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Senator Kennedy's Bio

Senator Edward M. Kennedy has represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate for forty-three years. He was elected in 1962 to finish the final two years of the Senate term of his brother, Senator John F. Kennedy, who was elected President in 1960. Since then, Kennedy has been re-elected to seven full terms, and is now the second most senior member of the Senate.

Throughout his career, Kennedy has fought for issues that benefit the citizens of Massachusetts and the nation. His effort to make quality health care accessible and affordable to every American is a battle that Kennedy has been waging ever since he arrived in the Senate. In addition, Kennedy is active on a wide range of other issues, including education reform and immigration reform, raising the minimum wage, defending the rights of workers and their families, strengthening civil rights, assisting individuals with disabilities, fighting for cleaner water and cleaner air, and protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare.

Kennedy is currently the senior Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in the Senate. He also serves on the Judiciary Committee, where he is the senior Democrat on the Immigration Subcommittee, and on the Armed Services Committee, where he is the senior Democrat on the Seapower Subcommittee. He is also a member of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee and the Congressional Friends of Ireland, and a trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Kennedy is the youngest of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, and is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Virginia Law School. Kennedy lives in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, with his wife Victoria Reggie Kennedy. Together, they have five children – Kara, Edward Jr., and Patrick Kennedy, and Curran and Caroline Raclin. They also have four grandchildren.

Almost a Packer

On November 20, 1955, in a 21-7 defeat to Yale, Harvard's lone score came on a low five-yard pass that was snared by #88, the Senior Right End Ted Kennedy.

Just one month earlier, Kennedy's promise on the football field had caught the notice of Green Bay Packer Head Coach Lisle Blackbourn. "You have been very highly recommended to us by a number of coaches in your area and also by our talent scouts as a possible Pro Prospect," Blackbourn wrote to the young Right End.

Kennedy declined the offer, saying he was flattered, but that he had plans to attend law school and to 'go into another contact sport, politics'.