JFK’s grand nephew launches bid for Congress seat

Joseph Kennedy III is to follow in the family tradition and contest the race for a Massachusetts congressional seat in the 4th District.

If he wins he would put the Kennedy family back in national politics. Since Congressman Patrick Kennedy retired last November it is the first time since 1946 a Kennedy has not been either elected to the US senate or the house.

Back then, John Fitzgerald Kennedy replaced the legendary James Michael Curley that year when Curley ran for Mayor of Boston. Now JFK’s grandnephew is set to take up the torch. The 31-year-old lawyer is to enter the election to succeed retiring US Republican Barney Frank.

Kennedy, the son of former US Republican Joseph Kennedy, said he would work hard to earn every vote and if elected would bring the “fight for fairness to the US Congress”.

“I believe this country was founded on a simple idea: that every person deserves to be treated fairly, by each other and by their government, but that’s not happening in America anymore,” Democrat Mr Kennedy said.

Mr Kennedy, 31, recently moved from Cambridge to Brookline, part of the state’s newly redrawn 4th Congressional District. The family has deep ties to the Boston suburb.

His grandfather, Senator Robert Kennedy, was shot dead at the age of 42 on June 5, 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, shortly after claiming victory in the state’s crucial Democratic primary.

The Kennedy family has seen its influence in Washington fade in recent years as its younger generations have largely shunned public office.

The death of Massachusetts senator Edward Kennedy, Joseph Kennedy’s great-uncle, in 2009 left a void for the family. The retirement last year of his son, Rhode Island’s US Rep Patrick Kennedy, marked the first time in 63 years that a Kennedy was not serving in elected office in Washington.

Joseph Kennedy, a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, served in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic from 2004 to 2006.