title: Thunderstorm

text: A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are sometimes called thundershowers. Thunderstorms occur in a type of cloud known as a cumulonimbus. They are usually accompanied by strong winds and often produce heavy rain and sometimes snow, sleet, or hail, but some thunderstorms produce little precipitation or no precipitation at all. Thunderstorms may line up in a series or become a rainband, known as a squall line. Strong or severe thunderstorms include some of the most dangerous weather phenomena, including large hail, strong winds, and tornadoes. Some of the most persistent severe thunderstorms, known as supercells, rotate as do cyclones. While most thunderstorms move with the mean wind flow through the layer of the troposphere that they occupy, vertical wind shear sometimes causes a deviation in their course at a right angle to the wind shear direction.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Thunderstorms result from the rapid upward movement of warm, moist air, sometimes along a front. However, some kind of cloud forcing, whether it is a front, shortwave trough, or another system is needed for the air to rapidly accelerate upward. As the warm, moist air moves upward, it cools, condenses, and forms a cumulonimbus cloud that can reach heights of over . As the rising air reaches its dew point temperature, water vapor condenses into water droplets or ice, reducing pressure locally within the thunderstorm cell. Any precipitation falls the long distance through the clouds towards the Earth's surface. As the droplets fall, they collide with other droplets and become larger. The falling droplets create a downdraft as it pulls cold air with it, and this cold air spreads out at the Earth's surface, occasionally causing strong winds that are commonly associated with thunderstorms.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Thunderstorms can form and develop in any geographic location but most frequently within the mid-latitude, where warm, moist air from tropical latitudes collides with cooler air from polar latitudes. Thunderstorms are responsible for the development and formation of many severe weather phenomena, which can be potentially hazardous. Damage that results from thunderstorms is mainly inflicted by downburst winds, large hailstones, and flash flooding caused by heavy precipitation. Stronger thunderstorm cells are capable of producing tornadoes and waterspouts.


title: Thunderstorm

text: There are three types of thunderstorms: single-cell, multi-cell, and supercell. Supercell thunderstorms are the strongest and most severe. Mesoscale convective systems formed by favorable vertical wind shear within the tropics and subtropics can be responsible for the development of hurricanes. Dry thunderstorms, with no precipitation, can cause the outbreak of wildfires from the heat generated from the cloud-to-ground lightning that accompanies them. Several means are used to study thunderstorms: weather radar, weather stations, and video photography. Past civilizations held various myths concerning thunderstorms and their development as late as the 18th century. Beyond the Earth's atmosphere, thunderstorms have also been observed on the planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and, probably, Venus.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Warm air has a lower density than cool air, so warmer air rises upwards and cooler air will settle at the bottom (this effect can be seen with a hot air balloon). Clouds form as relatively warmer air, carrying moisture, rises within cooler air. The moist air rises, and, as it does so, it cools and some of the water vapor in that rising air condenses. When the moisture condenses, it releases energy known as latent heat of condensation, which allows the rising packet of air to cool less than the cooler surrounding air continuing the cloud's ascension. If enough instability is present in the atmosphere, this process will continue long enough for cumulonimbus clouds to form and produce lightning and thunder. Meteorological indices such as convective available potential energy (CAPE) and the lifted index can be used to assist in determining potential upward vertical development of clouds. Generally, thunderstorms require three conditions to form:


title: Thunderstorm

text: All thunderstorms, regardless of type, go through three stages: the developing stage, the mature stage, and the dissipation stage. The average thunderstorm has a diameter. Depending on the conditions present in the atmosphere, each of these three stages take an average of 30 minutes.


title: Thunderstorm

text: The first stage of a thunderstorm is the cumulus stage or developing stage. During this stage, masses of moisture are lifted upwards into the atmosphere. The trigger for this lift can be solar illumination, where the heating of the ground produces thermals, or where two winds converge forcing air upwards, or where winds blow over terrain of increasing elevation. The moisture carried upward cools into liquid drops of water due to lower temperatures at high altitude, which appear as "cumulus" clouds. As the water vapor condenses into liquid, latent heat is released, which warms the air, causing it to become less dense than the surrounding, drier air. The air tends to rise in an "updraft" through the process of convection (hence the term convective precipitation). This process creates a low-pressure zone within and beneath the forming thunderstorm. In a typical thunderstorm, approximately 500 million kilograms of water vapor are lifted into the Earth's atmosphere.


title: Thunderstorm

text: In the mature stage of a thunderstorm, the warmed air continues to rise until it reaches an area of warmer air and can rise no farther. Often this 'cap' is the tropopause. The air is instead forced to spread out, giving the storm a characteristic anvil shape. The resulting cloud is called "cumulonimbus incus". The water droplets coalesce into larger and heavier droplets and freeze to become ice particles. As these fall, they melt to become rain. If the updraft is strong enough, the droplets are held aloft long enough to become so large that they do not melt completely but fall as hail. While updrafts are still present, the falling rain drags the surrounding air with it, creating "downdrafts" as well. The simultaneous presence of both an updraft and a downdraft marks the mature stage of the storm and produces cumulonimbus clouds. During this stage, considerable internal turbulence can occur, which manifests as strong winds, severe lightning, and even tornadoes.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Typically, if there is little wind shear, the storm will rapidly enter the dissipating stage and 'rain itself out', but, if there is sufficient change in wind speed or direction, the downdraft will be separated from the updraft, and the storm may become a supercell, where the mature stage can sustain itself for several hours.


title: Thunderstorm

text: In the dissipation stage, the thunderstorm is dominated by the downdraft. If atmospheric conditions do not support super cellular development, this stage occurs rather quickly, approximately 20–30 minutes into the life of the thunderstorm. The downdraft will push down out of the thunderstorm, hit the ground and spread out. This phenomenon is known as a downburst. The cool air carried to the ground by the downdraft cuts off the inflow of the thunderstorm, the updraft disappears and the thunderstorm will dissipate. Thunderstorms in an atmosphere with virtually no vertical wind shear weaken as soon as they send out an outflow boundary in all directions, which then quickly cuts off its inflow of relatively warm, moist air, and kills the thunderstorm's further growth. The downdraft hitting the ground creates an outflow boundary. This can cause downbursts, a potential hazardous condition for aircraft to fly through, as a substantial change in wind speed and direction occurs, resulting in a decrease of airspeed and the subsequent reduction in lift for the aircraft. The stronger the outflow boundary is, the stronger the resultant vertical wind shear becomes.


title: Thunderstorm

text: There are four main types of thunderstorms: single-cell, multi-cell, squall line (also called multi-cell line) and supercell. Which type forms depends on the instability and relative wind conditions at different layers of the atmosphere ("wind shear"). Single-cell thunderstorms form in environments of low vertical wind shear and last only 20–30 minutes.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Organized thunderstorms and thunderstorm clusters/lines can have longer life cycles as they form in environments of significant vertical wind shear, normally greater than in the lowest of the troposphere, which aids the development of stronger updrafts as well as various forms of severe weather. The supercell is the strongest of the thunderstorms, most commonly associated with large hail, high winds, and tornado formation. Precipitable water values of greater than favor the development of organized thunderstorm complexes. Those with heavy rainfall normally have precipitable water values greater than . Upstream values of CAPE of greater than 800 J/kg are usually required for the development of organized convection.


