In The News

WASHINGTON - Senators Tim Kaine, Chris Van Hollen and Chuck Schumer are filing a resolution to require the State Department to issue a human rights report on El Salvador.  What we know: Kaine, Van Hollen and Schumer announced Thursday that they are filing a resolution under Section 502 B.C. of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.  "This is a little-used privilege motion. But it's designed, like the other privileges are designed, to enable the Article I branch to check executive overreach," said ...Continue Reading

When Sen. Tim Kaine launched a new strategy to hold President Donald Trump and Republicans accountable for this administration’s power-grabbing moves, Democratic leadership was resistant. But now they’re embracing it. In the aftermath of Trump’s win, with Republicans also controlling both the House and Senate, Kaine asked his staff to find everything in statute and Senate procedure that would allow a single senator to force a floor vote. When the new Congress began, and Kaine saw what he conside...Continue Reading

On Thursday, Senator Chris Van Hollen joined with Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) at a press conference on the Capitol grounds to discuss their legislation requiring the Trump Administration to detail their steps to comply with current court orders regarding the return of citizens wrongfully deported to El Salvador. In particular, the Senator addressed the fate of Kilmar Abrego Garcia who was abducted off the streets of Baltimore and sent to Centro Industrial prison in Santa Ana without due process. Th...Continue Reading

Tim Kaine no longer wears his Senate member lapel pin to work. Instead, the Democrat has been sporting one with Virginia’s seal, which he said serves as a daily, physical reminder to be “on guard against tyranny.” “It's a woman emphasizing virtue, standing atop a monarch who's been knocked over and his crown has fallen off. [It's] the only state that has a motto that, instead of being a positive celebration, is more of a warning or rebuke,” Kaine said. “The phrase is ‘Sic semper tyrannis’ or ‘Th...Continue Reading

Beginning in 2027, riders can travel by train from Washington D.C. to Christiansburg on the same Amtrak route that currently ends in Roanoke. State and local leaders celebrated the groundbreaking of the station Thursday. Governor Glenn Youngkin, Senator Tim Kaine and Congressman Morgan Griffith stood side by side to shovel dirt at the train station in Christiansburg. Youngkin recalled his first train trip at age 13 out of Richmond. “And my sister and I still talk about that trip,” Youngkin said....Continue Reading

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, D-Va., spent the last few days meeting with residents across Southwest Virginia. At each stop during his four-day trip, a familiar topic of concern came up. “What I’m hearing are concerns about the economy, the markets are kind of going nuts and the tariff situation is really challenging,” Kaine said. “So I would say the number one issue that I’m hearing on this trip is the combination of the tariffs and the uncertainty.” Kaine said businesses are looking for stability an...Continue Reading

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine visited and toured the Daikin Applied Facility in Verona today, April 25th. While answering questions from reporters afterwards, Senator Kaine said any company that is involved in manufacturing has an element that can come from someplace else. He noted that a lot of Virginia companies sell product. “Here we are in the Shenandoah Valley. Our farmers in Virginia export a ton, chickens, soybeans, beef,” said Senator Kaine. “So, you get into a global tariff spat, anybody i...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., traveled around Virginia during the congressional recess, including a stop in Verona at Daikin Applied. Kaine said Daikin focuses on energy efficiency. One reason for the visit was to talk about some of the incentives that are in place in the tax code to make sure they continue. “How can we heat and cool in a way where people can bring their cost down?” Kaine said. Many topics were covered during Kaine’s visits around the commonwealth, including health concerns, like possi...Continue Reading

During a recent trip to Ukraine, Poland and Germany to “highlight his support for America’s transatlantic partnerships and Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s brutal invasion,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) took time to visit Holocaust memorial sites in each country. During his trip, which fell over the Passover holiday, the senator visited Babyn Yar in Kiev, the POLIN Museum in Warsaw and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin.  “It was a very powerful experience,” a spokesperson for Kaine...Continue Reading

