A LIFETIME OF SERVICE

Championing Civil Rights & Promoting Fairness and Equal Opportunities for All

Advocating for Civil Rights and Voting Rights

On April, 9, 1964, barely four months after the passing of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Kennedy took to the Senate floor and gave his maiden speech. He chose as his topic the paramount domestic issue of the day, civil rights, and urged support of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in employment, education and public accommodations.

"My brother was the first President of the United States to state publicly that segregation was morally wrong. His heart and his soul are in this bill. If his life and death had a meaning, it was that we should not hate but love one another; we should use our powers not to create conditions of oppression that lead to violence, but conditions of freedom that lead to peace." To read the full speech, click here.

African Americans in the South were demanding equal opportunity and treatment, and their movement, anchored in non-violence, captured the attention of a nation. As America and the world watched the sit-ins and marches - the participants being attacked by police dogs and water hoses; their churches bombed - Ted Kennedy, then a young, freshman senator, was moved to action. Barely two years into his first term, 33 year-old Kennedy, went to work on the one major legislative initiative leading civil rights organizations wanted but the Johnson Administration did not embrace - eliminating the poll tax.

"Kennedy brought to the poll tax fight, that fierce startling intensity of purpose and energy that the Kennedys evince in combat," New York Times reporter William Shannon wrote in an article entitled, "The Emergence of Senator Kennedy. "By the time the Senate debate opened [on the Voting Rights Act of 1965], Kennedy was intellectually the master of his issue [for eliminating the poll tax]. He had also been busy on the political side. Senators ordinarily leave the work on canvassing their colleagues to the lobbyists for organizations backing their views, but Kennedy had personally talked with every Senator who he had any reason to believe might support his amendment. He succeeded in obtaining 38 co-sponsors....By the time the Administration and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield were aware of how hard he had worked, they were on the brink of debate."

"When the showdown finally came, the Administration had to make strong appeal to certain Democratic Senators to avoid defeat. The Kennedy amendment lost, 49-45. But in everything except the final vote, the loser emerged the winner.

"He gained political credit with Negro organizations. He reaped favorable publicity by jousting with the Attorney General, the Senate minority leader and, indirectly, with the President. He earned his stripes with older liberals in the Senate who no longer dismissed him as just a 'nice fellow.'"

And his was right. On March 24, 1966, the Supreme Court vindicated Kennedy by declaring the poll tax unconstitutional.

Another important voting rights victory occurred in 1970 when, at the height of the Vietnam War, Kennedy became the key sponsor of the statute that lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. He felt strongly that those who old enough to fight for their country are old enough to vote.

Previously, it had long been thought that the voting age change had to be accomplished by amending the Constitution. But Senator Kennedy, convinced that the recent Supreme Court decisions on voting rights cleared any confusion that Congress could enact the allow by statute, persuaded his colleagues that, as a result of recent Supreme Court decisions on voting rights, Congress was allowed to enact the change by statute under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

In 1982, Kennedy, then a twenty-year member of the Judiciary Committee, was the chief sponsor of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982, which led to significant increases in minority representation in Congress and state legislatures, nationwide. A decade later, he was also a chief sponsor of the Voting Rights Language Assistance Act, which provided language assistance during the voting process for limited-English proficient Latino, Asian American, and Native American citizens.

In the 1980s, Kennedy worked with a bipartisan group of Senators and Coretta Scott King to establish a federal holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Following the Voting Rights Act debate of 1982, Senator Kennedy led the effort to overturn the Supreme Court's Grove City case, which found that Title IX of the 1972 Higher Education Act only applied to a private college's financial aid department, not the school as a whole. Senator Kennedy led the fight to reverse the decision and enact key laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, disability or age in any federally funded program. He was the central figure moving the legislation, entitled the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, and guided its passage by an overwhelming margin, despite a Presidential veto by President Reagan.

After successfully steering the bill through the Judiciary Committee, Ralph Neas, former Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), said about Kennedy, "Now you see what happens when you have a civil rights champion in charge of the committee."

Click here for additional information regarding Senator Kennedy's effort on voting rights.

