EQUAL RIGHTS FOR AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES

Senator Kennedy worked with his close friend Senator Orrin Hatch for the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 which prohibited employers from discriminating against a qualified person because of a disability and prohibited discrimination of people with disabilities in public accomodations and telecommunications services. Ted Kennedy had a sister, Rosemary, who suffered from mental retardation, and his son had a leg amputated because of cancer, so he was especially empathetic to the discrimination that disabled people face.

In 1980 Kennedy co-sponsored the Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act, which enforced the rights of the elderly, the disabled, the mental ill, and the incarcerated who were in government institutions. In 1984 Senator Kennedy cosponsored legislation to make polling places accessible to the elderly and to the diabled on federal elections. In 1986, Kennedy was cosponsor of the Air Carrier Access Act to require that aircrafts and terminals be accessible to people with disabilities traveling by air. In 1988, Kennedy introduced the Fair Housing Act Amendments to prohibit discrimination towards people with disabilities in the sale or rental of housing and in the terms, facilities and services provided. To see more legislation that Senator Kennedy helped pass for disabled Americans, you could go to this website.

IMMIGRATION

Senator Kennedy worked to pass the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, a proposal by Representative Emmanuel Cellar and Senator Philip Hart, which abolished the National Origins Formula of the Immigration Act of 1924, which had the goal of keeping the ethnic makeup of the nation and restricting Asian immigration. Kennedy worked hard as floor leader of the bill to get it passed, and the 1965 law shifted the majority of immigration from Europe to Asia. Kennedy held hearings on refugees during the Vietnam War that focused on the goverment's refugee policy.

Kennedy has also supported the cause of the United Farm Workers, which often led him to immigration issues. Kennedy fought to end the Bracero Program that supplied cheap Mexican farm labor with no protection on their rights. Kennedy sponsored the Refugee Act of 1979 that sheltered hundreds of thousands of refugees from persecution in their home countries. In 1985 and 1986 Kennedy worked with Dolores Huerta to pass immigration reform that allowed more than 2.7 million undocumented farm workers to win legal status. In his last two years, Kennedy sponsored the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act of 2007 to help Iraqi refugees who escaped their country to escape threats on their lives.






GAY RIGHTS

Senator Kennedy has been a supporter of gay rights since his run for the Presidency in 1980, when he was for an end to discrimination against homosexuals seeking security clearances and those in the military. He has consistently received a 100% rating from the Human Rights Campaign. With his good friend, Orrin Hatch, Kennedy sponsored the Ryan White Care Act 1990 to provide federal funding to improve availability of care for low-income, uninsured and under-insured victims of AIDS and their families. In 1996, Senator Kennedy was one of 16 Senators to vote against Defense of Marriage Act and has fought consistently through the years to repeal it. He fought efforts by conservative Republicans to get a constitutional amendment to make marriage between a man and a woman. In 1993, Kennedy was against the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy of the military and was planning on sending a proposal to repeal it before he died. Kennedy supported the Mathew Shephard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 which added violence against people due to sexual orientation to the federal hate crimes list.





WORKER RIGHTS

Senator Kennedy, in his capacity as Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, worked to make sure the minimum wage kept pace with inflation, working to increase the minimum wage 16 times during his long Senatorial career. In 1993 Kennedy worked for the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which allows workers to take unpaid leave to care for a new baby, their own serious illness, or the serious illness of a child, parent or spouse. In 1996 he cosponsored with Kansas Republican Senator Nancy Kassebaum the Kennedy-Kassebaum Act, which allowed employees to keep health insurance for a time after losing job. He worked on equal pay for women workers by working for passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to restore a fair rule for filing pay discrimination cases.

Senator Ted Kennedy has worked hard to fight for the right of workers to organize into unions and to collectively bargain for their rights. He worked for the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, bipartisan legislation that gave public safety workers the right to form and join a union and bargain with their employers over wages, hours, and working conditions under state law. Senator Kennedy cosponsored many bills to restore collective bargaining rights to millions of nurses, construction workers, and graduate student teaching assistants who were stripped of their rights by the National Labor Relations Board.



FIGHT AGAINST APARTHEID

Ted Kennedy continued the fight that his brother Bobby had started to help South Africans end Apartheid in South Africa. In 1985, Senator Kennedy traveled to South Africa and staged an illegal protest at the gates of the prison that held Nelson Mandela. He fought for Representative Ron Dellums proposal The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheir Act of 1986 and he successfully led the override of President Reagan's veto of the proposal.

HUMAN RIGHTS

When Ted Kennedy first entered the Senate in 1964, his maiden speech was in support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in employment, education and public accommodations. He fought in 1965 to eliminate the poll tax in the South. In the early 1970s, Senator Kennedy led the fight to lower the voting age to 18, feeling that young men who were being drafted to go to Vietnam should have the right to vote for the people who were making decisions on war.

In 1982, Kennedy was the chief sponsor of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982, which led to significant increases in minority representation in Congress and state legislatures. In the 1990s, Kennedy sponsored the Voting Rights Language Assistance Act, which provided language assistance during the voting process for limited-English proficient Latino, Asian American, and Native American citizens. In the 1980s, Kennedy worked with a bipartisan group of Senators and Coretta Scott King to establish a federal holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Senator Kennedy was the central figure moving the legislation, entitled the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, which specified that recipients of federal funds must comply with civil rights laws in all areas, not just in the particular program or activity that received federal funding.Reagan.



HEALTH CARE

Health care reform was Kennedy's most cherished goal. Since he was exposed to the plight of patients struggling to pay their medical bills in the 1970s when his son was recovering from cancer, Kennedy has worked to provide health care insurance to those who normally wouldn't be able to afford it. Ted Kennedy provided anamendment to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1966 which led to many community-based health clinics throughout the nation. In 1990, Kennedy cosponsored with Orrin Hatch the Ryan White CARE Act, which sped funds for cities most hit by the AIDs epidemic. In 1993 Kennedy co-authored the Family and Medical Leave Act, requiring businesses to provide unpaid leave for emergencies or births. In 1996 he cosponsored with Kansas Republican Senator Nancy Kassebaum the Kennedy-Kassebaum Act, which allowed employees to keep health insurance for a time after losing job. Kennedy helped President George Bush with the No Child Left Behind Act. In 1997 Senator Kennedy collaborated with Senator Orrin Hatch on SCHIP in 1997, which now covers over 10 million lower-income children.