tearful interview.
She said Mr. Fairfax raped her in a premeditated attack in 2000, when they were students at Duke University.
Ms. Tyson, a political science professor at Scripps College in California, accused Mr. Fairfax of forcing her to perform oral sex on him when they met as campaign aides at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.
