Ted Kennedy, ‘liberal lion of the Senate,’ dies at 77, Aug. 25, 2009 – Politico

An image of, from left, Robert, Ted and John Kennedy, is shown at Ted Kennedy's memorial service at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library on Aug. 28, 2009, in Boston.

On this day in 2009, Edward Ted Kennedy, the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and one of the longest-serving senators in U.S. history he served as a Democratic senator from Massachusetts from 1962 to 2009 succumbed to brain cancer at age 77.

Edward Moore Kennedy was born in Boston on Feb. 22, 1932, the youngest of nine children born to Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, the daughter of a Boston politician, and Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., a financier who served as the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and later as President Franklin D. Roosevelts ambassador to Great Britain.

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After serving in the U.S. Army in the early 1950s, (he had been expelled by Harvard for having cheated on a Spanish exam), Harvard said he could return. Kennedy graduated in 1956 and earned a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1959.

In November 1960, John Kennedy was elected as the nations 35th president. The following month, a Kennedy family friend was appointed to fill the president-elects vacated Senate seat until a special election could be held. In November 1962, Ted Kennedy, who earlier that year had turned 30, the minimum age requirement for a senator, won the right to serve the remainder of his brothers term. Massachusetts voters thereupon re-elected him eight times.

Senators are usually restricted to holding a seat on only one major committee. Yet, as Adam Clymer wrote in his 1999 biography Edward M. Kennedy, Kennedy was assigned to the Armed Services Committee without having to relinquish his seat on the Judiciary or Labor and Human Resources committees. There was some grumbling in Democratic ranks. Why, some asked, should the rules not apply to him?

Oh, came the reply, Clymer reported, Kennedy is Kennedy.

On July 18, 1969, Kennedy drove his car off a bridge on Massachusetts Chappaquiddick Island, costing the life of his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, who drowned. Kennedy failed to report the incident to the authorities for nearly 10 hours, claiming the delay was because he had suffered a concussion and was exhausted from attempting to rescue Kopechne, who had worked in the Senate office of his assassinated brother, Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.).

He subsequently pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a two-month suspended sentence. Kennedy later referred to his actions as inexcusable, and said Kopechnes death haunts me every day of my life.

In 1980, Kennedy made a failed bid to deny President Jimmy Carter the Democratic nomination. He never again ran for the White House, instead focusing on wide-ranging legislative initiatives on Capitol Hill, where he was dubbed the liberal lion of the Senate.

During his long Senate career, Kennedy fought for legislation often with bipartisan support that spanned a wide range of issues, including education, immigration and health care reform.

SOURCE: EDWARD M. KENNEDY, A BIOGRAPHY, BY ADAM CLYMER (1999)

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Ted Kennedy, 'liberal lion of the Senate,' dies at 77, Aug. 25, 2009 - Politico