Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.)

Former U.S. Senator (1962-August 2009)

(Melina Mara/TWP)

Why He Mattered

Kennedy was one of the country's most prominent elected officials and the Senate's second-most senior member. He was known as the "liberal lion" for his long record of championing progressive causes, from civil rights to universal health care. He died in August 2009 at the age of 77 after a battle with brain cancer.

Kennedy was the youngest brother of the late President John F. Kennedy and the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.). Ted Kennedy launched his own White House bid in 1980, challenging President Jimmy Carter in the Democratic primary, but was defeated. He threw himself into his Senate work and became known as a master legislator, respected by Republicans and Democrats alike as one of his generation's most committed and productive public servants.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: U.S. Senator (1962 to 2009); assistant district attorney, Suffolk County, (1961 to 1962)
Birthday: Feb. 22, 1932
Hometown: Boston, Mass.
Alma Mater: Harvard University, B.A., 1956; The Hague International Law School, 1957; University of Virginia, LLB, 1959
Spouse: Victoria Reggie

Religion: Catholic
DC Office: 315 Rayburn Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510, 202-224-4543
Email
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Path To Power

The youngest of nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald, Kennedy was born on Feb. 22, 1932 in Boston. He attended Fessenden School and Milton Academy and entered Harvard University in 1950.

Kennedy was suspended from Harvard at the end of his freshman year after he had a friend take one of his Spanish exams. Disgraced, Kennedy enlisted in the Army for two years.

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From 1951 to 1953, Kennedy served at the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe in Paris. He was re-admitted to Harvard, graduating in 1956, and spent a year at the International Law School at The Hague in Holland in 1958. Kennedy graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1959.

Kennedy married his first wife, Virginia Joan Bennett, in 1958. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1982. The couple had three children, Kara, Edward Jr. and Patrick, who is now a Rhode Island congressman (D).

Senate Career

Early in his career, Kennedy was an afterthought compared to his famous brothers, but he benefited from their success. Even his political rise was rigged, Kennedy style. After John F. Kennedy became president, his vacant Senate seat was held by a family friend, Benjamin A. Smith, until brother Ted turned 30 years old, the minimum age required by the Constitution to serve in the Senate. In the meantime, Kennedy served as assistant district attorney in Suffolk County.

Even at the height of Camelot, the succession stirred a mini-scandal. In the 1962 special election, Kennedy's Democratic primary opponent, Edward J. McCormack Jr. - himself the nephew of the U.S. House speaker -- summed up the sentiment of many when he quipped in the so-called "Teddy and Eddy" debate, "If your name were Edward Moore [instead of Edward Moore Kennedy], your candidacy would be a joke." Kennedy beat McCormack easily, and later defeated his Republican opponent, George C. Lodge.

A year later, JFK was assassinated. The following June, en route to the Massachusetts Democratic convention to accept his Senate nomination, Kennedy was seriously injured in a plane crash that killed the pilot and a Senate aide. He was pulled from the wreckage by his friend, Democratic Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana, and was still bedridden when he won a record-setting full term in November, beating GOP candidate Howard Whitmore Jr. by 1,129,244 votes, the biggest margin in Massachusetts history.

Controversies

Like many others in his famous family, Kennedy has seen his share of controversy and tragedy. He was never able to excise the ghost of Chappaquiddick. Late one night in 1969, Kennedy drove off a bridge on the small island near Martha's Vineyard, swam ashore, and waited until the next morning to report the accident. The body of a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, was discovered inside the submerged vehicle. Kennedy received a two-month suspended sentence and Kopechne became a symbol for the excesses and easy breaks of growing up as a Kennedy.

For years, the senator was a gossip column staple because of his drinking and womanizing. He hit bottom when he was engulfed in a rape case involving his nephew, William Kennedy Smith. Kennedy accompanied the young man to the bar where Smith met the woman who would later charge him with assaulting her. Smith was acquitted, but the trial was another stain on the family legacy, and a devastating blow to Kennedy's political and personal prestige.

The rape case would prove the low point of Kennedy's long personal slump. In a Boston Globe column written after Smith was charged, longtime Kennedy observer Mike Barnicle declared: "Surrounded by sycophants, Edward Kennedy thinks his name and title are license to do whatever he wants, and apparently the only voice he hears in that dark lonely time before danger calls is the drink saying, 'Go ahead, you can get away with anything.'"

Kennedy married Victoria Reggie in 1992, and as his personal life settled down, his political stock rose again.

The Issues

Once in the Senate, Kennedy charted the traditional path of an ambitious young lawmaker. He championed big causes, including civil rights, improving health care, and alleviating poverty. One of his first triumphs was the 1964 passage of an immigration reform bill that lifted the quota system; Kennedy managed that bill on the Senate floor. He sought leadership roles and was elected Senate Democratic whip in 1969, beating the powerful Louisiana senator Russell B. Long (D). By then, Kennedy had buried his brother Robert Kennedy, and was emerging as the family standard-bearer.

