Sen. Robert Byrd (D) Elected 1958, 8th term up 2006
Born:	Nov. 20, 1917, North Wilkesboro, NC
Home:	Sophia
Education:	American U., J.D. 1963
Religion:	Baptist
Marital Status:	married (Erma)
Elected  Office:	WV House of Delegates, 1946-50; WV Senate, 1950-52; U.S. House of Reps., 1952-58; U.S. Senate Majority Whip, 1971-76, Majority Ldr., 1977-80, 1987-88, Minority Ldr., 1981-86.
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Robert Byrd, longtime chairman and ranking minority member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, third in line for the presidency as President Pro Tempore of the Senate from June 2001 to January 2003, may come closer to the kind of senator the Founding Fathers had in mind than any other. He comes from the humblest of beginnings, and when first elected to the Senate, as part of the large and talented Democratic class of 1958, he was scarcely noticed. Now he is the last member of that class still in the Senate, and an authentic power whether in majority or minority. From a background as grindingly poor as that of any American politician, he has continually moved up with awesome persistence. "I lived in a house without electricity," he lectured Treasury Secretary O'Neill in one hearing. "No running water, no telephone, little wooden outhouse." (O'Neill told him that he had grown up dirt poor too.) Son of a coal miner, he was a welder in wartime shipyards and a meat cutter in a coal company town when he won his seat in the House of Delegates in 1946; he campaigned in every hollow in the county, playing his fiddle and even going to the length of joining the Ku Klux Klan (which he quickly quit and has ever since regretted joining). He worked hard in the legislature, and won a U.S. House seat when the incumbent retired in 1952; he made such a name for himself in West Virginia that by 1958, when he was 40, he was elected to the Senate--even though the United Mine Workers initially opposed him and the coal companies never supported him.

In the Senate, he became a supporter of Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson and in return got a seat on Appropriations his first year. He backed Hubert Humphrey against John Kennedy in the 1960 West Virginia presidential primary not because he shared Humphrey's liberal politics--his voting record then was as conservative as any Southerner's and he opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964--but because Johnson wanted to stop Kennedy. Then, in the 1960s, Byrd's career took what in retrospect was a helpful detour. He became assistant majority whip, an unimportant position in 1965; in 1971, when Edward Kennedy neglected his duties as whip after Chappaquiddick, Byrd quietly lined up support and, with Richard Russell's deathbed vote, ousted Kennedy. There Byrd performed ably, managing Senate business and accommodating colleagues' needs, and when Majority Leader Mike Mansfield retired in 1976, Byrd easily won the job. All the while Byrd was working hard to keep in touch with West Virginians, to the point that he won 78% of the vote in 1970, becoming the first West Virginian in history to carry all 55 counties.

Byrd did not like being majority leader. Contrary to most people's assumptions, the post carries little power, because Senate rules requiring unanimous consent or supermajorities allow minorities and even individual senators to block action. Byrd was aware that his power came from meeting other senators' needs and did not have a national issues agenda of his own, though his voting record became notably less conservative. In 1987, with Democrats back in the majority after six years out of power, Byrd established some legislative priorities and then announced he would leave the post after the 1988 election.

In 1989, Byrd got the position he had been aiming for all along--chairman of the Appropriations Committee. ''I want to be West Virginia's billion dollar industry,'' he announced in 1990, and in the next dozen years succeeded handsomely. An FBI office went to Clarksburg, Treasury and IRS offices to Parkersburg, the Fish and Wildlife Training Center in Harper's Ferry, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Martinsburg, a NASA Research center in Wheeling. ''All roads, they say, lead to Rome,'' he said in 1994 in Logan, West Virginia. ''They haven't seen anything yet. All roads lead to Logan.'' The December 2000 final appropriations included more than $1 billion of spending in West Virginia. Some of it represents the ordinary operations of government, but much of it is Byrd's work. Since 1990, he has attached more than $270 million to appropriations bills for the construction of one interstate highway alone. He boasts that when he was in the state House of Delegates in 1947, West Virginia had just four miles of divided, four-lane highway. Today, there are more than 1,033 miles. Byrd has worked hard to find funds for the depleted United Mine Workers health care program for retired miners and their widows. He has supported the state's coal mining industry, seeking funds for miners displaced by the Clean Air Act in 1990, co-sponsoring the 1997 resolution opposing the Kyoto Protocol so long as it excluded developing countries like China, and opposing EPA's 1999 proposed air quality standards. When a federal judge ruled in October 1999 that mountaintop mining violated federal environmental laws, Byrd tried to pass an appropriations rider reversing the decision; he was angry when the Clinton administration, at first agreeable, decided to oppose such a rider with a veto. The issue helped George W. Bush carry West Virginia in 2000; in April 2001, a federal appeals court reversed the decision and ruled that state laws governed mountaintop mining.

