Joseph P. Kennedy II

Throughout his career in the U.S. House, Kennedy served on the House Banking Committee, where he played an active role in the federal saving-and-loan bailout, credit-reporting reform, the overhaul of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 and financial modernization.

Kennedy also served on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, passing legislation to strengthen the veterans' health-care system, to investigate the causes of Gulf War syndrome, and to provide medical treatment for veterans of the Persian Gulf War.

After leaving the House of Representatives, Kennedy returned to Citizens Energy.

(During Kennedy's terms in the House, it had been run by his brother Michael.) Citizens Energy pursues commercial ventures aimed at generating revenues that, in turn, are used to generate funds that could assist those in need in the U.S. and abroad.

It grew to encompass seven separate companies, including one of the largest energy-conservation firms in the U.S. Citizens Energy became one of the U.S.'s first energy firms to move large volumes of natural gas to more than 30 states.

Kennedy decided to run for the seat, which his uncle, former president John F. Kennedy, had held from 1947 to 1953.

The Democratic nomination was contested by a number of well-known Democrats including state senator George Bachrach and state representative Mel King.

However, Kennedy garnered endorsements from The Boston Globe and the retiring O'Neill.

Kennedy won the primary with 53%.

He won the general election with 72% of the vote.

Joseph Patrick Kennedy II (born September 24, 1952) is an American businessman, Democratic politician, and a member of the Kennedy family.

He is a son of former United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy, and he is also a nephew of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy and former U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy.

Kennedy was born on September 24, 1952, in St. Elizabeth's Hospital in the Brighton section of Boston, Massachusetts, the second of 11 children to Ethel (née Skakel) and Robert F. Kennedy.

He was named after his grandfather Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., the patriarch of the Kennedy family.

Kennedy had a troubled youth and was expelled from several private schools as a result of his quick temper.

He regularly got into fights with his younger brothers and male cousins.

He was 15 when his father was assassinated.

A restless, impulsive teenager, he left Milton Academy, a preparatory boarding school in Milton, Massachusetts; later graduating in 1971 from the Manter Hall School—also a private, preparatory school—in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

During his time at Milton, he was roommates with Thomas C. Wales.

Kennedy attended the University of California, Berkeley in 1972, but dropped out.

He returned to school after a major car accident which occurred in 1973 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 1976.

While on hiatus from college, he worked for several months as part of a federally funded program to combat and treat tuberculosis in the African American community in San Francisco, California.

Mayor Joseph Alioto personally praised Kennedy's work in the community.

Kennedy resigned from his position in the program and returned to Massachusetts in the summer of 1973.

In 1979 he founded and, until he was elected to the U.S. House, led Citizens Energy Corporation, a non-profit energy company which provides heating oil to low-income and elderly families in Massachusetts.

In 1979, Kennedy founded Citizens Energy Corporation, a non-profit organization to provide discounted heating oil to low-income and elderly families in Massachusetts.

According to author J. Randy Taraborrelli, Kennedy started the venture "to alleviate the burden of heating bills for the poor during the oil crisis of that year."

(See Citizens Energy (since 1979) section below.)

In 1986, incumbent Democrat and Speaker of the House Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill Jr., who had held Massachusetts' 8th congressional district (a Democratic stronghold in Boston and Cambridge) seat since 1953, announced his retirement.

Kennedy served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from the 8th congressional district of Massachusetts from 1987 to 1999.

He won re-election in 1988 (80%), 1990 (72%), 1992 (83%), 1994 (99%), and 1996 (84%).

Kennedy's legislative efforts in U.S. House of Representatives included

As a precursor to market changes under electricity deregulation in the late 1990s, Citizens Energy was a pioneer in moving and marketing electrical power over the power grid.

In recent years, Kennedy has led the company into the renewable-energy industry, building solar farms along the East Coast and transmission lines to support charitable programs like one giving free solar panels to low-income families in California.

In 1991 Kennedy boycotted a speech to the U.S. Congress by the United Kingdom's Queen Elizabeth II "in protest to the British occupation in Northern Ireland."

In March 1998, following a year of family troubles that included the skiing death of his brother Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, he announced that he planned to retire from the U.S. House, citing "a new recognition of our own vulnerabilities and the vagaries of life."

An editorial in The Boston Globe observed that "Kennedy has remained steadfast in his political life to issues and constituencies no poll would have led him to: the poor, the homeless, disadvantaged children, and others swamped in the current tide of prosperity."

He served in the U.S. House for six terms, until January 1999.

In his final speech on the U.S. House floor, Kennedy delivered "an impassioned plea for unity and forgiveness" in the midst of Congressional debate regarding the proposed articles of impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

In 2010, Kennedy transformed the organization to become a leader in renewable energy generation while continuing to use profits to provide energy savings to low-income families.