Kaine

Timothy Michael Kaine (born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013.

In 1976, he graduated from Rockhurst High School, a Jesuit all-boys preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri.

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

He was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978.

Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude.

He 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.

While running a vocational center that taught carpentry and welding, he also helped increase the school's enrollment by recruiting local villagers.

Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his time in Honduras.

After returning from Honduras, Kaine met his future wife, first-year Harvard Law student Anne Holton.

He graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree in 1983.

Kaine and Holton moved to Holton's hometown of Richmond, Virginia, after graduation, and Kaine was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1984.

After graduating from law school, Kaine was a law clerk for Judge R. Lanier Anderson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in Macon, Georgia.

He then joined the Richmond law firm of Little, Parsley & Cluverius, P.C. In 1987, Kaine became a director of the law firm of Mezzullo & McCandlish, P.C. He practiced law in Richmond for 17 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability.

He 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. arising from the company's practices in Richmond.

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

Kaine did regular pro bono work.

In 1988, he started teaching legal ethics as an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.

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

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

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.

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

In 1994, he was elected the 2nd district member of the city council of the independent city of Richmond, defeating incumbent city councilor Benjamin P.A. Warthen by less than 100 votes.

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

He 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.

He defeated the incumbent city councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen by 97 votes.

Kaine spent four terms on the city council, the latter two as mayor of Richmond.

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

A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010, and as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006.

He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.

Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.

Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law.

On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton introduced Kaine as her vice-presidential running mate.

The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him on July 27.

Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton–Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and therefore the election, to the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence on November 8, 2016.

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

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

He is the eldest of three sons born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine, Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop.

He was raised Catholic.

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

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