John Kennedy

John Neely Kennedy (born November 21, 1951) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Louisiana since 2017.

He graduated from Zachary High School as co-valedictorian in 1969.

He then attended Vanderbilt University, where his interdepartmental major was in political science, philosophy and economics.

He graduated magna cum laude.

At Vanderbilt, Kennedy was elected president of his senior class and named to Phi Beta Kappa.

He received a Juris Doctor in 1977 from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was an executive editor of the Virginia Law Review and elected to the Order of the Coif.

In 1979, he earned a Bachelor of Civil Law degree with first class honours from Oxford University, where he was a member of Magdalen College and studied under Rupert Cross and John H.C. Morris.

Kennedy was a partner in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge law firm Chaffe McCall from 1985 to 1987 and 1992 to 1996.

In 1988, Governor Buddy Roemer selected Kennedy to serve as special legal counsel and later appointed him Secretary of the Cabinet.

In 1988, Kennedy became special counsel to Governor Buddy Roemer.

The Louisiana legislature enacted the Louisiana Products Liability Act in 1988.

Before Roemer's time in office, Louisiana had no limits on individual campaign contributions, which allowed donors to cut massive checks to campaigns without reporting the contributions.

Roemer placed Kennedy in charge of his quest to toughen campaign finance laws, including placing a $5,000 cap on individual contributions to statewide candidates.

In addition to ushering in the passage of campaign finance and product liability reforms for Roemer's administration, Kennedy led the effort to consolidate Louisiana's four boards of higher education into one.

He said the policy would be "fundamental" to improving Louisiana universities' "quality and desegregation".

That effort eventually came one vote short of passage.

He left Roemer's staff in 1991 to unsuccessfully run for state attorney general as a Democrat.

In 1991, he was also appointed secretary to the governor's cabinet and served in both posts until 1992.

Roemer tasked Kennedy with helping him pass two key priorities: tort and campaign finance reforms.

Roemer instructed Kennedy to draft the Louisiana Products Liability Act, a bill that aimed to set forth four clear legal theories by which manufacturers could be held liable for damage their products caused.

The new code also clarified what counted as "unreasonably dangerous" to help make potential sources of liability more predictable to both businesses and buyers with claims.

Roemer then tasked Kennedy with building support for passing the legislation.

As part of his advocacy, Kennedy published a law review article titled "A Primer on the Louisiana Products Liability Act".

He argued that the Products Liability Act would "bring added clarity, precision and certainty to Louisiana's products liability doctrine" and "strike an equitable balance between the right of a claimant who is injured in a product-related accident to just compensation and the right of the product's manufacturer to be judged fairly."

Kennedy also delivered public testimony before the Louisiana House Committee on Civil Law and Procedure in support of the bill, saying that the bill "provides for a state-of-the-art defense for manufacturers."

Roemer lost his reelection bid in 1991, but ran again in 1995 with Kennedy as his campaign manager.

In 1999, he was elected state treasurer; he was reelected to that position in 2003, 2007, 2011, and 2015.

A Republican, he served as the Louisiana State Treasurer from 2000 to 2017, as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Revenue from 1996 to 1999, and as special counsel and then cabinet member to Governor Buddy Roemer from 1988 to 1992.

Born in Centreville, Mississippi, Kennedy graduated from Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia School of Law before attending Oxford University.

He also served as an adjunct professor at Louisiana State University's Paul M. Hebert Law Center in Baton Rouge from 2002 to 2016.

Kennedy was an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senate in 2004 and 2008.

In 2007, he switched parties and became a Republican.

Kennedy has written and published the following books and articles: Louisiana State Constitutional Law (LSU Publications Institute, Jan. 1, 2012), The Dimension of Time in the Louisiana Products Liability Act (42 Louisiana Bar Journal, Jan. 1, 1994), The Role of the Consumer Expectation Test Under Louisiana's Products Liability Doctrine (69 Tulane Law Review 117, Jan. 1, 1994), A Primer on the Louisiana Products Liability Act (49 Louisiana Law Review 565, Jan. 1, 1989), Assumption of the Risk, Comparative Fault and Strict Liability After Rozell (47 Louisiana Law Review 791, Jan. 1, 1987) and The Federal Power Commission, Job Bias, and NAACP v. FPC (10 Akron Law Review 556, Jan. 1, 1977).

In 2016, when U.S. Senator David Vitter opted not to seek reelection, Kennedy ran for Senate again.

He finished first in the November nonpartisan blanket primary and defeated Democrat Foster Campbell 61%–39% in the December runoff.

He was sworn in on January 3, 2017.

Kennedy was one of six Republican senators to object to the certification of Arizona's electors in the 2020 presidential election.

In 2022, Kennedy was reelected to the U.S. Senate, defeating 12 opponents with 62% of the vote in the first round.

Kennedy won every parish except Orleans Parish in his 2022 reelection.

Kennedy was born in Centreville, Mississippi, and raised in Zachary, Louisiana.