In 1988, Senator Kennedy passed amendments to extend the Fair Housing Act of 1968 to include people with disabilities and families with children. By expanding the law, the amendments prohibited discrimination towards people with disabilities in the sale or rental of housing and in the terms, facilities and services provided. It also sets certain guidelines for remodeling and necessary modifications to a residence for both the landlord and the tenant.

Senator Kennedy was one of the chief sponsors of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which ensures that millions of disabled Americans are able to live productive lives free from discrimination in public accommodations and employment. The ADA requires that public facilities accommodate the needs of disabled Americans, and that employers make reasonable accommodations for disabled workers.

Said Harkin, "I was thrilled when I arrived in the Senate to learn that Senator Kennedy 'one of the top leaders in the Senate' shared the same passion. With his help, we were able to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act and began to see real change. The law literally opened doors for people with disabilities, allowing them access to new employment opportunities, access to new places and access to fuller lives. But more importantly, the law began to change how those with disabilities were seen by others. Senator Kennedy has always dedicated his life to helping those who are too often ignored and this is no exception."

Click here for more on Kennedy's efforts to that enhance the lives of disabled Americans.

Senator Kennedy was the chief sponsor of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which strengthened existing protections and remedies available under federal civil rights laws, including remedies for intentional discrimination and harassment in the workplace. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 provided punitive and compensatory damages in cases of intentional job discrimination. Those damages were limited, however, to a combined maximum of $300,000, depending on the size of the workers' employer. Senator Kennedy is the chief sponsor of the Equal Remedies Act, which would remove those caps.

From 1994 - 2009, Senator Kennedy was the chief Senate sponsor of the Employment Non
Discrimination Act which prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. Moreover, he has long been a leader in seeking to broaden federal hate crimes law.

In 2007, he helped lead the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act to passage in the Senate. The bill would broaden existing law to prohibit hate crimes against women, gays, lesbians, and transgender persons, and gives prosecutors enhanced ability to charge and penalize those who commit hate crimes. In 2009, the Senate again adopted the measure as part of the Defense Authorization Bill.

In 2008, Senator Kennedy was the key Senate sponsor of the Civil Rights Act of 2008, which would restore core civil rights protections that have been undermined by recent Supreme Court decisions --- including the right to challenge the uses of federal funds in ways that have an unjustified discriminatory impact based on race, national origin, age, gender, or disability. The bill also makes state employers fully accountable for discriminating against men and women in uniform, and prohibits employers from requiring workers to give up the right to enforce employment laws in court in order to get a job or keep a job.

Wrote Kennedy biographer Adam Clymer in 1999, "[Kennedy] speaks often of civil rights as the great unfinished business of the nation, but since the 1982 Voting Rights Act extension, no one has done more to finish it. In some years he resisted retreat, in others he advanced the concept of equality to include the disabled and the dignity of women in the work play."

Fighting for Fair Elections

In 1973, in response to the Watergate scandal, Kennedy and Republican Senate Leader Hugh Scott, introduced and passed the first ever bipartisan campaign finance bill to help clean up the electoral system. The legislation imposed new contribution limits and established strong public financing provisions for presidential elections. It also created an independent agency, the Federal Election Commission, to enforce the law and administer the public funding program.

Despite being a relatively junior Member of the Senate, who served on no Committee with jurisdiction of the issue, Kennedy emerged as the central figure in the reform fight. During this same time, the two-termed senator was also dealing with the sudden news that his son Teddy, then age 12, had cancer in his right leg, which would have to be amputated.

Kennedy biographer Adam Clymer wrote, "For Kennedy to play any role at all, let alone the leading role, in the campaign finance debate of November 1973 was heroic."

Promoting Competition and Deregulating the Airline Industry

In 1974, Senator Kennedy launched a successful four-year battle that revolutionized the airline industry, ending years of oppressive federal regulation that stifled competition in fares and routes and excluded new airlines from the market. The law, signed by President Carter in 1978, led to a new era of lower fares and better service to the nation's cities for millions of Americans. In the years before passage of the deregulation bill, Kennedy held a series of hearings to highlight the benefits of deregulation and its ability to reduce costs for travelers.

