Tag Archives: Governor Tim Kaine

- “Woke Up Election Day”: The Virginia Electoral College

Published 12 December 2012

Governor Tim Kaine and First Lady Anne Holton with Virginia's electors, 15 December 2008, Office of the Governor.On 6 November 2012, Barack Obama and Joe Biden were re-elected President and Vice President of the United States.  Or were they?  As we all learned in our high school government class, the President and Vice President are officially elected by the Electoral College.  Under this system, established by Article II and the 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution, voters in each state on Election Day are actually choosing a candidate’s slate of electors to serve in the Electoral College.  Under Chapter 1 of Title 3, United States Code (62 Stat. 672, as amended), the Electoral College meets and votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.  The 2012 Electoral College will meet on 17 December to cast Virginia’s 13 electoral votes for Obama and Biden.

The Library of Virginia has a variety of records in several collections (Secretary of the Commonwealth, Office of the Governor, Virginia General Assembly, etc.)  related to the Virginia Electoral College from 1789 to 2008.    Today, copies of the Certificate of Ascertainment and Certificate of Vote are transferred to the Library by the Virginia State Board of Elections.  The Certificate of Ascertainment lists the names of the electors appointed and the number of votes cast for each person during the general election.  The Certificate of Vote lists the totals for the Electoral College.  Additional records … read more »

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- We Remember: Virginia Tech Five Years Later

Published 16 April 2012

vt_ribbon_grayFive years ago, Seung Hui Cho killed 32 people and injured at least 17 others before turning the gun on himself.  The 16 April 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech is the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in United States history.  In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, I created a web archive collection, Tragedy at Virginia Tech, in order to capture the Commonwealth’s “on-line” response.  Included in the collection are the websites of Virginia Tech, the Office of the Governor, and the Virginia Tech Review Panel.  I remember creating the collection because of the “historic” nature of the shooting.  I confess that I initially viewed that day’s events with the emotional detachment of an archivist/historian.  But what made it “historic?” The number of people killed?  The 32 people who died that day are not numbers – they had names, families, hopes and dreams – a future.  The biographies captured in the Tragedy at Virginia Tech collection quickly shattered my impassiveness.  What I saw as “historic” in 2007 is an ever present tragedy for the families who lost their loved ones.  It is a wound that time cannot heal.

I was reminded of this when I began processing the e-mail records of Governor Tim Kaine’s administration.  The Kaine administration transferred to the Library of Virginia approximately 1.3 million e-mail messages from 215 … read more »

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- Fort Monroe Records at the Library of Virginia

Published 22 September 2011

Chart by John Grant, C[ivil] E[ngineer], circa 1861, of the Chesapeake Bay showing Fort Monroe and Fort Calhoun, Virginia Advisory Council, Letter of John Grant, ca. 1861. Accession 50135, State government records collection, The Library of Virginia.The recent deactivation of Fort Monroe as a military installation and its transfer back to the Commonwealth of Virginia calls to mind the fort’s rich history.  This history is well documented in the archives of the Library of Virginia.  The Executive Papers of Governor Wilson Cary Nicholas contain a letter from President James Madison dated 29 May 1816 on the need to protect the Chesapeake Bay and fortify Old Point Comfort (Accession 41612).  The Executive Communications to the Speaker of the House of Delegates  include a letter from Secretary of War John C. Calhoun to Governor Thomas Mann Randolph in 1821 regarding the cession of the fortifications under construction at Old Point Comfort and the shoal called Rip Raps (Accession 36912, Miscellaneous Reel 5389).  The archives also preserve a quartermaster letter book from the 1830s describing the day-to-day operations of the fort during that time period (Accession 24542, Miscellaneous Reel 475).  A recently discovered letter from John Grant, acting engineer and draftsman for the Potomac Department, to Captain Matthew Fontaine Maury of the Advisory Council of Virginia contains Grant’s map illustrating Fort Monroe and nearby Fort Calhoun (Accession 50135).  The fort continued to protect the Bay during the First and Second World Wars.  The papers of George Edward Barksdale note the experiences of a soldier in the Army Medical Reserve Corps … read more »

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- Peabody’s Improbable History: “Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to 2008….”

Published 1 June 2011

February 11, 2009, image of President Barack Obama, with Governor Tim Kaine, speaking about infrastructure at a Fairfax County road construction project. Public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia.

