Tim Kaine

Timothy Michael Kaine
Tim Kaine

70th Governor of Virginia
Incumbent
Assumed office 
January 14, 2006
Lieutenant William T. Bolling
Preceded by Mark Warner
Succeeded by Incumbent (2010)

38th Lieutenant Governor of Virginia
In office
January 14, 2002 – January 14, 2006
Governor Mark Warner
Preceded by John H. Hager
Succeeded by Bill Bolling

76th Mayor of Richmond, Virginia
In office
1998 – 2000
Preceded by Larry E. Chavis
Succeeded by Rudolph McCollum Jr.

Member of the Richmond City Council
In office
1994 – 1998

Born February 26, 1958 (1958-02-26) (age 51)
St. Paul, Minnesota
Political party Democratic
Spouse Anne Holton
Children Nat Kaine
Woody Kaine
Annella Kaine
Residence Richmond, Virginia
Alma mater University of Missouri
Harvard Law School
Profession Lawyer
Religion Roman Catholic

Timothy Michael "Tim" Kaine (born February 26, 1958) is an American politician and the current governor of Virginia. He is a member of the Democratic party. He was elected governor in 2005, after serving as Lieutenant Governor of Virginia and Mayor of Richmond, Virginia. As governor, he is a member of the National Governors Association, the Southern Governors' Association, and the Democratic Governors Association. Before entering into Virginia politics, Kaine was a lawyer in Richmond, Virginia, and worked with the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) as a Roman Catholic missionary in Honduras. Kaine endorsed the Democratic nominee, now President-Elect Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election and was considered a likely choice to be Obama's running mate, but was not ultimately chosen.[1]

Contents

Early life and education

Kaine was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, to Mary Kathleen Burns and Albert A. Kaine, a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop.[2][3] Kaine grew up in the Kansas City area and graduated from Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, Missouri.

Kaine graduated from the University of Missouri with a bachelor of arts degree in economics in 1979.[4] He attended Harvard Law School, taking a year-long break during law school to work with the Jesuit order as a Roman Catholic missionary in Honduras.[5] Kaine is fluent in Spanish from his time in Honduras.[6] He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1983, and was admitted to the Virginia Bar. In 1984, Kaine married former Richmond Juvenile Court Judge Anne Holton. Holton is the daughter of former Virginia governor A. Linwood Holton Jr.. Kaine and Holton have three children, Nat, Woody, and Annella.

Kaine practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in representing people who had been denied housing opportunities because of their race or disability. He was recognized by local, state, and national organizations for his fair housing advocacy. He also taught legal ethics for six years at the University of Richmond Law School.[7] More than ten years into his legal career in 1994, he was elected to the city council of the independent city of Richmond from the portion of the city in which he resided under Richmond's system of nine wards.

Mayor of Richmond

He was elected mayor of Richmond by the city council (which until 2004 chose the mayor from among its membership) in 1998. He spent a total of seven years on the city council, including his time as mayor. As mayor, Kaine was credited with helping to create and implement a controversial gun law known as Project Exile.[8]

Somewhat more controversial was the use by Kaine of taxpayer funds to influence congress via the Million Mom March in 2000. Kaine used nearly $7,000 to pay for buses and to throw a party at the city's Arthur Ashe Center for about 400 Richmonders recruited for the march[9][10].

Lieutenant Governor

In the Virginia general elections of November, 2001, Kaine ran for lieutenant governor and won with 925,974 votes (50.35%).[11] His opponents were Republican Jay Katzen with 883,886 votes, (48.06%), and Libertarian Gary Reams with 28,783 votes (1.57%). Kaine was inaugurated on January 12, 2002. As lieutenant governor, he served as president of the Virginia Senate.

Gubernatorial election

Main article: Virginia gubernatorial election, 2005
Tim Kaine at the Buena Vista Labor Day Parade

In 2005, Kaine ran for and won the office of governor of Virginia in the November general election, defeating Republican former Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore by a margin of 52-46 percent. Kaine has said he will look to retain the tax and education policies of his predecessor, Mark Warner, and keep the budget balanced. He held a series of statewide "town hall" meetings focused on transportation.

An underdog for most of the race, Kaine led in some polls for the first time in October 2005, and held his lead into the final week before the election.[12] While the previous Democratic Governor, Mark Warner, was credited with doing especially well for a Democrat in rural areas of the commonwealth, Kaine's win featured surprising triumphs in traditionally Republican areas such as Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, and the Northern Virginia exurbs of Prince William County and Loudoun County, as well as impressive showings in Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and Norfolk.[13]

Kaine closely associated himself with popular outgoing Democratic Governor Mark Warner during his campaign; he won his race by a slightly larger margin than Warner. He promised homeowner tax relief, centrist fiscal leadership and universal pre-kindergarten. . A number of factors, from the poll numbers of President George W. Bush to public reaction to the death penalty ads run by Kilgore, have also been cited as key to his decisive win.[14][15] Kaine was inaugurated in Williamsburg on January 14, 2006. This makes Kaine the first governor since Thomas Jefferson (in 1779) to be inaugurated in Virginia's colonial capital. Virginia's capitol building in Richmond was under renovation at the time, with the process completed in mid-2007.

