Posted on 11/17/2009 4:30:10 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
When the clock strikes midnight tonight, Sen. Robert Byrd will become the longest-serving member of Congress ever a capstone on a remarkable career in which the adopted son of a coal miner propelled himself from poverty to the pinnacle of legislative power, where he could, did and still does send billions of federal dollars back across the Blue Ridge to help build his home state of West Virginia.
Byrds stat sheet speaks for itself:
Served 20,774 days or 56 years and 10½ months in Congress
Attended 18,582 Senate roll call votes
Elected to Senate nine times
Served under 11 presidents
Held five jobs in Democratic leadership
At age 91, sits third in line to the presidency
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Good question.
Byrd has this thing about wanting stuff named after him. I do have it on good authority from my wife (a WV native) that there are at least two man hole covers and three stop signs in WV that haven't been named after Byrd, but that info is several months old and could have changed by now. Pretty much everything else up there is named after him. I've been expecting WV to change the state's name to "Byrd" any day now....
Barbaric!
Byrd is the ultimate Poster Boy for exactly what is wrong with the Senate.
Democrats not only vote after they are dead - they also serve in the Senate.
Byrd himself bears a good part of responsibility for the way the country is heading down the leftist toilet.
Good grief. Even productive people who have REAL jobs don’t stay at them that long.
As for who served the shortest term: Rebecca Latimer Felton, who was appointed by the Governor of Georgia to the US Senate to fill a vacancy.
This was supposed to be merely an honorary appointment because an election was being conducted prior the the Senate reconvening, . However, the man who was elected refused to present his credentials until Felton was sworn in. She took the oath of office on November 21, 1922, and then served just twenty-four hours, from November 21 to 22, 1922. She was the first woman to occupy a seat in the US Senate; the Senator who, having served one day, served the shortest term; and the oldest Senator, at age eighty-seven, at the time of first swearing-in.
A record that should never have been. The Founders did not create our style of government for a World Book of Records.
Term limits are in order.
Too bad some of the black people he hung as a KKK Grand Kleagle didn’t live that long.
“The voters of W VA must be dumber than stones.”
When he dies, they will stuff him and reelect him.
I read a story wherein he accompanied a convicted woman to the location of her execution, and he had sex with her in the car on the way.
Actually, I read that about Strom Thurmond. I have no idea whether it’s true.
Politico is making a bold assumption here - What evidence is there that the old Byrd will make it until midnight? He's in the buy only ripe bananas mode.
People in WV will be voting for him 10 years after he’s gone. The problem with congress is we all want to vote out the other SOB, but not our own.
That's a full 25% of all presidents who've been elected since Washington. Byrd should have been gone years ago.
I know this is off the subject...but how long was (Democrat) Byrd in the Ku Klux Klan? (just wondering)
Sure, after all the state is STILL named West Virginia.
However, the move to rename all streets and highways for him was reluctantly discarded when the AAA protested that even they could not handle all of the TripTiks that would be required. They were joined by a coalition of the GPS makers who said that such directions as "Turn left at next intersection onto Byrd Way and then right on Byrd Ave. Your destination is in sight at Byrd Street and Byrd Alley..." was a bit much.
“”Byrd has this thing about wanting stuff named after him””
Or as Ann Coulter put it once: Robert Byrd, named after a bridge in West Virginia.
Just out of curiosity from someone not all that familiar with the local WV politics. Is there a Byrd scion / relative being groomed for that inevitable day when Byrd flies off? (Forgive me, I could not resist, a flying Byrd writes itself.)
Pelosi's right in front of him, and Hillary (as Sec/State) is right behind him.
Gross.
Anyway, I think Byrd died several months ago and is currently a zombie.
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