In The News

COLONIAL HEIGHTS — Volunteers at the Colonial Heights Food Pantry got to work alongside Sen. Tim Kaine yesterday as part of his three-day statewide tour. Kaine and his office stopped at the food pantry in Colonial Heights for a Citizen Day service project. “About every quarter we try to do what we call Citizen Day where folks from our office come out and do some work with a local nonprofit. It could be anywhere in the state,” Kaine said. “We think it’s good to learn...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine stood in the Larchmont neighborhood street and took in the strange view. "There are two over there," he said Thursday morning, pointing to homes across a sparkling inlet of the Lafayette River. "And two right there. There's one over there. And another one down there." He was talking about older homes elevated on new cinder block foundations to rise above flood waters that plague the neighborhood. The raised homes are scattershot, some here, some there. In a way, the scene reflects...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine stepped inside a training simulator at Fort Eustis on Thursday and deftly piloted a small Army craft through the water. This kind of realistic training — complete with three-dimensional images and weather that gets nasty at the touch of a button — can allow experienced Army mariners to make a lucrative transition to the private sector when they choose to leave military service. It is exactly the type of training that interests Kaine. As a member of the Senate Armed Ser...Continue Reading

Six weeks after a catastrophic rocket explosion on Virginia’s Wallops Island, Sen. Timothy M. Kaine toured the damaged site and touted $20 million in federal funds for the private space facility. The funds should help “speed along” the repairs from an Oct. 28 crash, Kaine (D-Va.) said Wednesday, noting that the launchpad run by Orbital Sciences Corp. “survived remarkably well.” Repairing the site — and public confidence in the commercial space industry —...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine talked with Chincoteague officials and business representatives about economic concerns and toured a damaged launch pad on Wallops Island on the first day of his two-day tour of the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Kaine sounded bullish on the Wallops spaceport's prospects, despite the setback caused by a rocket failure in October. Along with fellow Democratic Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, he was instrumental in securing $20 million in federal fund...Continue Reading

The U.S. Senate confirmed late Tuesday night Elizabeth Dillon, a Salem attorney, for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia. Dillon is the first woman to serve as a federal judge in the Western District of Virginia, which stretches from Lynchburg to Lee County and extends north to Winchester. President Barack Obama nominated Dillon to fill the vacancy left by Judge Samuel Wilson, who retired in August. Dillon, a former assistant city attorney for Roanoke, practice...Continue Reading

The $1.1 trillion spending bill that just cleared Congress includes millions of dollars toward advanced aircraft, a cleaner Chesapeake Bay, stiffer standards for oil tank cars and repairs to the state's spaceport damaged by a rocket explosion in October. In fact, aeronautics and environmental efforts in Hampton Roads and the Eastern Shore are looking at tens of millions of dollars under the compromise fiscal year 2015 plan that funds the federal government through next September. The bill now mo...Continue Reading

After a fluid week of budget negotiations and bipartisan hostility in Washington, childhood cancer research advocates have reason to smile following the Senate's passage late Saturday of a $1.1 trillion spending bill that will keep most of the federal government funded through next summer. The Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act, named after a 10-year-old childhood cancer advocate from Loudoun County who died following a vicious fight against cancer in her brain, will be funded through the ...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) says it does not look as though the full Senate will not vote on a measure authorizing the use of military force against Islamic militants before lawmakers adjourn this week. “It looks very unlikely that there will be an opportunity to get a floor vote,” Kaine told The Hill. The Virginia lawmaker has been highly critical of his colleagues for not voting on an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) as the Obama administration leads a international campai...Continue Reading

Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine is glad the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to authorize the war against the Islamic State but says now the full Senate needs to act. The US military has dropped more than one thousand bombs or missiles in its campaign against ISIS, but Congress has yet to weigh in. Kaine's been pushing the administration to come to Congress for permission to conduct its air campaign and last week he helped the Foreign Relations Committee pass a military authorizati...Continue Reading

AMONG THE business that Congress will leave unfinished this month is legal authorization of the war against the Islamic State. Though the war has been underway for five months, President Obama has said he would welcome legislation, and congressional leaders have denounced the president’s unilateral actions in other spheres, neither the White House nor Congress has made a passage of an Authorization for Use of Military Force a priority. That puts the ongoing military operations on shaky leg...Continue Reading

With Elizabeth Warren following the Ted Cruz model last week, imploring the House faithful to defy their president even at risk of a government shutdown, you had to wonder: Is the Democratic Party heading for a schism that could rival the tea party-establishment battles on the Republican side? Warren has established herself as a leader of an anti-Wall Street, economic-populist left. Her side of the party is suspicious of international trade, big business and the economists and financiers who def...Continue Reading

The launch pad at Virginia's spaceport on Wallops Island that was damaged by a rocket explosion in October could get $20 million to fully fund needed repairs under a provision included in the proposed $1.1 trillion federal spending bill for fiscal year 2015. Democratic senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced Thursday they'd sought the spending provision in an effort to help the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, known as MARS, "rebound" from that catastrophic launch failure. MARS is located a...Continue Reading

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent a strong message about the Constitution and the fight against the Islamic State Thursday, joining Sen. Tim Kaine's five-month-long campaign to seek congressional authorization for putting troops in harm's way. The committee voted 10-8 to authorize the use of military force against the Islamic State forces that have seized large portions of Iraq and Syria, terrorizing opponents and killing those who don't share their religious beliefs. "I just feel it ...Continue Reading

The authorization by a Senate panel Thursday for use of military force against the Islamic State marks a victory for Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., who has pushed for a vote on war powers since President Barack Obama launched airstrikes against the militant group in August. “It’s necessary for us to do our jobs after four-plus months of basically unilateral war,” Kaine told the members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations before the vote. There are “differences of...Continue Reading

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted Thursday to ­authorize U.S. military action against the Islamic State “and associated forces” for three years, while prohibiting the introduction of ground combat troops. The 10-to-8 vote was along party lines, with Republicans on the committee voting against the measure, mostly because they believed it limited the president’s actions too much and at least one, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), because it did not limit them enough. The aut...Continue Reading

Nearly five months and 1,100 airstrikes into the American-led war against the Islamic State, Congress has barely begun to fulfill its constitutional war-making responsibilities. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday belatedly opened debate on legislation that would authorize the use of force, but there’s no expectation that the work can be finished before the session ends on Thursday. That means it will be put off at least until January, when the new Congress convenes. The dela...Continue Reading

America is at war. Four months since the president commenced military action in Iraq against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the mission has involved more than 1,100 coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, the vast majority carried out by American service members. Three American troops have died. There are already 1,400 U.S. ground troops deployed in Iraq to train and advise regional forces, and the president has authorized an additional 1,500 U.S. troops to serve in a train and...Continue Reading

For U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, rising oceans and other climate issues are not just about predictions of what might or might not happen tomorrow. “When you’re seeing it today, it’s a bit different,” he said. “And in Virginia we are seeing it today; we’re seeing the effects of sea level rise in Hampton Roads in a most dramatic way.” Kaine made this observation as keynote speaker at a Dec. 5 conference, “Adaptive Planning for Flooding and Coasta...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said late Tuesday that a “conspiracy of silence” among his colleagues is allowing the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to continue without congressional authorization. “I'm frustrated that we're now more than four months into war — that's what the administration calls it — 1,100 air strikes, 1,500 combat advisers there, another 1,500 coming, three deaths in Operation Inherent Resolve of American troops, over a billion d...Continue Reading