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Reflections on Ted Kennedy
I was deeply saddened when I heard the news that Senator Ted Kennedy had died. I had followed the Kennedy family since 1960 when John Kennedy campaigned for the presidency. Like many people my age, I remember exactly where I was when the death of President Kennedy was announced, and where I was when the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy was announced. And so it was again at 5:00 a.m. last Wednesday morning.

I first met Ted Kennedy in 1967 when he and three other senators came to Rio Grand City and Edinburg to hold subcommittee hearings regarding the suppression of farm worker rights to organize. Farm workers had gone on strike in Starr County against La Casita Farms. The Texas Rangers were being accused of harassing and intimidating strike organizers. Wealthy growers used the threat of economic reprisal to turn Mexican farm workers against pro-union Mexican farm workers. Some even refused to testify and kept workers from attending the hearings. Ted Kennedy was only 35 years old at the time but one could already see in him a champion for social and economic justice. We took a picture together that appeared in a local newspaper. I wish I had kept it.

I watched his career from a distance. I only visited his Senate office once. I saw him again when he came to Chicago to campaign for Harold Washington, and helped elect Chicago's first African American mayor. Ted Kennedy was about change before change was cool. And while accounts of his rendition of Ay Jalisco No Te Rajes have not been favorable on television, I heard it and I was impressed. If anyone thinks George Bush could speak Spanish, they just never heard Kennedy.

I watched as his errors in judgment almost ended his political career, and marveled at how he redeemed himself by learning from his mistakes and coming back a better man. I watched in horror in 1980 when Roger Mudd asked him why he wanted to be president and Kennedy had no idea, and marveled again when he roared back into the Senate with legislative vengeance, finally realizing that he could do more for those in need as a Senator than as President.

As a public speaker I have had my share of hard acts to follow, especially at labor conferences. I once got six standing ovations at a Machinists conference. But any speaker's worst nightmare was to follow Ted Kennedy anywhere, especially at a conference of trade unionists. It happened to me at a UAW conference in Washington, DC.

I grew up watching all the great legislators of the last 50 years - Speaker Sam Rayburn, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, the "Happy Warrior" Hubert Humphrey, Jacob Javits, Everett Dirksen, to name a few. If LBJ was "The Master of the Senate", then Ted Kennedy was arguably "The Lion of the Senate" and the two were without a doubt the best of the lot. Why? They were the best because as Senators they were driven by insatiable compassion for the less fortunate and not by ambition. They gained power by mastering their craft and earning the respect of their peers. And once they had the power, they learned how to use it.

LBJ brought electricity to Appalachia, declared War on Poverty and gave us Medicare. Ted Kennedy was among the longest-serving members of the Senate and his list of legislative accomplishments is too long to mention, but passage of the Voting Rights Act, the American Disabilities Act, Meals on Wheels, Family Leave, and immigration readily come to mind. In short, Ted Kennedy was the conscience of the Senate. That august body will never be the same, and neither will our lives. The Lion that roared is no more.