Ted Kennedy

Ted Kennedy served in the Senate for forty-seven years, wrote or co-wrote a large part of American social legislation of the late twentieth century, and never became president because of a car in the water at Chappaquiddick. He was the youngest of nine, elected to his brother's old seat in 1962 at thirty, and by the time he died he had outlasted three of his brothers, all of whom died violently. In July 1969 he drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island; the passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, died, and he did not report the accident for ten hours. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene, received a suspended sentence, and the episode ended his presidential prospects - his 1980 challenge to Carter failed badly and he never tried again. What he did instead was legislate. His name is on the Voting Rights Act extensions, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, COBRA, the children's health insurance programme, the Ryan White AIDS care act, immigration reform in 1965 that ended the national-origins quota system, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act. He worked with Republicans by preference and by method, including Orrin Hatch for decades and George W. Bush on No Child Left Behind, which he later said he regretted supporting because the funding never came. He called health care the cause of his life and did not live to see the 2010 act pass; he died of a brain tumour in August 2009, and the bill was carried in part on his absence. He delivered the eulogy for his brother Robert in 1968 at thirty-six. The Senate seat he held had been occupied by a Kennedy for all but two years since 1953. He endorsed Barack Obama in January 2008, which mattered to that primary campaign more than any other endorsement.

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