Lion of the Senate: When Ted Kennedy Rallied the Democrats in a GOP Congress

“The best book I have read about the inner dynamics of the United States Senate.” —Doris Kearns Goodwin

Two top domestic policy advisors to Senator Edward Kennedy offer an insider’s view of several remarkable years when Kennedy fought to preserve the Democratic mission against Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America and a Republican majority in both houses—a story that has special resonance now as a resurgent Republican right once again controls Congress.

In November 1994 the election swept a new breed of Republicans into control of the United States Congress. Led by Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Republicans were determined to enact a conservative agenda that would reshape American government. Had it not been for Ted Kennedy, they would have succeeded.

In 1994, after defending his Senate seat against challenger Mitt Romney, Kennedy came back to Washington to find Democrats, including President Clinton, demoralized and leaning toward “compromises” that would adopt much of the Republican agenda. Undaunted, Kennedy pressed the agenda he would have championed had his party held power. He rallied the Democrats. He reached across the aisle to craft and pass key progressive legislation. And he stopped the Gingrich revolution in its tracks.

Nick Littlefield and David Nexon tell this story of a bare-knuckled and sometimes hilarious fight in the United States Senate. It is a political lesson for all time.

Nick Littlefield was Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s Chief of Staff for the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee from 1989 to 1998. Recognized as one of the best-respected and most powerful staff members in Congress during his tenure on Capitol Hill, Littlefield was at Senator Kennedy’s side while he spearheaded historic legislation in health care and civil rights.

Before joining Kennedy, Littlefield was a federal prosecutor in New York, chief counsel to an anti-corruption commission in Massachusetts, lecturer at Harvard Law School, and a partner in the law firm Foley Hoag. After leaving Washington in 1998, he returned to his law firm in Boston, where he continued to work on expanding access to healthcare but now from the private sector. Nick retired in 2012. He and his wife, Jenny, live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have three grown children, and six grandchildren.

David Nexon served as Senator Kennedy’s senior health policy advisor and directed Kennedy’s Senate HELP Committee health staff from 1983–2005. Nexon was the lead health staffer on the Kassebaum-Kennedy health insurance reform, the Child Health Insurance Program, Medicare drug coverage, and other major initiatives. He is currently an executive at the Advanced Medical Technology Association and lives in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife, Lainey.