Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend (born July 4, 1951) is an American attorney who was the sixth (and first female) lieutenant governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003.

Sauerbrey's allegations included ballot box stuffing, 100% voting in one precinct, voting by numerous dead people, and what she called the Kennedy "precedent"—that unproven rumors that John Kennedy had stolen the 1960 Presidential election proved that his niece Townsend had stolen this election.

The official vote tally declared Glendening the winner by 5,993 votes out of 1.4 million.

Sauerbrey hired an election specialist known for aggressive tactics then filed a lawsuit alleging that 50,000 votes had been cast illegally.

Over the summer of 1964, Kennedy won four blue ribbons for her "excellence in horsemanship".

On August 29, 1965, the fourteen-year-old Kennedy was somersaulted by her horse while competing at Sea Flash Farms in West Barnstable, Massachusetts.

She was left unconscious and bleeding internally and was rushed to Cape Cod Hospital, located fifteen miles away.

Her family was en route to Hyannis Port at the time of the incident and was not located for another three hours.

She was sixteen when her father was assassinated.

The night he was shot at the Ambassador Hotel, Kennedy and her two eldest brothers, Joseph II and Robert Jr., were being flown to Los Angeles aboard one of the planes in the Secret Service's presidential fleet named "the Jet Star".

She was educated at Our Lady of Victory Elementary School in Washington, D.C., and later graduated from The Putney School in Vermont.

She attended Radcliffe College, receiving her bachelor's degree in history and literature in 1974.

She then studied at the University of New Mexico School of Law, receiving her Juris Doctor degree in 1978.

After graduation, she worked as an attorney at a private law firm, Clendenen & Lesser, in New Haven, Connecticut, while her husband, David Townsend, attended Yale Law School.

She also worked on her uncle Ted Kennedy's 1980 presidential campaign, stumped for local Democrats, and was hired as a policy analyst for Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in the early 1980s while she and her husband resided in Newton, Massachusetts.

In 1982, she was admitted to the Massachusetts bar, and worked as a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge A. David Mazzone.

The family moved to Maryland, her husband's home state, in 1984.

In 1985, she was admitted to the Maryland bar.

In 1986, Townsend became the first Kennedy family member to lose a general election when she ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Maryland's strongly Republican 2nd congressional district, using the name Townsend only.

Incumbent Republican Helen Delich Bentley defeated her 59% to 41%.

After her failed congressional bid, Townsend went to work for the state government of Maryland, holding numerous posts including assistant Attorney General.

In 1993, Townsend took a job at the U.S. Justice Department overseeing grants to local police departments and community groups.

In 1994, Parris Glendening was running for governor in a highly contested primary against then-Lt.

Governor Melvin Steinberg when he selected her as his running mate.

Experts did not believe she would be an asset, but her name recognition (she now used the name Kennedy Townsend) and her fund-raising skills, helped him to win.

In the general election, Glendening and Townsend beat Republican candidate Ellen Sauerbrey in one of Maryland's closest and most controversial gubernatorial elections.

After unofficial results indicated that Sauerbrey had lost the election by a narrow margin, she began making what The Washington Post called "sensational charges" that the election had been stolen.

By the time the hearing began in January 1995, however, Sauerbrey had backed away from the fraud charges and her claim centered on sloppy election procedures and 3,600 challenged ballots.

The number of challenged ballots would not have been enough to change the result even if all of them were thrown out.

The judge ruled that about 1,800 votes had been cast in Baltimore by people whose names should have been purged from the rolls, but said that there was no clear and convincing evidence that fraud or procedural errors had affected the outcome.

She ran unsuccessfully for governor of Maryland in 2002.

In 2010, Townsend became the chair of the non-profit American Bridge, an organization whose focus is to raise funds for Democratic candidates and causes.

Since 2021, she has served in the United States Department of Labor as an advisor on retirement.

She is a member of the prominent political Kennedy family, and is currently the oldest living grandchild of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.

She was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the eldest of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel's eleven children.

She is named after her paternal aunt Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington.

She is the eldest grandchild of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy.

While she was growing up, it was not assumed that the girls in the politically oriented Kennedy family would run for office.

However, after her uncle President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, her father wrote her saying, "As the oldest of the next generation you have a particular responsibility. ... Be kind to others and work for your country."

Her family gave her the nicknames "Clean Kathleen", "the Nun", and "the Un-Kennedy".