Robert Byrd

Robert Carlyle Byrd (born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr.; November 20, 1917 – June 28, 2010) was an American senator from West Virginia. He served for over 51 years, from 1959 until his death in 2010, and earned a reputation as a committed defender of the institution and a master of its rules and procedures. A member of the Democratic Party, Byrd served as a U.S. representative from West Virginia's 6th congressional district from 1953 to 1959. He is the longest-serving senator in American history, the second-longest-serving member of Congress, and the only West Virginian to have served in both houses of the West Virginia Legislature and the U.S. Congress.

Byrd's political career spanned more than sixty years. He first entered the political arena by organizing and leading a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s, an action he later described as "the greatest mistake I ever made". In the time he earned Bachelor of Arts degree at the Marshall University and a Juris Doctor degree at the American University, Byrd served in the West Virginia House of Delegates from 1947 to 1950, and the West Virginia State Senate from 1950 to 1952. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1952, where he served there for six years before being elected to the Senate in 1958. He was re-elected in 1964 and re-elected seven more times.

In the Senate, Byrd rose to become one of the chamber's most powerful members, serving as secretary of the Senate Democratic Caucus from 1967 to 1971 and—after defeating his longtime colleague Ted Kennedy for the job—as Senate Majority Whip from 1971 to 1977. Over the next 12 years, Byrd led the Democratic caucus as Senate Majority Leader and Senate Minority Leader. In 1989, he stepped down, following the pressure to make way for new party leadership. As the longest-serving Democratic senator, Byrd held the position of President pro tempore four times when his party was in the majority. This placed him third in the line of presidential succession, after the vice president and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Byrd became West Virginia’s Senior Senator in 1985 following the retirement of Jennings Randolph. He served three different tenures as chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations, which enabled Byrd to steer a great deal of federal money toward projects in West Virginia.