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, D-Va., says he is worried that President Donald Trump may try to weaken recently enacted silica standards that are designed to protect American coal miners. Kaine, who met last week with the Daily Telegraph, said he was alarmed by the recent decision by the Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration to pause enforcement of its final rule to better protect miners from health hazards associated with exposure to silica dust. Kaine said the new silica standar...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine remains firmly opposed to Pete Hegseth’s leadership and expects additional hearings on the defense secretary’s latest Signal scandal. Kaine and fellow Virginia Democrat U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, have both called for Hegseth’s resignation after the defense secretary revealed sensitive military information with unvetted civilians via private group chat not once but twice since his appointment. “I see one gaffe after the next,” Kaine told The News Virginian Friday after a tour of t...Continue Reading

Earlier this month, a bipartisan majority in the Senate passed my legislation to roll back the senseless tariffs President Donald Trump announced on Canadian imports on Feb. 20 — evidence that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are concerned by Trump’s tariffs. Americans across the country agree. They know that tariffs are akin to a national sales tax, raising prices on all kinds of everyday goods, including groceries, clothing and medicine. All told, these new taxes could cost the average U.S...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine met with Roanoke-area Ukrainians and their supporters last week to share what he’d learned on a visit to the war-torn country and other European nations last month. Kaine visited Finland in February, and Poland, Ukraine and Germany during the Senate’s Easter recess. During his mid-April visit to Ukraine, he placed flowers at the Bucha Memorial, which remembers the more than 400 civilians and prisoners of war executed in 2022 by members of the 234th Air Assault Regiment, a Rus...Continue Reading

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and other dignitaries broke ground Thursday on the long-awaited New River Valley Rail Project in Christiansburg, which will return passenger service to the New River Valley for the first time since 1979. The $264.5 million project involves railroad infrastructure upgrades that will allow the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority to extend its Amtrak Virginia service from Roanoke to Christiansburg. It includes a new station platform with canopy, a par...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine dropped by Danville on Tuesday and met with local manufacturers to talk about the economy and tariffs. Kaine’s visit at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research was part of the Democratic senator’s stops at several localities this week in Virginia, including Wytheville, Richlands, Christiansburg and Verona. The meeting in Danville was closed to the press, with Kaine taking questions from reporters in the Institute’s lobby following the event. Kaine said he was using the Se...Continue Reading

A roundtable discussion played host to personal stories being delivered, as well as remarks from Virginia Senator Tim Kaine.  An influential program, named Re-Engagement Opportunities and Pathways to Employment Success, supports those in recovery. Reintegrating those with substance abuse history into society is an important goal for Senator Kaine. “The fact that they have a criminal record can get in their way of what we do at the federal level, what can we do at the state level to enable people...Continue Reading

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) spoke with leaders at the Southwest Virginia Workforce Development Board to hear about the success of their R.O.P.E.S. program. The acronym is short for Reengagement Opportunities and Pathways to Employment Success. It helps people recovering from addiction get back on their feet. “Our R.O.P.E.S. program serves individuals that have been impacted by substance use recovery and re-entry from the justice system,” said Rachel Patton, executive director for the organizat...Continue Reading

When the news broke in March 2013 that Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio had been elected pope by the College of Cardinals in Rome, my heart soared. As a Catholic who worked with Jesuit missionaries in Honduras in 1980-81, the prospect of the first Latin American and first Jesuit assuming the papacy was like a beam of sunlight penetrating the church I love. And when he assumed the name Pope Francis, the first Pope to model after Saint Francis of Assisi, I knew his leadership would prove d...Continue Reading

The impact of President Trump's tariffs is being felt globally and locally, with Virginia businesses particularly affected. Senator Tim Kaine visited Danville to address these concerns and offer support to local businesses struggling with increased costs due to tariffs. Randy Beauchamp, site manager of Polynt Composites, said, "What we've seen generally is probably 15-20 percent more in our cost." He noted that while tariffs do not significantly affect their finished products, they create uncert...Continue Reading

For Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2017 was a deeply meaningful experience.  “It was so striking,” Kaine told 8News. “I’m emotional thinking about it.” Kaine, a devout catholic himself, met Pope Francis after he gave his typical Wednesday address to those visiting the Vatican.  “What he does is he delivers a sermon and then they have about maybe 100 people in a rope line that are chosen, and he comes down and visits them,” Kaine said.  Kaine said he and Pope F...Continue Reading