In The News

Just a year removed from high school, Mary Baldwin College student Alixandria Reinhard has a career in mind, and the job search once that career is over. Central to U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine’s speech on campus Wednesday was legislation he has introduced to ease the transition of military service men and women to the civilian workforce. Reinhard is a freshman cadet in the Mary Baldwin’s Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership who wants to earn a commission to serve as an officer in ...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine is making his way around the Commonwealth over the next few days to discuss the upcoming vote on the Marketplace Fairness Act. Kaine was at Roanoke's Chamber of Commerce Wednesday to talk about the Act that's been the center of debate for a more than a decade; a debate that will be put to a vote soon. The senator has scheduled meetings not only in Roanoke, but in six other cities over the next few days trying to give business and civic leaders his reasons for supporting the Act. T...Continue Reading

Sen. Timothy M. Kaine’s first bill in the Senate, the Troop Talent Act of 2013, made it to the House floor today. Rep. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois introduced a companion measure, which was designed to help veterans get the credentials to use their military skills as civilians. Kaine had unveiled his original proposal earlier this month, co-sponsored by Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a Republican from Georgia. Today, 27 members of Congress joined Duckworth and signed on as cosponsors to the bipartis...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told 13News that base closings don't save taxpayers as much money as advertised. He responded to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's call for base closings in 2015. The Senate Armed Services Committee grilled Department of Defense officials about the plan Wednesday. “From what I’ve seen, the BRAC rounds don’t save that much money,” said Kaine. John C. Conger, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, told lawmakers that $...Continue Reading

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D) on Monday, April 22, visited Oracle, a global technology company in Reston, to meet with leaders of the Northern Virginia technology corridor and discuss his efforts to help their businesses grow and thrive, including a comprehensive solution to the nation’s broken immigration system. Kaine has advocated comprehensive immigration reform as an important way to attract talent to Virginia businesses that will help them compete and has voiced support for the bipartis...Continue Reading

This week, people gathered at Virginia Tech to remember the young men and women and their courageous professors who were slain six years ago. Students at New River Community College returned to classes, but their thoughts were with a classmate and a college employee still recovering from gunshot wounds inflicted just days ago. Also this week, families from Newtown, Conn., gathered in Washington. Their loss is too recent and raw to say they were there to remember, as if it were possible for them ...Continue Reading

Congress appears to be skeptical of an Obama administration proposal to begin a new round of base closings within 24 months, with legislators raising questions about whether previous rounds saved enough money and were worth the upheaval they caused around the country. Members of Hampton Roads' congressional delegation generally fall in two camps on base closings: those who say if the Pentagon has to downsize, Virginia is well-positioned to keep its installations - and others who say 'Don't even ...Continue Reading

Hampton Roads’ Congressional delegation joined with Virginia’s two Senators today in urging Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to minimize the impact of potential furloughs for civilians who work within the Defense Department. The delegation wrote in a letter to Hagel that individual defense agencies should have the flexibility to determine how they will handle furloughs. The department initially required 22 of the days of without pay, but reduced the number to 14 last month. Officials ha...Continue Reading

On the sixth anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings, members of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday made their push for a bipartisan proposal that would expand background checks for firearms purchases. Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., said the measure, sponsored by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has been one of the top priorities of the victims of the 2007 massacre. “Those families, which have talked with me repeatedly, said that, for gosh sakes, let’s at least make sure th...Continue Reading

Nearly four months after the horrific Newtown shootings, the Senate is poised to do something that hasn't been done for a long time in Congress - actually have a meaningful floor debate on reducing gun violence. Some senators and lobbyists are trying to make sure that no vote can take place. This should outrage the strong majority of American citizens who believe in reasonable gun rules to protect public safety. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and 11 other senators have promised to filibuster any dis...Continue Reading

Freshman Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., believes that more — much more — needs to be done to aid military veterans in their search for jobs. He brought that message to Lynchburg last week as he spoke to about 40 veterans, business representatives and others at American Legion Post 16. Kaine pointed out that veterans of the post-9/11 era face rates of unemployment that are a couple of points higher than the rate for non-veterans, which currently stands at about 7.6 percent. “It strikes ...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine is calling on the Senate to go ahead and vote on gun-control legislation, saying the NRA’s lobbying power shouldn’t drown out debate. Kaine, in an op-ed that ran in the Virginian-Pilot today, said other senators have threatened to filibuster a gun control bill, which Kaine said “should outrage the strong majority of American citizens who believe in reasonable gun rules to protect public safety.” He said that he will support legislation to expand background ...Continue Reading

Senator Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., announced this morning that he will vote in favor of a federal ban on certain types of assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. In an editorial published in the Virginian Pilot today, Kaine wrote that he is convinced that reasonable limits on gun trafficking across state lines, super-size magazines and certain combat-style weapons make sense and that he would be “pleased to vote in support” of such measures. “There is no pie...Continue Reading

As he closed his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln said: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” Tim Kaine seems to have taken the commandment to ...Continue Reading

On the day of the unveiling of his first Senate bill, Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., took a trip down memory lane today when he visited a welding shop at the United States Army Combined Arms Support Command at Fort Lee. As the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported this morning, Kaine’s measure, which he’ll introduce in the Senate next week, was designed to help veterans get the credentials to use their military skills as civilians. Kaine grew up in Kansas City where his father, Albert Alex...Continue Reading

Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., will unveil his first Senate bill today, a measure designed to help veterans get the credentials to use their military skills as civilians. Kaine hopes his Troop Talent Act of 2013, which he plans to introduce when the Senate reconvenes next week, will help ease the transition of military personnel from active duty to civilian life — an issue that many veterans in defense-heavy Virginia are dealing with as they struggle to find employment. “Our nation&rs...Continue Reading

As members of Congress start to sound resigned to the reality of sizable and nonstrategic spending cuts pursuant to the sequester on March 1 and on the day of the president’s State of the Union address, let me offer a few thoughts as a new senator learning how Capitol Hill works. I don’t yet know congressional procedure, but as a former mayor and governor, I do know something about budgets. And as a new member of the Senate Budget Committee, I’m working to get us back on track....Continue Reading

Tim Kaine is a U.S. senator from Virginia. He was governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010 and chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011. Our nation faces a fundamental question in the aftermath of the tragedy in Newtown, Conn. If gun violence is a problem — and U.S. citizens overwhelmingly think that it is — will our leaders act quickly and wisely to reduce gun deaths? When I was on the Richmond City Council in the 1990s, our city was mired in an epidemic of gun ...Continue Reading