West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, the self-educated son of a coal miner who became the longest-serving member of Congress, died early Monday at age 92, the senator’s office said.
Byrd, a nine-term Democrat, was known as a master of the chamber’s often-arcane rules and as the self-proclaimed “champion of the Constitution,” a jealous guardian of congressional power.
His speeches were laced with references to poetry and the Greek and Roman classics, often punctuated by the brandishing of his pocket copy of the national charter.
He was also known as the “King of Pork,” using top positions on the Senate Appropriations Committee to steer federal spending to his home state — one of the nation’s poorest.
Byrd relished the title.
“Pork, to the critic, is service to the people who enjoy some of the good things in life, and I’ve been happy to bring to West Virginia the projects to which they refer. I have no apology for it,” he said.
He was an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq, calling his 2002 vote against a “blind and improvident” authorization of military action the proudest moment of his career.
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin — a Democrat — has the power to appoint a replacement for Byrd. The replacement will serve the rest of Byrd’s term, which was due to run until 2012, under West Virginia law.
In November 2009, two days before his 92nd birthday, he passed Arizona Democrat Carl Hayden’s record to become the longest-serving member of Congress.
His health problems mounted in his later years, putting him in the hospital four times between February 2008 and September 2009.
Under pressure from fellow Democrats, he announced he would step down as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee after the 2008 elections.
(Source: CNN)
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3 Responses
The Good Old Cyclops of the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan in West Virginia has now reached the temperature of the coffin it lays in.
I hope they bury him with his hood.
People forget it was the LIBERALS who were against the Civil Rights Bill and it was the DEMOCRAT PARTY that didnt want to abolish slavery.
#2
I know you want to attack anybody or anything whose politics is to the left of Atilla the Hun, but the major civil rights legislation of the last half century was the civil rights bill of 1964 which was supported unequivocally by then president Johnson as well as senator Robert Kennedy, one of the sponsers. Are these people now conservatives?
Remember a conservative is nothing more than one who worships dead liberals.