title: Thunderstorm

text: This term technically applies to a single thunderstorm with one main updraft. Also known as air-mass thunderstorms, these are the typical summer thunderstorms in many temperate locales. They also occur in the cool unstable air that often follows the passage of a cold front from the sea during winter. Within a cluster of thunderstorms, the term "cell" refers to each separate principal updraft. Thunderstorm cells occasionally form in isolation, as the occurrence of one thunderstorm can develop an outflow boundary that sets up new thunderstorm development. Such storms are rarely severe and are a result of local atmospheric instability; hence the term "air mass thunderstorm". When such storms have a brief period of severe weather associated with them, it is known as a pulse severe storm. Pulse severe storms are poorly organized and occur randomly in time and space, making them difficult to forecast. Single-cell thunderstorms normally last 20–30 minutes.


title: Thunderstorm

text: This is the most common type of thunderstorm development. "Mature thunderstorms" are found near the center of the cluster, while dissipating thunderstorms exist on their downwind side. "Multicell storms" form as clusters of storms but may then evolve into one or more squall lines. While each cell of the cluster may only last 20 minutes, the cluster itself may persist for hours at a time. They often arise from convective updrafts in or near mountain ranges and linear weather boundaries, such as strong cold fronts or troughs of low pressure. These type of storms are stronger than the single-cell storm, yet much weaker than the supercell storm. Hazards with the multicell cluster include moderate-sized hail, flash flooding, and weak tornadoes.


title: Thunderstorm

text: A squall line is an elongated line of severe thunderstorms that can form along or ahead of a cold front. In the early 20th century, the term was used as a synonym for cold front. The squall line contains heavy precipitation, hail, frequent lightning, strong straight line winds, and possibly tornadoes and waterspouts. Severe weather in the form of strong straight-line winds can be expected in areas where the squall line itself is in the shape of a bow echo, within the portion of the line that bows out the most. Tornadoes can be found along waves within a line echo wave pattern, or LEWP, where mesoscale low pressure areas are present. Some bow echoes in the summer are called derechos, and move quite fast through large sections of territory. On the back edge of the rain shield associated with mature squall lines, a wake low can form, which is a mesoscale low pressure area that forms behind the mesoscale high pressure system normally present under the rain canopy, which are sometimes associated with a heat burst. This kind of storm is also known as "Wind of the Stony Lake" (Traditional Chinese:石湖風 – shi2 hu2 feng1, Simplified Chinese: 石湖风) in southern China.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Supercell storms are large, usually severe, quasi-steady-state storms that form in an environment where wind speed or wind direction varies with height ("wind shear"), and they have separate downdrafts and updrafts (i.e., where its associated precipitation is not falling through the updraft) with a strong, rotating updraft (a "mesocyclone"). These storms normally have such powerful updrafts that the top of the supercell storm cloud (or anvil) can break through the troposphere and reach into the lower levels of the stratosphere. Supercell storms can be wide. Research has shown that at least 90 percent of supercells cause severe weather. These storms can produce destructive tornadoes, extremely large hailstones ( diameter), straight-line winds in excess of , and flash floods. In fact, research has shown that most tornadoes occur from this type of thunderstorm. Supercells are generally the strongest type of thunderstorm.


title: Thunderstorm

text: In the United States, a thunderstorm is classed as severe if winds reach at least , hail is in diameter or larger, or if funnel clouds or tornadoes are reported. Although a funnel cloud or tornado indicates a severe thunderstorm, a tornado warning is issued in place of a severe thunderstorm warning. A severe thunderstorm warning is issued if a thunderstorm becomes severe, or will soon turn severe. In Canada, a rainfall rate greater than in one hour, or in three hours, is also used to indicate severe thunderstorms. Severe thunderstorms can occur from any type of storm cell. However, multicell, supercell, and squall lines represent the most common forms of thunderstorms that produce severe weather.


title: Thunderstorm

text: A mesoscale convective system (MCS) is a complex of thunderstorms that becomes organized on a scale larger than the individual thunderstorms but smaller than extratropical cyclones, and normally persists for several hours or more. A mesoscale convective system's overall cloud and precipitation pattern may be round or linear in shape, and include weather systems such as tropical cyclones, squall lines, lake-effect snow events, polar lows, and mesoscale convective complexes (MCCs), and they generally form near weather fronts. Most mesoscale convective systems develop overnight and continue their lifespan through the next day. They tend to form when the surface temperature varies by more than between day and night. The type that forms during the warm season over land has been noted across North America, Europe, and Asia, with a maximum in activity noted during the late afternoon and evening hours.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Forms of MCS that develop in the tropics are found in use either the Intertropical Convergence Zone or monsoon troughs, generally within the warm season between spring and fall. More intense systems form over land than over water. One exception is that of lake-effect snow bands, which form due to cold air moving across relatively warm bodies of water, and occurs from fall through spring. Polar lows are a second special class of MCS. They form at high latitudes during the cold season. Once the parent MCS dies, later thunderstorm development can occur in connection with its remnant mesoscale convective vortex (MCV). Mesoscale convective systems are important to the United States rainfall climatology over the Great Plains since they bring the region about half of their annual warm season rainfall.


title: Thunderstorm

text: The two major ways thunderstorms move are via advection of the wind and propagation along outflow boundaries towards sources of greater heat and moisture. Many thunderstorms move with the mean wind speed through the Earth's troposphere, the lowest of the Earth's atmosphere. Weaker thunderstorms are steered by winds closer to the Earth's surface than stronger thunderstorms, as the weaker thunderstorms are not as tall. Organized, long-lived thunderstorm cells and complexes move at a right angle to the direction of the vertical wind shear vector. If the gust front, or leading edge of the outflow boundary, races ahead of the thunderstorm, its motion will accelerate in tandem. This is more of a factor with thunderstorms with heavy precipitation (HP) than with thunderstorms with low precipitation (LP). When thunderstorms merge, which is most likely when numerous thunderstorms exist in proximity to each other, the motion of the stronger thunderstorm normally dictates the future motion of the merged cell. The stronger the mean wind, the less likely other processes will be involved in storm motion. On weather radar, storms are tracked by using a prominent feature and tracking it from scan to scan.


