[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 205 (Wednesday, December 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18969-S18970]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE STATEMENT OF SENATOR BYRD

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am going to speak about the issue before 
us on Whitewater, but because of the extraordinary statement by the 
distinguished senior Senator from West Virginia, I wish to make a few 
additional comments.
  I have been privileged to serve in this body for 21 years with 
Senator Robert C. Byrd. I have been privileged to serve with a number 
of giants--I consider him one, certainly--but giants on both sides of 
the aisle, both Republicans and Democrats. I think of the leadership of 
Senator Byrd, who has served both as majority and minority leader, and 
how much I appreciate and respect his leadership. I think also of our 
other Democratic leaders like Mike Mansfield, George Mitchell, and Tom 
Daschle and the great Republican leaders, Bob Dole and Howard Baker, 
who have served with such distinction in this body.
  I think, as I have been on this floor, of the remarkable opportunity 
I have been given to serve here. One set of my grandparents came to 
Vermont and came to these shores not speaking a word of English. My 
other great-grandparents left a distant country to come to Vermont to 
seek a better way of life. Both my grandfathers were stonecutters in 
Vermont. My paternal grandfather died when my father was just a 
youngster. He died in the stone sheds of Vermont leaving a widow and 
two children--my grandmother, my father, and his sister.
  My father, as a teenager, had to help support the family and never 
completed the schooling that his son was later able to pursue. He 
became a self-taught historian, certainly one of the best I ever knew. 
And he revered and respected the U.S. Senate.
  So many times my father would tell me, as I sat here on the floor of 
the Senate, that this body should be the conscience of our Nation. In 
my first two terms, when my father was still alive, he was able to come 
and listen to Senators debate. I remember him repeating almost verbatim 
statements made by Senators--again, both Republicans and Democrats. He 
spoke with a sense of admiration of the courage that those men, and now 
women, show in this body in speaking to the conscience of our Nation. 
He talked about how this is where leaders of our Nation reside.
  Only 15 people in the present Senate have served in this body longer 
than I. No Democrat has served longer than Senator Byrd. I believe 
Senator Byrd has done a great service for this body today. I hope that 
each of us will read and reread what he said, because, in my 21 years 
here, I have seen the Senate degenerate. And I do not use that word 
casually. I have seen some of the finest Members leave, and in leaving 
say this body is not what it used to be.
  People truly respect the Senate. My good friend from Arkansas, 
Senator Pryor, who is on the floor today, one whose absence I will feel 
greatly in the next Congress, and Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming, 
another good friend, Senator Kassebaum, Senator Hatfield, Senator 
Brown, Senator Bradley, Senator Nunn, Senator Pell, Senator Simon, 
Senator Heflin, and others with whom I have talked--these are people of 
great experience and great quality--every one of them will tell you the 
same thing: This Senate has changed.

  Mr. President, we owe it to ourselves to listen to what Senator Byrd 
said, and we owe it to the Senate to listen. More than owing anything 
to Senator Byrd or me or any other Member, we owe it to the Senate 
because long after all of us leave, I pray to God this body will still 
be here. And I pray to God this body will be here as the conscience of 
the Nation.
  If you go back and read the writings of Jefferson, if you go back and 
read the writings of the founders of this country, you know that this 
body is a place where ideas should be debated, where the direction of 
our Nation and the conscience of our Nation should be shaped.
  Mr. President, I fear that we are not doing this. I fear that this 
country will suffer if we do not listen. All of us have a 
responsibility to listen, Republicans and Democrats alike. Presidents 
will come and Presidents will go. We will have great Presidents, and we 
will have Presidents who are not so great. They will come and go. 
Members of the Senate will come and go, and we will have great Members 
of the Senate and some not so great. But all of us take the same oath 
to uphold the Constitution of this great country, and we also come here 
privileged to help lead this country, but we ought to be humbled by the 
responsibility that gives us.
  I have taken an oath to uphold this country's Constitution four times 
in this body, and five times as a prosecutor before that. I hold that 
oath as a very sacred trust. Each one of us ought to ask ourselves if 
we engage in debate or actions or votes that denigrate that 
Constitution or denigrate the country or denigrate the most important 
functions of our Government, do we really deserve to be here? Partisan 
positions are one thing. Positions that hurt the country are yet 
another.
  So let us listen to what was said here. Let us listen to what was 
said and let us, each one of us, when we go home tonight or this 
weekend, ask ourselves what we have done to keep the Senate the 
institution it should be for the good of our country--not for our 
individual political fortunes but for the good of the country.
  Let us ask ourselves what we have done this year to do that. I do not 


[[Page S18970]]
think that Senator Byrd has to ask himself that question. We know his 
answer. It is one with which I agree. But all of us should ask 
ourselves that question.
  Mr. President, in later days I will speak more on the subject.

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