Senator Kaine Expected to Chair Senate Budget Committee as Merkley Seeks Environment Panel
Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine is expected to become chairman of the Senate Budget Committee in the next Congress. Bloomberg Government reported on November 12 that Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the committee's current leading Democrat, had announced that day that he would seek to lead the Environment and Public Works Committee instead. Kaine is the most senior Democrat on the Budget Committee who is not already positioned to chair another panel, making him the likely successor.
"I am excited by the opportunity to serve as its next chair," Kaine said in a statement.
Kaine has long spoken out on war powers and war funding. In June, in an additional view filed with the Senate Armed Services Committee's conference report on the annual defence bill, he called the United States' war with Iran "illegal and foolish," said it was the first time he had voted against the defence authorisation bill, and argued that Congress should use its appropriations tools to constrain military action that Congress has not authorised.
Source: Bloomberg Government
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国参议员 Tim Kaine 官方肖像（第119届国会）。公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Official portrait of U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (119th Congress). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
