This week at the vice presidential debate, moderator Elaine Quijano opened the event with a simple question: What qualifies you to take on the biggest job in the world, should you ever become president?
Certainly, both Sen. Tim Kaine and Gov. Mike Pence have considered that scenario. But presenting themselves as viable while making clear that this is about the bigger name on the ticket is no small feat of linguistic gymnastics. They must tout their own experience while also promoting the candidate they’re running with.
A better way to assess this is to look at their respective political histories. How have they acted in their own home states, when they were at the reins as governors? How did Pence vote as a representative and governor of Indiana? How effective was Kaine as mayor of Richmond, and governor and senator in Virginia? And how do they each stack up on the issues that concern Global Citizens?
Let's take a look.
Education:
As co-chair of the Senate Career and Education Caucus, Sen. Kaine has experience with education on the federal level. In 2006, he was a staunch opponent of No Child Left Behind, which he argued was “wreaking havoc on local school districts.” More recently, Kaine was part of a group of senators who wrote a letter urging the secretary of education to clarify that LGBT students should be granted access to bathrooms according to their gender identity. He’s also said that he supports a federal commitment to improving teacher pay and that he expanded early childhood education programs by 40% as governor.
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Some of his other educational efforts never landed, like instituting the federal Common Core standards in Virginia, a program he pushed while governor that was rejected on the grounds of not being rigorous enough. He also made $340 million in education cuts during his last year in office in an effort to balance the state budget. That said, educational policy is a realm where he and Secretary Clinton largely agree.
In Indiana, Pence focused on “educating locally.” It’s a stance congruent to that of Donald Trump, who this September criticized Common Core as “educating through Washington D.C.”
In 2014, Indiana was the first state to drop Common Core.
“I believe our students are best served when decisions about education are made at the state and local level,” Pence said. Pence was also one of 25 congressmen to vote against No Child Left Behind in 2001.
Pence has given a lot of attention to educational reform throughout his governance, mostly in the form of support for charter schools. He created a $10 million fund for high-performing schools which rewards $500 per student to charter schools that outdo public schools. He’s also pushed for educational voucher programs and school choice, granting charter schools access to a $50 million state fund for school renovation projects.
Girls & Women
Since 2007, Pence has pursued a policy of defunding Planned Parenthood. He told POLITICO in 2011 that, “if Planned Parenthood wants to be involved in providing counseling services and HIV testing, they ought not be in the business of providing abortions. As long as they aspire to do that, I’ll be after them.”
He’s also asserted that the 1998 movie "Mulan" was “liberal propaganda” for women’s rights. “Obviously, this is Walt Disney’s attempt to add childhood expectation to the cultural debate over the role of women in the military,” wrote Pence in a blog post, adding “Woman in military: bad idea.”
Like Pence, Kaine is also anti-abortion. However, his personal views aren’t reflected in his political platform, and Kaine’s record of supporting Planned Parenthood reads like he’s pro-choice. In September of 2015, for instance, he voted against a GOP bill which sought to cut funding from the organization.
When it comes to equal pay for equal work, Kaine voted for the Paycheck Fairness Act in 2014, which Pence voted against.
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Food & Hunger
Food and hunger isn’t often as prominent of an issue as it should be in policy debate. Most often, it emerges as a part of food stamp legislation, or, more recently, in the debate over the labeling of GMOs. Moreover, farm policy and legislation has somewhat more relevance to Kaine and Pence, as they both come from states with large agricultural industry.
Kaine voted for the Farm Bill of 2014, which stipulated more farmer subsidies as well as improvements on crop insurance for farmers. In 2013 he opposed federal budget cuts that would eliminate free school meals and cut food aid funding. Furthermore, Kaine’s been rated 80% by Food Policy Action (FPA), and has vocalized a commitment to both small and large-scale farms.
Kaine was also criticized by the FPA for initially supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). His vote on a bipartisan trade agreement, they said, “cleared the path for the TPP, which could expose consumers to unsafe foods and erode U.S. health, environment, and food safety protections.”
Meanwhile, Pence is undeniably a candidate with farm policy experience. He’s been praised for easing property taxes on small farmers, and, more nominally, for being “a regular attendee at the state fair.”
Pence has a history of not supporting food welfare programs. Last year he cut food stamps for 18,000 people in Indiana, a state in which, as of 2014, one in six residents depended upon food banks. Pence explained the cut, suggesting that the “able-bodied” must work at least 20 hours a week to qualify for the welfare program. Critics of the cut argue that in a state without enough jobs for the unemployed, thousands could go hungry. Pence had a 14% approval rating on the FPA scorecard.
Environment
Many environmental activists have criticized Pence’s record of environmental stewardship. EcoWatch criticized him for being a climate change denier — Pence himself said that it wasn’t “a resolved issue in science today” — as well as for dismantling an Indiana’s energy efficiency program that, ostensibly, had been successful. The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) scorecard gave him a lifetime score of 4% on environmental issues based on his time in Congress.
