Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will sign legislation that prohibits most text messaging while driving. Kaine this week told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that he intends to sign House Bill 1876, which easily passed the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate last month.

It cost $12 million to purchase for preservation a 208-acre portion of the Fredericksburg Civil War battlefield. But the price paid on that ground on December 1862 was far greater. Confederates suffered 5,300 casualties during the Battle of Fredericksburg, and Union losses were far greater, with more than 12,600 soldiers killed, wounded or missing.

Lost Tribes The Virginia Indian tribes pursuing federal recognition have faced a series of obstacles over the years. Early on, one roadblock was probably ignorance, exacerbated by spite: In the previous century Walter Plecker, a long-serving registrar of vital statistics, used the Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924 to reclassify non-whites as “colored,“ effectively erasing Indians from state records.

Kaine testifies on Indians’ behalf Governor’s testimony for Congress supports federal recognition for six Va. tribes Citing 400 years of peaceful cooperation and 40 years of state-sanctioned injustice, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine journeyed to Washington yesterday to support legislation to federally recognize Virginia’s Indian tribes. Kaine told the House Committee on Natural Resources that the Jamestown settlers who arrived from England in 1607 would have perished were it not for “the forbearance and assistance” of Native Americans such as Pocahontas and Powhatan.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced today that the state is getting $1 million in funding and support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to increase the number of children enrolled in the health insurance programs known as FAMIS and FAMIS Plus.

The legislation takes effect Dec. 1, and restricts smoking in restaurants to ones with rooms that are ventilated separately and to private clubs.

Virginia law-enforcement agencies will receive nearly $40 million in federal stimulus dollars as part of a $2 billion package announced yesterday by President Barack Obama. In addition, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced yesterday that Virginia will get $281 million in funding for special education and that localities will receive a total of $165.3 million for K-12 education through Title 1 funds, which help pay for programs in schools with a high percentage of needy students.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine was on Capitol Hill yesterday to take part in a one-day symposium on climate change, along with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, senators, fellow governors, business leaders and academics. “We know that the issues around global warming and climate change reach across party lines and across national boundaries, across state borders and communities,“ Kaine said in a statement.

Virginia Republicans yesterday called on Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to join them in opposing the incarceration in Virginia of any prisoners now held at Guantanamo Bay. President Barack Obama signed an executive order Jan. 22 ordering the Pentagon’s detention facility in Cuba to be closed within a year. The White House has not yet outlined how it wants to handle the facility’s 250 prisoners.

One in every 46 adult Virginians is in prison or jail or on probation or parole—more than double the 1 in 108 under court sanction in 1982, a study says. The cost, according to The Pew Center on the States, now is $1.25 billion, or 7.6 percent of Virginia’s general-fund spending for the year that ended last June—and Virginia ranks just 41st among states in the number of adults under correctional control.

In the 2009 General Assembly session, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine didn’t get no-excuse early voting, a closed “gun-show loophole” or “green” construction requirements in local government buildings. Legislators did not back his call for a bipartisan panel to redraw the state’s election districts, or to pay for Medicaid deficits by doubling the state tax on a pack of cigarettes.

Virginia legislators quit on time last night, approving a budget-balancing plan that protects state jobs and softens cuts to education, health care and police with nearly $1.5 billion in federal stimulus funds. Revisions to the two-year, $77 billion budget capped the final hours of a 46-day session, during which lawmakers adopted additional restrictions on smoking in public but resisted tougher controls on gun sales and making it easier to vote.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine yesterday did little to cheer people who want to smoke in restaurants, people who want to take concealed weapons into bars, or payday lenders. During his monthly call-in radio show on WRVA in Richmond, the governor reiterated his intention to sign recently passed legislation to impose a statewide ban on smoking in public restaurants that do not have separately ventilated areas for those wishing to light up.

The Virginia General Assembly has again said it’s OK to bring a concealed weapon into a bar—but getting Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to sign the bill will be something of a long shot. Senate Bill 1035, sponsored by Sen. Emmett W. Hanger Jr., R-Augusta, would allow holders of concealed-weapon permits to enter drinking establishments with hidden guns as long as the holders don’t drink alcohol.

Should Va.‘s public colleges expand, Kaine asks? Virginia should consider expanding the size of its public colleges and universities to accommodate the increased demand of qualified state residents wishing to attend, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said yesterday. But the governor said that in order for such an expansion to take place, lawmakers need to have a serious discussion about the need to increase funding for higher education in the state.