WASHINGTON — While the president gets the grand stage for the State of the Union, the event is often a showcase for rising stars from the opposition party as well. For 2018, Democrats are going with a younger member who also points to the glory days of their past: Rep. Joe Kennedy III.
The 37-year-old Democrat from Massachusetts is a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, the former New York senator and attorney general who was assassinated during his 1968 presidential run.
The younger Kennedy attended Stanford University and Harvard Law School and worked with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic before becoming a prosecutor. Following in his family’s footsteps, he went into politics early and won a House seat opened up by Barney Frank’s retirement in 2012.
Kennedy is less well-known than various Democrats tagged as potential 2020 presidential contenders, and the televised response will be by far his biggest moment on the national stage. But he has drawn some attention this year for speeches and statements in hearings decrying poverty, his grandfather’s signature issue, and attacking proposed cuts to health care programs and social spending in stark moral language.
In one viral moment from a hearing in March, he took issue with Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who had described efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act an “act of mercy.”
Kennedy said the speaker “must have read different Scripture.”
“There is no mercy in a system that makes health care a luxury,” Kennedy said. “There is no mercy in a country that turns their back on those most in need of protection: the elderly, the poor, the sick and the suffering. There is no mercy in a cold shoulder to the mentally ill.”
Because he is delivering the response, Kennedy will not be attending the speech itself. But he invited a transgender soldier who has served in Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Patricia King, to attend as a guest. Kennedy has worked on related issues in Congress and King’s appearance highlights his opposition to Trump’s decision to not allow transgender individuals to serve in the military, a ban that has since been stalled in the courts.