In The News

In tonight’s State of the Union, President Obama called for a congressional resolution authorizing his use of military force against the ISIS terrorist organization, which has seized control of large parts of Iraq and Syria. This is a step in the right direction, because US military intervention against ISIS amounts to a war that requires congressional authorization under the Constitution. A congressional AUMF might also prevent further violation of the War Powers Act of 1973, which requir...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Tuesday he is "concerned" that President Obama has not sent over a draft for a congressional authorization of the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). "I remain concerned that the White House hasn't sent a draft, although I did see, you know, the president's been saying he's going to do that," Kaine told The Hill. The senator said he hoped the president would address the issue in the State of the Union address Tuesday evening. "I'm very much expecti...Continue Reading

Battling Islamic radical groups is just part of “a range of tough challenges” the U.S. faces in the Middle East, Sen. Tim Kaine said Monday following the conclusion of a Congressional delegation to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Kaine, who is a member of both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Armed Services Committee, said the group spent four days in intense dialogue with leaders in the region, including both Israeli and Palestinian officials and representatives of mod...Continue Reading

I was deeply moved when the French Parliament, after observing a minute of silence for those slain in the Charlie Hebdo attacks, spontaneously broke into singing France's national anthem. It was the first time that had happened since 1918. The Parliament immediately got down to work, and despite party differences as sharp as those that exist in the United States, the French overwhelmingly approved an extension of France's participation in airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq by a vote of 488 to 1 (wi...Continue Reading

Timothy Michael Kaine, el senador demócrata, ha llevado una carrera profesional y vital enfocada en el servicio público y la política. Abogado —graduado de Harvard— con una impresionante hoja de servicio en el área de la asesoría legal gratuita en comunidades necesitadas. Fue concejal y alcalde de Richmond, la capital de Virginia, para llegar a vicegobernador, luego a gobernador del estado, a presidente del Comité Nacional Demócrata y ...Continue Reading

Nearly one-quarter of the U.S. Senate, including Virginia Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, want to see Congress enact a two-year budget and appropriations process. Chiefly sponsored by U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican from Georgia, the Biennial Budgeting and Appropriations Act introduced Tuesday would require the president to submit a two-year budget at the beginning of each new congressional session, according to a Senate aide. Members of Congress would then adopt a two-year budget re...Continue Reading

Projects to help restore the Chesapeake Bay will be getting more than $18 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, part of more than $370 million in competitive conservation grants awarded across the country. The projects include measures to restore wetlands and forested buffers to reduce nutrient overload in the bay and rewarding farmers for implementing higher-impact conservation practices. Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine praised Wednesday's announcement by U.S. Agriculture Se...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine will invite Lisa Barnett, coordinator for Career and Technical Education for Botetourt County Public Schools, as his guest to the President’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday, Jan. 20. Kaine co-chairs the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus and has made improving CTE one of his top priorities in the Senate. He grew up working in his father’s ironworking shop and spent a year as a missionary in Honduras, where he worked as the principal of a sch...Continue Reading

With former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell heading to prison for two years, two former Virginia governors are calling for ethics reform in Richmond.  When McDonnell was charged with corruption for accepting gifts, like a head turning Rolex watch, many political watchers in Richmond figured he would escape punishment. That’s because the state’s ethics laws are some of the weakest in the nation, according to watchdog groups. But federal laws ultimately snagged McDonnell and his w...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine expressed optimism Tuesday after a meeting with VA Secretary Robert McDonald to discuss, among other issues, long wait times for patients at the Hampton VA Medical Center. In a news release, Kaine called the meeting "very positive" and said he was pleased with McDonald's performance since being named to succeed embattled former secretary Eric Shinseki. The senator said he also voiced concern over the backlog in adjudicating claims for disability benefits "and a culture at VA hospi...Continue Reading

Some of the most influential senators in the new Congress are neither in the majority nor among the longest-serving. They don’t show up on the Sunday-morning talk shows, and they aren’t talking about running for president in 2016. Instead, they’re a pack of Democrats from mostly smaller, rural states who are inclined to work with Republicans on legislation President Obama doesn’t support. They may even be willing to help the GOP override his vetoes. Some of them support b...Continue Reading

Two members of Virginia’s congressional delegation made headlines last week for legislation they introduced in the 114th Congress. They were U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte. Their initiatives paint a stark contrast between meaningful legislation and utter political hokum. That’s something we all should keep our eyes on, because there’s too little of the former and way too much of the latter. We shall deal with Kaine’s proposal first. He’s a Democrat who...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is that refreshing, if too rare, Washington type: a workhorse rather than a show horse. Kaine has been making a lot of his Capitol Hill colleagues uncomfortable by continuing to publicly point out during the six months U.S. troops have been at war against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria that by refusing to even debate the authorization of military force, they are guilty of an "unacceptable abdication" of their "most solemn responsibility" as members of Congress &...Continue Reading

Virginia’s two Democratic Senators are expected to hold a lot of sway as more moderate voices in the new Republican controlled Senate. Republicans now control the Senate, but that doesn’t mean they can go it alone. In the upper chamber you need 60 votes to do just about anything and there are only 54 Republicans. That’s already making Virginia’s senators prime targets for Republicans looking to build bipartisan coalitions. Senator Mark Warner is already bucking many in hi...Continue Reading

JAMES CITY— News that he'd been chosen as a delegate in theU.S. Senate Youth Program came on a day when Caleb Visser really needed something good to happen. "I was having a really long and arduous day," the Jamestown High School senior said in an interview. "I was frustrated with one of my classes. I had been sick a couple of days before. I had missed one of my tests, and I had to make that up, and I was just exhausted because we have swim practice every morning and I get up at 4:15 f...Continue Reading

Sen. Kaine has been named the top Democrat on a key panel of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Subcommittee on Readiness deals with resources for shipyards, military construction projects and whether bases should be shifted or closed. Overall, it deals with legislation aimed at training, logistics and maintenance for U.S. armed forces. The announcment came from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who chairs the full commmittee. Kaine has been a member of the readiness panel for two years. In a sta...Continue Reading

Few states have been Ground Zero for America’s domestic wars as Virginia has been, something which grabbed the attention of Sen. Tim Kaine when he was governor of the Old Dominion, site of the first successful English colony. As governor, the Democrat allocated more than $5 million for Civil War battlefield preservation. Now he has helped win congressional approval to expand that effort to Revolutionary War and War of 1812 sites, with the help of the Civil War Trust. “Virginia i...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) called on Congress Thursday to authorize the U.S. military action against the Islamic State terror group, five months into its airstrike campaign. “Today we enter the sixth month of war against ISIL without Congressional authorization," Kaine, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Thursday. The U.S.-led coalition began its airstrike campaign against the group, known alternately as ISIS or ISIL, last August. There h...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Tim Kaine has a list of global concerns, but that list is topped by the threat posed by the terrorist group ISIS. Since June, Virginia's junior U.S. senator has argued that Congress needs to authorize military force against ISIS. That policy stand received a boost when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 10-8 earlier this month for the use of military force against ISIS. Because the full Senate didn't vote before adjournment, similar action on ISIS will be needed by t...Continue Reading

Washington’s political culture suffers from many deficiencies, not least among them a team-sports approach to politics that elevates superficial point-scoring above questions of substance and weight. Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine has marched admirably against those headwinds. Kaine himself has conceded that politics is a team sport. But he has risen above it through his dogged determination to produce a serious debate over war powers, particularly regarding U.S. military action against the Islam...Continue Reading