Kennedy, Ted

Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, Ted (Edward Moore Kennedy), 1932â€"2009, U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1962â€"2009), b. Boston, Mass., youngest son of Joseph P. Kennedy and the last survivor of brothers Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., John F. Kennedy , and Robert F. Kennedy . A graduate of Harvard (1956) and the Univ. of Virginia Law School (1959), he served (1961â€"62) as an assistant district attorney in Massachusetts before being elected (1962) as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate. After the assassination of his brother Robert in 1968, he became the acknowledged leader of Senate liberals and served (1969â€"71) as assistant majority leader. His political future was clouded by the Chappaquiddick incident (July, 1969), in which Mary Jo Kopechne, a passenger in a car he was driving on an island near Martha's Vineyard, Mass., drowned when the car ran off a bridge. Kennedy's reputation recovered, however, and he became one of the legislature's most effective members. He spearheaded the passage of civil rights leg islation and a host of other bills and advocated such programs as national health insurance and tax reform. He was long considered a potential Democratic president, but withdrew in 1974 from the 1976 race and failed in a 1980 primary challenge to President Jimmy Carter . He chaired the Senate judiciary (1979â€"81), labor and human resources (1987â€"95), and health, education, labor, and pensions (2001â€"3, 2007â€"9) committees. Kennedy was the author of Decisions for a Decade (1968), In Critical Condition (1972), and the posthumously published memoir True Compass (2009). See biographies by W. H. Honan (1972) and A. Clymer (1999); studies by J. M. Burns (1976) and R. Sherrill (1976); B. Hersh, The Education of Edward Kennedy (1972) and The Shadow President (1997). The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. History: Biographies