Reformed KKK Member was 92
Robert Byrd, the 92-year-old West Virginia Democrat who served in the U.S. Senate for 51 years, died Monday.
A spokesman for the family, Jesse Jacobs, said Mr. Byrd died peacefully at about 3 a.m. at Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Va. His health had been failing for several years.
A master of Senate procedures and orator whose Stentorian tones aimed to evoke the roots of the republic (if not Rome), Senator Byrd served longer, voted more frequently, and probably used the arcane Senate rules to more effect any previous denizen of the nation's senior legislative house. Robert Byrd inhabited numerous roles in a life that took him from a childhood in the coalfields of West Virginia to Senate Majority Leader.
In his early years, he was a gas station attendant, a welder, and self-taught butcher, then a West Virginia state legislator. After he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1952, his political positions veered widely between the now almost extinct Southern conservative Democrats of mid-century to that of the more conventional liberal of today. But his reputation never rested on ideology, but rather on his persuasiveness, his sheer effort, and, occasionally, his willingness to filibuster.
Most salient were the twin images of a Washington stalwart. First was the self-appointed champion of the Constitution, brandishing his breast-pocket copy of the government's foundational document on the Senate floor while inveighing against usurpation of the Senate's powers by the Executive branch.
Second was the crafty legislative pro with one hand in the pork barrel, the Democratic majority leader and Appropriations committee chair who managed to slip into legislation so many programs benefiting his state that more than 30 Federally-funded buildings were named after him.
A Senator starting in 1959, Mr. Byrd at first voted the conservative southern Democratic line. He strongly opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He likened antipoverty measures to rent supplements, and voted in favor of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that set the stage for U.S. military involvement in Vietnam....
Robert Byrd fostered a reputation for legislative persistence and knowledge of Senate rules. In a closely fought 1971 race, he beat Sen. Edward Kennedy for the position of Majority Whip. He became Majority Leader in 1977, and helped push through President Carter's energy package, overcoming a two-week filibuster over gas-price regulations.
Senator Byrd frankly acknowledged his love of the Senate's intricate guidelines. "Nobody has ever used the rules of the Senate more than I have," he once said. In 1960 he set a record for the longest filibuster with a speech that stretched 21 hours and 8 minutes and dwelled at length on one of his favorite foods... the raisin.