U.S. President Barack Obama, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and First Lady Michelle Obama were among attendees at a dedication ceremony Monday for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, named in honor of the late former U.S. Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy.
The institute, located in Columbia Point in Dorchester, includes a full-scale replica of the Senate chamber and is intended to inspire young people and educate them about the legislative process, said Obama, the dedication ceremony’s final speaker. Kennedy died from brain cancer in 2009 after spending 47 years in the U.S. Senate.
The outside area for the dedication was filled with local, state and federal leaders, including Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, current and former U.S. congressmen and, as Obama joked, “pretty much every elected official in Massachusetts.” Next to the event, in an overflow tent, hundreds of other guests and members of the public watched from a livestream monitor.
“Who but Ted Kennedy and his family would create a full-scale replica of the Senate chamber and open it to everyone?” Obama said. “[This place] can help light the fire of imagination, plant the seed of noble ambition in the minds of future generations.”
From one speaker to the next, each one emphasized Kennedy’s ability to form bi-partisan relationships and build foundations of trust with his colleagues, regardless of the political battles they would have on the Senate floor.
“He believed in the basic instincts and capacities and goodness of the American people, if just given half a chance,” Biden said. “He believed that if you listened to the other guy, the other woman, if you actually listened, you might find something about their argument that made sense, that anything was possible.”
Baker, who took the podium with a joke about serving as a Republican governor of Massachusetts, also complimented Kennedy’s ability to form relationships with those across the aisle.
“In a business where it’s so much easier to stop something from happening than it is to actually find your way to get something done, this is how this guy succeeds — relationships, trust, follow-through,” Baker said.
When U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren spoke, her voice cracked and eyes filled with tears, recalling April 17, 1998, the first time she met Kennedy. A law professor at the time, Warren spoke to Kennedy about working class families for what turned from a 15-minute meeting into an hour-and-a-half.
Warren needed his leadership in the fight for working families, she said, and when she stood there, asking for it, Kennedy looked at his satchel “full of a zillion other commitments that he had already made,” and said “I’ll do it.”
“Senator Ted Kennedy, the lion of the Senate, agreed to lead this fight because it was the right thing to do for millions of people hanging on by their fingernails who just desperately needed a little help. He changed my life, and he changed what I understood about public service,” she said. “We are here today at the Kennedy Institute, a place designed with one of the loftiest goals possible: to inspire … It is a lofty goal but it is the right one for an institute to honor Ted Kennedy.”
Speaker after speaker, nearly everyone shared stories of times they had been inspired by Kennedy. Obama encouraged everyone to remember all the times “this American family” — referring to the Kennedys — inspired Americans to ask themselves what they can do.
“For all the challenges of a changing world, for all the imperfections of our democracy, the capacity to reach across our differences is something that is up to us,” Obama said. “May we all, in our own lives, set an example for the kids who enter these doors and exit with higher expectations for their country.”
In a Senate Chamber dedication following the initial ceremony, Biden led a mock session of Senate, the first in the replica chamber, joined in the room by former and current congressmen from around the country, with students sitting in states’ vacant seats in the room.
At the conclusion of the dedication ceremonies, several attendees said the program being built at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate appropriately honor the former senator.
“The institute is really cool,” said Katia Soares, 24, of Taunton. “It’s really nice to be able to step in there. Usually, you have all these people making rules for you. It makes you feel part of it in a sense. To me, it makes me feel like I’m part of something that stands for so much more.”
Pia Miller, 39, of Bay Village, said the creation of the institute is especially important, giving the stigma surrounding the current Congress.
“It’s such an amazing thing to have open now, in a time when people are feeling so unable to get any resolution in the Senate, and it’s such an amazing thing to be teaching people of the future about compromise and cooperation,” she said. “It’s just such an interesting message right now that’s so useful.”
Miller’s husband, Paul, knew Kennedy, working on many of his election campaigns, and chose to attend the dedication to see Kennedy’s dreams for the institute come to life.
“Politics is a community institution that has allowed for the United States to come together in so many ways, and Kennedys especially make it like family,” said Paul, 48, of Bay Village. “I bet you could talk to anyone in this room, and I bet somebody would say, ‘I met him one for five minutes. He changed my life.’”
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