Kaine talks jobs, sentencing reform at stop in Lynchburg
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine talked job training, sentencing reform and the 2016 presidential race Thursday during a sit-down with black leaders in Lynchburg.
Education and job creation were major themes raised by the gathering of about a dozen local leaders who met with Kaine, D-Va., at the Galleria in downtown.
“We need to push more on jobs, but I think the way to push it and deal with some of these income inequality issues is to push it from the education side,” said Kaine, who co-chairs a career and technical education caucus in the Senate.
Vocational training not only prepares students for the workforce, he said, it injects a real-world experience into the classroom that has “a way of grabbing kids and making them interested.”
“Suddenly, school isn’t just 12 years to endured. It becomes something that’s orientating you toward something you might want to do,” said Kaine, recalling a conversation he had with an Arlington teen whose science grade shot up to an A after he starting training to be an EMT.
Jim Mundy, president of the nonprofit Lynchburg Community Action Group, urged Kaine to help strengthen funding for Head Start and a federal grant program that funds services for the low-income.
“For the last two years, Head Start has taken a beating,” said Mundy, referencing the temporary budget hit dealt to the preschool program by federal sequestration in 2013.
Kaine said good news likely is ahead for Head Start, and he’ll be part of a push to get more support for early education by building it into the upcoming rewrite of the No Child Left Behind Act.
“We will one day be a country with universal early childhood education,” Kaine said. “It may not be mandatory, but it will be universally available just like kindergarten is available. We’re moving in that direction in so many states, and we’re moving in that direction at the federal level, too.”
City Councilwoman Treney Tweedy, who works for a job training and assistance program, asked what Congress could to do to help people with a criminal record get a fresh start and find stable employment.
“For folks who want a second chance, what can be done to encourage employers,” she said, noting last week Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed a “ban the box” order removing questions about criminal history from state job applications.
Kaine, a former governor, said he supported McAuliffe’s move and added Congress could pitch in by doing more on sentencing reform, voter rights restoration and other issues.
“We still have an embarrassingly high number of people in prison compared to other countries,” he said. “… Especially as it goes around for nonviolent drug offenses, we’re just so harsh.”
Investing more in treatment than in incarceration would yield “more people who are healthy and not trying to fight off the stigma of being 23 and having a prison record, and now how are you going to get a job?” he said.
Gil Cobbs, a Kaine supporter, broached the question of the 2016 presidential election and specifically whether Kaine’s name will be on the ballot.
“I don’t want you to leave town until you can assure us there will be a Hillary-Kaine ticket next year,” he said.
Kaine, who came out with an early endorsement last year for Hillary Clinton, ducked the question but said Virginia will be in the thick of the race as a battleground state.
“Virginia is now — and everyone knows this — we are front and center,” he said, noting Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican and the first major party candidate to officially declare for president, launched his campaign here at Liberty University.
“I ran into him and said, now isn’t that interesting, a Texas senator starting his campaign for president, not by speaking at his neighborhood courthouse or college, but by speaking in Virginia,” Kaine said. “And he just said, Tim, Virginia is important. And it is.”
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