title: Thunderstorm

text: A back-building thunderstorm, commonly referred to as a training thunderstorm, is a thunderstorm in which new development takes place on the upwind side (usually the west or southwest side in the Northern Hemisphere), such that the storm seems to remain stationary or propagate in a backward direction. Though the storm often appears stationary on radar, or even moving upwind, this is an illusion. The storm is really a multi-cell storm with new, more vigorous cells that form on the upwind side, replacing older cells that continue to drift downwind. When this happens, catastrophic flooding is possible. In Rapid City, South Dakota, in 1972, an unusual alignment of winds at various levels of the atmosphere combined to produce a continuously training set of cells that dropped an enormous quantity of rain upon the same area, resulting in devastating flash flooding. A similar event occurred in Boscastle, England, on 16 August 2004, and over Chennai on 1 December 2015.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Each year, many people are killed or seriously injured by severe thunderstorms despite the advance warning. While severe thunderstorms are most common in the spring and summer, they can occur at just about any time of the year.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Cloud-to-ground lightning frequently occurs within the phenomena of thunderstorms and have numerous hazards towards landscapes and populations. One of the more significant hazards lightning can pose is the wildfires they are capable of igniting. Under a regime of low precipitation (LP) thunderstorms, where little precipitation is present, rainfall cannot prevent fires from starting when vegetation is dry as lightning produces a concentrated amount of extreme heat. Direct damage caused by lightning strikes occurs on occasion. In areas with a high frequency for cloud-to-ground lightning, like Florida, lightning causes several fatalities per year, most commonly to people working outside.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Acid rain is also a frequent risk produced by lightning. Distilled water has a neutral pH of 7. "Clean" or unpolluted rain has a slightly acidic pH of about 5.2, because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid, a weak acid (pH 5.6 in distilled water), but unpolluted rain also contains other chemicals. Nitric oxide present during thunderstorm phenomena, caused by the oxidation of atmospheric nitrogen, can result in the production of acid rain, if nitric oxide forms compounds with the water molecules in precipitation, thus creating acid rain. Acid rain can damage infrastructures containing calcite or certain other solid chemical compounds. In ecosystems, acid rain can dissolve plant tissues of vegetations and increase acidification process in bodies of water and in soil, resulting in deaths of marine and terrestrial organisms.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Any thunderstorm that produces hail that reaches the ground is known as a hailstorm. Thunderclouds that are capable of producing hailstones are often seen obtaining green coloration. Hail is more common along mountain ranges because mountains force horizontal winds upwards (known as orographic lifting), thereby intensifying the updrafts within thunderstorms and making hail more likely. One of the more common regions for large hail is across mountainous northern India, which reported one of the highest hail-related death tolls on record in 1888. China also experiences significant hailstorms. Across Europe, Croatia experiences frequent occurrences of hail.


title: Thunderstorm

text: In North America, hail is most common in the area where Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming meet, known as "Hail Alley". Hail in this region occurs between the months of March and October during the afternoon and evening hours, with the bulk of the occurrences from May through September. Cheyenne, Wyoming is North America's most hail-prone city with an average of nine to ten hailstorms per season. In South America, areas prone to hail are cities like Bogotá, Colombia.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Hail can cause serious damage, notably to automobiles, aircraft, skylights, glass-roofed structures, livestock, and most commonly, farmers' crops. Hail is one of the most significant thunderstorm hazards to aircraft. When hail stones exceed in diameter, planes can be seriously damaged within seconds. The hailstones accumulating on the ground can also be hazardous to landing aircraft. Wheat, corn, soybeans, and tobacco are the most sensitive crops to hail damage. Hail is one of Canada's most costly hazards. Hailstorms have been the cause of costly and deadly events throughout history. One of the earliest recorded incidents occurred around the 9th century in Roopkund, Uttarakhand, India. The largest hailstone in terms of maximum circumference and length ever recorded in the United States fell in 2003 in Aurora, Nebraska, United States.


title: Thunderstorm

text: A tornado is a violent, rotating column of air in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud (otherwise known as a thundercloud) or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. Tornadoes come in many sizes but are typically in the form of a visible condensation funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled by a cloud of debris and dust. Most tornadoes have wind speeds between , are approximately across, and travel several kilometers (a few miles) before dissipating. Some attain wind speeds of more than , stretch more than across, and stay on the ground for more than 100 kilometres (dozens of miles).


title: Thunderstorm

text: The Fujita scale and the Enhanced Fujita Scale rate tornadoes by damage caused. An EF0 tornado, the weakest category, damages trees but does not cause significant damage to structures. An EF5 tornado, the strongest category, rips buildings off their foundations and can deform large skyscrapers. The similar TORRO scale ranges from a T0 for extremely weak tornadoes to T11 for the most powerful known tornadoes. Doppler radar data, photogrammetry, and ground swirl patterns (cycloidal marks) may also be analyzed to determine intensity and award a rating.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Waterspouts have similar characteristics as tornadoes, characterized by a spiraling funnel-shaped wind current that form over bodies of water, connecting to large cumulonimbus clouds. Waterspouts are generally classified as forms of tornadoes, or more specifically, non-supercelled tornadoes that develop over large bodies of water. These spiralling columns of air frequently develop within tropical areas close to the equator, but are less common within areas of high latitude.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Flash flooding is the process where a landscape, most notably an urban environment, is subjected to rapid floods. These rapid floods occur more quickly and are more localized than seasonal river flooding or areal flooding and are frequently (though not always) associated with intense rainfall. Flash flooding can frequently occur in slow-moving thunderstorms and is usually caused by the heavy liquid precipitation that accompanies it. Flash floods are most common in arid regions as well as densely populated urban environments, where few plants, and bodies of water are present to absorb and contain the extra water. Flash flooding can be hazardous to small infrastructure, such as bridges, and weakly constructed buildings. Plants and crops in agricultural areas can be destroyed and devastated by the force of raging water. Automobiles parked within affected areas can also be displaced. Soil erosion can occur as well, exposing risks of landslide phenomena.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Downburst winds can produce numerous hazards to landscapes experiencing thunderstorms. Downburst winds are generally very powerful, and are often mistaken for wind speeds produced by tornadoes, due to the concentrated amount of force exerted by their straight-horizontal characteristic. Downburst winds can be hazardous to unstable, incomplete, or weakly constructed infrastructures and buildings. Agricultural crops, and other plants in nearby environments can be uprooted and damaged. Aircraft engaged in takeoff or landing can crash. Automobiles can be displaced by the force exerted by downburst winds. Downburst winds are usually formed in areas when high pressure air systems of downdrafts begin to sink and displace the air masses below it, due to their higher density. When these downdrafts reach the surface, they spread out and turn into the destructive straight-horizontal winds.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Thunderstorm asthma is the triggering of an asthma attack by environmental conditions directly caused by a local thunderstorm. During a thunderstorm, pollen grains can absorb moisture and then burst into much smaller fragments with these fragments being easily dispersed by wind. While larger pollen grains are usually filtered by hairs in the nose, the smaller pollen fragments are able to pass through and enter the lungs, triggering the asthma attack.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Most thunderstorms come and go fairly uneventfully; however, any thunderstorm can become severe, and all thunderstorms, by definition, present the danger of lightning. Thunderstorm preparedness and safety refers to taking steps before, during, and after a thunderstorm to minimize injury and damage.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Preparedness refers to precautions that should be taken before a thunderstorm. Some preparedness takes the form of general readiness (as a thunderstorm can occur at any time of the day or year). Preparing a family emergency plan, for example, can save valuable time if a storm arises quickly and unexpectedly. Preparing the home by removing dead or rotting limbs and trees, which can be blown over in high winds, can also significantly reduce the risk of property damage and personal injury.