Reforming the Immigration System

Senator Kennedy's first major legislative initiative was the Immigration Act of 1965. The Act was a turning point in American immigration policy because it reformed the way immigrants were selected for admission to the U.S. It ended the selection of immigrants on the basis of their national origin that began in 1924 - a system that discriminated on the basis of race or ancestry. The Act gradually phased out the national origin quotas system and replaced it with a preference system that gave priority to immigrants based on their skills and family relationships. The circumstances which led to the repeal of the quota system were a combination of changing public perceptions, politics, and legislative compromise. Public support for the repeal reflected changing public attitudes towards race and national origin. The Act was a product of the mid-sixties, and a heavily Democratic 89th Congress which produced major civil rights legislation. In a floor statement reflecting on why Congress acted in 1965, Senator Kennedy stated that a consensus had developed which "neutralized opposition" in and out of Congress and "generated an atmosphere receptive to reform which was consonant with changing attitudes among our citizens on questions of race and national origin." When asked about the Act's anticipated impact, he stated that "favoritism based on neutrality will disappear. Favoritism based on individual worth and qualifications will take its place."

Senator Kennedy demonstrated consistent concern for refugees throughout his career in the Senate, addressing the needs of such diverse migration challenges as the starving refugees in Ethiopia and the Sudan, the plight of Southeast Asian boat people, those facing oppression under the former Soviet Union and other repressive regimes, those fleeing the civil wars in Central America or the coups in Haiti, as well as those uprooted by more recent conflicts throughout Africa. He has authored numerous bills, including the Refugee Act of 1980 which established a comprehensive U.S. policy to provide humanitarian assistance, admission and resettlement to refugees around the world. Until the bill's enactment, U.S. policy and programs for refugees had been ad hoc, inadequate and at times discriminatory. During debate on final passage of the bill, Senator Kennedy stated that the Act would "ensure greater equity in our treatment of all refugees and give "statutory meaning to our national commitment to human rights and humanitarian concerns."

Senator Kennedy had long been convinced that legal immigration is good for our country. As such, he has been at the forefront of efforts to improve U.S. immigration policy by sponsoring beneficial legislation and opposing initiatives that are harmful to immigrants and refugees.

In 1986, Senator Kennedy worked to obtain legal status for undocumented workers and address the potential for increased employment discrimination against immigrant workers as a result of the employer sanction provisions. He was the lead sponsor of the Immigration Act of 1990, which increased the quotas for family immigration, established a diversity visa program, and created a temporary safe haven program for persons fleeing oppressive governments. He was also an original sponsor of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act and its re-authorization in 2000, which allows battered immigrant women and children to apply for permanent residence without the cooperation of their abusive spouses or parents.

He strongly opposed the harsh 1996 immigration laws, which divided families, returned refugees to the hands of their persecutors, and denied immigrants their day in court, as well as the 1996 welfare law that turned immigrants into second class citizens, and he continues to work to eliminate the harshest provisions of these laws. His goal was to preserve families, assure fairness and due process, and maintain the integrity of our immigration laws. Senator Kennedy believed that immigrants deserve the same due process protections available to U.S. citizens, and that it is contrary to basic principles of fairness and justice to take immigrants from their U.S. citizen families, without even an opportunity to have their day in court.

He also helped lead the way in efforts to restore fairness and justice to immigrants and refugees. Senator Kennedy's support was instrumental in restoring public benefits, such as Food Stamps, Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid, to countless elderly, disabled, and legal immigrants. He continues to push for the further restoration of benefits to all legal immigrants.

He was the lead Democratic sponsor of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act of 2002, which balanced strong enforcement with strong protection of civil liberties and immigrants' rights. The bill strengthened the security of our borders, improved our ability to screen foreign nationals, and enhanced our ability to deter potential terrorists, while also reaffirming our tradition as a nation of immigrants.

Senator Kennedy also introduced a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill to fix the nation's broken immigration system. The McCain-Kennedy bill contains strict border security and enforcement provisions to strengthen security at the nation's borders, and also includes an earned legalization program for immigrants who have been working in the United States. In addition, it offers a solution to reduce the enormous backlog of petitions to unify immigrant families, and proposes a revised temporary worker program.