Last week President Barack Obama made minor news when he incorrectly signed the guest book at Westminster Abbey in London “24 May 2008.” Obama did not make the same mistake when, as a U.S. senator from Illinois and Democratic presidential candidate, he signed the guest book at the Virginia Executive Mansion on 17 February 2007.  Obama was the keynote speaker at the state Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Richmond.  Governor Tim Kaine endorsed Obama for president that night, becoming the first governor outside of Illinois to endorse a 2008 candidate for president.  The guest book page signed by Obama is a good example of what archivists call a record with secondary value.  The Society of American Archivists defines secondary value as “the usefulness or significance of records based on purposes other than that for which they were originally created.”  The significance of the guest book is derived from future events:  Obama winning the 2008 presidential election and Kaine’s importance as an early supporter.  Another example of secondary value is a 21 July 1987 letter written by Mark R. Warner to Governor Gerald L. Baliles.  The content of the letter is quite ordinary – a young businessman wants to get involved in Virginia politics and requests a meeting with the governor.  The letter’s secondary value originates from Warner’s election as governor in 2001 and United … read more »

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- What’s New in the Archives

Published 2 December 2010

Interested in what’s new in the archives at the Library of Virginia?  You can find out in two reports compiled quarterly by LVA staffers:  The Library of Virginia Quarterly Report of Archival Accessions and Primary Sources: Quarterly Report of Newly Processed Collections.

The Report of Archival Accessions lists the creator, title, size, brief description, and accession number of the local, map, private, and state archival collections described and/or received during the time period.  Some of the local and state records collections listed may be closed for processing; check with Archives Research Services regarding availability for research use.

Primary Sources lists the latest collections processed, microfilmed, or digitized by the Library.  Like its companion publication, Report of Archival Accessions, Primary Sources gives the creator, title, size, and accession number for each collection processed during the previous quarter.  It also contains links to published finding aids for each collection.  Notable collections processed between July and September 2010 include:  Charlotte County Chancery Causes, 1765-1912 (bulk 1784-1912);  Robert S. Bloxom Papers, 1978-2003; and Governor Timothy M. Kaine, Counselor’s Office, 2001-2009 (bulk 2006-2009).

Current reports are located on the Library of Virginia’s Web site under the ”News and Events” section (linked above). Older reports are located under Library Collection Releases.… read more »

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- What’s New in the Archives

Published 16 August 2010

Interested in what’s new in the archives at the Library of Virginia?  You can find out in two reports compiled quarterly by LVA staffers:  The Library of Virginia Quarterly Report of Archival Accessions and Primary Sources:  Quarterly Report of Newly Processed Collections.

The Report of Archival Accessions lists the creator, title, size, brief description, and accession number of the local, map, private, and state archival collections described and/or received during the time period. Some of the local and state records collections listed may be closed for processing; check with Archives Research Services regarding availability for research use.

Primary Sources lists the latest collections processed, microfilmed, or digitized by the Library.  Like its companion publication, Report of Archival Accessions, Primary Sources gives the creator, title, size, and accession number for each collection processed during the previous quarter.  It also contains links to published finding aids for each collection.  Notable collections processed between March and June 2010 include:  Smyth County Register of Colored Persons Cohabitating Together as Husband and Wife, 27 February 1866; Barnard-Nickels Family Papers, 1929-1972; and Governor Timothy M. Kaine, Executive Office-Governor, Records, 2005-2009.

Current reports are located on the Library of Virginia’s Web site under the ”News and Events” section (linked above).  Older reports are located under “Library Collection Releases.”… read more »

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- Virginia’s Web Archive

Published 16 June 2010
Holy Cow. Image of Mark Warner from the Office of the Governor (2002-2006), Press Office, State Records Collection, Library of Virginia

Holy Cow. Image of Mark Warner from the Office of the Governor (2002-2006), Press Office, State Records Collection, Library of Virginia

Looking for the Web site of Governor Tim Kaine (2006-2010), which was taken down at the end of his term?  The Library of Virginia can help.  The Web sites of the Kaine Administration (Governor, First Lady, Cabinet Secretaries, and his initiatives) are preserved as part of the LVA’s Virginia Web Archive.

Since 2005, the LVA has been “archiving” Web sites of enduring cultural value, especially those created and maintained by Virginia government. We started with the administration of Governor Mark Warner (2002-2006) and expanded into special topics of Virginia interest, such as the 2006 Senate race between George Allen and Jim Webb, the 2007 and 2009 General Assembly elections, the 2008 Congressional elections, and the Virginia Tech tragedy.  We are already archiving Web sites of the Governor Bob McDonnell Administration, Virginia’s 2010 Congressional candidates, and various organizations that have donated their paper records to the Library.

The Virginia Web Archive can be accessed from Virginia Memory under Digital Collections.

-Roger Christman, LVA Senior State Records Archivist

… read more »

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