[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 100 (Wednesday, June 30, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5683-S5689]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REMEMBERING SENATOR ROBERT C. BYRD
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, the Senate has lost its most talented,
dedicated, and best-informed Member about the precedents, rules, and
customs of the Senate, when the distinguished President pro tempore,
Robert Byrd, passed away to join his beloved wife Erma in the heaven he
was confident existed for those who were true believers.
I had the good fortune to work closely with Robert Byrd as a fellow
member of the Appropriations Committee for 30 years. I served as the
ranking minority member when he was chairman and as chairman when he
was the ranking minority member. I preferred being chairman. But I
thoroughly enjoyed the opportunities to conduct the hearings, schedule
the committee markups, and negotiate with our House colleagues to
formulate and pass the bills that funded the departments of the
executive branch, the judiciary, and the Congress.
One of the highlights of my experience with Robert Byrd was a trip we
took to several European capitals. He was comfortable discussing our
mutual interests and differences with the leaders of other nations. His
mastery of European history and politics was as impressive as his well-
informed understanding of American history and politics.
On one leg of our trip, Senator Byrd asked my wife Rose to come sit
by him.
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He wanted to dictate something to her. He started a recitation with
names that were not familiar to me, but eventually Rose realized that
he was reciting from memory the names of the monarchs of Great Britain,
the United Kingdom as we know it, and in the order in which each had
served throughout the entire history of that great country. It was an
unbelievable performance, reflecting an awesome ability of recall, and
a reverential appreciation of a nation which has been our closest ally
in recent history.
Robert Byrd was not only my friend but a mentor, an example of
dedicated, disciplined, and determined leadership. I will miss him, but
I will always remember his legacy of seriousness of purpose, and his
love for the Senate, its role in the legislative process, its powers of
advise and consent, and its continuity that has helped make our
government the most respected in the world.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I want to take a few moments today about
one of the best teachers I have ever known: Senator Robert C. Byrd.
The man we lost this week is known for many things: as the longest
serving member of Congress in the Nation's history; as an accomplished
legislator; as an author and historian; as a self-made man who reached
exalted heights, yet never forgot the coal miners and the families of
the mountain home community from which he came. I think of him as a
teacher, one who began teaching me from the moment I came to the U.S.
Senate, and one whose lessons I sought right up to the time he was
taken from us this week.
Serving as a new Senator in the majority means, among other things,
hours spent in this Chamber, presiding over the Senate. I was fortunate
that for many of my early years here, I spent much of that time in the
Presiding Officer's chair listening to Senator Byrd speak on the
history of this body, its traditions and practices, and its historic
debt to another great body that played a major role in mankind's march
toward democratic government, the Roman senate.
I was learning from him two decades later, when Senator Byrd led a
small group of us who filed a lawsuit and later a legal brief
challenging a law we believed to be unconstitutional: the law granting
the President the so-called line-item veto. He, like I and many others,
saw this law as bending the Constitution in ways that usurped
Congress's constitutional authority and responsibility. In 1998, the
U.S. Supreme Court agreed. The majority in that case, citing its
``profound importance,'' concluded that the line-item veto ``may or may
not be desirable,'' but that it was surely not consistent with ``the
procedures designed by the Framers of article I, section 7 of the
Constitution'' the so-called presentment clause.
I remember standing next to Senator Byrd at a press conference
celebrating that victory for the Constitution, as he pulled out of his
pocket the copy of that great founding document he always carried with
him. A copy of the Constitution that sits today on my desk, in front of
me at all times, was inscribed to me by Senator Robert C. Byrd.
I had hoped to visit with him this week to again listen and learn. In
February, Senator Byrd sent all of us, his Senate colleagues, a letter
setting out his position on preserving the ability to engage in
extended debate in the Senate. It was yet another powerful defense of
both the enduring traditions of the Senate, and the need for
thoughtfulness in invoking those traditions. Senator Byrd's letter
sparked some thoughts of my own, and last week, I discussed with his
staff scheduling a meeting with him this week to get his take. Once
again, I was in need of the insight and wisdom of Senator Robert Byrd.
How I wish he were here today, to continue teaching us. While that
was not to be, the lessons of Senator Byrd's life and long service will
endure.
His career is a testament to hard work and determination. This is a
man who spent 10 years in night school classes to earn his law degree,
who when he focused on an issue he did so with uncommon intensity. We
can all learn from his commitment and grit.
Like any good teacher, Senator Byrd never stopped trying to learn. He
was a man of strong convictions who knew the value of admitting when he
was in error. He acknowledged that earlier in his life, he had taken
positions and held opinions on the subject of civil rights that he
later regretted. When he shared those regrets, he created a powerful
teachable moment. We can all learn from his willingness to learn and
grow to the very end of his life.
