Rep. Joe Kennedy formally announces U.S. Senate campaign
BOSTON >> U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III formally declared his candidacy for the U.S. Senate on Saturday, becoming the first member of the Kennedy political dynasty to run for the upper chamber of Congress from Massachusetts since Edward M. Kennedy in 1962.
The Democrat spoke to supporters gathered in a community center during a kickoff event in East Boston, where the Kennedy clan first settled after arriving from Ireland well over a century ago.
“Donald Trump has forced a long overdue reckoning in America, and how we respond will say everything about who we are,” Kennedy said. “We have to take on the broken system that gave rise to him in the first place — the outdated structures and old rules, the everyday oppressions and injustices that hold our people back.”
Joe Kennedy is a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, who was attorney general in his own brother John F. Kennedy’s White House and was a senator running for the Democratic presidential nomination when he was assassinated in 1968. JFK was felled by an assassin’s bullet five years earlier, in 1963.
The 38-year-old Joe Kennedy will face 73-year-old incumbent Sen. Edward Markey in next year’s Democratic primary.
Asked how he differs from Markey, Kennedy ticked off a series of issues he supports, including getting political action committee money out of politics, creating term limits for Supreme Court justices and abolishing the Electoral College. But he declined to criticize Markey directly.
“Senator Markey is a good man,” he said. “This is going to be a tough race.”
Markey also supports abolishing the Electoral College and creating term limits for Supreme Court justices.
On Saturday, the senator challenged those running against him, including Kennedy, to a climate change debate in November. Markey sees the fight against climate change and his push for the Green New Deal as signature issues in his reelection campaign.
“I was very disappointed at the Democratic National Committee’s refusal to hold a debate on climate change for our presidential candidates,” Markey said in a video released Saturday morning. “So today I’m challenging Congressman Joe Kennedy, Shannon Liss-riordan and Steve Pemberton to a climate change debate, and to do it very soon.”