Tim Kaine

Democratic politician Tim Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005, having served as the lieutenant governor under Mark Warner from 2001 to 2005. Under his leadership, Virginia was rated the "Best Managed State" in the United States. He followed up his governorship by taking Virginia's junior US Senate seat in 2012. A former lawyer and missionary, Kaine has said that he measures his life by the difference he can make in the lives of others. Throughout his political career, Kaine, who was also Hillary Clinton's running mate in the 2016 presidential election, advocated for better education, stricter public health policies, and safer gun laws; the last of these came to the forefront of his gubernatorial career after the massacre at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2007.

Timothy Michael Kaine was born on February 26, 1958, in St. Paul, Minnesota, to Mary Kathleen Burns and Albert A. Kaine. The family later moved to Kansas City, Missouri. Kaine's father was a welder, and for several years Kaine worked in his father's shop. Kaine was raised as a Catholic, and he has said on numerous occasions that his faith continues to inform his political career.

Kaine attended the University of Minnesota. After graduating in 1979, he attended Harvard Law School, taking a year off to work as a missionary in Honduras. While in Honduras, Kaine served as the principal of a Catholic school that taught welding and carpentry. He graduated from Harvard Law in 1983.

After receiving his law degree, Kaine moved to Richmond, Virginia, and began practicing as a private attorney. He advocated for fair-housing policies in the state; many of Kaine's cases during his seventeen-year law career saw him fighting for housing rights for marginalized groups. Kaine also spent six years teaching legal ethics at the University of Richmond's Law School.

Kaine moved into politics in 1994, when he was elected to the Richmond City Council. During Kaine's seven-year tenure on the city council, he was also elected mayor of Richmond for two terms. One of the better-known pieces of legislation that Kaine enacted while mayor of Richmond was a gun law called Project Exile, which prosecuted gun offenses in federal courts instead of state courts and imposed strict minimum sentences for offenders. The success of this project, which reportedly reduced gun violence in Richmond by 40 percent, eventually spawned a statewide program called Virginia Exile.

Kaine also worked to improve Richmond's economy, which eventually resulted in its being named one of Forbes magazine's top ten cities for doing business. Kaine's economic and educational experience eventually formed the core of his work as lieutenant governor under Governor Mark Warner. Although Virginia was one of eighteen US states to elect the governor and lieutenant governor separately, Kaine and Warner ran and served as a team, eventually leading Virginia to be named the Best Managed State in America by Governing magazine in 2005.

Gubernatorial Candidate

After four successful years as lieutenant governor under one of Virginia's most popular governors, Tim Kaine decided to run for the position himself in 2005, against Republican Jerry Kilgore. During the campaign, Kilgore, a former Virginia attorney general, tried to convince the public that Kaine was too liberal for the top position in such a conservative state. One of Kilgore's campaign advertisements claimed that Kaine was adamantly opposed to the death penalty. The ads featured the father of two murder victims; Kaine had been the court-appointed defense attorney for the murderer during the death penalty hearings. In the ads and press conferences that followed, Kilgore claimed that Kaine would not allow even the worst criminals to be executed. Kaine responded to the attack by publicly stating that, while he was opposed to the death penalty, he would abide by the law of the state and the will of the people, and would enforce the death penalty if elected. A poll of Virginia voters seemed to show that Kilgore's plan backfired: 63 percent of Virginians believed Kaine would uphold the law faithfully.

Fortunately for Kaine, he had both the support of outgoing Governor Mark Warner, who had been tremendously popular during his term. Kaine based much of his campaign on promises that Virginia would continue to prosper if he became governor. Kaine also pledged to continue the initiatives begun under Warner. Kaine brought Warner with him on many of his campaign stops, including those in the generally conservative northern Virginia suburbs and rural communities, where Warner had lost in 2001, and where Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry had lost to George W. Bush in 2004.

Both Warner and Kaine were centrists, which was helpful in the traditionally conservative state. Kaine also regularly discussed his Catholic faith during campaign speeches and departed from many of the more extreme views of other candidates in his party. Among Kaine's campaign promises were stricter teacher evaluations, tax exemptions for property owners, and support for slow-growth policies in the state's suburban areas. This last proposal upset many developers, particularly since most of Kaine's campaign contributions—about $2.5 million—came from real estate and construction companies, but it garnered support from many residents of northern Virginia. Kaine proposed that local governments should have power over zoning, allowing the local authorities to decide whether a specific development would be in the area's best interest, particularly in relation to the community's traffic concerns.

In November 2005, Kaine was elected governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Due to renovations at the capitol building, Kaine became the first Virginia governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated at the Colonial Capitol in Williamsburg. Kaine's gubernatorial career has another tie to Jefferson's: Jefferson's son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph Jr., once served as governor, as did Kaine's father-in-law, A. Linwood Holton Jr. These relationships represent the only such correspondence in Virginia gubernatorial history.

Governor of Virginia

Governor Kaine maintained the support of the majority in his state. According to a November 2006 poll, 52 percent of Virginians approved of Kaine's work as governor. One of Kaine's primary platforms has been improving the education system in Virginia. This has included both expanding prekindergarten classes and raising teacher salaries. He also promoted the opening of a college in Martinsville, which is located in a region of the state that had little prior access to higher education.

Although he publicly stated that he believed marriage is only between one man and one woman, Kaine fought against the Virginia Marriage Amendment, claiming that it went too far and would restrict the rights of unmarried couples, whether same- or opposite-sex. Since it was a legislative issue, Kaine had no real power to stop the amendment from being passed, but he used his position as the top elected official in the state to publicize his views in opposition to the amendment. The amendment was ratified on November 7, 2006, and officially became part of the state constitution on January 1, 2007, despite Kaine's opposition.