It should be added that Byrd's positions are not just parochial but are the product of serious study of the Constitution and of history. He always carries a copy of the Constitution in his left breast pocket. With the assistance of Senate historian Richard Baker, he wrote The Senate 1789-1989, a two-volume history, plus two volumes of classic speeches and statistics; based on impressive research, gracefully written, full of arresting anecdotes and sound insights, it surpasses any previous work on the subject. Byrd earned his law degree while in the Senate and had his diploma presented to him by President Kennedy at the 1963 American University commencement where Kennedy delivered his most important foreign policy speech. In 1994, he was awarded his B.A. summa cum laude by Marshall University, which he had attended for one semester 43 years before and could not afford to continue, and where he earned A's in all eight courses he took. Byrd has been educating himself as well, systematically reading the classics, and takes to quoting Shakespeare, Thucydides or Cato the Younger in debates on the balanced budget amendment and the line-item veto. He said passage of the line-item veto in 1996 was ''one of the darkest moments in the history of the republic,'' and with five other members of Congress brought suit against it. The Supreme Court rejected their challenge in July 1997, but it was ruled unconstitutional in June 1998. ''After 200 years,'' he wrote in his history, the Senate ''is still the anchor of the Republic, the morning and evening star in the American constitutional constellation.''

As might be expected, Byrd played a leading role on impeachment. In October 1998, when the White House sought to forestall a House vote by getting 34 Democratic senators to sign a letter saying they would never vote to remove Clinton, Byrd responded, ''Don't tamper with this jury.'' The tampering stopped. After Clinton and most Democratic House members held a campaign-style rally at the White House after the House voted for impeachment, Byrd called it, ''an egregious display of shameless arrogance the likes of which I don't think I have seen.'' Later in January, he introduced a resolution to dismiss the charges, but that was defeated 56-44. Though he evidently continued to believe that Clinton committed high crimes, he decided that a vote to remove would abet partisanship.

Byrd has upheld the Senate's prerogatives consistently and has responded fiercely when he believes the Senate has been slighted. He opposed PNTR with China in June 2000 and complained particularly about the administration's insistence that the Senate approve the House legislation: "What weak dishwater is the excuse that we cannot add anything to the House-passed bill? What a sorry spectacle is a Senate completely cowed by the possibility that we might upset the Chinese."

If Byrd is determined to uphold the prerogatives of the Senate, he is determined also to uphold the prerogatives of the Appropriations Committee. George W. Bush went out of his way to shake Byrd's hand at his first speech to a joint session of Congress; Byrd had not attended State of the Union addresses since 1994 out of distaste for Bill Clinton: "His lifestyle and mine were so different I didn't care about coming to hear him." But Byrd opposed Bush's tax cut as "sheer madness," arguing that it was based on inevitably untrustworthy economic forecasts and complaining that it would cut off funds for appropriators. At Democratic caucuses he made impassioned pleas that Democrats not support tax cuts, and in February 2001, he clashed with Senate Parliamentarian Robert Dove over his interpretation that budget resolution procedures, which allow debate to be shut off by 50 senators, could be used on the tax cut. Byrd obviously resented Bush OMB Director Mitch Daniels, whom he referred to as "little Caesar" and complained Daniels was "always meddling in the Congressalways lecturing the Congress … I'm fed up to my ears." What infuriated him was Daniels' insistence that appropriators not exceed spending limits set by the administration. In December 2001, he fought to appropriate more money for fighting terrorism than the administration wanted and held up the defense appropriations bill; Majority Leader Tom Daschle, evidently unwilling to have Democrats be seen as withholding money for defense, cut a deal with Minority Leader Trent Lott to pass the bill. In July 2002, Byrd again had to back down on an emergency spending bill, but arranged with Appropriations ranking Republican Ted Stevens to take the cuts out of programs the administration wanted.

