Joseph Patrick Kennedy III (born October 4, 1980) is an American politician and diplomat who most recently served as the United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland from 2022 to 2024.

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.

[3] Since leaving office, he has founded Groundwork Project, which focuses on boosting local community organizing efforts throughout the United States.

[6] In December 2022, Kennedy was named the United States Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs by President Biden.

[10] 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.

[13] 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.

[10][12] "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.

[14] 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.

[20][21] Kennedy explained, "I will then begin to reach out to the people of the Fourth District, in order to hear directly from them about the challenges they are facing and their ideas on how we can restore fairness to our system.

[24] In an announcement video, Kennedy declared, "I believe this country was founded on a simple idea: that every person deserves to be treated fairly, by each other and by their government".

[29] In 2016, after running unopposed in the Democratic primary, Kennedy was re-elected to a third term, defeating Republican David Rosa by more than 40 percentage points.

[34] During a February science committee hearing, Kennedy questioned Texas Instruments president Richard Templeton about the company's efforts to compensate cancer-stricken former employees of its Attleboro, Massachusetts, nuclear facility.

[40] On July 24, 2013, Kennedy was one of seven members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus[41] (CPC) to vote against the Amash-Conyers amendment to limit Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which tried to restrict NSA surveillance programs.

[46] On January 30, he gave the response to television cameras and a live studio audience in the automotive body shop of Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School at Fall River, Massachusetts.

[48] He also took numerous swings at Trump, criticizing the Department of Justice for "rolling back civil rights by the day" and attacking the administration for "targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection".

[49] He accused Trump of turning American life "into a zero-sum game",[49] and said that Democrats intended to aid the middle and lower classes.

[57][58] On December 19, 2022, President Biden announced Kennedy would replace Mick Mulvaney as U.S. Special Envoy for Northern Ireland.

[60] Kennedy has co-sponsored legislation to study reparations for slavery, supports measures to expand the civil rights of Native Americans, opposes discrimination in employment, housing, education, and health care, and supports removing barriers to equal opportunities for people with disabilities, including improving access to public transit, housing, voting, and education.

[61][non-primary source needed] Kennedy helped raise funds in 2016 for the defeat of Question 4 to legalize cannabis for recreational use in Massachusetts.

[66] Kennedy co-sponsored the Green New Deal, and supports aggressive action to reduce carbon emissions, enforce pollution control standards, protect public lands from fossil fuel extraction, promote clean energy alternatives to pipelines and compressor stations, and invest in related infrastructure and scientific research.

He supports strict fuel efficiency standards and the elimination of exemptions to the Clean Air Act, and opposed the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under President Donald Trump.

He has also co-sponsored legislation to reduce racial discrimination in housing, favors increasing the portion of federal grants earmarked for minority-owned small businesses, and supports criminal justice reform.