In The News

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine continues to give his colleagues unshirted hell (to use Doug Wilder’s excellent turn of phrase). And well he should. Members of Congress are full of bright ideas about beating back the Islamic State. Some of them talk a mighty fine game. But when it comes to actually authorizing specific military action, they study the tops of their shoes. On Thursday, Kaine took the Senate floor to make some pointed remarks about the National Defense Authorization Act that has been...Continue Reading

Special to the Guide One hundred fifty years ago, Major-General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas bearing news that would fulfill the Emancipation Proclamation’s promise of freedom. As word broke that the war had finally ended, people began to celebrate the end of slavery in the South. This day has become known as Juneteenth, and a century and a half later, Juneteenth celebrations continue. I am proud to join Virginians and others across the country in recognizing such a pivotal da...Continue Reading

Virginia’s U.S. senators introduced a bill Thursday that would expand career and technical programs in middle schools across the country. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner are among the bill’s co-sponsors, along with fellow Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Sheldon Wheitehouse of Rhode Island and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. The Middle School Technical Education Program Act, or Middle STEP, would partner middle schools with post-secondary institutions and local businesses to ...Continue Reading

If you've wondered what happened to President Obama's request for congressional authorization for military action against ISIS, you are not alone. Some members of Congress have grown impatient enough that they have tried to force leadership in the House and Senate to act. The House voted down a measure Wednesday (139-288) that would direct the president to remove any U.S. military forces from Iraq or Syria that were sent there since last Aug. 7. The only exception would have been to provide secu...Continue Reading

Federal transit officials have found significant flaws in Metro’s system for ensuring that trains and buses operate safely, members of Congress said Tuesday. At a Capitol Hill news conference, four members of the Washington area’s congressional delegation said that a report by the Federal Transit Administration, set to be released Wednesday, cites major problems with safety management at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. “Metro still needs to make significant ...Continue Reading

The Democratic foreign policy establishment is suffering from a major brain drain. Forget for a moment that Republicans took control of the Senate and displaced a handful of Democrats in January. Think instead about how rapidly the Democratic strain of the "Old Bull" species is becoming extinct. Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii retired, as did Michigan’s Carl Levin and Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey is still around for a roll call vote or a floor speech, but ...Continue Reading

In a rare bipartisan move, members of Virginia's congressional delegation have joined forces to warn that legislation pending in Congress would jeopardize funding for the planned Foreign Affairs Security Training Center at Fort Pickett. The annual House State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill includes language that the members believe was designed as a  protest against the selection of Fort Pickett over other possible sites and part of a broader attempt to derail the process. The U...Continue Reading

Tim Kaine, Virginia’s junior U.S. senator, has never been known to pull punches or sugarcoat his opinions. He’ll be polite and gentlemanly, because that’s who he is as a person, but on issues big and small, you’ll know in no uncertain terms where he stands. And one of the biggest issues Congress is doing its best to ignore these days is an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Earlier this week, Kaine, a Democrat, teamed up with S...Continue Reading

Lawmakers took modest steps this week to revive a moribund congressional effort to authorize new powers for military operations against Islamic State militants. But Congress has yet to resolve partisan sticking points that have kept the effort stalled. A bipartisan pair of lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week introduced a draft of a new resolution authorizing military force against the terrorist group often known as ISIL or ISIS. The panel’s chairman, Sen. Bob Cork...Continue Reading

Sens. Tim Kaine and Jeff Flake are introducing an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that pushes for a congressional say in the U.S. fight against the Islamic State. The amendment to the NDAA – which authorizes budget authority for the Defense Department and is currently being debated on the Senate floor – does not specify policy points about an Authorization for the Use of Military Force, Kaine said, but rather indicates that it’s the “sense of the Senat...Continue Reading

First we loaded spat on shell oysters at the pier at the Norfolk Yacht and Country Club. A convenient location since we were delivering some of the 300,000 spat into the oyster sanctuary in the nearby Lafayette River. Senator Tim Kaine volunteered on this day and so I was sort of doing a Joe's and Tim's job with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF). "I really care a lot about it. The CBF does such a great job working in tandem with these other agencies, both the Elizabeth River project and NOAA a...Continue Reading

Thumbs up to Democratic U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and Republican state Sen. Tom Garrett for the participation in a friendly roast of each other to benefit an open government foundation in Virginia. The occasion Thursday night was the annual fundraiser of the Virginia Public Access Project (www.vpap.org) in Richmond. Garrett, whose Senate district includes part of Lynchburg and Amherst County, was the emcee of the evening’s festivities; Kaine, Virginia’s junior U.S. senator, was the keynote...Continue Reading

Sen. Tom Garrett, R-Buckingham, poked some fun at his colleagues Thursday during the Virginia Public Access Project's annual fundraiser: "Lighten Up, It's Just Politics." Garrett served as master of ceremonies for the roast-style event with U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine appearing as keynote speaker. The event — which raised money for the nonpartisan VPAP — included rolling out a blooper reel of the 2015 General Assembly session (listen for a mention of Sen. Steve Newman about 42 seconds in). ...Continue Reading

Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine, 57, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012. He previously served as governor of Virginia and mayor of Richmond, where he and his wife live. They have three children. You worked with Jesuit missionaries for a year in Honduras during law school. Is that a good experience for a U.S. senator? Oh, it’s fantastic. It made a public servant out of me. It made me relatively fluent in Spanish, which is more and more helpful every day. And the Jesuits themselves kind of b...Continue Reading

MARION, Va.— On a day when many Americans paused to honor fallen veterans, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine called for Congress to assume a greater role in shaping U.S. policy toward terrorists. Kaine, D-Va., spoke with the news media Monday while participating in Memorial Day activities in Marion and touring the new Wayne Henderson School of Appalachian Arts. The former Virginia governor serves on both the Senate’s Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees and discussed his vision for the ...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON, D.C. (NEWSPLEX) -- An outdoor arboretum at Richmond's McGuire VA Medical Center may get a new name, honoring a woman who spent years advocating for prisoners of war. Phyllis Galanti died in April 2014, and now U.S. Senators Mark Warner, Tim Kaine and John McCain want to honor her. Warner said, "Phyllis Galanti's story is a tremendous testament to what is possible through unselfish service to others. It is our hope that permanently honoring Phyllis Galanti in this way will allow us to...Continue Reading

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine wants to include information about relationship behavior and dating violence in sex education courses. Kaine believes the timing is right, because Congress is scheduled to re-authorize a law that deals with K-12 public schools. He says he gained new appreciation for this issue after he met with a UVA group known as One Less. ###

WASHINGTON, D.C. (NEWSPLEX) -- At the U.S. Senate, 21 senators, including Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, are urging Congress to increase funding for technology that could prevent future train derailments. The National Transportation Safety Board has advocated for Positive Train Control technology for years. However, a report from the American Public Transportation Association in 2013 stated many publicly funded commuter railroads have been forced to choose between installing the technology or making...Continue Reading

The Revolutionary War and the Civil War ended in Virginia, which was involved, by the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, in the beginning of today’s war with radical Islam. Now a senator from Virginia is determined that today’s war shall not continue indefinitely without the legitimacy conferred by congressional involvement congruent with the Constitution’s text and history. Tim Kaine, former Richmond mayor, former Virginia governor and former national chairman of the Democratic Part...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Thursday that members of Congress haven't "earned the right to be critics" of President Barack Obama's strategy for defeating the Islamic State because they haven't taken the time to debate or vote on authorizing the war. "Congress has been a spectator,” Kaine said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. "There’s not been a declaration of war. There’s not been an Authorization for Use of Military Force. There's been no House c...Continue Reading