He was tireless in his defense of the role the Constitution assigns
to the Congress, and specifically the Senate, in our democracy. In his
letter to us in February, he wrote: ``The Senate is the only place in
government where the rights of a numerical minority are so protected.''
He called those protections ``essential to the protection of the
liberties of a free people.''
Whether it was Congress's constitutional obligations to render
judgments on matters of war and peace or to exercise the power of the
purse, Senator Byrd was a relentless fighter for the role the Founding
Fathers carefully set out for us. He was not defending Senate authority
for its own sake. His passion was not for Senate prerogatives for their
own sake, but for the brilliantly conceived constitutional balance of
powers essential to our freedoms. He passionately believed that we must
not yield one ounce of the authority that the Constitution entrusts to
the peoples' elected representatives. We can all learn from the
conviction, the dedication and the intellectual power he brought to
that cause, to the end of making it our cause. Let the mission he so
eloquently espoused be our mission, though our power to persuade be far
less than Senator Byrd's.
Robert Byrd had many loves--his late, beloved wife Erma, West
Virginia and its people, his God, and the Constitution of the nation he
cherished. But the Senate is his special legacy. For more than two
centuries we have kept our traditions intact: our unique respect for
extended debate and minority rights, and for the legislative authority
that the Constitution places in our hands to exercise and defend. These
traditions are maintained because of Senators like Robert Byrd,
Senators who live them and fight for them. I learned more about these
weighty issues from this great teacher than from anyone or anything in
my years in the Senate.
Robert Byrd is no longer with us, teaching us, leading us. But the
lessons of Robert Byrd's life and career will endure, guiding all of us
now occupying these desks, and Senators who will occupy these desks for
ages to come.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the Senate, in its 223-year history, has
never had a greater champion than Robert Byrd. West Virginia, in its
147-year history, has never had a more powerful advocate or public
servant than Robert Byrd.
Like so many Senators elected before and after me, I learned very
quickly how passionate Robert Byrd was about this institution, its
roots in the Constitution. As all of us remember, he had that dog-eared
copy of the Constitution he carried in the front pocket of his suit,
and sometimes in the caucus or other times on the floor, he would pull
it out to help reinforce a point he was making, even though we all knew
he could recite the Constitution by memory. But he consulted it often
without hesitation. In its words, he reminded us that he always found
wisdom, truth, and excitement--the same excitement he felt as a young
boy in Wolf Creek Hollow, reading by kerosene lamp about the heroes of
the American Revolution and the birth of our Nation. Those words
literally guided him through the 58 years he spent in Washington as a
Member of the Congress and as a Senator.
It is fair to say that no one knew the Senate--its history, its
traditions, and its precedents--better than Robert Byrd. It is all
there in the four-volume collection of his speeches on the Senate,
which we were all privileged to receive from him.
Every freshman Senator got a personal crash course on the Senate's
history from Robert Byrd himself. I was one of five Democratic freshmen
elected in 1984. The class of 1984 was privileged to share some lofty
hopes and goals. Four of the five of us eventually ran for President:
Al Gore, Paul Simon, Tom Harkin, and myself. All of us can tell you
that we arrived in the Senate with a thirst for action and an
impatience for delay. Then-minority leader Robert Byrd didn't
discourage any of
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that. In fact, he encouraged it, and he helped all of us with our
committee assignments so we could push the list of our policy ideas
that we exuberantly believed we could and would pass into law. But in
meetings with us individually, he also helped each of us to see the
bigger picture, to impress upon us the fact that one of our most
important responsibilities as Senators was to be caretakers of this
institution--an institution he regarded as both the morning star and
the evening star of the American constitutional constellation.
To Robert Byrd, the Senate was, as he said, ``the last bastion of
minority rights, where a minority can be heard, where a minority can
stand on its feet, one individual if necessary, and speak until he
falls into the dust.'' Indeed, earlier this year, when many of us felt
frustration over the Senate's rules governing filibusters--
specifically, the requirement of 60 votes to cut off debate--Robert
Byrd cautioned against amending the rules to facilitate expeditious
action by a simple majority. In a letter sent to all of us, he observed
that:
The occasional abuse of the rules has been, at times, a
painful side effect of what is otherwise the Senate's
greatest purpose--the right to extended, or even unlimited,
debate.
The Senate is the only place in government where the rights
of a numerical minority are still protected.
He added:
Majorities change with elections. A minority can be right,
and minority views can certainly improve legislation. . . .
