In The News

WASHINGTON — Signaling a possible breakthrough in the long stalemate in Congress over tightening the nation’s gun laws, a bipartisan group of senators called on Tuesday for banning gun sales to terrorism suspects on the government’s “no-fly” list. The proposed measure, while modest, puts new muscle and momentum behind what would be one of the few restrictions placed on gun ownership in the past 20 years. The push for the compromise bill, led by Senator Susan Collins...Continue Reading

Virginia and D.C. lawmakers announced Monday plans to keep open the crumbling Arlington Memorial Bridge, which will have to close in 2021 if it is not repaired. U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Virginia Democrats, and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser toured the bridge Monday morning before making their announcement. “We just took a pretty sobering tour of America’s most iconic bridge,” Mr. Warner said at a press conference. “Arlington Memorial Bridge was built for a 75-...Continue Reading

Two-dozen U.S. senators on Monday will urge the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to scrap a policy that bans blood donations from many gay men, saying that the mass shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando last week underscored how the policy discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. “The atrocities in Orlando are now understood to be the largest mass shooting in U.S. history, where 49 victims were killed and another 53 were wounded, most of them critically,” said a copy of ...Continue Reading

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — While Father’s Day stands as the most prominent holiday being celebrated Sunday, some across the country are celebrating an entirely different kind of holiday. June 19, 1865 marked the end of slavery in the South in the United States. Since then the holiday has been celebrated throughout the country. Sen. Tim Kaine (D) issued a statement on the holiday Sunday afternoon. “On this day 151 years ago, people celebrated the end of slavery in the Sout...Continue Reading

El senador demócrata Chris Murphy pronunció un maratónico discurso de más de 15 horas seguidas que concluyó el jueves 16, exigiendo que la Cámara Alta vote sobre medidas de control de armas y así cerrar el vacío legal que permite la venta de armas a supuestos terroristas. Señaló que eso ocurrió con Omar Mateen, el autor de la matanza en un club de Orlando, Florida, que dejó un saldo de 49 muertos y 53 heridos la ...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) slammed his colleagues on Monday, arguing they are sidestepping a vote on the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) because they are worried about the potential political fallout.  "Members of Congress have chosen to avoid a vote on the theory that either a yes or a no vote carries political risk. In my view, that is a shameful abdication of responsibility," Kaine said during his commencement speech at the Virginia Military Institute.  ...Continue Reading

Senate Democrats led by Chris Murphy of Connecticut ground the Senate floor to a halt Wednesday, vowing to speak as long as necessary to force the Senate to take action to address gun violence. U.S. Senator Time Kaine added his voice to the renewed push for legislative action to combat gun violence during the more than fifteen-hour filibuster. Kaine reflected on how Virginia has been affected by gun violence. "We've got scar tissue in my Commonwealth, we've got scar tissue in this country and we...Continue Reading

Just after 11 AM on Wednesday, June 15th, Democratic Senator from Connecticut Chris Murphy seized the Senate floor and embarked on a nearly 15-hour long filibuster in order to secure a vote on gun-control legislation. He was joined by more than 35 of his colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, including both of Virginia's Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. Virginia's senators are among those who saw tragedy happen in their state multiple times, both pointing to the Virginia Tech...Continue Reading

A little before 2:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 16, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut yielded the floor of the United States Senate after a nearly 15-hour filibuster against gun violence. It was the ninth longest Senate filibuster in U.S. history. Murphy, along with some of his Democratic colleagues, used the time to argue for stricter gun control — specifically, to expand universal background checks to cover gun show and Internet sales, and to prevent people on terrorist watch lis...Continue Reading

A group of 27 lawmakers are correctly urging Congress to vote on the Miners Protection Act before they leave Washington for the summer recess. The proposed legislation would address the impending loss of health and pension benefits for thousands of our coal miners, as well as the looming multi-employer pension crisis facing hundreds of thousands of other working Americans. The Miners Protection Act, if approved by Congress, would specifically protect both the health care and pension benefits for...Continue Reading

