Background

• Kaine was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and grew up in the Kansas City.
• BA Economics, University of Missouri–Columbia, 1979. JD, Harvard Law School, 1983. While attending law school, Kaine worked as a Catholic missionary with the Jesuit order in Honduras for one year.
• After passing the Virginia Bar, Kaine worked as a lawyer in Richmond for the next 17 years. He specialized in representing people who had been denied housing because of race or disability.
• He was a professor of legal ethics at the University of Richmond Law School for 6 years.
• Kaine is married to Anne Holton, a former legal aid lawyer and juvenile court judge. They have three children together. Anne’s father, Linwood Holton, was Governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974.

Professional Positions

• Kaine was elected to Richmond city council in 1994 an subsequently elected mayor of Richmond by the city council. As mayor, Kaine contributed to the creation and implementation the gun law known as Project Exile. It was a controversial program that preceded the state's Virginia Exile program. Before the program, Richmond was known for having one of the highest murder rates in the country (Source: Virginia DCJS).
• Kaine ran for Lieutenant Governor in November 2001 and inaugurated on January 12, 2002. As Lieutenant Governor, he served as President of the Senate of Virginia.
• In 2005 he was elected Governor of Virginia.

Accomplishments

• Following the Virginia Tech Massacre, Governor Kaine signed an executive order that closed the loophole that made possible the sale of firearms to Seung Hui Cho, the VT shooter. The order bans sales to people involuntarily committed to mental health treatment centers. (Source: Washington Post)

Criticism

• In 2007, Virginia newspapers reported that the Kaine Administration had a $300 million gap in the budget, to which he conceded the 2008-2010 budget period will experience slower growth. (Source: Washington Post)

Additional Information

Biography Links

• Wikipedia
• Official