In The News

It may be months or even years before the ultimate outcome of the tentative nuclear deal with Iran is known but U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says the framework agreement reached today is “a positive step for diplomacy and efforts to peacefully limit Iran’s nuclear program.” The negotiations are being held against a backdrop of bitter public denunciations by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is demanding among o...Continue Reading

An effort to achieve federal recognition for six Virginia Indian tribes has started to wind its way through Congress again. Supporters in the state have failed to get the legislation passed for decades. When Virginia was settled more than four hundred years ago, the settlers found the region was already populated with Native Americans. Those tribes aren’t recognized by the US government even though they’re recognized by the British crown, as Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine expl...Continue Reading

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine says he is grateful the Department of Veterans Affairs is making a change that should help more rural veterans receive medical care. In an interview with WDBJ7 Thursday morning, he said there is reason to be hopeful about other problems as well. This week, the agency announced it will consider the driving distance between a veteran's home and the the nearest VA Medical Center when deciding who is eligible for private care under the Veterans Choice program. The current stan...Continue Reading

Earlier this month, U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Virginia Democrats, introduced legislation that would more than triple the size of Petersburg National Battlefield as the state and nation marks the 150th anniversary of the battles fought in the Siege of Petersburg. Warner and Kaine’s legislation looks to protect some of the most endangered Civil War battlefields in the country by authorizing the National Park Service to acquire more than 7,000 acres to add to the battlefield,...Continue Reading

More veterans in rural Virginia, including the Eastern Shore, will be eligible to seek health care outside the Veterans Affairs system thanks to a regulatory change announced Tuesday. The change involves the Veterans Choice Program. It allows eligible veterans to seek care at preapproved sites if they live 40 miles from a VA medical facility or wait longer than 30 days for an appointment. The program is up and running in Virginia, with 22 approved sites around the state. That includes five on th...Continue Reading

Republicans, broadly speaking, used to be a lot more environmentalist than they are now. Teddy Roosevelt, a great conservationist, expanded the national parks. Richard Nixon created the EPA. Even Ronald Reagan took action on acid rain. Polarization has diluted red America’s green streak. Many Republicans refuse to accept the possibility that humans contribute to global warming. Others won’t say so out loud. But others are coming around. George Shultz, secretary of state under Ronald ...Continue Reading

PAMUNKEY INDIAN RESERVATION, Va. – By the end of this month, the chief of the Indian tribe that greeted the country’s first English settlers and claims Pocahontas as an ancestor will receive a phone call that could change the tribe’s fate and perhaps its fortunes. Kevin Brown and the 207 other members of the Pamunkey Indian tribe are waiting to find out if the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs will recognize them as a federal tribe, making them the first in Virginia to receive that...Continue Reading

Learning is a lifelong endeavor. We begin teaching our children about the world the day they are born. At a young age, we send them to school to learn the basics of reading, writing and counting; before we know it, they are thumbing through novels, composing essays and mastering algebra. After school, we watch them enter the workforce, find their own career paths and continue to learn about the world as they grow. If our children are learning all throughout their time in public schools, then our...Continue Reading

The Senate Budget Committee approved amending its version of the federal budget to set up a fund that would be used to help Defense Department facilities better withstand the impacts of climate change. Sen. Tim Kaine proposed the measure. “The Hampton Roads region in my state is home to the largest naval installation in the world, Naval Station Norfolk, as well as nearly 15 other installations," he told his fellow committee members. "In this defense-heavy region, sea level rise is occurrin...Continue Reading

A Senate committee Wednesday cleared a bill that would grant federal recognition to six Virginia tribes, taking the first step toward matching Virginia’s recognition of these tribes. The Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2015, introduced in February by Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, recognizes the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock, Monacan and Nansemond tribes of Virginia. The six tribes, which have around 3,000 membe...Continue Reading

Virginia senators Timothy M. Kaine and Mark R. Warner have joined those voicing unease after the bloody arrest of a University of Virginia student early Wednesday morning. Kaine tweeted late Wednesday that he was “troubled” by reports of the force used by Alcohol and Beverage Control agents when arresting Martese Johnson, a 20-year-old student who had been denied entrance to an Irish bar near campus. Warner likewise called the incident “disturbing.” Both Democrats praised...Continue Reading

Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine say Virginia seafood businesses got a break with a request filed by federal agencies for a court decision to hold off enforcing a ruling stopping  officials from processing visas for seasonal workers. The unopposed request by the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security would allow immigration officials to keep processing those visa applications through April 15. The labor and homeland security departments asked the court to stay its ruling after a bipar...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is part of a bipartisan effort to pass a “good Samaritan” law for people administering a drug that can prevent an opioid overdose. The former Virginia governor, along with Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., introduced the Opioid Overdose Reduction Act on Wednesday, according to a news release from the senators. The release states that it would exempt from civil liability individuals such as family members, fi...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine is a moderate Democrat who boycotted Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. Nathan Guttman, the Forward’s Washington bureau chief, asks him about Iran and whether Democrats are drifting away from Israel. Nathan Guttman: Did you face any political cost for deciding not to attend Netanyahu’s speech? Senator Tim Kaine: I’m not dumb, I knew not going to the speech might make some folks mad with me — there would be a political price, but I felt so strong...Continue Reading

The Pentagon should consider other ways of shedding unnecessary infrastructure without resorting to the formal Base Realignment and Closure process, one senator told defense officials Wednesday. At a hearing Wednesday on the Defense Department's request for another BRAC round, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee made clear they are not keen to reprise that potentially rancorous process for a variety of reasons, including the considerable up-front costs required. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.,...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON — The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday questioned the nation’s top defense leaders on President Barack Obama’s proposal for new war powers to fight the Islamic State. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ash Carter in testifying at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing about Obama’s proposal. The debate comes amid Democratic worries that it could lead to a full...Continue Reading

Back last summer, Sen. Tim Kaine sat in on a training session ‘way down in Southwest Virginia showing people how to administer naloxone, a drug that prevents overdoses. Earlier this year, he watched the Virginia General Assembly easily pass a bill urged by Attorney General Mark Herring that says when someone administers that drug in good faith to prevent an overdose, he or she shouldn’t be held liable for damages. So, he figured it might make sense for Congress to do its part to clea...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine was among the senators who introduced legislation Wednesday that seeks to protect people who are trained in administering an opioid overdose prevention drug from potential lawsuits or liability for attempting to save a life. Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, visited Lebanon in August to attend a two-hour training session for administering naloxone in an overdose emergency. He said opioid abuse has become an “epidemic that poses significant economic and public health chal...Continue Reading

U.S. Sens. Timothy M. Kaine and Mark R. Warner, D-Va., on Wednesday sharply criticized a letter earlier this week signed by 47 Republican senators warning Iran’s leaders that an accord with President Barack Obama’s team could expire the day he leaves office. Kaine called the letter, posted Monday by freshman Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., “foolish, disrespectful and extremely counterproductive.” He said it attempted to “scuttle a negotiation” in the midst of an atte...Continue Reading

More than 400 people turned up fashionably at the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner March 7 to honor a young girl from Loudoun who seized their hearts in her too-short 10 years. The second annual Smashing Walnuts Cracking the Cure Gala honoring the late Gabriella Miller of Leesburg gathered tears, laughter and $200,000 dedicated to finding a cure for childhood cancer, the culprit of Gabriella's death in October 2013. Current and former NFL players were in attendance – including the ogled-at al...Continue Reading