John Neely Kennedy (born November 21, 1951) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Louisiana since 2017. A Republican, he served as the Louisiana State Treasurer from 2000 to 2017, as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Revenue from 1996 to 1999, and as special counsel and then cabinet member to Governor Buddy Roemer from 1988 to 1992.
Born in Centreville, Mississippi, Kennedy graduated from Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia School of Law before attending Oxford University. In 1988, Governor Buddy Roemer selected Kennedy to serve as special legal counsel and later appointed him Secretary of the Cabinet. He left Roemer's staff in 1991 to unsuccessfully run for state attorney general as a Democrat. In 1999, he was elected state treasurer; he was reelected to that position in 2003, 2007, 2011, and 2015. Kennedy was an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senate in 2004 and 2008. In 2007, he switched parties and became a Republican.
In 2016, when U.S. Senator David Vitter opted not to seek reelection, Kennedy ran for Senate again. He finished first in the November nonpartisan blanket primary and defeated Democrat Foster Campbell 61%–39% in the December runoff. He was sworn in on January 3, 2017. Kennedy was one of six Republican senators to object to the certification of Arizona's electors in the 2020 presidential election. In 2022, Kennedy was reelected to the U.S. Senate, defeating 12 opponents with 62 percent of the vote in the first round. Kennedy won every parish except Orleans Parish in his 2022 reelection.
