See below for video of Sen. Tim Kaine’s interview with “Punchbowl News,” in which Kaine talks about Venezuela (the U.S. shouldn’t be trying to run the country, taking their oil, or telling people there who their leader should be), Greenland (Denmark is a NATO ally, “they’ve been with us rock solid,” “don’t cave to a bully”), his grade for Chuck Schumer (an “A” when Schumer was Majority Leader; Kaine says it took Schumer about 90 days to realize that Minority Leader is a very different job), Virginia redistricting, etc. I feel like Sen. Kaine’s response on redistricting was particularly interesting:
“[Abigail Spanberger]’s got other priorities. Look, I mean she ran on affordability issues, and she’s got to produce a lot, and she’s focused on that…I think Abigail and me have sort of the same attitude. This is not where we hoped to be. But Donald Trump’s decision to weaponize redistricting mid decade – you do that and you open a Pandora’s box and…blue states are not just going to sit back and let you do it. I’m sort of blissfully unengaged. My day job keeps me kind of busy enough and I’m a statewide official, so the lines don’t matter that much to me. I do think this is one where the Virginia federal delegation and the Virginia General Assembly are kind of going to have to work this out. And Abigail’s role, because the only real role she has if there’s a constitutional amendment, it doesn’t even go to the desk, but the maps do go to the governor’sdesk. And so…my unsolicited advice to Abigail is tell the federal delegation and the General Assembly to get on the same page, and tell them you’re willing to be an umpire in the event that they’re not on the same page….There’s skittishness [over a 10D-1R map] for two reasons. If you do that, do you run the risk of losing some seats you could win. And second, you got to show the people the maps before you have the referendum vote….And I think most people agree that if you didn’t, you’d really run the risk of losing the referendum. And to show people maps, I think the maps just look more kind of logical [at 9D-2R]. But I haven’t seen them yet. And it’s going to be a decision by the legislators and the federal delegation.”
Interesting, and I understand what Sen. Kaine’s saying about 10D-1R vs. 9D-2R. On the other hand, Sen. Louise Lucas seems determined to go for 10D-1R. So we’ll see. Oh, and for some examples of 10D-1R and 9D-2R maps, see below to get a flavor or what we might be dealing with. And stay tuned, as it sounds like we’ll be getting maps by the end of January, following passage of the amendments this week in the General Assembly.