Byrd's insistence on maintaining what he regards as the Senate's constitutional prerogatives and his distaste for Bush administration policies led him to embark on two crusades in 2002 which may have helped lead to the Democrats' loss of their Senate majority in November. One was his opposition to the bill setting up the Department of Homeland Security. "Have we all completely taken leave of our senses?" he asked in July 2002. "If ever there was a time for the Senate to throw a bucket of cold water on an overheated legislative process that is spinning out of control, it is now. Now!" He insisted that the biggest reorganization of the federal government since the creation of the Department of Defense required more scrutiny, and he opposed giving the president authority to shift money between agencies without regard for congressional appropriators. His persistent speeches meant that the Senate, unlike the House, couldn't vote on it before the August recess or the September 11 anniversary that many senators had as a goal. In September, Byrd spoke frequently and at great length on the issue. He never used the word filibuster, but this was one in effect. It also gave government unions time to unite Democrats against the provisions for flexibility insisted on by Bush--a stand that hurt Democratic senators gravely in Georgia and Missouri on Election Day. In September, Byrd sought to require the president to get approval of the new department in three stages over the next year; that lost 70-28. After the election, Democrats realized it was in their political interest to pass the bill, and a motion to limit debate passed 65-29. Byrd still regarded the new department as a "snake" and said, "If I could, I would chop off its head and kill it, dead, dead, dead."

The other crusade was against military action in Iraq. In September, he accused Bush of political motivation, saying out loud what some other Democrats believed but were too politick to say. "All of a sudden the president was dropping in the polls, and the domestic situation was such that the administration was appearing to be much like the emperor who had no clothes. All of a sudden, bam! All of this war talk--the war fervor, the drums of war, the bugles of war, the clouds of war, this war hysteria--has blown in like a hurricane. And what has that done to the president's polls? Seventy percent." In October, he threatened to delay action on the Iraq war resolution by insisting on votes on individual clauses; he was foiled when Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and Daschle made a change in wording that made his motion out of order. Most Democrats wanted to get the issue out of the way and to talk about the domestic issues they thought would help them in November. Not Byrd. "Congress might as well just close the doors, put a sign over the doors and say, 'Going fishing.' Congress is being stampeded, pressured, adjured, importuned into acting on this blank check." But the Senate passed the resolution 77-23.

Does Byrd's lack of success on homeland security and Iraq mean that his power is fading? Certainly he does not operate with a view to positioning his party in line with public opinion, but he can make an eloquent case that he has responsibilities higher than that. And, well past 80, he seems to speak with less inhibition than in previous years, and to make mistakes: On Fox News Channel he spoke in 2001 of "white niggers," a phrase for which he quickly apologized. But Byrd's power in the Senate comes largely from his position on Appropriations, and it has not been greatly lessened because Republicans now have a majority. Appropriators have worked together for years and cooperate against party lines against institutional adversaries like OMB and the authorizing and Budget committees. Byrd has served on Appropriations with his predecessor and successor as chairman, Ted Stevens, since 1973, and contributed $2,000 to his 2002 campaign.

In November 2000, Byrd was re-elected by a 78%-20% margin, his largest percentage margin ever, carrying all 55 counties for the third time. At a spirited rally at the end of the campaign he said, "West Virginia has always had four friends. God Almighty, Sears Roebuck, Carter's Liver Pills and Robert C. Byrd." He is the second senator to have been elected to eight six-year terms (the other was Strom Thurmond of South Carolina); he has served longer than any other senator but Thurmond and, if reelected in 2006, stands to beat his record in February 2007.

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DC Office
311 HSOB 20510, 202-224-3954; Fax: 202-228-0002; Web site: byrd.senate.gov

State Offices
Charleston, 304-342-5855.

Committees

• Appropriations (RMM): Defense; Energy & Water Development; Homeland Security (RMM); Interior; Transportation, Treasury & General Government; VA, HUD & Independent Agencies.
• Armed Services: Emerging Threats & Capabilities; Readiness & Management Support; Strategic Forces.
• Budget.
• Rules & Administration.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	75	20	88	47	47	25	15	40	15	12	--
2001	85	--	75	75	--	--	13	21	40	--	60

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	64%	--	35%		59%	--	36%
Social	47%	--	53%		50%	--	48%
Foreign	61%	--	27%		76%	--	22%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 2. Expand Patients' Rights Y 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Permit ANWR Development N 5. Confirm Ashcroft as AG Y 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts Y		7. $ for Hate Crime Prosecution Y  8. Overseas Military Abortions Y  9. Bar Coop. with Intl. Court N 10. Trade Promotion Authority N 11. Authorize Force in Iraq N 12. Homeland Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2000 general	Robert Byrd (D)	469,215	78%	$1,045,993
	David T. Gallaher (R)	121,635	20%
	Other	12,627	2%
2000 primary	Robert Byrd (D)	unopposed
1994 general	Robert Byrd (D)	290,495	69%	$1,550,354
	Stan Klos (R)	130,441	31%	$267,165
Prior winning percentages: 1988 (65%); 1982 (69%); 1976 (100%); 1970 (78%); 1964 (68%); 1958 (59%); 1956 House (57%); 1954 House (63%); 1952 House (56%)