Meanwhile, Kaine has definitely toed the political line concerning climate change. He’s acknowledged its impact and helped to prepare coastal communities against rising sea levels. He also took a stance against the Keystone XL pipeline, and has been vocal about his success in land protection; in Virginia, he’s protected huge amounts of land from development projects through his Renew Virginia initiative.
However, those initiatives haven’t been enough to make Kaine a thoroughly “green” candidate. His support of offshore drilling and coal-fired power plants didn’t help. A cautious, centrist approach to environmental regulation is one of the reasons he’s maintained a broad appeal in the swing state of Virginia. It’s also one of the reasons fossil-fuel companies still like him.
Refugees and Immigration
Last year, Kaine was one of 13 senators to urge President Obama to increase the amount of Syrian refugees being welcomed in the US. The letter stated, “it is a moral, legal, and national security imperative for the United States to lead by example in addressing the world’s worst refugee crisis of our time by greatly increasing the number of Syrian refugees who are resettled in our country.”
This year, he signed a follow-up address to the president, who was more than 8,000 refugees short of his 10,000 commitment. Kaine has stated that, “We can’t abandon our principles because there’s terrorism in the world, and one of our principles has been that we’ve been that Statue of Liberty nation.”
Pence has taken a strong stance opposing refugee integration. In 2015, following the Paris attacks, Pence issued an executive order blocking Syrian refugees from settling in Indiana by denying them aid for social services. In the decisions explanation, he said, “Syria is a country that has, frankly, been involved in exporting terrorism.”
As a result, he was sued, and his order dismissed as “nightmare speculation” by Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Court of Appeals. The court also deemed that Pence acted illegally by accepting federal money for the resettlement program and then withholding it.
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Guns
Pence is a longtime advocate for limited gun control. In a 2016 address he asserted, “firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens — including our national guard — make our communities more safe.” He scores an A on the NRA’s pro-gun rights voting record.
Pence’s position is also one which pundits have connected to the high murder rates in Indianapolis. According to the Daily Beast, the murder rate there peaked in 2015 at a record-high 144. Police in neighboring Illinois, meanwhile, have also noted that 20% of the guns found at Chicago crime scenes had been purchased in Indiana.
On the Democratic side, Kaine notably differs. As per his website, the VP candidate “strongly supports American’s right to bear arms.” However, he’s made clear that he also supports regulation, and that he’s “been disappointed to see the Senate block commonsense legislation” around the issue.
It’s been enough to earn him the enmity of the NRA, who described Kaine as “eager to attack gun owner’s right by any means,” and denounced his respect for the second amendment. His ‘F’ gun rights rating should come as little surprise.
Taxes & Trade
Notably, both Kaine and Pence were recent supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a point of contention in the 2016 election. Both coming from farm-heavy states, the deal would be a boon to their food export economies. Since becoming vice-presidential candidates, however, they have both conformed to their runningmates’ platforms: both Clinton and Trump now oppose the TPP.
Kaine’s campaigns have long made “fiscal responsibility” a central message. In a speech, Kaine condemned President Bush’s tax cuts and government spending as “reckless.” He instead emphasized an approach to balancing his state budget, a task made more difficult by the fact that he took charge in 2006, shortly before the 2007 recession.
To that end, he had to cut close to $5 billion from the Virginia state budget, while the state also earned the accolade of “Best State for Business in America.” As a senator, he has supported raising the minimum wage.
In both Congress and as governor, Pence has pursued a policy of corporate tax reduction. In 2013 he voted for reducing the number of tax brackets from 6 to 2, and has also largely eliminated estate tax in Indiana. His policies have been focused on moving money from the public sector to the private. As a congressman, he has voted against raising the minimum wage.
This July he announced a $1 billion dollar investment plan in innovation and entrepreneurship. In that speech Pence said, “Everyone knows we make things, grow things, and move things, and once again Indiana will be known as a place where we invent things.”
Health
In 2014, Indiana Governor, Mike Pence argued that “traditional Medicaid is not a system we need to expand. It’s a system we need to change.” Alternatively, Pence suggested healthcare at the local level with a plan called “Healthy Indiana.” The program emphasizes accountability in its ‘Personal Wellness and Responsibility’ component (POWER), while forgoing $17.3 billion in additional federal funding to do so.
Between 2014-2015, Indiana also suffered the worst HIV outbreak in its history. In Scott County, the yearly cases recorded surged from single to triple digits, totalling 190, and prompting Gov. Pence to institute an emergency needle exchange program. Pundits praised Pence for compromising his conservative values on giving needles. Critics noted that the removal of the county’s one HIV testing center, a Planned Parenthood, was caused by his state spending cuts and that Pence took three months to respond with the exchange program, which was effective.
In the Senate, Kaine is a firm advocate for expanding the Affordable Care Act. He’s also known for he’s tackled health at the state level: Kain was governor when the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting occurred. His response, a year later, came in the form of a $42 million dollar mental health-care package. The legislation effectively overhauled the current mental-health structure, and was lauded as a “down-payment on longer-term reforms,” by Peter Cunningham, a professor of health behavior and policy at Virginia Commonwealth University.