When Republicans won control of Washington in November, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) asked his staff to compile a list of the procedural ways he could try to rein in a president determined to stretch the bounds of executive power.
Just six months in, Kaine — a longtime advocate of reclaiming Congress’ Article I authority — has checked off pretty much the entire “motley list” his staff put together.
This year alone, Kaine has triggered votes on five privileged resolutions and co-sponsored a sixth on Middle East arms sales. Just one has been successful — an April vote to block President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian imports.
Along the way, Kaine even faced some resistance from his Democratic colleagues who weren’t accustomed to that level of defiance of the chamber’s leadership.
“Expressing concerns is easy. How about this — there’s a power to stop this if you don’t like it. So let’s get [everyone] on the board,” Kaine said in an interview. “There’s just a tendency to want to avoid hard votes.”
Kaine’s sales job. The former Democratic vice presidential nominee saw value in essentially hijacking the Senate floor, forcing senators of both parties to go on the record about controversial elements of Trump’s agenda. The votes can also serve as oversight tools and, more importantly, allow a senator from the minority party to control the floor.
During closed-door meetings earlier this year, Kaine argued to fellow Democrats that the party needed to start thinking outside the box to push back against Trump. Strongly worded letters weren’t going to cut it.
Kaine encountered what he described as “an initial reluctance.” The Senate has “devolved” into a place where the leadership controls everything, Kaine said, so the notion of one senator butting in so consistently to force votes on hot-button issues was foreign to many.
“People are used to the leaders controlling the floor, and there was an anxiety or discomfort about it,” Kaine noted.
Kaine said he even had to make his case to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the Canada tariff effort. That’s because of concerns from some Democrats about the exact mechanism, which was to roll back Trump’s national emergency declaration for fentanyl trafficking. Schumer and every Senate Democrat voted for the measure.
And Kaine recalled Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the Finance Committee ranking member, noting to him that “nobody’s ever done this before.” That’s because nobody ever did what Trump did, Kaine responded, which was to use emergency economic powers for this purpose.
Even before that April vote, Kaine started to detect a “shift in attitude” among Democratic senators. Kaine said this happened shortly after Schumer’s controversial decision in March to support a GOP-drafted government funding bill that badly split the caucus.
“I voted for Chuck to be leader. I support Chuck to be leader,” Kaine said. “At the same time, I want to be led, I don’t want to be ruled.”
Kaine’s other privileged resolutions have centered on repealing Trump’s national energy emergency, forcing a human rights report for El Salvador, preventing Trump from taking further military action against Iran and blocking Trump’s global tariffs. Looking ahead, Kaine can also trigger another tariff-related vote later this year.
