U. S. senator
Senator Edward Moore Kennedy (D-Mass.) had a long, active career in the U. S. Senate, having been elected to this body in 1962. Ted Kennedy was born February 22, 1932, in Brookline, Massachusetts, the son of millionaire Joseph P Kennedy and his wife, Rose, and the youngest brother of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. After attending private schools, he received a college education at Harvard University and a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1959. In 1960 he served as assistant district attorney to Suffolk County in Massachusetts, until 1962, when he was elected to the U. S. Senate to fill the unexpired term of his brother John F. Kennedy, who had become U. S. president.
Reelected in 1964, Kennedy gained the respect of his colleagues for well-researched promotion of social issues. With the escalation with the war in Vietnam, Kennedy became a leading dove. He worked to abolish the military draft and to aid the hundreds of thousands of refugees created by the war. Kennedy pressured the Richard M. Nixon administration to halt the bombing of North Vietnam and to withdraw the American forces. In 1969 he was elected by his colleagues as Senate majority leader. Many considered him the frontrunner for the U. S. presidency in 1972. A car accident in July 1969, in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts, changed the trajectory of Kennedy’s career. The accident occurred when Kennedy drove his car off a narrow bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, and his only passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, a staff member, drowned. Kennedy delayed reporting the accident for nine hours. Later, Kennedy was found guilty of leaving the scene of the accident, received a two-month suspended sentence, and lost his driver’s license.
In 1971 Robert Byrd (D-W. V.) defeated him for Senate majority whip. In 1972 Kennedy asked his constituents if they wanted him to remain in office, and he received an overwhelming show of support. Despite the loyalty of locals, the Chappaquiddick incident plagued his national campaigns. He made a bid for the Democratic nomination in 1976, but withdrew from the race in 1974. In 1980 he challenged incumbent president James Earl Carter, Jr., for the Democratic Party nomination but ultimately failed in his presidential bid.
In the 1970s Kennedy focused on a range of issues, including becoming a leading advocate of airline deregulation and sponsor of the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973. In the 1980s he became a leading critic of many of President Ronald W. Reagan’s initiatives—the defense buildup, Strategic Defense Initiative, cuts in children and mother welfare programs, and other reductions in social spending. In the 1990s he sponsored bills on immigration, criminal code reform, fair housing, public education, health care, and AIDS research. He was instrumental in the enactment of the Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1997, which made it easier for employees to take their insurance plans to new jobs; and the Children’s Health Act of 1997, which allowed broader medical coverage for children in all 50 states. On the Senate Judiciary Committee, he upheld liberal positions on ABORTION, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, and racial busing. Among his most noted initiatives were crime reduction, labor laws, environmental protection, and the minimum wage.
His activities in FOREIGN POLICY included warning Great Britain regarding its policies in Northern Ireland, condemning Pakistan for practicing genocide in Bangladesh, and meeting with Brezhnev privately in the SOVIET UNION in 1974.
Under the George W. Bush administration, which came into office in 2000, Kennedy worked closely with the White House for a Patients’ Bill of Rights Act (2001) and education reform. Kennedy was the senior Democrat on the Labor and Human Resources Committee and the Immigration Subcommittee. He was also a member of the Congressional Friends of Ireland and the Senate Arms Control Observer Group. Over the course of his career, Kennedy was a strong advocate of a national health care system, a policy that was also on the agenda of the BARACK Obama administration. However, in May 2008 Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor and died on August 25, 2009, as the debate on health care continued.
—Leah Blakey
World History