Promoting Citizenship

Senator Kennedy was a strong proponent of a functioning and effective naturalization program that gave immigrants and refugees the opportunity to fully embrace their adopted homeland by becoming U.S. citizens. He urged U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to work together to eliminate backlogs that developed in the naturalization system in 2007 and to ensure that individuals eligible for citizenship would have the opportunity to vote in the 2008 elections.

Reforming the Federal Criminal Code

Kennedy has long championed "truth in sentencing": the idea that prisoners should serve their sentences in full. In 1975, Senator Kennedy began what became a successful bipartisan eight-year effort to reform the federal criminal code. The key reform in the comprehensive final legislation, signed by President Reagan in 1984, was a complete overhaul of the system of sentencing to require all federal judges to follow specific guidelines in sentencing offenders convicted of particular crimes.

Prior to this reform, different judges handed out widely varying sentences for similar offenses. With no predictability or consistency in punishment, criminals saw sentencing as a game of chance, not their just desserts. Since this monumental reform, Kennedy has vigorously fought efforts to impose mandatory minimum sentences. By overlooking differing degrees of culpability, the "one size fits all" approach of mandatory minimum sentences produces the very disparities that the sentencing guidelines were designed to eliminate.

Kennedy was active in promoting federal support for state and local crime control activities since the original Safe Street and Crime Control Act of 1968. He was a leader in passage of the 1994 Crime Act, which provided funding for 100,000 new police officers, imposed strict new penalties for crimes involving gangs and firearms, and authorized the Police Corps, a program that gives talented young people college scholarships in return for their commitment to serve as police officers in their communities. As a result of this law, Massachusetts received funds to hire almost 3,000 new police officers over the to help combat crime across the state. Since the passage of this bill, the Massachusetts crime rate has dropped by nearly one-third, due in part to the additional officers and resources provided in the 1994 Crime Bill.

Preserving Affirmative Action

Since the 1960s, Senator Kennedy was a leader in Congressional efforts to preserve federal affirmative action programs. In 1998, he helped defeat a proposal to end federal affirmative action. In 2003, he joined Senate colleagues in filing a brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold affirmative action at the University of Michigan. In 2005, he strongly supported reauthorization of programs administered by the Department of Transportation and the Department of Defense to ensure equal contracting opportunities for minority and women contractors.

Promoting Gender Equity

Senator Kennedy has been a champion of the Equal Rights Amendment for over 30 years, which would enshrine in the Constitution the principle of equality for men and women. He was in the forefront of Senate leadership that won its passage in Congress in 1972 and has reintroduced the legislation again in the 110th Congress.

He was a key supporter of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, which protect women from discrimination in educational institutions and have increased athletic opportunities for young women attending colleges and universities around the country.

He led the effort to pass the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978. Although Title VII of the Civil Rights Act covered gender discrimination, employers -- including states and localities -- were crafting health plans that excluded disabilities arising from pregnancy. The Supreme Court later upheld the constitutionality of excluding pregnancy coverage from health plans provided by states and private employers.

Protecting Religious Freedom

Together with Senator Hatch, Senator Kennedy led the way in passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993. The legislation restored strict scrutiny for certain religious free exercise claims. The legislation was in response to the Supreme Court decision -- Oregon v. Smith in 1989, which invalidated the use of strict scrutiny in cases involving acts by governments which had the unintentional effect of violating an individual's right to free exercise of his or her religion. After the legislation passed overwhelmingly in the House and the Senate, the Supreme Court determined that portions of Act were unconstitutional. In response to the Supreme Court decision, in 2000, Senators Kennedy and Hatch won passage of a new law to protect religious freedom, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which has been unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court.

Ensuring Safer Communities

As a former prosecutor and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1963 - 2008, Senator Kennedy's efforts to fight crime have been instrumental in ensuring safer communities.

He fought to protect Americans from crime and to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children. He supported every major gun-safety initiative since the Gun Control Act of 1968, including the ban on assault weapons, the Brady Law, and ongoing efforts to close the gun-show loophole. Kennedy also stood up to Attorney General John Ashcroft for touting the line of the NRA and refusing to allow the FBI to examine background-check records to determine whether any of the 1,200 people detained following the September 11th attacks bought guns.

