Abigail Kennedy

Abigail Cheatham Kennedy is a Confederal politician and Deputy for the Principality of Wintermore. Elected in 2007, she is part of the very first Wintermore delegation to the Confederal Assembly. Kennedy received a B.A. in education from the University of Civic Duty in 1987. She became active in the Association of Danaan Educators, her local union, after becoming concerned that a new testing policy would unduly penalize poor and working class students.

Until the party realignment following the Shattering, Kennedy was not particularly supportive of any of the major Danaan political parties, although she voted Reformer. It was only with the emergence of the Labor Party as a responsible, moderate party of the left that she expanded her activism beyond the immediate business of her union and school system.

Because of her position as a trusted union activist, Kennedy was able to beat both radical activists previously affiliated with the Anarchist Party and prominent intellectuals previously affiliated with the Reformer Party to become the Labor candidate for the Third District. In the election, she beat Liberal Bruce Warren, Patriot Kyle Langmore, and Nationalist George Carter. Kennedy's victory is generally attributed to her success in keeping the debate focused on economic issues, despite attempts by Carter to shift the focus to the issue of homosexuality.

Uniform drinking age

At present, Danaan Principalities have vastly different laws regarding alcohol consumption. Principalities are divided regarding the minimum legal age for alcohol, with various principalities setting the age at 25, 21, 18, 17, 16, or having no minimum age at all. Principalities with a minimum age limit vary between principalities where the age limit applies to consumption, those where it applies only to the purchase of alcohol, and those where it applies to consumption except where a parent or legal guardian has given permission. No principality restricts the use of alcohol for religious or medical purposes, regardless of age.

Alleging that these differences between principalities are the cause of often fatal traffic accidents which occurr when young people from a principality where they cannot legally drink alcohol cross to a principality with a higher minimum age to get drunk and then attempt to drive home, Kennedy introduced a bill in 2006 calling for a uniform drinking age throughout the nation. Kennedy's bill called for the age to be set at 17, the Danaan age of majority. Due to the unwillingness of the Progressive Coalition parties to enforce party discipline in support of the bill and due to heavy lobbying by Temperance groups, the bill failed in Parliament. Opponents of the bill agreed with Kennedy's assessment of the problem but argued that, to avoid prejudicing the right of the principalities to regulate substances themselves, the national minimum age for alcohol consumption should be 25, that of the most conservative principalities.

Kennedy has said that she feels a minimum age higher than 17 would be an unreasonable imposition on personal freedoms. However, she has also expressed a willingness to compromise in order to save laws. Rumors are currently circulating that Kennedy might be planning to co-sponsor a new bill with Nationalist MP Richard Gelb calling for a uniform minimum drinking age of 20, although this is unconfirmed.