115 Facts About Tim Kaine

Timothy Michael Kaine is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013.

Tim Kaine was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council.

Tim Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001.

Tim Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010.

Tim Kaine chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.

Tim Kaine was reelected to a second Senate term in 2018, defeating Republican Corey Stewart.

Tim Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in St Paul, Minnesota.

Tim Kaine is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen, a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr.

One of Tim Kaine's great-grandparents was Scottish and the other seven were Irish.

Tim Kaine's family moved to Overland Park, Kansas, when Tim Kaine was two years old, and he grew up in the Kansas City area.

At Rockhurst, Tim Kaine joined the debate team and was elected student body president.

Tim Kaine was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978.

Tim Kaine entered Harvard Law School in 1979, interrupting his law studies after his first year to work in Honduras for nine months from 1980 to 1981, helping Jesuit missionaries who ran a Catholic school in El Progreso.

Tim Kaine graduated from Harvard Law School with a JD degree in 1983.

Tim Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability.

Tim Kaine was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.

Tim Kaine won a $100.5 million verdict in the case; the judgment was overturned on appeal, and Tim Kaine and his colleagues negotiated a $17.5 million settlement.

Tim Kaine taught at the University of Richmond for six years; his students included future Virginia attorney general Mark Herring.

Tim Kaine was a founding member of the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.

Tim Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings.

Tim Kaine took his seat on July 1 and retained the position until September 10,2001, when he resigned and William J Pantele was appointed to succeed him.

On July 1,1998, Tim Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis.

Tim Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.

On several occasions, Tim Kaine voted against tax increases, and supported a tax abatement program for renovated buildings, which was credited for a housing renovation boom in the city.

Tim Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty.

Tim Kaine joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement.

Tim Kaine was inaugurated on January 12,2002, and was sworn in by his wife Anne Holton, a state judge.

In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W Kilgore, a former state attorney general.

Tim Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign.

The final polls of the race before the election showed Tim Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.

Tim Kaine expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs.

Tim Kaine benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state.

Tim Kaine was sworn in as governor at the colonial Capitol at Williamsburg, on January 14,2006, the first governor since Thomas Jefferson to be inaugurated there.

Tim Kaine was chairman of the Southern Governors' Association from 2008 to 2009.

On January 31,2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W Bush's 2006 State of the Union address.

Tim Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits.

From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Tim Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.

In 2008, Tim Kaine supported a coal-fired power plant project in Wise County, clashing with environmentalists who opposed the project.

In 2009, Tim Kaine expressed support for tighter restrictions on mountaintop removal coal mining imposed by the Obama administration.

In October 2006, Tim Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1,2007.

Tim Kaine signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.

In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Tim Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.

In 2006, Tim Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects.

Tim Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor.

Tim Kaine made the following appointments to his Virginia Governor's Cabinet:.

Tim Kaine made two appointments to the Supreme Court of Virginia, naming Chesapeake circuit judge S Bernard Goodwyn to the Court in 2007 and Virginia Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F Millette Jr.

On September 27,2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Tim Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment.

Tim Kaine immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.

Tim Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007.

Tim Kaine said, "At the time, I was much closer to Tim", but Obama and his advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe wondered whether voters would accept a ticket of "two relatively young, inexperienced, and liberal civil rights attorneys" and Obama felt the contrast between him and Biden was a strength, and that Biden's age and experience would reassure voters concerned that Obama was too young to be president.

In January 2009, Tim Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Tim Kaine had turned down the position the first time it was offered to him, expressing misgivings about accepting a partisan position, but took the job at Obama's request.

Tim Kaine took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia.

Tim Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele.

Tim Kaine focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.

In February 2011, after Tim Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation.

Tim Kaine was initially reluctant to return to public office, but Webb, Senator Mark Warner, and other Virginia Democrats saw Kaine as the strongest potential Democratic candidate and convinced him to run.

Tim Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

Tim Kaine defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.

Tim Kaine expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years.

Tim Kaine added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.

On January 20,2023, Tim Kaine announced his candidacy for reelection in 2024 at a press conference in Richmond.

