Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, Democratic candidate for governor, began his speech by quoting Thomas Jefferson, who said progress could only be achieved through the broad diffusion of knowledge.
Kaine, who served as mayor of Richmond before becoming state lieutenant governor, said the point of education was not just to educate an individual, but also to promote progress for all.
He said during his term, there was a Richmond renaissance due to an improvement in higher education, and the rise of Christopher Newport University brought about similarly positive changes to the Chesapeake Bay area. As a result, his first two commitments are to meet base adequacy funding for K-12 education and for higher education.
The base adequacy formula is a computation for what funding is necessary to maintain tuition rates and teacher salaries at an adequate level. Virginia is already $300 million short of funding according to this formula.
Kaine, who in 2004 raised the sales and tobacco taxes, refused to take a “no new taxes” stance. When the state played the role of “deadbeat dad,” college boards were forced to pass on financial burdens to students, and that the current shortfall translated into roughly $1,000 per student, he said.
His second promise was to expand the growth of higher education in Southwest Virginia. He said rural sections of Virginia face the highest unemployment rates and the lowest college graduation rates.
“There is no coincidence,” Kaine said. “In order to move the whole state further, we must leave no part behind.”
He said he plans to use money slated for the expansion of universities in the southwest so Danville and Lynchburg can have the sort of positive growth that Richmond and Newport News have experienced.
The only time he referred to one of his opponents by name was to discuss Jerry W. Kilgore’s stance on affirmative action. Kaine said Kilgore, then attorney general, had muscled college boards of visitors throughout the state to drop diversity through a letter-writing campaign. Kilgore threatened to hold personally liable any board member who challenged diversity problems, Kaine said.
“The way to know if affirmative action is working is to look at the student body and ask if it looks like the state looks,” Kaine said.
The lieutenant governor then cited Virginia Tech, one of the schools Kilgore wrote to, had only a 4 percent black population.
When asked about diversity, he also said that foreign students who were working towards naturalization and would otherwise qualify, should be treated as instate students.