Governor of Virginia

Tim Kaine, 5th from the right, along with Virginia Tech officials, receives a donation to the Virginia Tech memorial fund from East Carolina University given during the Hokies' 2007 football home opener

On January 31, 2006, he gave the Democratic response to President Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In his response, he argued that the Republicans failed to support bipartisanship in Washington and condemned Bush's spending increases and tax cuts as "reckless".

In March 2006, after the Virginia General Assembly failed to create a budget, Governor Kaine called for a special session that continued until June. The debate was over transportation issues and how to fund current and new projects. Most of the debate came from a battle within the Republican controlled Senate and House of Delegates. In 2007, however, a transportation bill was passed and signed into law by Kaine.

In May 2006, Governor Kaine announced his plan to conserve 400,000 acres (1,600 km2) of Virginia real property from development before the end of his administration as Governor of Virginia.[16] The Commonwealth of Virginia's landowners favor land conservation although Virginia lags behind other states' per capita expenditures on land conservation.[17] As of 2007, according to government statistics, Maryland spends as much as $21 per capita on land conservation, while Virginia spends $1.45.[18] On the other hand, Virginia also has a higher proportion of its total land area under permanent protection than many other states, with about 13.69% of it currently protected.[19]

In June 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars.[20] He also announced that Virginia will be the first state in the Union to digitize records from the Civil War Era Freedman's Bureau. This will open up research in African-American history after the Civil War.[21]

Tim Kaine has signaled his support for vaccinating sixth-grade girls in Virginia with the HPV vaccine. In 2007, Virginia, along with twenty other states, was considering a law to expand such vaccinations. As such, in 2007, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law that mandated such vaccinations, while allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason. After expressing "some qualms", Kaine signed the bill into law.[22]

Gov. Kaine with U.S. Senators John Warner and George Allen

When news of the Virginia Tech massacre broke, Kaine canceled a trade mission to Japan and India to attend to the situation. Kaine spoke at a ceremony held in Blacksburg a few days after the shooting in which he invoked the Biblical story of Job to bring solace to the tearful crowd. Kaine said he would appoint a panel of independent law enforcement officials to examine what the university knew about the student responsible for the massacre, which killed 32 people. The commission, led by a former state police chief and former governor and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, began work on April 28, 2007, and issued their findings and recommendations on August 30, 2007. On April 30, 2007 Governor Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers.[23] Appearing alongside Attorney General Bob McDonnell (R), Kaine said the order would help prevent people like the shooter from illegally obtaining firearms in the future.

In July 2007, Kaine stepped in to support an above-ground solution to the debate on building Silver Line of the Washington, D.C. Metrorail through Tyson's Corner. Some people disagreed and preferred a tunnel.[24] During the 2008 General Assembly session, Governor Kaine backed $22 million expansion to increase the accessibility of Pre-K education for at-risk four-year-olds.[25]

Cabinet

Political positions

Despite his personal opposition to capital punishment, often cited during the 2005 campaign by both sides, he has so far overseen eight executions as governor as of July 2008. He has vetoed five death penalty expansion bills although some of the vetoes were overturned,[26] and opposed the electric chair as an option.[27] On June 9, 2008, Kaine commuted the death sentence of Percy Levar Walton to life in prison without parole.[28]

Tim Kaine has stated he has a "faith-based opposition to abortion,"[29] but he opposes overturning Roe v. Wade. He supports restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent and banning so-called partial-birth abortions in cases where the woman's health is not at risk.[30]

In the 2006 Senate election, Kaine supported Democratic Senate candidate Jim Webb.[31] Kaine also opposed an amendment to the Virginia Constitution that would define marriage as that between one man and one woman, though he has publicly stated that he personally opposes same-sex marriage.[32]

Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies to manage sprawl and transportation issues; he refers to these plans as "balanced growth."[33]

2008 Vice Presidential speculation

See also: Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential candidates, 2008
Barack Obama campaigned for Tim Kaine in 2005 for the gubernatorial election.

Kaine endorsed Senator Barack Obama early in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. Kaine's support of Senator Obama's presidential bid began in February 2007. Kaine's endorsement was claimed to be the first from a state-wide elected official outside of Illinois.[34] As a popular and successful governor of a southern state, there was media speculation that Kaine was a potential nominee for vice president.[35] Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor and said about him: "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere."[36] On July 28, 2008, Politico.com reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president,[37] a list which also included Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana and Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware.[38] On August 21, 2008, Obama revealed that he had finished his selection for a vice presidential candidate, but was not yet ready to announce his pick.[39] On August 22, NBC News reported that Kaine had been personally informed by Obama that he was not the final pick[40], as the presumptive nominee ultimately tapped Biden to become the vice-presidential nominee.[41]

