Wow, how do you even start a blog about someone like Ted Kennedy, who passed away yesterday at the age of 77 from brain cancer? He’ served nine terms as a senator for the state of Massachusetts. If you have no idea how long that is, Ted Kennedy got that position a year before I was born and I turned 46 this year. Known as the Lion of the Senate, he is in third place for longest serving senator (only behind Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd).
Since it would be virtually impossible to document Ted Kennedy’s life in a blog (it would probably take more like 50), here are a few interesting facts from his life and career:
Ted was the youngest of the nine Kennedy children (Eunice, Jean, Patricia, Kathleen, Rosemary, Robert, John, and Joseph Jr.). He is survived only by his sister Jean.
When Ted defeated George Cabot Lodge in 1962 for the Senate seat, it was the first time a senator had been selected while a relative (his brother John) was President.
Among the laws Ted helped get passed were the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002.
Ted and his staff wrote approximately 2,500 bills with more than 300 of them being enacted into law.
Ted was nearly killed when the plane he was in with Senator Birch Bayh crashed in South Hampton, Mass. in 1964. His aide, Edward Moss, and the pilot were killed.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a staunch Republican, described Ted as “a liberal icon, a warrior for the less fortunate, a fierce advocate for health-care reform, a champion of social justice here and abroad” and “the rock of his family.”
Caroline Kennedy was walked down the isle by her uncle Ted when she married in 1986.
Ted called the fight for universal health care the “cause of my life.”
Ted, an Army veteran, will be buried at Arlington Cemetery near his brothers Robert and John.
(This image of former President Clinton, Senator Kennedy, and President Obama is a work of an employee of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, taken or made during the course of the person’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.