title: Thunderstorm

text: The National Weather Service (NWS) in the United States recommends several precautions that people should take if thunderstorms are likely to occur:


title: Thunderstorm

text: While safety and preparedness often overlap, "thunderstorm safety" generally refers to what people should do during and after a storm. The American Red Cross recommends that people follow these precautions if a storm is imminent or in progress:


title: Thunderstorm

text: The NWS stopped recommending the "lightning crouch" in 2008 as it doesn't provide a significant level of protection and will not significantly lower the risk of being killed or injured from a nearby lightning strike.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Thunderstorms occur throughout the world, even in the polar regions, with the greatest frequency in tropical rainforest areas, where they may occur nearly daily. At any given time approximately 2,000 thunderstorms are occurring on Earth. Kampala and Tororo in Uganda have each been mentioned as the most thunderous places on Earth, a claim also made for Singapore and Bogor on the Indonesian island of Java. Other cities known for frequent storm activity include Darwin, Caracas, Manila and Mumbai. Thunderstorms are associated with the various monsoon seasons around the globe, and they populate the rainbands of tropical cyclones. In temperate regions, they are most frequent in spring and summer, although they can occur along or ahead of cold fronts at any time of year. They may also occur within a cooler air mass following the passage of a cold front over a relatively warmer body of water. Thunderstorms are rare in polar regions because of cold surface temperatures.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Some of the most powerful thunderstorms over the United States occur in the Midwest and the Southern states. These storms can produce large hail and powerful tornadoes. Thunderstorms are relatively uncommon along much of the West Coast of the United States, but they occur with greater frequency in the inland areas, particularly the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys of California. In spring and summer, they occur nearly daily in certain areas of the Rocky Mountains as part of the North American Monsoon regime. In the Northeast, storms take on similar characteristics and patterns as the Midwest, but with less frequency and severity. During the summer, air-mass thunderstorms are an almost daily occurrence over central and southern parts of Florida.


title: Thunderstorm

text: If the quantity of water that is condensed in and subsequently precipitated from a cloud is known, then the total energy of a thunderstorm can be calculated. In a typical thunderstorm, approximately 5×10 kg of water vapor are lifted, and the amount of energy released when this condenses is 10 joules. This is on the same order of magnitude of energy released within a tropical cyclone, and more energy than that released during the atomic bomb blast at Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.


title: Thunderstorm

text: The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor results show that gamma rays and antimatter particles (positrons) can be generated in powerful thunderstorms. It is suggested that the antimatter positrons are formed in terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGF). TGFs are brief bursts occurring inside thunderstorms and associated with lightning. The streams of positrons and electrons collide higher in the atmosphere to generate more gamma rays. About 500 TGFs may occur every day worldwide, but mostly go undetected.


title: Thunderstorm

text: In more contemporary times, thunderstorms have taken on the role of a scientific curiosity. Every spring, storm chasers head to the Great Plains of the United States and the Canadian Prairies to explore the scientific aspects of storms and tornadoes through use of videotaping. Radio pulses produced by cosmic rays are being used to study how electric charges develop within thunderstorms. More organized meteorological projects such as VORTEX2 use an array of sensors, such as the Doppler on Wheels, vehicles with mounted automated weather stations, weather balloons, and unmanned aircraft to investigate thunderstorms expected to produce severe weather. Lightning is detected remotely using sensors that detect cloud-to-ground lightning strokes with 95 percent accuracy in detection and within of their point of origin.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Thunderstorms strongly influenced many early civilizations. Greeks believed that they were battles waged by Zeus, who hurled lightning bolts forged by Hephaestus. Some American Indian tribes associated thunderstorms with the Thunderbird, who they believed was a servant of the Great Spirit. The Norse considered thunderstorms to occur when Thor went to fight Jötnar, with the thunder and lightning being the effect of his strikes with the hammer Mjölnir. Hinduism recognizes Indra as the god of rain and thunderstorms. Christian doctrine accepts that fierce storms are the work of God. These ideas were still within the mainstream as late as the 18th century.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Martin Luther was out walking when a thunderstorm began, causing him to pray to God for being saved and promising to become a monk.


title: Thunderstorm

text: Thunderstorms, evidenced by flashes of lightning, on Jupiter have been detected and are associated with clouds where water may exist as both a liquid and ice, suggesting a mechanism similar to that on Earth. (Water is a polar molecule that can carry a charge, so it is capable of creating the charge separation needed to produce lightning). These electrical discharges can be up to a thousand times more powerful than lightning on the Earth. The water clouds can form thunderstorms driven by the heat rising from the interior. The clouds of Venus may also be capable of producing lightning; some observations suggest that the lightning rate is at least half of that on Earth.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Timothy Michael Kaine (; born February 26, 1958) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.


title: Tim Kaine

text: 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. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was elected mayor of Richmond in 1998 and held that position until being elected lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected governor of Virginia in 2005 and held that office from 2006 to 2010. He chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.


title: Tim Kaine

text: 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 ClintonKaine 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: 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. 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: 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 was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: 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. 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 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: On July 1, 1998, Kaine was elected mayor of Richmond, succeeding Larry Chavis. He was chosen by an 8 to 1 vote on the majority-black Richmond City Council, becoming the city's first white mayor in more than ten years, which was viewed as a surprise. Rudy McCollum, an African American city councilor also interested in the mayoralty, decided to back Kaine after a private meeting between the two, clearing the way for Kaine to win the election. Previous mayors had treated the role as primarily ceremonial, with the city manager effectively operating the city; Kaine treated it as a full-time job, taking a more hands-on role.


title: Tim Kaine

text: As mayor, Kaine used a sale-leaseback arrangement to obtain funds to renovate the historic Maggie L. Walker High School and reopen it in 2000 as a magnet governor's school, the Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies, which "now serves the top students in Central Virginia". Three elementary schools and one middle school were also built in Richmond under Kaine. Along with Commonwealth's attorney David Hicks, U.S. attorney James Comey, and police chief Jerry Oliver, Kaine was a supporter of Project Exile, an initiative that shifted gun crimes to federal court, where defendants faced harsher sentences. Though controversial, the effort was effective and achieved widespread support; the city's homicide rate fell by 55% during Kaine's mayoralty. Kaine touted Project Exile during his 2001 campaign for lieutenant governor.


title: Tim Kaine

text: On several occasions, 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. "Forbes" magazine named Richmond one of "the 10 best cities in America to do business" during Kaine's term.


title: Tim Kaine

text: According to John Moeser, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University and later a visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement, Mayor Kaine "was energetic, charismatic and, most important, spoke openly about his commitment to racial reconciliation in Richmond." "The New York Times" wrote that Kaine "was by all accounts instrumental in bridging the city's racial divide." In the early part of his term, Kaine issued an apology for the city's role in slavery; the apology was generally well received as "a genuine, heartfelt expression". In the latter part of his term, a contentious debate took place over the inclusion of a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in a set of historic murals to be placed on city floodwalls. Many African Americans were outraged that Lee would appear on city walls, while Southern heritage groups demanded that the picture remain. Kaine proposed a compromise in which Lee would appear as part of a series of murals that also included figures like Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty. His stance drew criticism from the NAACP; Kaine argued that placing Lee on the floodwall made sense in context, and that "Much of our history is not pleasant; you can't whitewash it." Kaine's proposal passed the council on a 6–3 vote.


title: Tim Kaine

text: During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine ran for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2001. He joined the race after state senator Emily Couric dropped out due to pancreatic cancer and endorsed Kaine as her replacement. In the Democratic primary election, Kaine ran against state delegate Alan A. Diamonstein of Newport News, and state delegate Jerrauld C. Jones of Norfolk. Kaine won the nomination, with 39.7% of the vote to Diamonstein's 31.4% and Jones's 28.9%.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In the general election, Kaine won with 925,974 votes (50.35%), edging out his Republican opponent, state delegate Jay Katzen, who received 883,886 (48.06%). Libertarian Gary Reams received 28,783 votes (1.57%).


