In The News

Amongst the flurry of lobbying days and legislative sessions brought on by the turn of the calendar year, a bill intended to strengthen the already successful American Battlefield Protection Program was introduced to the Senate Jan. 10 by Tim Kaine representing Virginia and Cindy Hyde-Smith representing Mississippi. Rather than creating a new program, the American Battlefield Protection Program Enhancement Act of 2024 updates the existing program to further execute its mission of preserving Amer...Continue Reading

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine spoke on the Senate floor commemorating National Religious Freedom Day amid a sharp rise in antisemitism, Islamophobia, and threats to other faith-based communities. In October, the FBI reported that antisemitic hate crimes rose 25 percent from 2021 to 2022 and that it accounted for over half of all reported religion-based hate crimes.Kaine says part of the solution to stopping hate crimes is to go back to first principles. "We have to guard, protect and celebrate, n...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., co-sponsored the Disrupt Fentanyl Trafficking Act, a federal law passed in December requiring the Department of Defense to develop a strategy to “target, disrupt, or degrade threats to national security” caused by fentanyl trafficking in Mexico. But at a roundtable discussion at the Loudoun Government Center in Leesburg on Jan. 8, Kaine said that, while there is a need for enforcement and interdiction, there will always be supplies of fentanyl — a synthetic opioid up ...Continue Reading

Congress this week approved a measure aimed at preventing any U.S. president from unilaterally withdrawing the United States from NATO without congressional approval. Passage came amid long-standing concerns that Donald Trump may try to exit the alliance if he returns to office. The provision was included in the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual bill detailing defense policy, which was passed by the House on Thursday and is awaiting the signature of President Biden. Under the measu...Continue Reading

Seafood is not only an important part of our economy, it’s a historical part of who we are. “Virginia has been a community of watermen and waterwomen since long before there was a Virginia,” said Senator Tim Kaine on Monday. “We want to make sure we keep you around for a very long time,” he told the heads of seafood companies who joined him in Lottsburg at Cowart Seafood to celebrate the Save Our Seafood Act. The bill aims to alleviate the struggle the seafood industry has getting seasonal worke...Continue Reading

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) -- Hundreds of military promotions will finally be confirmed after Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville ended his one-man blockade. Tuberville's hold was because he was against an unrelated abortion policy. Sen. Tim Kaine pushed Tuberville for months to end his hold. Kaine said stopping promotions wouldn't just affect military readiness, but many Virginia families.A few weeks ago, Kaine debated Tuberville on the Senate floor. He made him stay late and object to each ...Continue Reading

On Wednesday, Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) introduced the Support for Universities and Colleges to Champion the Educational Success of Survivors (SUCCESS) Act, to help support student survivors of sexual assault and other violence. Specifically, the legislation would help improve academic outcomes for student survivors and help ensure universities and colleges have the resources to support them. “Colleges and universities have an obligation to do everything they can to prevent sexual assault o...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., wants to flip the calendar on government shutdowns. With a potential shutdown looming late Saturday night, Kaine introduced legislation on Wednesday that would move the start of the federal fiscal year from Oct. 1 to Jan. 1. The bill attempts to match Congress’s customary practice of adopting a budget in December and reduce the opportunity for political threats to shut down the government by prohibiting spending for non-essential federal services. His legislation seek...Continue Reading

Four years after they first linked arms — forging an unlikely alliance to claw back war powers in Iraq — Democrats’ ex-vice presidential nominee and Republicans’ former Senate campaigns chief are closing in on victory. It was hardly a given that Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) would finally notch the votes and time they needed for the Senate to formally repeal Congress’ 1991 and 2002 authorizations for military action in Iraq. After all, Washington is still adjusting to divided g...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., wants to change federal law to push employees to save for their retirement. Kaine and Rep. Kathy Manning, a North Carolina Democrat, introduced the Auto Enrollment Act in both chambers of Congress on Friday to encourage employers to automatically enroll employees in workplace retirement plans unless the workers choose to opt out. Many employers already use automatic enrollment to provide a retirement savings plan to new employees, but workers often opt out, even if th...Continue Reading

Senator Tim Kaine received a distinguished civilian service award from Army Secretary Eric Fanning Thursday. The award was given to Kaine for his work making the military more inclusive. The senator said on Twitter that he was humbled to receive the honor.

When U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., arrived at the Greater Prince William Community Health Center in Woodbridge on Jan. 5, he was looking for more than just a tour of the facility’s narrow hallways — he was looking for some political ammunition to bring back to Washington. The former vice presidential nominee is gearing up for the first major fight of the new Congress. As Republicans ready their long-promised efforts to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, he ...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va) spoke out Wednesday about Trump and the Republican party's plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Trump had said during his first press conference that the repeal and replace would happen simultaneously. Kaine said the probability of that happening would be highly unlikely. "I think it's unrealistic to think you can repeal and then pass something the same day that hasn't been vetted at all, because if you do that you have no way of knowing whether the rep...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine has been trying for more than two years to get Congress to consider a formal authorization for the use of military force in the struggle against the Islamic State -- and it looks now as if his effort is about to become a Senate Armed Services Committee priority. Yesterday, after again making his point that the Constitution requires Congress to approve the dispatch of American military men and women into harms way, Kaine sparked this response from comm...Continue Reading

The Affordable Care Act enabled me to start my own business, because it provided me individual, affordable access to health care. There have been challenges with the system -- online glitches, confusing rules, and rising prices -- but these issues could be tweaked. Congressional Republicans are threatening to repeal the law immediately, without any alternative in place. This action would leave millions of Americans without health insurance. A report released by the U.S. Department of Health and ...Continue Reading

U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine will be among those asking questions this week as Senate committees begin publicly vetting President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees. The two Virginia Democrats said Monday they won’t pass judgment until after the hearings, but they expressed deep concerns about some candidates – given their limited experience, incomplete background checks or views on how they might run their department of the government. They were supportive of other ...Continue Reading

A job fair combining the cyber world with the workforce is giving students with a thirst for technology a path forward. "When I came into Virginia Tech I knew I wanted to play with computers but I didn’t really know where I wanted to go," Virginia Tech senior Jonathan Defreeuw said. Defreeuw received a CyberCorps Scholarship for Service, a program designed to increase the number of government jobs in cyber security. Now he’s joining hundreds of other scholarship students hoping ...Continue Reading

With Donald Trump set to assume the presidency on Jan. 20, a battle is brewing in Congress over his promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act even as legislators decide on its replacement. The Virginia delegation is weighing in from both sides. On Wednesday, Rep. Dave Brat, R-Richmond, posted on Twitter that congress needed to repeal Obamacare and replace it with free market solutions to reduce costs, saying President Barack Obama’s signature legislation had resulted in skyrocketing costs...Continue Reading

Republicans are preparing to drive American healthcare off a cliff by repealing the Affordable Care Act, Sen. Tim Kaine said Thursday morning, and if they do, they should not plan on getting help from Democrats to help pick up the pieces down the road. Instead, Kaine said, the time to fix the healthcare legislation is now. “Look, can this law be improved? Can the health care system be improved? Sure it can and we ought to be working together to do that,” the former Democratic vice p...Continue Reading