Ted Kennedy, R.I.P.
The man known as the “Liberal Lion” did a lot to advance the rights of young people throughout his career.
By Kay Steiger
August 26, 2009
Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., listens as President Barack Obama speaks at the White House Forum on Health Reform Thursday, March 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)Today is a sad day for many liberals. Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy was one of the greatest champions for those who traditionally haven’t had power, and he “spent the past forty years pushing through every piece of progressive legislation that really mattered,” as Dylan Matthews put it. Many are talking about his important work on civil rights, health care, education, and foreign policy today, but he played an important role in expanding the rights and work of young people in this country.
In 1970, Kennedy championed the Voting Rights Act, an amendment to the constitution that lowered the voting age to 18, not 21. If at 18 you are old enough to be drafted to fight for your country, the reasoning went, then you should be old enough to elect leaders that might send you to do so.
This year, President Obama signed the Serve America Act into law, which Kennedy championed. The legislation opens 175,000 new positions in public service in Americorps and other organizations that work on education, health care, energy, and veterans’ services. The act also expands the education benefits for young people in these programs and ties future increases to the cost of the Pell grant.
Kennedy also worked on the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which passed last year and reauthorized the Higher Education Act. The bill expanded federal grant aid, put new regulations in place to prevent abuse of student lending, simplified the student application process for federal aid, and established debt forgiveness for public service.
This man worked to pass legislation for those most in need. Young people were among them. Without a leader like Kennedy in the Senate, I fear there will be a dark vacancy of leadership for true progressive change. Kennedy was a man who worked to bring the traditions of 1960s and ‘70s era liberalism back to today’s Congress. Much of his work remains unfinished, but the young people he worked to enfranchise must take up the mantle and fight for progressive causes.
Kay Steiger is the editor of Campus Progress.
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