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2005, Kaine ran for governor of Virginia against Republican candidate Jerry W. Kilgore, a former state attorney general. Kaine was considered an underdog for most of the race, trailing in polls for most of the campaign. Two September polls showed Kaine trailing Kilgore—by four percentage points in a "Washington Post" poll and by one point in a Mason-Dixon/"Roanoke Times" poll. The final polls of the race before the election showed Kaine slightly edging ahead of Kilgore.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine ultimately prevailed, winning 1,025,942 votes (51.7%) to Kilgore's 912,327 (46.0%). A third candidate, independent state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr., ran as an "independent Republican" and received 43,953 votes (2.2%).


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine emphasized fiscal responsibility and a centrist message. He expressed support for controlling sprawl and tackling longstanding traffic issues, an issue that resonated in the northern Virginia exurbs. He benefited from his association with the popular outgoing Democratic governor, Mark Warner, who had performed well in traditionally Republican areas of the state. On the campaign trail, Kaine referred to the "Warner-Kaine administration" in speeches and received Warner's strong backing. Kilgore later attributed his defeat to Warner's high popularity and President George W. Bush's sharply declining popularity; Bush held a rally with Kilgore on the campaign's final day.


title: Tim Kaine

text: The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." The ads also attacked Kaine for his service ten years earlier as a court-appointed attorney for a death-row inmate. The editorial boards of "The Washington Post" and a number of Virginia newspapers denounced the ads as a "smear" and "dishonest." Kaine responded with an ad "in which he told voters that he opposes capital punishment but would take an oath and enforce the death penalty. In later polls, voters said they believed Kaine's response and were angered by Kilgore's negative ads."


title: Tim Kaine

text: In the election, Kaine won by large margins in the Democratic strongholds such as Richmond and northern Virginia's inner suburbs (such as Alexandria and Arlington), as well as in the Democratic-trending Fairfax County. Kaine also won Republican-leaning areas in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs, including Prince William County and Loudoun County, where George W. Bush had beat John Kerry in the previous year's presidential election, and performed "surprisingly well in Republican strongholds like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake." Kaine also defeated Kilgore in the burgeoning Richmond suburbs. Kilgore led in southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley.


title: Tim Kaine

text: 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: On January 31, 2006, Kaine gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address. In it, he criticized the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act for "wreaking havoc on local school districts"; criticized congressional Republicans for cutting student loan programs; and condemned as "reckless" Bush's spending increases and tax cuts. Kaine praised bipartisan initiatives in Virginia "to make record investments in education" and to improve veterans' access to veterans' benefits. He criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq War and treatment of U.S. soldiers, saying that "the American people were given inaccurate information about reasons for invading Iraq"; "our troops in Iraq were not given the best body armor or the best intelligence"; and "the administration wants to further reduce military and veterans' benefits."


title: Tim Kaine

text: As governor, Kaine protected of Virginia land from development, fulfilling a promise he made in 2005. His conservation efforts focused on conservation easements (voluntary easements that preserve the private ownership of a piece of land while also permanently protecting it from development); a substantial Virginia land preservation tax credit encouraged easements. From 2004 to 2009, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (a quasi-governmental entity set up in 1966 to preserve open land in the state) protected more land than it had in the previous 40 years, a fact Kaine touted as his term drew to a close.


title: Tim Kaine

text: As governor, Kaine established the Climate Change Commission, a bipartisan panel to study climate change issues. The panel was shuttered under Kaine's Republican successor, Governor Robert F. McDonnell, but revived (as the Governor's Climate Change and Resiliency Update Commission) under McDonnell's successor, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.


title: Tim Kaine

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


title: Tim Kaine

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


title: Tim Kaine

text: In October 2006, Kaine signed an executive order banning smoking in all government buildings and state-owned cars as of January 1, 2007. He signed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with some exceptions, in March 2009, making Virginia the first Southern state to do so.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school. Kaine expressed "some qualms" about the legislation and pushed for a strong opt-out provision, ultimately signing a bill that included a provision allowing parents to opt out of the requirement without citing a reason.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2007, Kaine secured increases in state funding for nursing in the Virginia General Assembly and announced a 10% salary increase for nursing faculty above the normal salary increase for state employees, plus additional funds for scholarships for nursing master's programs. The initiatives were aimed at addressing a shortage of practicing nurses.


title: Tim Kaine

text: After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, Kaine appointed an eight-member Virginia Tech Review Panel, chaired by retired Virginia State Police superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, to probe the event. The commission members included specialists in psychology, law, forensics and higher education as well as former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The commission first met in May 2007, and issued its findings and recommendations in August 2007. Among other recommendations, the panel proposed many mental health reforms. Based on the panel's recommendations, Kaine proposed $42 million of investment in mental health programs and reforms, included "boosting access to outpatient and emergency mental health services, increasing the number of case managers and improving monitoring of community-based providers." In April 2007, 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. Kaine, who had been in Japan on a trade mission at the time of the shootings, received widespread praise for his quick return to the state and his handling of the issue.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Among Kaine's greatest challenges as governor came during the 2008–09 economic crisis; "The Washington Post" wrote that "perhaps his greatest success was keeping the state running despite [the crisis]." Amid the Great Recession, unemployment in Virginia remained lower than the national average. During Kaine's tenure as governor, the unemployment rate in Virginia rose from 3.2% to 7.4%, a smaller increase than the national rate, which rose from 4.7% to 9.9% during the same period.


title: Tim Kaine

text: As governor, Kaine approved about $3.31 billion in general fund spending cuts, and after his term in office, the Virginia General Assembly adopted about $1.33 billion in additional budget cuts that Kaine had recommended, for a total of $4.64 billion in cuts. "The Washington Post" wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition." Virginia was one of three states to earn the highest grade in terms of management in a report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. Virginia took first place each year from 2006 to 2009 in "Forbes" magazine's "Best States For Business" rankings.


title: Tim Kaine

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


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2006, 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. The money would be raised through increases in taxes and fees that would have raised an estimated $4 billion in revenue over four years. The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2007, Republicans in the General Assembly passed their own transportation-funding bill. Rather than a statewide tax increase to finance the transportation improvements, as Kaine and most legislative Democrats favored, the Republican bill called for transportation funding "to come from borrowing $2.5 billion and paying the debt costs out of the general fund"; authorized local tax increase in Northern Virginia; increased fees and taxes on rental cars, commercial real estate, and hotels; and increased traffic infraction fines and driver's licenses fees.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine and most legislative Democrats opposed the Republican legislation, calling it inadequate to address traffic congestion and arguing that the withdrawal of funds from the general fund would affect core services such as health care, law enforcement, and education. Kaine ultimately signed a bill with amendments reflecting "concerns by local government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who were concerned that the plan took too much money from the state's general fund."


title: Tim Kaine

text: Under Kaine, participation in Virginia in early childhood education increased by 40.2% due to his expansion of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, which makes pre-kindergarten more accessible to four-year-olds from households close to the poverty line. Kaine sought increases to the budget for preschool programs every year during his term as governor. Virginia was rated as the best state to raise a child in a 2007 report by "Education Week" and the Pew Center on the States.


title: Tim Kaine

text: As governor, Kaine made a number of appointments to the Virginia state courts. He 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. in 2008.