Electoral history

Virginia Gubernatorial Election 2005
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Democratic Tim Kaine 1,025,942 51.7
Republican Jerry Kilgore 912,327 46.0
Virginia Lieutenant Governor Election 2001
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Democratic Tim Kaine 925,974 50.4
Republican Jay K. Katzen 883,886 48.0
Libertarian Gary Reams 28,783 1.6
Richmond City Council Election (2nd District), May 2000
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Independent Tim Kaine 931 87.4
Independent Donald G. Hatcher 120 11.3

References

  1. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26336195/
  2. Nuckols, Christina (2005-10-16). "Profile: Who is Timothy M. Kaine?", The Virginian-Pilot, Landmark Communications. Retrieved on 2008-07-29. 
  3. "Governor Tim Kaine". Kids Commonwealth. Commonwealth of Virginia. Retrieved on 2008-07-29.
  4. New Jersey, Senate & Presidential Elections 2008 Results & Polls – NJ.com
  5. Kaine ponders move out of politics - News - inRich.com
  6. Fox, Andy (July 29, 2008). "Va. Gov. Tim Kaine possible presidential running mate", My Fox Hampton Roads. Retrieved on 2008-07-31. 
  7. Official Site of the Governor of Virginia
  8. Sinclair, Melissa (2005-10-12). "Is Kaine Able?", Style Weekly, Landmark Communications Inc.. Retrieved on 2008-10-11. 
  9. “On Kaine the uniter, views split” Richmond Times-Dispatch, August 03, 2008. Retrieved on September 25, 2008.
  10. [“Richmond Subsidizes Buses for Million Mom Marchers”, Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 17, 2000]. Retrieved on September 25, 2008.
  11. Official Election Results - Virginia State Board of Elections
  12. VA: Kaine 49% Kilgore 46% - Rasmussen Reports, November 4, 2005
  13. Shear, Michael D. (October 18, 2005). "Kaine Sounds Slow-Growth Note in Exurbs". Washington Post.
  14. "Death penalty demagoguery". (October 13 2005). The Roanoke Times.
  15. "RealClear Politics - 2005 Virginia Gubernatorial Election". Retrieved November 4, 2005.
  16. Regional Parks: Governor Kaine sets aggressive land conservation goal
  17. http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/wb/xp-102466]
  18. Roanoke Times. Retrieved March 4, 2008.
  19. Virginia Land Conservation Statistics, by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. Retrieved March 4, 2008.
  20. Tim Kaine Homepage
  21. Tim Kaine Homepage
  22. Craig, Tim (March 3 2007). "Kaine Says He'll Sign Bill Making Shots Mandatory", Washington Post. 
  23. Tim Craig (2007-05-01). "Ban on Sale Of Guns to Mentally Ill Is Expanded". Washington Post. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
  24. Alec MacGillis (2006-09-07). "No Tunnel For Tysons, Kaine Says". Washington Post. Retrieved on 2008-08-03.
  25. Tim Kaine Official Website (2008-08-06). "Southside Child Development Tour". Commonwealth of Virginia. Retrieved on 2008-08-06.
  26. Recent Legislative Activity
  27. Kaine: Electrocution Should Not be Execution Option
  28. Gov. Kaine commutes Percy Walton’s death sentence, WSLS News, June 9, 2008. Accessed on 2008-07-28.
  29. Tim Kaine on Abortion, www.OnTheIssues.org
  30. "Kaine: Keep Roe, Hussein Needed to Go", Political Radar, ABC News (July 31, 2008). Retrieved on 2008-07-31. 
  31. Jim Webb for Senate Endorsement Page
  32. Washington Post September 15 2006
  33. http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253735&kaid=106&subid=122
  34. YouTube - Gov. Tim Kaine Supports Barack Obama
  35. Vice President pool swimming with governors - National, Michigan State & Local Elections 2008 News & Polls - MLive.com
  36. Vetting Obama's 'man' Washington Times August 3, 2008
  37. Kaine very high on Obama's short VP list- Politico. Accessed on 2008-07-28.
  38. http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/candidates/vice-presidents.html
  39. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/21/obama.vice.president/index.html[
  40. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26336195/
  41. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/23/biden.democrat.vp.candidate/index.html

External links

Political offices
Preceded by
Larry E. Chavis
Mayor of Richmond
1998–2002
Succeeded by
Rudolph McCollum Jr.
Preceded by
John H. Hager
Lieutenant Governor of Virginia
Under Governor Mark Warner

January 14, 2002–January 14, 2006
Succeeded by
William T. Bolling
Preceded by
Mark Warner
Governor of Virginia
January 14, 2006–
Succeeded by
Incumbent
Party political offices
Preceded by
Lewis F. Payne, Jr.
Democratic Party nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia
2001
Succeeded by
Leslie Larkin Byrne
Preceded by
Mark Warner
Democratic Party nominee for Governor of Virginia
2005
Succeeded by
2009 nominee
Order of precedence in the United States of America
Preceded by
Dick Cheney
Vice President of the United States
Lynne Cheney
Second Lady of the United States (if present)
United States order of precedence
In Virginia
Succeeded by
Mayors of Virginia cities if present
next fixed Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
Preceded by
John Lynch
Governor of New Hampshire
United States order of precedence
Outside Virginia
Succeeded by
David Paterson
Governor of New York