In The News

With Republican leaders pressing to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, possibly within weeks, moderate Senate Democrats reached out on Thursday to Republicans, appealing for them to slow down the repeal efforts and let lawmakers try to find acceptable, bipartisan changes to make the existing law work better. Democrats also had new reason to hope for possible Republican defections after Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin said that the repeal measure would cut off federal funds for Planned Parentho...Continue Reading

Midway through a Senate committee hearing on foreign cyberthreats Thursday, Sen. Tim Kaine took a moment to settle a score against an old nemesis — retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn. Kaine (D-Va.), the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in the presidential election in November, lit into President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be national security adviser for promoting “fake” news stories on social media during the 2016 campaign that “most fourth-gr...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine is taking a lead role in a Democratic effort to block the quick repeal of the Affordable Care Act and instead advocate reforms to the law that he says would protect access to health care, affordability and quality of care. In a 23-minute speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, Kaine, D-Va., introduced an amendment to the fast-track budget process pushed by Republicans to repeal the health care law President Barack Obama signed in 2010. The amendment, co-sponsored by Sen. Chr...Continue Reading

It is quiet now and a time of reflection for Sen. Tim Kaine. Less than two months after a bruising presidential campaign in which Kaine visited more than 40 states as Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential running mate, he is at peace and looking forward. The disappointment of the loss of the presidency to Republican Donald Trump is behind Kaine. He is looking ahead to a January return to the 115th Congress. “Things happen for a reason,’’ Kaine said during a recent interv...Continue Reading

When Sen. Tim Kaine heads back to Washington next month, he's bringing some messages from a unique Peninsula program for moms and moms-to-be struggling to recover from addiction. One is from Jamie Watford and her tiny 6-week-old, Evan. She was lucky enough to find a place in the Hampton-Newport News Community Services Board's South-Eastern Family Project. But when she moved there from jail, a pregnant cellmate stayed behind, she told Kaine during the senator's visit to the family proje...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine came to Petersburg National Battlefield yesterday to see firsthand some of the land that will soon be incorporated into the battlefield. It was a symbolic victory lap for Kaine, who with other Virginia lawmakers has spent years on legislation that wold expand the battlefield to more than 7,000 acres, tripling its size and making it the largest military park in the nation. Though the effort took more than a decade, Kaine expressed happiness that the government was able to get it d...Continue Reading

The Metro Silver Line had at least one new passenger Tuesday morning: Former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator Tim Kaine. Fresh off his unsuccessful vice presidency bid, the senator boarded a train at the Tysons Corner station around 9:00 a.m. and got off at the Wiehle-Reston East station about 20 minutes later, occasionally pausing on the platform to greet, shake hands and even take a selfie with surprised constituents. Of course, Kaine wasn’t riding Metro just on a whim. He was on a sch...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine is making a push to have high-speed rail lines travel through Richmond. Sen. Kaine gave us a hard hat tour of he newly renovated Main Street Train Shed.  You can't miss the massive glass building along I-95. That renovated structure is part of a big effort to bring high speed rail service to the metro and beyond.  "This will be a transportation hub for road, for rail, and for commuters," said Sen. Kaine. "And what we are trying to do... basically is in the Northeast...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) may not have been around the region much in the past few months, but he still knows a little something about what it’s been like for his constituents suffering through SafeTrack since the summer. “Northern Virginians are the savviest commuters on the planet,” Kaine said, sitting near the back of a bus zooming west on Interstate 66. When faced with scheduled disruptions, like the seven Metro maintenance “surges” that have struck Virginia since ...Continue Reading

ONLY CONGRESS has the power to declare war. It’s explicitly written in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.” And if that’s not clear enough, a few sentences later in the enumeration of Congress’s power...Continue Reading

A landmark health care and medical research bill, the 21st Century Cures Act, is heading to President Barack Obama's desk for his signature after overwhelming approval from both chambers of Congress. The Senate passed the measure 94-5 on Wednesday, while the House approved on a 392-26 vote last week.All of Loudoun County's federal lawmakers – Sen. Mark Warner (D), Sen. Tim Kaine (D) and U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock (R) – voted in favor of the proposal, which aims to speed up the Food a...Continue Reading

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, recently renewed his call in the halls of Congress for legislative approval of the ongoing U.S. war against the Islamic State. In doing so, the onetime vice presidential candidate who is a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee mentioned the death on Thanksgiving Day in Syria of Naval Chief Petty Officer Scott Dayton, a Virginian. Dayton, 42, of Woodbridge, was a bomb specialist who died in a improvised explosive device blast, be...Continue Reading

Jonathan Ferrara is a modern art gallery owner driven by an old-fashioned idea: He wants the pieces he has gathered at his gallery in New Orleans to hold a mirror up to society and reflect an issue that has become a touchy one for Americans. He wants Americans to see our relationship with guns for what it is. His traveling art installation of modern sculptures, photographs, paintings, video and mixed media uses more than 180 decommissioned guns, mostly bought through the New Orleans ...Continue Reading

Virginia lawmakers say Congress’s plan to continue funding the government at current levels will stall the construction of aircraft carriers in Norfolk, threatening jobs and putting national security at risk. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) last week urged Republican leaders to approve $500 million in new spending to keep fabrication of parts for the USS Enterprise on track at Newport News Shipbuilding. The Norfolk-area company is the sole designer and builder of ai...Continue Reading

On Tuesday, Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine asked the chair and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense to protect funding for the Carrier Replacement Program during the Fiscal Year 2017 appropriations process. If a defense bill is not passed — which is probable — the Department of Defense will be funded temporarily via a Continuing Resolution. If that happens, the advance procurement funding for the program will continue at Fiscal Year 2016 level...Continue Reading

After cooling off in the movie theater this summer, take your kids to the park to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. For 100 years, parks have stimulated local economies and protected wild environments. In 2015, national park visitors contributed nearly $16.9 billion in spending during visits to parks throughout the U.S. Unfortunately, our parks are still underfunded and undervalued by the government each year. As well some of our national park treasures like the Grand...Continue Reading

Congressional representatives from Virginia and the District of Columbia yesterday announced that the National Park Service, jointly with the District Department of Transportation, has been awarded a $90 million FASTLANE Grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation for repairs to Arlington Memorial Bridge, which carries 68,000 vehicles daily. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Reps. Don Beyer, Gerry Connolly and Barbara Comstock jointly issued the follow...Continue Reading

The federal government awarded a $90 million grant to the National Park Service's efforts to repair the Arlington Memorial Bridge, local lawmakers announced Tuesday. The grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation is only a fraction of the $250 million needed to keep the bridge open to the 68,000 cars that drive on it every day. Lawmakers previously asked Congress to fund up to $150 million of the repairs, according to WTOP. "While additional funding resources will be needed to complete thi...Continue Reading

CHESAPEAKE, Va. - Funding is now in place to replace the Deep Creek Bridge in Chesapeake. The two-lane drawbridge over the Dismal Swamp Canal was built in 1934. It was declared functionally obsolete in 1996, meaning certain travel restrictions are in place regarding the types of vehicles that can cross over it. On average, 27,000 vehicles cross over the Deep Creek Bridge daily. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is administering the project to replace the bridge, improving it to a five-lane drawbr...Continue Reading

RICHMOND, Va. — U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced Thursday that Virginia will receive federal preparedness grants worth more than $18 million from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. About $2.4 million will go towards a Port Security Grant program. The grants will help combat terrorism and respond to other disasters and emergencies. The funding was made available through FEMA. FEMA also allocated over $53 million to the National Capital Region, which include...Continue Reading