title: Tim Kaine

text: On September 27, 2007, just weeks after appointing Esam Omeish to the 20-member Virginia Commission on Immigration, Kaine learned that Omeish had made videos accusing Israel of genocide and calling for President Bush's impeachment. He immediately requested and received Omeish's resignation and said that background checks would be more thorough in the future.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine announced his support for Barack Obama's presidential bid in February 2007. It was maintained that Kaine's endorsement was the first from a statewide elected official outside of Illinois. Because Kaine was a relatively popular governor of a Southern state, there was media speculation that he was a potential nominee for vice president. Obama had supported Kaine in his campaign for governor, saying, "Tim Kaine has a message of fiscal responsibility and generosity of spirit. That kind of message can sell anywhere." On July 28, 2008, Politico reported that Kaine was "very, very high" on Obama's shortlist for vice president, a list that also included Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Obama ultimately selected Biden. It was later reported that Obama told Kaine, in breaking the news to him, "You are the pick of my heart, but Joe [Biden] is the pick of my head". Obama later wrote that he had ultimately narrowed down the choice for his running mate to Kaine and Biden. He 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In January 2009, Kaine became chair of the Democratic National Committee. He 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. He took on the position as chair part-time as he continued his term as governor of Virginia. Kaine's main goals as DNC chair "were protecting the party's seats in Congress during the 2010 midterms and integrating the president's campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, and its technological acumen into the party machinery." In the 2010 midterms, the DNC under Kaine's leadership outraised the Republican National Committee (RNC) by $30 million, but Democrats lost control of the House and lost seats in the Senate amidst a Tea Party backlash. Kaine was not generally blamed for the losses.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine kept a low profile in the position in comparison to his counterpart, RNC chairman Michael Steele. He focused more on fundraising and maintaining party unity than on attacking political opponents.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In February 2011, after Kaine spoke to union leaders in Madison, Organizing for America got involved in Wisconsin's budget battle and opposed Republican-sponsored anti-union legislation. It made phone calls, sent emails, and distributed messages via Facebook and Twitter to build crowds for rallies.


title: Tim Kaine

text: After completing his term as governor in January 2010, Kaine taught part-time at the University of Richmond, teaching a course in spring 2010 at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies and another in fall 2010 at the University of Richmond School of Law. He explained that he had chosen to teach at a private university rather than a public university "because it would not have been right for a sitting governor to be seeking employment at an institution when he writes the budget and appoints the board of the institution."


title: Tim Kaine

text: After Senator Jim Webb's decision not to seek reelection, Kaine announced on April 5, 2011, that he would run for Webb's seat. He 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. Kaine named Lawrence Roberts as his campaign chairman. Mike Henry was chosen as his campaign manager. Kaine filmed announcement videos in English and Spanish and was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. He defeated former senator and governor George Allen in the general election.


title: Tim Kaine

text: After the 2016 election, Kaine said he would run for reelection to the Senate in 2018. He expressed his desire to emulate John Warner, who represented Virginia in the Senate for 30 years. He added that he would not run for president or vice president in the future.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In his 2018 Senate campaign against Republican nominee and Trump ally Corey Stewart, Kaine had the endorsement of "The Richmond Times-Dispatch", marking the first time in decades the paper had endorsed a Democrat.


title: Tim Kaine

text: After taking an early lead in his race against Stewart, Kaine worked to support other Democrats who, in seven districts, were challenging incumbent Republicans for House seats. Kaine defeated Stewart by more than 15 points.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine was sworn in on January 3, 2013, reuniting him with Mark Warner, the senior senator. Kaine was lieutenant governor when Warner was governor of Virginia.


title: Tim Kaine

text: On June 11, 2013, Kaine delivered a speech on the Senate floor in support of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill. The speech was entirely in Spanish, marking the first time a senator had ever made a speech on the Senate floor in a language other than English.


title: Tim Kaine

text: As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new Congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal. Kaine has taken several trips throughout the Middle East, meeting with the leaders of states such as Turkey and Israel.


title: Tim Kaine

text: While in the Senate, Kaine has continued to teach part-time at the University of Richmond, receiving a salary of $16,000 per year.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine has voted with his party more than 90% of the time. According to "The Washington Post", Kaine has "crafted a largely progressive record as a senator." He reportedly has good relations with both Democratic and Republican senators.


title: Tim Kaine

text: During the 2016 vice-presidential campaign, Kaine frequently criticized Donald Trump, saying that Trump "as commander-in-chief scares me to death" and had a "bizarre fascination with strongmen and authoritarian leaders". In 2017, after Trump took office, Kaine continued to criticize his "authoritarian tendencies", citing his attacks on media, judges, and peaceful protesters. At an event at George Mason University, Kaine said that with Trump in office, Americans "are in a 'living experiment' to see whether or not the Constitution still works to check executive power."


title: Tim Kaine

text: In February 2017, Kaine met with Pope Francis at a general audience at the Vatican. Kaine also met with the Jesuit Refugee Service to discuss refugees and met with Vatican officials to discuss Latin American issues. The same month, Kaine delivered an address, "The Truman Doctrine at 70", at London's Chatham House.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In January 2014, Kaine and Senator Rob Portman established the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus (CTE Caucus), which focuses on vocational education and technical education. Kaine and Portman co-chair the caucus. In 2014, Kaine and Portman introduced the CTE Excellence and Equity Act to the Senate; the legislation would provide $500 million in federal funding, distributed by competitive grants, to high schools to further CTE programs. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to the omnibus Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, would promote apprenticeships and similar initiatives. Kaine and Portman introduced similar legislation, the Educating Tomorrow's Workforce Act, in 2017.


title: Tim Kaine

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


title: Tim Kaine

text: The "New York Times" reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, supported Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the next day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him for vice president on July 27, 2016.


title: Tim Kaine

text: 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 also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major-party ticket since Tyler.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the previous ten years. He also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September Kaine published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, "Stronger Together".


title: Tim Kaine

text: In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted 70 times during the debate, while Pence interrupted 40 times.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.


title: Tim Kaine

text: About 145,000 emails from Kaine and his staff during his term as governor are publicly accessible at the Library of Virginia. "Politico" conducted an analysis of the correspondence and wrote that the messages show Kaine to be a "media-savvy" and detail-oriented "micro-manager" who is also a policy "wonk".


title: Tim Kaine

text: According to "The New York Times", Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith." On "Meet the Press", Kaine called himself "boring."


title: Tim Kaine

text: In terms of political ideology, "FiveThirtyEight" gives Kaine an average score of −37 (−100 is the most liberal, and 100 is the most conservative). "FiveThirtyEight" characterizes him as a "mainstream Democrat" and notes that his ideology score is very similar to that of Joe Biden. Three conservative groups—the American Conservative Union, the Club for Growth, and Heritage Action—gave Kaine 0% ratings in the few years before 2016, while the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action gave Kaine a 90% rating in 2014. "The" "New York Times" wrote that "in hyperpartisan Washington, he is often seen as a centrist" while also describing him as an "old-fashioned liberal...driven by Jesuit ideals."


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine, a Roman Catholic, personally opposes abortion, but is "largely inclined to keep the law out of women's reproductive decisions." He has said, "I'm a strong supporter of "Roe v. Wade" and women being able to make these decisions. In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don't need to make people's reproductive decisions for them." Kaine supports some legal restrictions on abortion, such as requiring parental consent for minors (with a judicial bypass procedure) and banning late-term abortions in cases where the woman's life is not at risk.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2009, 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. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America expressed disappointment in Kaine's decision. Kaine considered such license plate messages a matter of free speech and added that the move was "in keeping with the commonwealth's longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages."


title: Tim Kaine

text: 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2005, when running for governor, Kaine said he favored reducing abortions by "Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother"; "Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education"; "Ensuring women's access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity"; and "Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies."


