Tiffeany RoderickTed Kennedy Returns to the Senate After Brain Surgery
Democratic Icon Ted Kennedy
Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy returns to the Senate after brain surgery. Kennedy, who was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor nearly two months ago, returned to work to help break a Republican filibuster of an important Medicare bill. The 76-year-old Massachusetts Democrat had surgery to remove the tumor June 2 and is now undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
A vote just over a week ago fell one vote shy of clearing the filibuster. The underlying bill would reverse a 10.6 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors that will go into effect this month.
Kennedy is chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and is an influential Democrat on health-care issues.
Some members of the Democratic leadership thought it would be a "great idea" if Kennedy was able to return because it would "buck up" Democratic senators who have worked hard to pass the stalled bill.
Kennedy has become one of the most recognizable and influential members of the party, and is sometimes called a "Democratic icon.” In April 2006, Kennedy was selected by Time as one of "America's 10 Best Senators"; the magazine noted that he had "amassed a titanic record of legislation affecting the lives of virtually every man, woman and child in the country" and that "by the late 1990s, the liberal icon had become such a prodigious cross-aisle dealer that Republican leaders began pressuring party colleagues not to sponsor bills with him".