Pursuing Fairness in Courts and the Administration of Justice

As a member of the Judiciary Committee for over four decades, Senator Kennedy was a leader in pursuing the quality and fairness of the courts, the administrative agencies, and the Department of Justice. He had a major role in the defeat of three Supreme Court nominees who the Senate believed were not sufficiently committed to protecting rights and liberties. He monitored the quality and fairness of administrative justice and promoted freedom of information laws requiring transparency in federal government activities. He has been a leader in the aggressive oversight of the agencies that should protect civil rights, civil liberties, and consumer interests. He conducted the first Congressional investigation of Watergate in the 1970's and his other investigations of governmental overreaching and unfairness have resulted in reforms throughout government.

Kennedy strongly opposed the death penalty. His opposition is a matter of principle, based on his understanding of the stark racial disparities involved, the lack of competent legal representation in many cases, and the unacceptable danger that an innocent person may be executed. Senator Kennedy has held to his convictions on capital punishment even when it cost him politically and even in the most personal of circumstances. In 1969, he and his sisters wrote the district attorney of Los Angeles, asking that the killer of their brother Robert not be sentenced to death.

In 1976, Senator Kennedy introduced the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which became law in 1978 and regulates the use of electronic surveillance for national security purposes. It is widely regarded as a landmark statute in national security law. The legislation was designed to allow flexibility in pursuing our enemies, while safeguarding Americans' right to be free from unwarranted government spying. It is because FISA enhances both security and liberty that it has won such broad support over the years from presidents, members of Congress, and the public alike. Since it came to light in late 2005 that the Bush Administration had been systematically violating FISA in its warrantless domestic surveillance program, Senator Kennedy fought to expose this abuse and demand accountability.

He was also an outspoken voice against the use of torture, indefinite extralegal detention, and other legal and humanitarian abuses committed by the Bush Administration in its "global war on terror." In 2005, Senator Kennedy worked with colleagues to pass a ban on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of detainees. In 2007, he introduced a bill to require all U.S. interrogations to comply with Army Field Manual standards, and he continues to fight to rein in the CIA's renegade "enhanced interrogation" and "extraordinary rendition" programs. Senator Kennedy also introduced and moved through the Judiciary Committee bipartisan legislation to rein in the Administration's use of the state secrets privilege, by making judicial review of the privilege more regular and more rigorous. Senator Kennedy consistently pushed back against the Bush Administration's unprecedented attempts to expand unilateral Executive power; he believes that fidelity to the rule of law and to governmental checks and balances makes America stronger, not weaker, and is essential to winning the battle against terrorism.

Protecting Voting Rights

Barely two years into his first term, the 33 year-old Kennedy went to work on the one major legislative initiative leading civil rights organizations wanted but the Johnson Administration did not embrace - eliminating the poll tax.

"Kennedy brought to the poll tax fight, that fierce startling intensity of purpose and energy that the Kennedys evince in combat," New York Times reporter William Shannon wrote in 1965. "By the time the Senate debate opened [on the Voting Rights Act of 1965], Kennedy was intellectually the master of his issue [for eliminating the poll tax]. He had also been busy on the political side. Senators ordinarily leave the work on canvassing their colleagues to the lobbyists for organizations backing their views, but Kennedy had personally talked with every Senator who he had any reason to believe might support his amendment. He succeeded in obtaining 38 co-sponsors....By the time the Administration and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield were aware of how hard he had worked, they were on the brink of debate."

And his was right. On March 24, 1966, the Supreme Court vindicated Kennedy by declaring the poll tax unconstitutional.

Senator Kennedy was the lead Senate sponsor of a Constitutional amendment in 1978 to grant full voting representation in the Senate and the House of Representatives for citizens of the District of Columbia. The amendment passed both chambers of Congress, but fell short of ratification by two-thirds of the states.

In 2006, Senator Kennedy helped negotiate reauthorization of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act set to expire in 2007, and chaired hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee on the need for the reauthorization to keep the Act in force.