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Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (born February 22, 1932) is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party.[1] In office since November 1962, Kennedy is presently the second-longest serving member of the Senate, after Robert Byrd of West Virginia.[1][2] The most prominent living member of the Kennedy family, he is the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both of whom were assassinated in the 1960s.
Family and youthKennedy is the youngest of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, a prominent Irish-American family. He attended the Fessenden School, and later Milton Academy and entered Harvard College in 1950, where he resided in Winthrop House. Kennedy was also a member of the Owl Club. He was expelled from Harvard in May 1951 after he was caught cheating on an examination.[1] Kennedy entered the United States Army for two years and was assigned to the SHAPE headquarters in Paris. He eventually re-entered Harvard, graduating in June 1956. In the 1955 Harvard/Yale football game (Yale won 21 to 7), Kennedy caught Harvard's only touchdown pass.[1] In 1958, he attended the Hague Academy of International Law. He earned his law degree from the University of Virginia and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1959. While he was in law school, he managed his brother John's 1958 Senate re-election campaign. His home is in Hyannis, Massachusetts, where he lives with his second wife, Victoria Reggie Kennedy - a Washington lawyer and the daughter of a Louisiana judge -, and her children, Curran and Caroline. Victoria is president and co-founder of Common Sense about Kids and Guns, an advocacy group which seeks to reduce gun deaths and injuries to children in the United States. He has three grown children from his first marriage with Virginia Joan Bennett, whom he met while delivering a speech at Manhattanville College: Kara (born 1960), Edward Jr. (born 1961), Patrick (born 1967), and five grandchildren. After his brothers John and Robert were assassinated (in 1963 and 1968 respectively), he took on the role of surrogate father for his brothers' 13 children.[3] In 1962, Kennedy was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts in a special election to fill the seat left vacant by his oldest surviving brother, John, upon the latter's election as President of the United States. He was elected to a full six-year term in 1964 and was reelected in 1970, 1976, 1982, 1988, 1994, 2000, and 2006. Early careerImage:TedKennedy 1962.jpg First Senate campaign
Kennedy's career in the Senate has frequently attracted national attention. The year after he was first elected to the Senate his brother President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In 1964, Kennedy was in a plane crash in which the pilot and one of Kennedy's aides were killed. He was pulled from the wreckage by fellow senator Birch E. Bayh II (D-Ind.), and spent weeks in a hospital recovering from a severe back injury, a punctured lung, broken ribs and internal bleedings. In 1968, his last surviving brother, Robert, was assassinated as well during his bid to be nominated as the Democratic candidate for the presidency. Kennedy delivered a very emotional eulogy at Robert's funeral. After the shock from this event wore off, Kennedy was looked upon as a likely future presidential candidate. For about a year, the Democratic establishment began to focus attention on him as the new "carrier of the torch" for the Kennedys and the party. The 1993 book The Last Brother by Joe McGinniss portrayed Kennedy as particularly devastated by the death of Robert, in that Ted was closer to Robert than any other member of the Kennedy family. In January 1969, Kennedy defeated Louisiana Senator Russell B. Long to become Senate Majority Whip. He would serve as Whip until January 1971, when he was defeated by Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia. In October 1971, Kennedy called for the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland, and for all political participants there to begin talks on creating a United Ireland. Chappaquiddick incidentThe Chappaquiddick Incident, more commonly referred to as simply “Chappaquiddick”, refers to the circumstances surrounding the 1969 death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign worker for Senator Kennedy. Kopechne was killed when the Senator drove his vehicle off of a bridge and into a channel after a party at Martha's Vineyard. Due to the circumstances of the incident and the way in which it was handled, it quickly became a national scandal and it has influenced much of Senator Kennedy’s later career. Presidential bidKennedy deflected supporters who urged him to run for President in 1972 and 1976 by citing family concerns, in light of the fact of his brothers' assassinations. He finally threw his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination in the 1980 presidential election by launching an unusual, insurgent campaign against the sitting president, Jimmy Carter, a member of his own party. Despite much early support, his bid was ultimately unsuccessful. Carter was highly unpopular at the time of Kennedy's announcement, and Kennedy could have expected to do well against the incumbent president. But the Iran hostage crisis gave President Carter a large boost in the polls that lasted for several months. The upswing in Carter's popularity knocked the wind out of Kennedy's candidacy, which was predicated on dislodging an unpopular president. In addition, the Chappaquiddick incident still dogged the senator, and his opponents often invoked the highly recognizable melody of Simon & Garfunkel's 1970 hit song "Bridge Over Troubled Water" to remind voters of the tragedy and scandal. Kennedy's campaign received substantial negative press from what pundits criticized as a rambling response to the question "Why do you want to be President?"[4] Kennedy won 10 presidential primaries against Carter, who won 24. Eventually he bowed out of the race, but delivered a rousing speech before the 1980 Democratic National Convention in New York City that many consider to be one of his finest moments.