In The News

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says the reopening of embassies in Havana and Washington is another demonstration that the U.S. doesn't have to be imprisoned by the past. Obama is announcing the formal restoration of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States. He's calling it an "historic step." Obama says Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Havana over the summer to raise the American flag over the embassy. The president says the reopening of a full embassy in Hav...Continue Reading

When their travels in Virginia take Sen. Mark Warner and Sen. Tim Kaine to the working waterfront of Hampton Roads, both tend to make a pitch for a once obscure, now controversial federal agency called the Export-Import Bank. Now, they've joined in a warning to colleagues on Capitol Hill that the scheduled expiration of the agency's authority to guarantee loans to help foreign companies buy U.S. goods could mean pain beyond the wharves of Newport News, Norfolk and Portsmouth. The bank's authorit...Continue Reading

The legacy of Loving v. Virginia, a 1967 federal court case that invalidated state bans on interracial unions, rang loud and clear in Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's majority opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling Friday that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. “The court has long held the right to marry is protected by the Constitution. In Loving v. Virginia ... a unanimous court held marriage is 'one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by f...Continue Reading

Con una mayoría de 6 votos a favor y 3 en contra, que rompió todas las previsiones de los analistas, la Corte Suprema dio su respaldo a los subsidios fiscales cuya entrega contempla el Seguro de Salud a Bajo Costo, popularmente conocido como Obamacare, dándole al presidente Barack Obama la más rotunda victoria política de los últimos tiempos sobre sus opositores republicanos.La esperada decisión fue anunciada el jueves 25, un día antes de l...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine has introduced for the second time a bill that would allow middle school students to explore career and technical education programs through apprenticeships or projects. Shenandoah Valley educators endorse Kaine's Middle STEP Act, saying it is important for students to develop career plans while they are attending middle school. Kaine is pushing the legislation because he has been told of the need for additional career exploration at the middle school level by teachers, emplo...Continue Reading

Sen Tim Kaine is joining 12 other senators to introduce legislation to improve pain management services at Veterans Administration hospitals with measures to avoid abuse of opioids. “As I travel around Virginia, I hear from families, employers, and first responders about the harmful impacts of opioid abuse,” Kaine said.  “We need to embrace a comprehensive approach to fighting this epidemic, and one important step is to prevent the over-prescription of pain medication...Continue Reading

Sometimes, it’s good to have a pal in the White House. President Barack Obama signed an executive order expanding the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program to recognize students who opt for Career and Technical Education programs. Former technical school teacher (and now Sen.) Tim Kaine, an early Obama backer asked him to. It wasn’t just his time teaching carpentry and welding at the Instituto Tecnico Loyola in El Progreso, Honduras, that made Kaine such an advocate for career education...Continue Reading

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