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2007, as governor, Kaine cut off state funding for abstinence-only sex education programs, citing studies that showed such programs were ineffective, while comprehensive sex education programs were more effective. Kaine believes that both abstinence and contraceptives must be taught, and that education should be evidence-based.


title: Tim Kaine

text: As a senator, Kaine has received perfect scores from Planned Parenthood and the abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL. He has received a score of zero from the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine "strongly disagrees" with "Citizens United v. FEC" (2010). In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics." They urged the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders to "increase transparency in the U.S. political process".


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine personally opposes capital punishment, but presided over 11 executions while governor. He said, "I really struggled with [capital punishment] as governor. I have a moral position against the death penalty. But I took an oath of office to uphold it. Following an oath of office is also a moral obligation." During his time in office he commuted one death sentence in June 2008, that of Percy Levar Walton, to life imprisonment without parole on grounds of mental incompetence, writing that "one cannot reasonably conclude that Walton is fully aware of the punishment he is about to suffer and why he is to suffer it" and thus that executing him would be unconstitutional. Kaine vetoed a number of bills to expand the death sentence to more crimes, saying: "I do not believe that further expansion of the death penalty is necessary to protect human life or provide for public safety needs." Some of the vetoes were overridden.


title: Tim Kaine

text: 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine acknowledges the scientific consensus on climate change, and in a 2014 Senate speech criticized climate change deniers, as well as those who "may not deny the climate science, but ... deny that the U.S. can or should be a leader in taking any steps" to address the issue.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine has expressed concern about sea level rise (a major consequence of climate change), and in particular its effect on coastal Virginia. In 2014, he partnered with two Virginia Republicans—U.S. Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area."


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine endorses making coal energy production cleaner, saying that it is imperative "to convert coal to electricity with less pollution than we do today." He has criticized those who "frame the debate as a conflict between an economy and the environment", saying that "protecting the environment is good for the economy." Kaine co-sponsored the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, legislation to increase investment in clean coal technologies. He voted against legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Kaine supports the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to harvest natural gas from shale formations. He believes this will reduce carbon pollution. 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. As a result, regulation of fracking remains in the hands of state agencies; the EPA cannot regulate it or require a federal permit. Kaine supports exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other countries.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Like his fellow senator from Virginia, Mark Warner, Kaine applauded the U.S. Forest Service's plan to close most, but not all, of the George Washington National Forest to fracking and other horizontal drilling activities.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined." In April 2015, Kaine reiterated his opposition to the moratorium on offshore drilling. In March 2016, Kaine signaled that his position was softening, saying he was "particularly struck by the material objections of the Department of Defense to the incompatibility of drilling with naval operations off Virginia's coast... I have participated in this debate for over a decade as a governor and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The DOD has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before." By August 2016, Kaine stated his support for a ban on offshore drilling, bringing his position in line with Hillary Clinton's and the Obama administration's.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine supports the development of solar energy and offshore wind turbines. Based on his votes on environmental issues in the Senate, the League of Conservation Voters has given Kaine a 95% score for 2018, and a 94% lifetime score. (At the time of his vice-presidential campaign, Kaine had an 88% score for 2015, and a 91% lifetime score.)


title: Tim Kaine

text: In March 2019, 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. The proposed envoy would advise the president and the administration on the potential effects of climate on national security and be responsible for facilitating all interagency communication between federal science and security agencies.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In April 2019, Kaine was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in viable options to capture carbon emissions released into the atmosphere and expressing disagreement with the Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that include carbon capture research.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine strongly supports financial regulation and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In July 2016, he signed a bipartisan letter that "urged the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to 'carefully tailor its rulemaking' [under Dodd-Frank] regarding community banks and credit unions so as not to 'unduly burden' these institutions with regulations aimed at commercial banks." The letter prompted criticism from progressives who viewed it as anti-regulation. Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain called the letter "a lobbyist-driven effort to help banks dodge consumer protection standards and regulations designed to prevent banks from destroying our economy." Kaine responded, "it's important you don't treat every financial institution the same. It wasn't credit unions that tanked the economy, it wasn't local community banks that tanked the economy, generally wasn't regional banks that did things that tanked the economy." He also signed a letter urging that a requirement that regional banks report liquidity levels on a daily basis be loosened.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In the Senate, Kaine has supported the normalization of U.S.–Cuban relations and the international nuclear agreement with Iran.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, he signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties. Kaine also 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.


title: Tim Kaine

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


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill. The letter said that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance", viewing it as a gift or charity to foreign governments rather than a tool to promote American interests and collective security. The senators wrote that U.S. foreign assistance to Central American countries, by improving stability and alleviating poverty in the region, reduced Central American migration flows to the U.S.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2019, 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: After the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine wrote an extensive essay in "Foreign Affairs" outlining his underlying foreign policy philosophy. According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine. This lack of grand strategy makes American actions seem random, complicating the policy-making process and hindering American leaders' efforts to convince the public that American foreign policy is worthwhile. To remedy this, Kaine proposed a new grand strategy based mainly on democracy promotion. His grand strategy is informed by a tri-polar balance of international power, with one pole being democratic states including the U.S. and its allies, the second autocratic powers led by Russia and China, and the third nonstate actors (multinational corporations, NGOs, gangs, etc.).


title: Tim Kaine

text: First, Kaine believes that the United States should work to support democracy in already democratic countries, as democracy globally has been declining for many years. To maintain democracy in democratic countries, Kaine proposes the creation of an intergovernmental organization consisting of all the world's democracies in which states can cooperate on solutions to problems such as corruption and voter inclusion. He compares this hypothetical group to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in which advanced industrialized countries collaborate on economic policy. 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. In this way, Kaine says that the U.S. should no longer see itself as the indispensable nation, but rather the "exemplary democracy".


title: Tim Kaine

text: Second, Kaine proposes that democracies should coordinate to best interact with authoritarian states. Depending on the circumstances, democracies should either "confront", "compete", or "cooperate" with autocracies. For example, Kaine observes that the U.S. competes with its authoritarian adversaries by strengthening military and commercial alliances, and confronts them by decrying their human rights records.


title: Tim Kaine

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


title: Tim Kaine

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


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region."


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine believes that American foreign policy has neglected relations with Latin America and argues for an increased focus on the Americas, saying, "We have seldom paid enough attention to the Americas, in particular, and when we have—whether through the Monroe Doctrine or by battling communist movements during the Cold War—we have focused more on blocking outsiders from building influence in the Western Hemisphere than we have on the nations already there."