But the Chappaquiddick incident a few months later would deliver a mortal blow to Kennedy's ambitions, eliminating his party leadership prospects, much less his presidential hopes. Instead Kennedy placed his energy in legislating, and over the next four decades would help to secure a series of landmark bills.

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Master Legislator

Those measures include 1971 legislation that vastly increased federal cancer research; the 1972 Title IX amendment to an education bill, resulting in expanded women's sports programs; and a 1974 campaign finance reform bill aimed at eliminating Watergate-era abuses. Kennedy was a key player in the 1986 veto override that established sanctions against the apartheid-led South African government.

Kennedy helped to institute family leave protections and improved student loan terms and to bar health insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions. He led an 11-year effort to raise the federal minimum wage, finally succeeding in 2007. Despite his proudly partisan positions on most issues, Kennedy has a long history of collaborating with Republicans. Much to the frustration of many of his Democratic colleagues, who were still chafing over the 2000 election outcome, Kennedy helped George W. Bush to pass the most significant domestic policy bills of his presidency, the No Child Left Behind education act and the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

In 1980, Kennedy finally succumbed to pressure from supporters by entering the presidential waters.. But a combination of factors, ranging from Chappaquiddick to the Iran hostage crisis, resulted in a disappointing 10 primary victories, compared to Carter's 24 victories. But Kennedy ended his bid on a high note, delivering his most memorable speech at the 1980 Democratic National Convention.

"For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end," Kennedy concluded. "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Obama Endorsement

Kennedy's alliance with Obama sparked a political renaissance for the Kennedy family, and the senator, along with his niece Caroline Kennedy and other family members, enthusiastically hit the 2008 campaign trail for the Illinois senator. The senator in particular targeted Hispanic voters and working-class Catholics, two groups slow to embrace Obama.

Universal Health Care

The senator's May 2008 brain cancer diagnosis at once complicated and made more poignant Kennedy's quest to pass his cherished legislative goal, universal health care. Around the time of his diagnosis, when Obama's electoral prospects remained murky, Kennedy launched a bipartisan Senate effort to begin assembling such legislation, with the ambitious goal of yielding legislation in 2009.

As chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, he heads one of two Senate committees with purview over the hot issue. The other key player is Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is crafting a bill with ranking member Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).

Even as he underwent treatments, Kennedy assembled representatives from key interests groups to met in secret to hammer out details of reform beyond the media spotlight. These stakeholders became known as the "Workhorse Group."

In late spring 2009, prospects for reform were looking up, and a healthier Kennedy returned to the stage as a major-player in the health-reform debate.

Kennedy's committee was the first to release a proposal for health-reform legislation.In the proposal, and in a Boston Globe editorial published shortly after,Kennedy outlined steps for a progressive reform of the system, aimed at driving the debate-and the Baucus-Grassley proposal-further to the left.

Echoing 2006 reforms in Massachusetts, he proposed a National Health Insurance Exchange, a gateway through which Americans could compare insurance plans and purchase them online, on the phone or in person.

In addition to the private plans offered on the exchange, Kennedy proposed offering a publicly-funded insurance plan "to ensure that fiscal discipline and full accountabiliity are built into this new structure." The shape of a public plan looks to be one of the most controversial aspects of the health-reform debate.

In addition to creating a national exchange, Kennedy's plan contained these core parts:

* It would require insurance companies to offer coverage to all Americans, regardless of pre-existing illnesses. On the flip side, he would require all Americans to carry insurance coverage, so consumers could not wait until they were sick to buy insurance.

*Businesses with more than 25 employees would be required to offer them health coverage, or else pay a $750 annual fee per full-time employee.

*It would offer federal subsidies on a sliding scale to those with incomes up to four times the poverty level. The plan would also include an expansion of the Medicaid, a federal-state program that gives health coverage to the poor.

*It would create federal or state Afordable Health Benefit Gateways, exchanges on which individuals could choose and purchase health insurance.

*It would focus on wellness and disease-prevention.

*It would train a workforce of doctors, nurses and health-care workers to accomodate America's growing needs.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would cost about $600 billion over 10 years.

With Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) serving as acting chairman in Kennedy's absence, the HELP committee approved the full bill in July in a 13 to 10 vote along party lines.

The Network

Kennedy's network was vast and diverse. His best friend in the Senate was Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, but he was also close to Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), who composed a song for his colleague when Kennedy was undergoing cancer treatment.

Kennedy was one of a handful of Democrats whose clout with the party rivals that of the Clintons, and his Obama endorsement proved highly persuasive inside the upper chamber, leading to a wave of new Obama supporters, including Dodd.

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