Two pieces of legislation before the U.S. Congress deal with firearm safety and research and background checks. U.S. Senator Tim Kaine announced his support for the bills on Thursday, which is National Gun Violence Awareness Day. "I'm proud to support the CDC Research on Firearms safety or Gun Violence Prevention Act and the Fix Gun Checks Act - two commonsense pieces of legislation to reduce gun violence in our communities and ultimately save lives," said Kaine. "Congress cannot be complacent w...Continue Reading

What are the most practical and effective steps we can take to reduce gun violence in the U.S.? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. Answer by Tim Kaine, U.S. Senator from Virginia, on Quora: As tragedies in Virginia and across the country have shown, the gun laws in our country have done little to stem senseless gun violence. Congress cannot be complacent when thi...Continue Reading

It was late 2014 that the Hampton Veterans Affairs Medical Center had the worst average wait times of any of the agency's hospitals nationwide. In the three years before that, the hospital saw its workload jump by nearly a third, courtesy of aging Baby Boomer veterans and lots of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines coming home from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since that time, however, the staff at the Hampton VA has worked hard to reduce the logjam, with patient wait times being dr...Continue Reading

Critics in the Senate charge that, of all the foreign forces operating in Syria today, the Russians are on the most solid legal ground. Damascus has invited Russia to make its deployment, whereas neither Congress nor Syria has ever explicitly authorized any American military involvement there. KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: Early this week in Germany, President Obama announced a big increase in U.S. ground forces in Syria, which currently number around 50. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) BARACK OBAMA: I...Continue Reading

Before he was a U.S. Senator, before he was governor or lieutenant gover­nor, and while he was mayor of Rich­mond, Tim Kaine was a lawyer. He has seen and done a lot since en­tering the Senate; he has built a rep­utation as hard-working and thought­ful, a traditional Democrat but not necessarily a knee-jerk liberal. You’ll find his name on many of the short lists of potential running mates for Hillary Clinton, should she win the Democratic presidential nomination. The s...Continue Reading

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va) is calling on President Obama to follow through on his plan to re-settle more Syrian refugees in the United States. The Obama administration has said it hopes to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees. Over the past several months, they've only accepted about 1,700 refugees. In May, Kaine signed a letter with 26 fellow senators asking the administration speed things up. "We have to make sure that people are screened appropriately and that they're safe, but the scr...Continue Reading

Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine are trying to prevent the Defense Department from privatizing commissaries at five major installations in a pilot program until it completes a cost-benefit study on commissary privatization. Congress asked for such a study last year. The five targeted commissaries for the pilot have not been identified. The two Virginians said it would be imprudent to start the pilot, and possibly jeopardize an important benefit to military families and retirees before the stud...Continue Reading

With complaints growing about long wait times to get through the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) screening at airports, some lawmakers are calling for an increase in funding for the agency. U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, D-VA, joined 22 of his colleagues in signing a lettercalling for more resources. Despite the booming travel industry, Kaine's office says TSA has lost $250 million in funding since 2011. "I’m trying to make sure that Congress does the right thing to appr...Continue Reading

Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine are among a group of senators pushing for action on a list of stalled health care projects at the Department of Veterans Affairs that includes an outpatient center planned for South Hampton Roads. Fifteen senators sent a letter Monday to the leaders of the SenateVeterans Affairs Committee urging authorization of leases for the projects. The list includes three each in California and Florida, research facilities in Boston and Charleston,...Continue Reading

The fiscal 2017 budget is a “make or break” point for cybersecurity and the federal government, said a top Department of Homeland Security official. “The Department of Defense has gotten, I think from my civilian perspective, pretty steady and good funding for what they are trying to do in [U.S.] Cyber Command,” said Andy Ozment, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications at DHS. “Relatively speaking [we have] not put as much funding into civilian gove...Continue Reading