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine is known for "expertise on the constitutional powers of the presidency" and has said that "war powers questions" are a "personal obsession" of his. He has stressed that under the Constitution, "Congress has the power to declare war—and only Congress." Kaine called the 2018 U.S. missile strikes Trump ordered against the Syrian government illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine and Senator John McCain introduced the War Powers Consultation Act of 2014, which would replace the War Powers Act of 1973, bringing Congress back into decisions on the deployment of U.S. military forces. The bill would establish a Congressional Consultation Committee, with which the president would be required to consult regularly regarding significant foreign policy matters before ordering the deployment of the armed forces into a significant armed conflict and at least every two months for the duration of any significant armed conflict. Kaine argued for the bill by citing his "frustration" over the sloppiness of "process and communication over decisions of war", noting that "presidents tend to overreach and Congress sometimes willingly ducks tough votes and decisions. We all have to do better."


title: Tim Kaine

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


title: Tim Kaine

text: In January 2020, Kaine introduced a new war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering hostilities against Iran within 30 days unless it was responding to an imminent threat. The next month, the Iran War Powers Resolution passed the Senate 55–45, securing the votes of eight Republicans along with the Democrats. Trump vetoed the measure, and the Senate failed to override the veto.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2014, Kaine argued that the U.S. military intervention against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) undertaken by Obama was unconstitutional without a new congressional authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. In November 2014, at the Halifax International Security Forum, Kaine and McCain emphasized the necessity of such a congressional authorization, saying: "You just can't have a war without Congress. You can't ask people to risk their lives, risk getting killed, seeing other folks getting killed or injured if Congress isn't willing to do the job to put their thumbprint on this and say, this is a national mission and worth it." After the April 2017 Shayrat missile strike in Syria, ordered by Trump, Kaine said, "There is no legal justification for this. He should not have done this without coming to Congress." On "Meet the Press", Kaine said, "I'm a strong supporter that the U.S. should take action to protect humanitarian causes, like the ban on chemical weapons. Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress."


title: Tim Kaine

text: On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops. In October 2015, 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In April 2018, Kaine criticized Trump for authorizing the launch of a precision military strike on Syria without consulting Congress, calling the strike an "illegal military act".


title: Tim Kaine

text: On February 26, 2021, 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine is a firearms owner. He has supported expanded background checks for weapons purchases as well as "restrictions on the sale of combat-style weapons and high-capacity magazines." As governor, Kaine oversaw the closing of loopholes in Virginia law that allowed some who had failed background checks to purchase guns. In the Senate, he has supported legislation that would require background checks for weapons sold via gun shows and via the internet. He also supports legislation to bar weapons sales to suspected terrorists on the No Fly List.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In November 2017, 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 (UCMJ) 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In March 2018, 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) 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. The bill was intended to respond to the Virginia Beach shooting, in which the perpetrator used a .45-caliber handgun with multiple extended magazines and a suppressor.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine has a 100% rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and an "F" rating from the NRA.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine supports the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (Obamacare), saying in 2012, "I was a supporter and remain a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. I felt like it was a statement that we were going to put some things in the rearview mirror." In 2013, he said that he agreed that changes to the ACA should be debated, but criticized Republicans for "wrapping them up with the threat" of a federal government shutdown.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2018, Kaine and Senator Michael Bennet proposed the creation of "Medicare X"—a public health insurance option modeled after Medicare that would be available on ACA health insurance marketplaces along with private options. The proposal is a more incrementalist alternative to Bernie Sanders's push for "Medicare for All" (single-payer health care).


title: Tim Kaine

text: In December 2018, Kaine was one of 42 senators to sign a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the ACA to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."


title: Tim Kaine

text: In January 2019, 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. It also increased the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund tax and ensured that miners affected by the 2018 coal company bankruptcies would not lose their health care.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In December 2016, 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 February 2017, he and 30 other senators signed a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals in response to the opioid-overdose-reversing device Evzio rising in price from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 and requested the company provide the detailed price structure for Evzio, the number of devices Kaléo Pharmaceuticals set aside for donation, and the totality of federal reimbursements Evzio received in the previous year. In February 2019, Kaine was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about increased insulin prices and charging that the price increases caused patients to lack "access to the life-saving medications they need."


title: Tim Kaine

text: In August 2019, Kaine was one of 19 Democratic senators to sign a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar requesting data from the Trump administration on the consequences for healthcare if Texas prevailed in its lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act. The senators wrote, "Upending the current health care system will create an enormous hole in the pocketbooks of the people we serve as well as wreck state budgets; therefore, we ask for data to help states and Congress better understand the potential consequences of the position the Administration is taking in court."


title: Tim Kaine

text: In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs, which allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. Alongside Senator Mark Warner and many other members of Congress, he signed on to an amicus brief in support of the program in the Supreme Court case "United States v. Texas".


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine also supports comprehensive immigration reform, which would allow persons illegally present in the U.S. to earn legal status by paying a fine and taxes.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to end protections of spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Kaine was one of 22 senators to sign a letter led by Tammy Duckworth arguing that the program allowed service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that its termination would cause personal hardship for service members in combat.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In July 2019, Kaine and 15 other Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, a bill to mandate that ICE agents get approval from a supervisor before undertaking an immigration raid or other enforcement actions at "sensitive locations" (schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courthouses) except in special circumstances. The bill would also require agents to receive annual training and require ICE to submit an annual report on enforcement actions in those locations.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2006, 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.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In the Senate, Kaine co-sponsored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2005, Kaine said, "No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple. That's the right policy." In 2011, he shifted his position. In 2012, he said, "there should be a license that would entitle a committed couple to the same rights as a married couple."


title: Tim Kaine

text: During the 2016 presidential campaign, Kaine noted that his position on same-sex marriage was "at odds with the current doctrine of the church that I still attend." He predicted that the Roman Catholic Church would someday adopt his view. In response, two bishops heading the doctrine and marriage committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the church's position "cannot change" and reaffirmed their opposition to same-sex marriage.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world." In June 2019, Kaine was one of 18 senators to sign a letter to Pompeo requesting an explanation of the State Department's decision not to issue an official statement that year commemorating Pride Month or issue the annual cable outlining activities for embassies commemorating Pride Month. The signatories to the letter also asked why the LGBTI special envoy position had remained vacant. The authors said that the State Department's moves had sent "signals to the international community that the United States is abandoning the advancement of LGBTI rights as a foreign policy priority."


title: Tim Kaine

text: In 2012, Kaine supported raising the cap on income subject for the FICA (Social Security) payroll tax "so that it covers a similar percentage of income as it did in the 1980s under President Reagan, which would greatly extend the solvency of the (Social Security) program."


title: Tim Kaine

text: In the Senate, Kaine has supported the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes in the same manner as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine supported granting Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA or "fast track") to allow him to negotiate free trade agreements. He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."


title: Tim Kaine

text: In July 2016, Kaine said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was "an improvement of the status quo" and an "upgrade of labor standards... environmental standards... intellectual property protections", but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement, citing "significant concerns" over TPP's dispute resolution mechanism. Later that July, Kaine said that he could not support the TPP in its current form.


title: Tim Kaine

text: Kaine supports some smart growth-style policies (which he calls "a balanced approach to growth") to control sprawl and improve transportation. He favors a transportation policy that includes public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians. As governor, Kaine pushed through a $100 million open-space acquisition initiative. Under Kaine, Amtrak service in Virginia was expanded. He also participated in a White House round-table discussion on high-speed rail in 2009.


title: Tim Kaine

text: In April 2019, Kaine was one of 41 senators to sign a bipartisan letter in support of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program, a program authorizing HUD to partner with nonprofit community development groups to provide support to community development corporations. The letter said that the longstanding program had successfully promoted economic and community development, opposed the proposed elimination of the plan in Trump's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020, and urged the Senate to support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.