UPDATE: Kennedy stepping down from Senate panel
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON -- Senator Edward M. Kennedy said today he will step down from his post as a senior and powerful member of the Senate Judiciary Committee when the new Congress convenes so he can concentrate on healthcare reform.
Kennedy, who is battling an aggressive brain tumor, said he is determined to return to the Senate in January to work for passage of universal healthcare coverage, which he has been advocating for most of his 46-year career in the Senate.
“As Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I expect to lead a very full agenda in the next Congress, including working with President Obama to guarantee affordable health care, at long last, for every American," Kennedy said in a statement.
"This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and I intend to make the most of it," Kennedy added.
In stepping down from the Judiciary Committee, Kennedy leaves a panel he has served since 1962, the same year he joined the Senate. For decades, he fought fiercely for civil rights and immigration reform, and waged legendary battles against a number of Republican judicial nominees. Kennedy was instrumental in bringing down the nomination of Judge Robert Bork, whom President Reagan nominated to the Supreme Court in 1987.
"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is -- and is often the only -- protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy,'' Kennedy said in a floor speech opposing the selection. Bork's nomination was ultimately defeated.
Kennedy is also honoring a request by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who asked Democratic caucus members last month to give up some of their committee assignments to make room for the eight new Democrats elected to the Senate in November.
Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant glioma, a lethal brain tumor, in May, and underwent surgery in June, but has continued to work from his home on Cape Cod and occasionally from his Senate office. Kennedy spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August -- despite having kidney stones, as well as the tumor -- and returned briefly to the Senate late last month.
Kennedy, 76, and his staff have been working throughout his illness on developing a national healthcare plan that would cover the nation's 47 million uninsured. Kennedy is vacationing in Florida but expects to be back in Washington for the start of the next Congress.
Kennedy and his team have been holding regular meetings with interest groups and working with other senators to determine the basics of a health reform bill his office has said he hopes to prepare by President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration. Kennedy and other health reform proponents strongly believe that it's crucial for Congress to act quickly on health reform in order to take advantage of the political momentum behind the new president.
Ron Pollack, president of Families USA, a left-leaning health consumer advocacy group that is working closely with Kennedy and a spectrum of other interests on health reform, said Kennedy's decision to forsake his spot on the Judiciary Committee would "enable him to focus his enormous energies on that task which he has said is his first, second and third priority."
Pollack noted the Judiciary Committee is charged with the time-consuming tasks of handling confirmation hearings on the attorney general and judicial appointments, in addition to its legislative responsibilities.
"If one is really devoted to an enormous cause that has been difficult to achieve in the past, it really is helpful to have that extra time to devote to that effort," he said.
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Hopefully, we will see true Health care Reform within the next year or so. Even though many conservatives have real issues with a plan that could be government run, & rightfully so, a good sound Health care Reform plan that guarantees that all Americans have the right to Health care at reasonable costs that they can afford goes a long, long way toward financial well being for both Families & the Nation as a whole. I am glad to see that Snator Kennedy is devoting ,probably, sadly, the rest of his life to seeing this through to resolution, & with the incoming Administration, & Congress, he has much stronger backing to get this done. Ultimately Health Care Reform is going to save this country & it's citizens a lot of money.
Interesting, though not unexpected. This would seem to secure the spot for acting chair Patrick Leahy.
@2...and if Caroline replaces Hillary , she's a lawyer who could be the next Kennedy on the Judiciary Committee (although not the chair)
Good riddance, although Leahy is worse. Robert Bork was the most qualified appointee for the Supreme Court since John Marshall, but the barely literate Kennedy blocked his nomination. That was the first time ideology was allowed into supreme court nominations, not just professional qualifications and moral probity, of which Kennedy is severely deficient. The Republicans never block a nomination solely on ideological grounds; if the person is intellectually, professionally, and ethically fit, even if they disagree with them ideologically, they hold there noses and vote for them (see Breyer, Ginzburg etc.) But conservative receive no such reciprocal fairness from the illiberal liberals.
GM presently is a small laboratory model for what will happen to the United States as a whole when this is scaled up to provide unlimited coverage for any and every malady, real or imagined--exactly what brought down General Motors.
Every astroturf "advocacy" operation taking money from the healthcare industry, and every government/industry lobby collusion, and the healthcare employment arm of the SEIU, and big pharma, will drain you every dime.
You will double and triple up with your own families--and maybe even families of strangers--in order to afford rents after subsistence level wages are stripped of dollars to go to your mandated "healthcare."
They will decide that you need to pay for others' bad backs, trick knees, sore shoulders, fertility treatments, "depression" and "bipolar" issues. They will decide you need to pay again when previously "treated" people twitching from prescriptions are readmitted for iatrogenic damage caused by unnecessary drugs and procedures.
this person should step down from his office,the only sitting senator to kill a human being and he still is in office.what does this say about a citizens that would tolerate such brutality towards people and get rewarded for it.glad to say when judgment day comes,not a good death at all.
Universal healthcare is a "pie in the sky" myth. Feel good Democrats have been trying to pedal this myth for the past 30 years. I'll bet Teddy Boy wouldn't want to have been covered by "Universal Healthcare" with his health crises. "Oh nooooooooo don't do waht I daom do what I say. I know better for you that you know. One final note, What on Gods green earth qualifies Caroline Schlossberg to be a Senator? Just something to fill her days with?
Hey Mike, those bad backs and knees, bipolar syndrome, and depression are REAL, you ignoramus. And I help pay for others problems, ANd they help pay for mine AND yous. that's what "shared risk" is about, whether it's an insurance company or Medicare. If you don't like it, then leave. This is a COMMONWELATH, officially. To quote one of those Founding Father types, "If we don't hang together, we most assuredly shall hang separately" (YES it applies here). further, our Constitution says something about "promoting the general welfare".....and if sorting out a fair and just system of medical care for everybody isn't "promoting the general welfare", than what is?
The wingnuts and Kennedy haters are out tonight!
Bork was and is a terrible extremist.
It's hard to see how universal health care could be a myth when every other developed western democracy has it, in one form or another.
And the death of Mary Jo Kopechne was a terrible tragedy, irresponsibly caused and handled, but it's on par with Laura Bush's car wreck that killed her classmate.