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Democrats, Republicans Mourn Death Of Nation's Longest-Serving Senator
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June 28, 2010 10:05 a.m. EST
Topics: government, human interest, people, politics, public officials, human mishap, United States
Kris Alingod - AHN News Contributor
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) - Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle joined together Monday to pay tribute to Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), who died before dawn in a Virginia hospital. He was 92.
Third in line to succeed the President as the Senate's president pro tempore, Byrd had been in and out of hospitals for the past year and had moving around Capitol Hill in a wheelchair. He was the longest-serving and oldest sitting senator, as well as the longest-serving member of both chambers of Congress.
"He will be remembered as a true public servant who always put the concerns and needs of his state first," the West Virginia Democratic Party said in a statement. "His spirit will forever be enshrined as long as all people continue to uphold what he held so dear: love of country, concern for the less fortunate, and.... the great state of West Virginia. We all owe him more than we can ever express."
The West Virginia GOP said the state had "lost one of its best friends and most staunch supporters."
"The Republican Party joins with the people of West Virginia and around the world whose lives were touched by this great individual," it added. "We differed with Senator Byrd on many principles, but we never for a second questioned his integrity and love for the United States Constitution and the state of West Virginia."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) expressed "deep sadness.... [on] the passing of a legendary Senate colleague."
"We will remember him for his fighter’s spirit, his abiding faith, and for the many times he recalled the Senate to its purposes," the GOP leader said in a statement. "Generations of Americans will read the masterful history of the Senate he leaves behind, and they will also read about the remarkable life of Robert Carlyle Byrd."
Byrd was a shipyard welder and a local Ku Klux Klan leader who rose through the ranks and became one of the most powerful and respected lawmakers in the U.S. Senate.
Perhaps no other political career could be more colorful. A former Dixiecrat who never lost an election campaign, Byrd’s transformation from his rustic beginnings into one of the foremost experts in legislative history and one of the most strident critics of the war in Iraq mirrored the changing attitudes and values of America throughout the decades.
Born Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr., in Wilkes County, NC, on November 20, 1917, Byrd was adopted by an uncle and aunt who renamed him after his mother died during the 1918 flu pandemic. He graduated at the top of his class at Mark Twain High School in 1937 and married his childhood sweetheart, Erma Ora James.
Byrd grew up in the coal-mining region of West Virginia. He made a living plying various trades and was at turns a butcher, produce salesman, gas station clerk, fiddle player and shipbuilder. He entered politics in 1946, winning a seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates.
He served as state senator for two years before beginning one of his three terms as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives. In November 2006, he was elected to an unprecedented ninth consecutive term in the U.S. Senate.
During a career that spanned 11 U.S. presidents, Byrd served as Senate Democratic Whip, Senate Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader twice, president pro tempore and chairman of the Appropriations Committee four times. He has long been regarded as a master in parliamentary procedure. He is known for having spent 14 hours filibustering the 1964 Civil Rights Act, an action he has repeatedly said he “regrets” and that was caused by the “Southern atmosphere in which [he] grew up… with all of its prejudices and its feelings.”
He was called the “King of Pork” for unapologetically inserting public works earmarks for his home state. Byrd was able to provide $1 billion in infrastructure projects for West Virginia within the first two years of beginning his chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee in 1989.
Perhaps, however, the most lasting image colleagues and constituents will have of Byrd is how he had come to reflect the current zeitgeist. For all the stories of this fiddle-playing politician’s life, it is his reconciliation of his words, uttered as a “jejune” 28-year-old rising leader of the Ku Klux Klan - "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side” - with the history that he had come to love and know so well, that is the most telling.
He had said of this “great mistake” in his life, “I will never be able to get away from that albatross… it will be in my obituary.” Byrd was correct in one point, but sorely mistaken in the other. For his half a century as a lawmaker – including one year with a perfect approval rating from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) - have proven him better than most leaders who’ve had less humble beginnings.
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