The death of Sen. Edward Kennedy today leaves a void in the lives of working families that will be hard to replace, if ever it can be. Kennedy fought throughout his life with one goal in mind: to improve the lives of working people. He championed civil rights for people of color and LGBT people; better education for literally millions of kids; immigration reform; women; workers' rights; the freedom of workers to choose a union; and, of course, health care reform.

Kennedy wasn't just a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act. He helped create it, and he was the first to introduce it in the Senate.

For some other senators, these issues were opinions. For Kennedy, they were a passion.

In fact, there is a simple and beautiful pattern in these causes Kennedy made his own. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin once wrote about another gifted politician Franklin Roosevelt, "he really did desire a better life for mankind." That precisely explains Ted Kennedy.

He called health care reform "the cause of my life," and as early as 1966, introduced his first health care bill. He had toured a community clinic at the Columbia Point housing project in Boston, and he was deeply impressed to see it bringing medical care to people who needed it. Typically for him, Kennedy noticed everything, including the rocking chairs set aside in special waiting rooms for nursing mothers.