Tim Kaine: “I rise to support the words of my colleague, Leader McConnell, and to thank him for working on this important piece of…”

“I rise to support the words of my colleague, Leader McConnell, and to thank him for working on this important piece of legislation, the Tobacco-Free Youth Act. I will offer some thoughts about why I have been happy to work with Leader McConnell and with other Senators who share the goal of raising the national tobacco age to 21. Like Senator McConnell, I come from a tobacco State. The Jamestown- based Virginia Company was chartered by King James, landing at Jamestown in 1607, and beginning the English colonization of the United States. They almost didn't make it. They could easily have failed like other English settlements in the Outer Banks of North Carolina or others, but two things saved them. The first was the magnanimity of the Powhatan Indians, who, in those early years, when times were tough, helped them to survive and helped them to get over times of drought and hunger. The second thing was the discovery of, as Leader McConnell mentioned, the tobacco seeds in Virginia that, through the efforts of John Roth and others, became such a powerful driver of the Virginia agricultural economy. Had it not been for tobacco and had it not been for the Powhatan Indians, the Jamestown colony would likely have disappeared. Tobacco has such a place in our history that in the ceiling of both of the legislative chambers in the Virginia Capitol, designed by Thomas Jefferson, the ceiling is circled by gold-embossed tobacco leaves.…”