Sunday, January 03, 2010
A term of crisis: Gov. Tim Kaine exit interview
Gov. Tim Kaine's term as governor encompassed a major tragedy and tense struggles over transportation funding.
Jay Paul | Special to The Roanoke Times
Kaine gets emotional as he talks about the Virginia Tech shootings during a Christmas week interview at the governor's mansion.
The Roanoke Times | File 2009
Tim Kaine greets a lunchtime crowd at Table 50 in downtown Roanoke before speaking about the state's ban on smoking in restaurants.
The Roanoke Times | File 2007
Tim Kaine and his deputy press secretary Maurice Henderson carry a canoe to the James River in Botetourt County for a float trip. Kaine toured the river to discuss land easement.
The Roanoke Times | File 2007
Tim Kaine and President George W. Bush lower their heads for a moment of silence for the shooting victims at Virginia Tech. The day after the tragic shootings, students, victims and the community gathered at a memorial at Cassell Coliseum on the campus in Blacksburg.
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RICHMOND -- Over his four-year term, Tim Kaine's toughest tests as Virginia's 70th governor came from crises he never expected to confront. One came with the trauma and the physical and emotional pain that touched off on April 16, 2007, when a student gunman killed 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech in the nation's worst campus shooting incident.
Kaine had just reached Tokyo at the start of an Asian economic development trip when he received word of the shootings. He returned to Virginia just in time to join President Bush at a campus memorial service the next day. Without notes or a prepared speech, Kaine called on the Tech community and the state to remain united while working through their grief, saying, "We do not need that sense of community to be a victim of yesterday."
Kaine comforted grieving families and visited the wounded in hospitals. He also moved quickly to appoint an expert panel to investigate the shootings, examine where state and campus systems failed, and propose changes to state laws and policies.
The ordeal also reinforced a lesson about managing in a crisis, Kaine said during a Christmas week interview in the governor's mansion.
"As human beings, we have a natural instinct to flinch from painful situations. You have to learn to overcome that instinctive reaction to back away from painful situations. And in any kind of emergency, while your natural reaction is to want to walk backward, you've got to walk forward into it. And you've got to be with the people who are most affected and listen to them, and know that there's nothing magic you can say. ... You've just got to listen to them, and then you'll figure out if there's anything you can do."
Within a year of the shootings, lawmakers had passed reforms to mental health commitment laws and mandated changes to campus security policies. They defeated Kaine's effort to require background checks for all firearms purchased at gun shows, a recommendation made by the gubernatorial panel.
House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, was among those who opposed Kaine's efforts to close the so-called "gun show loophole."
But Griffith, who joined lawmakers in supporting mental health reforms and other public safety measures, said of Kaine: "That does not diminish the fact that he did a fantastic job of bringing the commonwealth together."
Kaine maintained a close relationship with victims' families, providing many of them his personal cellphone number and e-mail address. Some have been critical of him, especially in the past year when Kaine declined to formally reconvene the panel to examine new information that had surfaced over the previous two years. But many have said they appreciate the personal attention from the governor.
"He took a special interest in each and every one of the families," said Holly Adams Sherman, the mother of slain student Leslie Sherman. "It was almost as if he hurt as much as we did."
When told of Sherman's comments, Kaine tried to fight back tears as he described his relationship with the families.
"You never know what it's like to lose a child if you haven't," Kaine said. "But having kids, you can maybe imagine what it would be like. And it's just a horrible thing."
The families' input helped shape the reforms that were enacted after the shootings, he said.
"There were things that we needed to do, but it all started with being a good listener and trying to understand the depths of what people had gone through and try to let that motivate the legal changes and other improvements that we needed to make," he said.
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Interactive timeline
Kaine also managed the state through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, cutting nearly $7 billion from state budgets since March 2007. More than 1,600 state workers have lost jobs. Funding for state colleges has been slashed. Kaine has tried to protect social safety net programs at a time when more people are in need of public assistance, but even some of those services have been affected.
"I've had to cut some things I care deeply about," Kaine acknowledged a few days after submitting his final budget plan to lawmakers.
"The one thing I've told my Cabinet, though, is maybe I was supposed to be governor at this hardest time," Kaine said. "Because somebody else can spend money, but a guy who cares deeply about the safety net is the one who ought to have the pen in his hand."
Kaine rode to the governor's office in 2005 with momentum generated by his popular predecessor, Mark Warner, and a promise to hammer out a fix for the state's transportation funding problems.
