Anne Holton, Tim Kaine’s Wife, Won’t Run for Senate Because She Doesn’t Want Her Husband As a Boss

Anne Holton, potential second lady.

Anne Holton, who’s married to vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine, is no stranger to public service — she’s been, at various times, a judge, the first lady of Virginia, and Virginia’s Secretary of Education. But Holton told Cosmopolitan that, should Clinton be elected, she’ll draw the line when it comes to running for Kaine’s open Senate seat.

“I do feel passionately that we need more women in elected office, especially here in the United States where we are just way underrepresented,” she said. “Would you run for your husband’s Senate seat should he become VP?” the magazine asked, to which she replied, “Absolutely not. The VP is the president of the Senate. That means I’d have to let him be my boss! I will never have him be my boss.”

Holton met Kaine at Harvard Law School, where they both worked in a program that focused on protecting inmates’ civil rights, according to the New York Times. She served on the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee, where she interviewed criminally insane inmates about their treatment and the conditions in which they lived.

When she and Kaine decided to get married, Holton kept her last name because she liked it and because she wanted to stay connected to her family heritage. And while Kaine ran for office, she pushed forward in her own career at the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society.

As such, she’s also been a strong advocate for equal parenting. When she was chief judge and Kaine was mayor of Richmond, he would leave work early on Wednesdays to pick up their kids. “I remember one time being on a conference call and people were trying to schedule a meeting for Wednesday afternoon, ‘No, we can’t meet on Wednesday afternoon, the mayor has to pick up his kids,’” she said. “And I’m shouting in joy on the other end because men ought to be making public choices and not being shy about [being] involved in child care.”

So maybe between Holton and Clinton the U.S. stands a chance of catching up with the rest of the world on child-care policy.

Anne Holton, Tim Kaine’s Wife, Doesn’t Want Him As a Boss