Tim Kaine was sworn in on January 3,2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator.

Tim Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.

On June 11,2013, Tim Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill.

Tim Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal.

Tim Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.

In 2017, after Trump took office, Tim Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters.

In February 2017, Tim Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican.

Tim Kaine met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues.

Tim Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and campaigned actively for her in seven states during the primaries.

Tim Kaine had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.

On July 22,2016, she announced Tim Kaine would be her running mate in the election.

Tim Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major-party ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major-party ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.

Clinton-Tim Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Tim Kaine.

In 2009, Tim Kaine signed a bill to create a "Choose Life" license plate, among the more than 200 Virginia specialty plates already offered, the proceeds of which would partly go to Heartbeat International, a Christian organization that operates anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.

Tim Kaine previously criticized the Obama administration for "not providing a 'broad enough religious employer exemption" in the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act, but praised a 2012 amendment to the regulations that required insurers to provide birth control to employees when an employer was an objecting religious organization.

Tim Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.

Tim Kaine has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.

Tim Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor.

On July 31,2019, after Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States federal government would resume the use of the death penalty for the first time in over 20 years, Kaine co-sponsored a bill banning the death penalty.

Tim Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise, and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia.

Tim Kaine voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

Tim Kaine voted against an amendment introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would have repealed a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that exempts fracking from the underground injection control provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Tim Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas to other countries.

In March 2019, Tim Kaine was one of 11 senators to sponsor the Climate Security Act of 2019, legislation forming a new group within the State Department that would be responsible for developing strategies to integrate climate science and data into operations of national security as well as restoring the post of special envoy for the Arctic, which Trump had dismantled in 2017.

Tim Kaine condemned the Trump administration for its "eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want" after the administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

In July 2017, Tim Kaine voted for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.

In 2019, Tim Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to US foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill.

In 2019, Tim Kaine co-sponsored the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and airspace in disputed zones in the South China Sea.

Tim Kaine compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy.

Tim Kaine believes that this new organization will help democracies remain democratic, as well as promote democracy in other countries by giving them viable democratic examples to emulate.

Second, Tim Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states.

For example, Tim Kaine observes that the US competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.

Finally, Tim Kaine believes that democracies and autocracies should cooperate when they have the same interests, such as combating climate change.

In July 2017, Tim Kaine expanded on the grand strategy proposed in this essay in an interview at the Brookings Institution with international relations scholar Robert Kagan.

In February 2018, Tim Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Trump arguing that striking North Korea with "a preventative or preemptive US military strike would lack either a constitutional basis or legal authority" without congressional approval.

In January 2020, Tim Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the US from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat.

In 2014, Tim Kaine argued that the US military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL.

In October 2015, Tim Kaine criticized Obama's approach to the Syrian Civil War, saying that the establishment of humanitarian no-fly zones would have alleviated the humanitarian crisis in Syria.

On February 26,2021, Tim Kaine demanded answers from President Biden after he ordered airstrikes on Syria against Iran-backed militias without giving "legal justification" to members of Congress beforehand.

In November 2017, Tim Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.

In March 2018, Tim Kaine was one of ten senators to sign a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

In June 2019, Tim Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others.

In January 2019, Tim Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to introduce the American Miners Act of 2019, a bill that would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 to swap funds in excess of the amounts needed to meet existing obligations under the Abandoned Mine Land fund to the 1974 Pension Plan as part of an effort to prevent its insolvency as a result of coal company bankruptcies and the 2008 financial crisis.

In December 2016, Tim Kaine was one of 17 senators to sign a letter to Trump asking him to fulfill a campaign pledge to bring down the cost of prescription drugs.

In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Tim Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.

In 2006, Tim Kaine campaigned against an amendment to the Virginia State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and in March 2013, he announced his support of same-sex marriage.

Tim Kaine supports allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those with incomes above $500,000.

Tim Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements.

Tim Kaine participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.

In November 1984, Kaine married Anne Bright Holton, the daughter of A Linwood Holton Jr.

Tim Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his nine months in Honduras.

On May 28,2020, Tim Kaine announced that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies.

Tim Kaine was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 2017.