Robert C Scott

Updated 10:43 p.m. | The House Education and Labor Committee was forced to change a longtime voting practice after the House parliamentarian said what the panel was doing violated House rules.

Since roughly 2007 — extending to when both Republicans and Democrats controlled the committee — it had allowed members who missed votes to add their names to markup tallies after the votes had concluded, as long as the added votes did not change the outcome.

The majority of Virginia’s Democratic delegation on Friday night called for the resignation of Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who’s facing allegations of sexual assault from two women. 

Only Robert C. Scott, the dean of the House delegation, and Sen. Mark Warner did not call for Fairfax's resignation immediately.

Virginia Democratic Rep. Robert C. Scott became aware roughly a year ago, during the height of the #MeToo movement, of the sexual assault allegation that has surfaced against commonwealth Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, according to a news account.

Fairfax’s accuser, Vanessa Tyson, told Scott, whom she has known for about a decade, directly, according to an ABC News report and a statement from the congressman.

Former Virginia Rep. Jim Moran is sticking by commonwealth Gov. Ralph Northam after a photo in Northam’s medical school yearbook surfaced showing a man wearing blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan outfit.

Northam has cast doubt that he appears in the photo, even though it’s on his individual page in the yearbook.

After a Saturday press conference at which Virginia Gov. Ralph S. Northam refused to step down, Democratic members of Virginia’s congressional delegation intensified their calls for the governor to resign.

Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and the dean of the House delegation, Rep. Robert C. Scott, issued a joint statement Saturday night explicitly calling for the governor to step aside after being more subtle in their initial statements Friday night. 

Democratic House members marched from their chamber to the Senate Thursday afternoon, walking onto the floor just as the upper chamber took votes on two competing proposals that would have reopened government.

Their message is to urge senators to vote “to end the Trump-McConnell shutdown,” Rep. Barbara Lee said.

The midterm elections all but ended the Republican push to repeal the 2010 law known as Obamacare, but as a defining issue for Democrats in their takeover of the House, health care will likely remain near the top of lawmakers’ policy and political agenda.

Newly emboldened Democrats are expected to not only push legislation through the House, but use their majority control of key committees to press Trump administration officials on the implementation of the health law, Medicaid work requirements, and insurance that does not have to comply with Obamacare rules.

The Health and Human Services Department is in a dispute with a union representing 14,000 employees, which risks exacerbating staff shortages among doctors and scientists involved in prescription drug reviews, food safety and other public health responses.

The labor spat is drawing attention from lawmakers as some employees plan to picket at HHS headquarters briefly Thursday afternoon.

Almost all of the Senate Democrats are asking the Education Department to abandon any plans to provide public funding to give firearms to schoolteachers.

The letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos from 44 members of the Democratic caucus was led by Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the both the authorizing committee and the appropriations subcommittee overseeing the department.

Rep. Pat Meehan announced his resignation from Congress Friday following reports that he used taxpayer money to settle a sexual harassment complaint with a former aide.

Meehan had previously announced he would not run for re-election. He cited sparing his staff from an Ethics investigation as the cause for the early exit.