Tim Kaine is an American politician who has been the junior U.S. Senator from Virginia since January 2013. He was elected to the Senate in 2012, and the Democratic Party has chosen him to run for Vice President of the United States in 2016. He is a lawyer by trade. He went to college at the University of Missouri and got a law degree at Harvard Law School. He didn’t grow up in a political family, but as a young man, he became interested in politics. His parents were an ironworker and a home economics teacher. While getting his law degree, the devout Catholic worked with Jesuit missionaries in Honduras. There, he saw firsthand how poverty hurts people. This made him care about social justice, a value that would show up in his work in the future. He started a successful career as a lawyer and spent a lot of time doing free work for people who had been turned down for housing because of their race or disability. In the 1990s, he ran for office and was elected to the Richmond City Council. Over the next few years, he moved up in the political world and in 2005, he was elected governor of Virginia. He then became the head of the Democratic National Committee and stayed in that job until he was elected to the Senate.
Early years and childhood
Tim “Tim” Kaine was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on February 26, 1958. His mother, Mary Kathleen Burns, was a home economics teacher, and his father, Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., was a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. He has two brothers who are younger.
He was raised as a Catholic and went to Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit school for boys in Kansas City, Missouri, where he graduated in 1976. He was on the debate team in high school and was also chosen to lead the whole student body.
He went to the University of Missouri and got his Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1979. He graduated with honors.
In 1979, he went to Harvard Law School to become a lawyer. He took some time off from school to work with Jesuit missionaries in Honduras for a few months.
There, he saw how bad poverty was, and the plight of the poor moved him very much. His time in Honduras made him want to help make the world a better place for everyone. In 1983, he got his J.D. or Juris Doctor.
Tim Kaine’s Career
In 1984, Tim Kaine became a member of the Virginia Bar. Before joining the law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius in Richmond, Virginia, he worked as a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Macon, Georgia.
He was a good lawyer, and in 1987, he became a director at the law firm Mezzullo & McCandlish. He was an expert in fair housing law and often helped people who had been mistreated because of their race or a disability. He spent a lot of time doing work for free, and he helped start the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness.
In addition to being a lawyer, he taught legal ethics at the University of Richmond School of Law for six years, beginning in 1988.
Even though he didn’t come from a political family, the political views of his wife’s family affected him. In the 1990s, he got involved in politics, and in 1994, the people of the independent city of Richmond chose him to be on the city council.
His reputation as a politician grew steadily over the years, and he was the mayor of Richmond from 1998 to 2001 and the lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2005. As mayor, he put into place a law called “Project Exile,” which was meant to cut down on gun violence. As lieutenant governor, he was also president of the Virginia Senate.
Kaine wanted to go further, so in 2005 he ran for governor of Virginia against Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general who was running as a Republican. At first, he was seen as an underdog, but during the election campaign, he stressed fiscal responsibility and a message that was in the middle. He went on to win the election. On January 14, 2006, he was sworn in as the state’s 70th governor.
His time as governor was mostly successful, but he had to deal with a lot of problems during the economic crisis of 2008–2009. Even during the Great Recession, the unemployment rate in Virginia stayed below the national average while he was in office.
As governor, he was well-liked, and the state did well while he was in charge. In a report from 2007 by “Education Week” and the Pew Center on the States, Virginia was named the best state to raise a child.
In January 2009, President Obama asked him to take over as head of the Democratic National Committee. In this job, he was in charge of Organizing for America, the White House’s political operation, which helped the party pay more attention to its base.
After his time as governor ended in January 2010, he taught at the University of Richmond part-time. He was elected to the Senate in 2012, and on January 3, 2013, he took the oath of office as the junior U.S. senator from Virginia.
Tim Kaine backed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and worked hard to get her elected. In July 2016, Clinton chose him to be her running mate for vice president in the 2016 election.
Works of note
When he was Mayor of Richmond, Kaine supported Project Exile along with Commonwealth’s Attorney David Hicks, U.S. Attorney James Comey, and Police Chief Jerry Oliver. Project Exile was controversial, but it was a good program. During his time in office, the number of murders dropped by 55%.
As Governor of Virginia, he set up the Climate Change Commission, a group of people from both parties who study issues related to climate change. This helped keep 400,000 acres (1,600 km2) of Virginia land from being built on.
Awards & Achievements
Tim Kaine got the Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, which used to be the Virginia Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice (2000).
In 2012, the William Green Award for Professional Excellence was given to him by the University of Richmond School of Law.
In 2015, he was given the Congressional Award by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. In 2016, he was given the Distinguished Service Award by the Center for the National Interest.
Personal History and Legacies
When he was in law school, he met Anne Bright Holton, who was the daughter of former Virginia governor A. Linwood Holton, Jr. In 1984, they got married, and they now have three kids.
Estimated Net worth
A politician in the United States named Tim Kaine has a net worth of $10 million. Tim Kaine is probably best known for running for Vice President with Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Kaine was a US Senator from Virginia before he ran for VP. Tim Michael Kaine was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on February 26, 1958.
Trivia
This politician is one of only 30 people in the history of the United States to have been a mayor, governor, and U.S. senator.