Kennedy, John, 1951-

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 Democrat turned Republican, he served as the Louisiana State Treasurer from 2000 to 2017.

Born in Centreville, Mississippi, Kennedy graduated from Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia School of Law before attending Magdalen College, Oxford. He was a member of Governor Buddy Roemer's staff before running for state attorney general in the 1991 election. 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 once again ran for Senate. 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.

Kennedy is running for reelection to a second term in the 2022 election.

Kennedy was born in Centreville, Mississippi, and raised in Zachary, Louisiana. After graduating from Zachary High School as co-valedictorian in 1969, he entered Vanderbilt University, where his interdepartmental major was in political science, philosophy and economics. He graduated magna cum laude.

At Vanderbilt, Kennedy was elected president of his senior class and named to Phi Beta Kappa. He received a Juris Doctor in 1977 from the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he was an executive editor of the Virginia Law Review and elected to the Order of the Coif. In 1979, he earned a Bachelor of Civil Law degree with first class honours from Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied under Sir Rupert Cross and John H.C. Morris.