Joseph Patrick Kennedy III (born October 4, 1980) is an American politician and diplomat who currently serves as United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland since 2022. Prior to this, Kennedy served as the U.S. representative for from 2013 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented a district that extends from Boston's western suburbs to the state's South Coast. He worked as an assistant district attorney in the Cape and Islands and Middlesex County, Massachusetts, offices before his election to Congress. In January 2021, he became a CNN commentator.
A member of the Kennedy family, he is a son of U.S. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II, a grandson of U.S. Senator and U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, a grandnephew of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, and a great-grandson of U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.
Born in Boston, Kennedy was raised in the area with his twin brother, Matthew Rauch Kennedy. After graduating from Stanford University with a bachelor's degree, he spent two years in the Dominican Republic as a member of the Peace Corps, before earning a Juris Doctor at Harvard Law School in 2009. He resigned from his role as assistant district attorney in early 2012 to run for the U.S. House of Representatives seat held by the retiring Barney Frank. Kennedy was sworn into office in January 2013, and sat on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
In 2020, rather than run for re-election to his House seat, Kennedy unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Senator Ed Markey for the Democratic nomination in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate election. He was succeeded by fellow Democrat, and distant cousin-in-law, Jake Auchincloss. Since leaving office, he has founded Project Groundwork, which focuses on boosting local community organizing efforts throughout the United States. He has also joined several advisory boards and began appearing as a political commentator for CNN. On June 4, 2021, President Joe Biden appointed him to be a member of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships.
In December 2022, Kennedy was named the United States Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs by President Biden.
Early life and career
Kennedy was born on October 4, 1980, in Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, to Sheila Brewster (Rauch) (b. 1949) and Joseph P. Kennedy II. He was born eight minutes after his fraternal twin brother, Matthew. The twins are the eldest grandsons of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy. Kennedy is also the great-great-grandson of Benjamin Brewster, one of the original trustees of Standard Oil, and a direct descendant of Mayflower Pilgrim William Brewster. They were raised in Brighton and the coastal town of Marshfield, Massachusetts, also spending summers on Cape Cod. From birth, Kennedy was surrounded by politics; in 1980, his parents worked on the presidential campaign of U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, the boys' grand-uncle. Kennedy's father was elected to Congress in 1986. His parents divorced in 1991. The twins spent the following years moving between Brighton and Cambridge.
After graduating from Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, Kennedy and his brother enrolled at Stanford University, where he majored in management science and engineering. Kennedy's reputation as a teetotaler earned him the college nickname "Milkman", as his teammates on the club lacrosse team would jokingly order him glasses of milk at bars. At Stanford, Kennedy roomed with future NBA player Jason Collins and was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity.
After graduating in 2003, Kennedy joined the Peace Corps; a fluent Spanish speaker, he worked in the Dominican Republic's Puerto Plata province from 2004 to 2006, helping local tour guides in the 27 Charcos reserve in the Río Damajagua Park. He reorganized the group with some outside backing, directing the guides to rebuild parts of the park and develop skills to make the operation more attractive to tourists. "We basically created a union," said Kennedy, who reported that the group's efforts won higher wages for employees while increasing the tour companies' revenue. According to a press release, his other activities in the Peace Corps included "stints as an Anti-Poverty Consultant for the Office of the President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste and a Research Analyst for the United Nations Development Program."