Democrats Pick Kennedy for SOTU Response

RFK grandson will speak in gritty Mass. town
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jan 30, 2018 12:01 AM CST
Newest Kennedy in Congress Will Deliver SOTU Response
In this July 26, 2017 photo, Rep. Joe Kennedy smiles on Capitol Hill in Washington.   (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

A new generation of the Kennedy political dynasty will be introduced to a national audience Tuesday night as one delivers the Democratic response to President Trump's State of the Union. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, a 37-year-old Massachusetts congressman and grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, says Democrats should focus on the economic worries of working-class voters who bolted the party in the 2016 elections. To drive home the message, Kennedy will deliver his speech at a vocational high school in Fall River, Mass., a gritty former textile hub 55 miles south of Boston, the AP reports. "From health care to economic justice to civil rights, the Democratic agenda stands in powerful contrast to President Trump's broken promises to American families," Kennedy said in a statement

Kennedy added that his speech will be "guided by a simple belief that equality and economic dignity should be afforded to every American." Kennedy, son of former Rep. Joe Kennedy II, was elected to the House in 2012, returning the family to Congress two years after the retirement of Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who is the son of Ted Kennedy. Kennedy's speech will be followed by a Spanish-language response delivered by Elizabeth Guzman, one of the first Latinas elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. Matt Gorman, a spokesman for the campaign arm of House Republicans, mocked the Democrats for choosing a Kennedy, saying that "using the multi-millionaire scion of a political dynasty as the face of their party shows they've learned absolutely nothing."

(More Joe Kennedy stories.)

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