Among Kaine's most-publicized efforts after he took office were related to smoking laws. In late 2006, Kaine signed an Executive Order prohibiting smoking in Virginia's government buildings and other areas used for official executive branch business, including state-owned vehicles. Kaine claimed that these buildings were Virginians' only option for conducting business with the state's executives and that they ought to be able to do so in a smoke-free environment. Kaine proposed a smoking ban for restaurants, as well, but it was rejected by the General Assembly, which felt that his restrictions against smoking at fairs and ballparks went too far. He also worked to improve the quality and accessibility of health care in the commonwealth.

In 2006, Kaine was chosen by the Democratic Party to issue the official response to President Bush's State of the Union address. Kaine was very critical of the president, claiming that Bush had created a massive debt, mismanaged the response to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, and misled the country into war. He made specific criticisms regarding the Bush administration's education, health care, and environmental policies, and highlighted alternative solutions employed successfully on the state level, including in Virginia. Kaine emphasized that politicians needed to focus on service to the people, rather than to their own interests, or even to their party.

After the massacre at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in April 2007, Kaine ordered an independent investigation into the school's handling of the threat posed by gunman Seung-Hui Cho. Kaine appointed an independent state panel to report on Cho's mental state and the handling of events by both Virginia Tech authorities and the local police.

On April 30, 2007, Kaine signed an executive order that would outlaw the sale of firearms to people who had been involuntarily committed to mental health treatment. Federal law bars the sale of weapons to people who have been declared mentally ill and dangerous, but a Virginia loophole only required Virginia State Police and the state Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services Department to report mentally ill people who had been admitted to a hospital. Kaine's order required reportage of both inpatient and outpatient involuntary mental health treatment, such as what was required for Seung-Hui Cho. Nevertheless, Kaine recognized that his order was insufficient and that new legislation would need to be passed to protect Virginians.

In 2009, Kaine was elected chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). In Virginia, state law limits the governorship to a single term. Kaine served for his full term, leaving office in January 2010. He was succeeded by Republican Bob McDonnell. Kaine continued to serve as DNC chair until 2011, when he stepped down to run for the US Senate Seat that became vacant upon the retirement of Democratic senator Jim Webb.

US Senator

Virginia voters elected Kaine to the United States Senate in 2012. Upon taking office in 2013, Kaine became one of only thirty people in US history to serve as mayor, governor, and US Senator. In the Senate, Kaine worked on several committees, including armed services, budget, foreign relations, and health, education, labor, and pensions. He is a ranking member of the Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee and the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism. His legislative work included efforts to mediate the effects of climate change, expand pediatric cancer research, preserve Virginia’s Civil War battlegrounds, recognize Virginia’s Indian tribes, prevent dating violence and sexual assault, and reduce unemployment among veterans.

Vice-Presidential Candidate

During the 2008 presidential election, Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, considered Kaine as a prospective running mate before choosing Senator Joe Biden. In 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, a former US secretary of state and senator, chose Kaine as her vice-presidential candidate. Clinton and Kaine ran against Republican Donald Trump and his running mate, Indiana governor Mike Pence. Kaine debated Pence on October 4, 2016, in what was the only vice-presidential debate of the 2016 election. Political pundits favored Clinton and Kaine to win the election and were expecting that Clinton would become the first female president of the United States. Although Clinton and Kaine won the popular vote, Trump and Pence won the electoral vote and therefore the election.

After the election, Kaine continued to serve in the Senate. He was reelected by a large margin in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart, who was known for his extreme anti-immigrant views and support for Confederate symbols. Kaine announced that he would seek a third term in the Senate in 2024 and went on to win in the November general election.

Kaine published his 2024 memoir, Walk Ride Paddle: A Life Outside, to commemorate his sixtieth birthday and twenty-fifth year in office. In the book, Kaine details his adventure hiking the 559 miles of the Appalachian Trail from Harpers Ferry, Virginia, to the Tennessee border; biking 321 miles along the Virginia Blue Ridge; and kayaking the James River.

Bibliography

"About Tim." Tim Kaine: United States Senator for Virginia, www.kaine.senate.gov/about. Accessed 4 Apr. 2018.

Clinton, Hillary, and Tim Kaine. "She’s the Boss." Interview by Sandra Sobieraj Westfall. People, 3 Oct. 2016, pp. 66–69. Academic Search Complete, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=118296900&site=ehost-live. Accessed 4 Apr. 2018.

Detrow, Scott. "We Take a Hike with Senator Tim Kaine." NPR, 7 Apr. 2024, www.npr.org/2024/04/07/1243320746/we-take-a-hike-with-sen-tim-kaine. Accessed 18 Oct. 2024.

Hesse, Monica. "Tim Kaine Is Back at His Old Senate Job. It’s Never Seemed More Important." The Washington Post, 12 Apr. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/tim-kaine-is-back-at-his-old-senate-job-its-never-seemed-more-important/2017/04/12/d387a3aa-1a26-11e7-855e-4824bbb5d748‗story.html. Accessed 18 Oct. 2024.

Moomaw, Graham. "Kaine Cruises to Lopsided Win Over Stewart in Virginia Senate Race." Richmond Times-Dispatch, 6 Nov. 2018, www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/kaine-cruises-to-lopsided-win-over-stewart-in-virginia-senate/article‗7ba48dea-a218-5dd3-b87d-40869c3f85f9.html. Accessed 18 Oct. 2024.

Osnos, Evan. "Kaine Country." The New Yorker, 24 Oct. 2016, pp. 40–49, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=118808779&site=ehost-live.

Shaw, C. Mitchell. "Raising Kaine." New American, 5 Sept. 2016, pp. 19–20. Academic Search Complete, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=117665850&site=ehost-live. Accessed 4 Apr. 2018.