[5] Democratic Party iconImage:TedKennedy(D-MA).jpg An official photo Since his presidential bid, Kennedy has become one of the most recognizable and influential members of the party. In 2004, Kennedy was involved in the failed presidential bid of his fellow Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, speaking for Kerry multiple times and lending his chief of staff, Mary Beth Cahill, to the Kerry campaign. Kennedy stated that he would have supported Kerry should he have chosen to run for president in 2008. In April 2006, Kennedy was selected by TIME as one of "America's 10 Best Senators"; the magazine noted that he had "amassed a titanic record of legislation affecting the lives of virtually every man, woman and child in the country" and that "by the late '90s, the liberal icon had become such a prodigious cross-aisle dealer that Republican leaders began pressuring party colleagues not to sponsor bills with him".[6] As of 2006, Kennedy is the second-longest serving current senator, only behind Robert Byrd. Kennedy won an eighth full term (and ninth overall term) in 2006. If he serves out his full six-year term, he will have served in the U.S. Senate for fifty years. Currently, Senator Kennedy is the chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. As chairman, he raised the minimum wage by $2.10 to $7.25 on February 1, 2007. The bill also included some controversial tax cuts for small businesses and higher taxes for many $1 million-plus executives. Kennedy was quoted as saying, "Passing this wage hike represents a small, but necessary step to help lift America's working poor out of the ditches of poverty and onto the road toward economic prosperity."[7] In 2006, Kennedy released a children's book My Senator and Me: A Dog's-Eye View of Washington, D.C.[8] Also in 2006, Kennedy released a political history entitled America Back on Track[9] Political viewsNo Child Left BehindImage:Tedkennedyatbc03.jpg Ted Kennedy speaks at the dedication ceremonies of the Connell School of Nursing at Boston College Kennedy was a major player in the bipartisan team that wrote the controversial No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which, according to both Kennedy and President Bush, was a compromise. He then worked to get it passed in a Republican controlled Congress, despite the opposition of members from both parties. Right to abortionAlthough he has been a staunch advocate of abortion rights for the past 30 years, Kennedy only adopted this position after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land. Prior to that, he held a pro-life position. A letter to a constituent, dated August 3, 1971 opposes "the legalization of abortion on demand" saying that it "is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life".[10] Kennedy's reversal on this issue after Roe v. Wade became a source of continuing dispute between him and the Roman Catholic Church to which he belongs. In 1987, Kennedy delivered an impassioned speech condemning Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork as a "right-wing extremist" and warning that "Robert Bork's America" would be one marked by back alley abortions and other backward practices. Kennedy's strong opposition to Bork's nomination is commonly seen as a prominent factor in the Senate's rejection of Bork's candidacy. Similar concerns have been raised in more recent Supreme Court nominations, as well; it is possible that Kennedy's opposition to Bork set a precedent. In recent years, he has argued that much of the debate over abortion is a false dichotomy. Speaking at the National Press Club in 2005, he remarked, "Surely, we can all agree that abortion should be rare, and that we should do all we can to help women avoid the need to face that decision."[11] Immigration policyTed Kennedy was a strong supporter of the 1965 Hart-Celler Act—signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson—which dramatically changed US immigration policy.[12] "The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."[13] Kennedy is now the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Immigration, and remains a strong advocate for immigrants, both documented and illegal. This legislation replaced the Immigration Act of 1924, which favored immigrants from northern and western Europe. Proponents of the 1965 bill argued that immigration laws and quotas were discriminatory, and that American immigration policy should accept people not on the basis of their nationality. This also abolished the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Gun politicsTed Kennedy has been a staunch supporter of gun control initiatives. He was one of the 16 senators who voted against the Vitter Amendment. Ted Kennedys car has killed more people than my gun. Alternative energyTed Kennedy has maintained a record in favor of alternative energy sources as seen in his voting record as a senator.[14] Kennedy remains opposed, however, to a proposed wind farm, Cape Wind, within sight of his home. Recognizing that he might be guilty of a "not in my backyard" philosophy, Kennedy has insisted, "far more is at stake in the decision than our back yards", and requested a new series of environmental reports in addition to those required by federal and Massachusetts law.[15] Kennedy partnered with Alaska Senator Ted Stevens to write an amendment to a Coast Guard bill that would scuttle the project; it was President George W. Bush's undersecretary of Energy, David K. Garman, who stepped in to defend the wind farm.[16] War on TerrorismThough a supporter of the American-led 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, Kennedy has been a vocal critic of the American-led 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. He has also been a harsh critic of the way the invasion of Iraq was planned and conducted by the Bush administration. Kennedy also has said that the best vote he had ever cast in the Senate was his vote against giving President Bush the authority to use force against Iraq.[citation needed] On September 27, 2004, Kennedy made a speech on the Senate floor regarding the war in Iraq, just prior to the 2004 U.S. Presidential election.[17]Wikisource has original text related to this article:
In early 2007, just prior to President Bush's announcement that he would initiate a troop surge in Iraq, Senator Kennedy made a speech at the National Press Club opposing it.[18] Kennedy was the first Senator in the 110th Congress to propose legislation opposing the President's troop surge. Judicial appointmentsKennedy led a forty-five member all Democrat Senate filibuster to block the appointment of former assistant solicitor general Miguel Estrada to the United States court of appeals. When Estrada withdrew his nomination, Kennedy proclaimed it was a "a victory for the Constitution".[19] Same-sex marriageKennedy is one of only five senators who have publicly announced support for same-sex marriage. Kennedy's home state of Massachusetts is the only state in the United States within which same-sex marriage is legal. References
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