Robert Byrd

Robert Carlyle Byrd (born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr.; November 20, 1917 – June 28, 2010) was an American politician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia from 1959 until his death in 2010. A member of the Democratic Party, Byrd had also been the U.S. representative for the West Virginia's 6th congressional district from 1953 to 1959. He remains the longest-serving U.S. senator in history, and was also the longest-serving member in the history of the United States Congress until he was surpassed by Representative John Dingell of Michigan. Byrd is the only West Virginian to have served in both chambers of the West Virginia legislature and in both chambers of 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...