But four years and two special sessions of the General Assembly did little to break the gridlock on road and transit funding. A patchwork compromise plan passed in 2007 effectively unraveled within a year. And Kaine's final stab at a transportation funding plan fizzled with an unproductive 2008 special session that ended with partisan finger-pointing. Without new sources of revenue, the state has cut more than $3 billion from its highway construction program over the past two years.
Kaine and Democrats blame House Republicans for the stalemate, saying they refuse to accept that the state must find new revenue for transportation without diverting funds from other programs.
"The House Republicans won't agree that we need more revenue," Kaine said. "And that's not a partisan statement because the Senate Republicans have been real good on this."
Republican leaders argue that Kaine was less interested in compromise than in using the transportation issue as a political wedge.
"I don't think Kaine ever warmed up to the concept of reaching out beyond his base," said Griffith, one of the governor's toughest critics.
Republicans complained that Kaine was more partisan and combative than Warner had been before him. Democrats contend that House Republicans were less willing to cooperate with Kaine after watching Warner leave office with extraordinary approval ratings.
"I heard it repeatedly, even as recently as last year on the floor of the House," said House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong, D-Henry County. "I had a private conversation with a House Republican delegate who said, 'We're not passing anything of Tim Kaine's; we're not making another Mark Warner.' "
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As he prepares to leave office on Jan. 16, Kaine emphasized the constants as much as the ups and downs of his topsy-turvy tenure. Throughout his term, Virginia remained at or near the top of national rankings for its management, business climate and education outcomes, even as it coped with the effects of the worst economy in seven decades. And that, Kaine said, is the best argument for his work.
"If anybody wants to be negative about me, you can do it," Kaine said. "You're not going to stop me from making Virginia the best-managed state in America. You're not going to stop me from recruiting Fortune 500 companies to move here. You're not going to stop me from keeping Virginia at the leading edge of American states. Anybody can be negative if they choose to be. I'm not going to spend time worrying about it."
Kaine's political life won't slow down when he leaves the governor's mansion. He will step up his activities as Democratic National Committee chairman, traveling the country to raise money for the party and to promote and defend President Obama's agenda. Kaine reluctantly accepted the post last year after Obama persuaded him he could serve as a part-time partisan pitchman and full-time governor.
But Kaine's out-of-state trips for DNC business still drew criticism from Republicans, who argued that Kaine too often put partisan interests ahead of state business at a time when Virginia was struggling with economic woes and budget problems. Griffith pointed to the controversial decision by state transportation officials to close 19 interstate rest areas as an example of Kaine not paying sufficient attention to issues at home.
"I think if he had been here he would have understood what a blunder that was and changed course," Griffith said.
When asked about perceptions that national politics have diverted his attention, Kaine said, "The only folks who talk about politics are the R's [Republicans]. I'm talking about service."
Kaine endorsed Obama's candidacy just a week after the then-Illinois senator formally entered the presidential race in 2007. He was on a short list of possible vice presidential candidates in 2008 and remained a visible and vocal surrogate as Obama became the first Democrat in 44 years to win Virginia's electoral votes. Kaine said his relationships with the White House have been useful when it comes to advocating for Virginia's interests, whether it's cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay or attempting to stop the transfer of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier from Norfolk to Florida.
"Having a close relationship with the president doesn't have a downside for Virginia," Kaine insisted. "I don't get anything I ask because I ask it, but I do get to ask the decision-makers directly."
Kaine reveled in the advances Virginia Democrats made during his term -- winning two U.S. Senate seats, a majority of the state's congressional seats and gaining control of the state Senate. And he acknowledged that the lopsided losses by gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds and the Democratic statewide ticket were deflating for him and the party.
Kaine's final budget proposal includes calls for eliminating the local personal property tax, increasing the state income tax and cutting another $2.3 billion in spending. The plan that Kaine proposed last month has been roundly criticized by Republicans, who declared Kaine's tax increase proposal dead before its arrival. Kaine said he was not attempting to force more difficult choices on governor-elect Bob McDonnell and would have delivered the same plan if Deeds had been elected. Though McDonnell has spoken out against Kaine's proposed tax increase, he has repeatedly complimented the outgoing governor for a cooperative transition period.
"There is not a single state that can make the claim they they're in the leadership position Virginia is in," Kaine said. "I want to hand it over knowing it is still in that place. The folks who follow me, and the legislature, they obviously can do what they want to do. But I've worked too hard with my team to get the state in a position where we're at the leading edge. I'm not going to make cuts that are going to squander our leadership position on the way out the door."