Extended deliberations and debate--when employed
judiciously--protect every Senator, and the interests of
their constituency, and are essential to the protection of
the liberties of a free people.
Robert Byrd also impressed upon us the fact that we did not serve
``under'' any President; that as a separate but equal branch of
government, we served ``with'' Presidents, acted as a check on the
executive's power. Robert Byrd was the longest serving Member of
Congress in all of our Nation's history, and as such he served with 11
Presidents.
At no time in his career was Robert Byrd's defense of legislative
prerogatives more pronounced and more eloquent than in arguing against
granting the Bush administration's broad power to wage preemptive war
against Iraq. He chided the Senate for standing ``passively mute . . .
paralyzed by our own uncertainty,'' ceding its war powers to President
Bush.
Robert Byrd was, as we all know, a lot more than the guardian of the
Senate. He was a major figure in the great panorama of American history
over more than half a century. He was a thinker--thinking and
reevaluating more in his eighties and nineties than many Senators do in
a lifetime. He was an ardent supporter of the Vietnam war but surprised
many with his fierce opposition to President Bush's invasion of Iraq.
He was a protector of West Virginia's coal industry but came to accept
the mounting scientific data of global warming and took part in finding
a solution. To do otherwise, he said, would be ``to stick our heads in
the sand.''
Robert Byrd cast more than 18,500 votes in the Senate--a record that
will never be equalled. His last vote was June 17 against a Republican
proposal to prevent the extension of unemployment benefits. Earlier
this year, even with his health failing, he cast one of the most
historic votes of his career in support of legislation to expand health
care to all Americans--the life work of his old and departed friend Ted
Kennedy.
Whether he voted with you or against you, it was never hard ideology
with Robert Byrd. He had no use for narrow partisanship that trades on
attack and values only victory. I learned that as a candidate for
President in 2004 when Senator Byrd came to my defense after opponents
aimed religious smears at me. I was forever grateful to him for doing
that.
It all began one Sunday when Senator Byrd was home in West Virginia
and found that a brochure had been inserted in a church bulletin saying
that if elected President, I would ban the Bible. Senator Byrd
exploded. ``No one side has the market on Christianity or belief in
God,'' said this born-again Baptist. Later at a rally in Beckley, he
accused my opponents of having ``improperly hijacked the issue of
faith'' and said that the suggestion that I intended to ban the Bible
was ``trash and a lie.''
But Senator Byrd was not done. He also went to the Senate floor to
denounce this kind of politics:
Paid henchmen who talk about Democratic politicians who are
eager to ban the Bible obviously think that West Virginians
are gullible, ignorant fools. They must think that West
Virginians just bounced off the turnip truck. But the people
of West Virginia are smarter than that. We are not country
bumpkins who will swallow whatever garbage some high-priced
political consultant makes up.
That was Robert Byrd telling it the way he thought.
Anytime Senator Byrd spoke, any of us who had the privilege of
serving with him remember his speeches were filled with as many Bible
references as historical references. When the Senator spoke, the Senate
kind of came to a halt. Senators would lean forward and listen, as they
did not necessarily do otherwise, and learn.
It is fitting that this teacher in the Senate, this guardian of the
Senate, will lie in state in this Chamber on the floor of the
institution he revered and which also had so much respect for him. He
is as much a part of this Chamber in many ways as the historic desks or
galleries or the busts of Senate presidents.
He ran for public office 15 times, and he never lost. He was first
elected to the West Virginia legislature in 1946 and served three terms
in the House of Representatives before his election to the Senate. It
is no wonder that he was such a keen observer of politics.
I remember when I decided to run in 2004, I went to talk with Senator
Byrd. His advice, in fact, was among the first I sought. He advised me
to ``go to West Virginia,'' ``get a little coal dust'' on my hands and
face and ``live in spirit with the working people.'' In keeping with
his advice, I did just that. What a great experience it was.
He was deeply proud of West Virginia and its people. He proudly
defended his work to invest Federal dollars in his State, the kind of
spending that some people deride as pork. Robert Byrd knew it was
something else. It was opportunity for his people. He took pride in the
way that Federal funding helped to lift the economy of West Virginia,
one of the ``rock bottomest of States,'' as he put it. He breathed new
life into so many communities across that State with funding for
highways, hospitals, universities, research institutes, scholarships,
and housing--all the time giving people the opportunities that he knew
so many West Virginians of his generation never had. ``You take those
things away, imagine, it would be blank,'' he once said.
Robert Byrd's journey was, in many ways, America's journey. He came
of age in an America segregated by race. But like America, he changed,
even repenting, and he made amends. Not only did he come to regret his
segregationist past, but he became an ardent advocate of all kinds of
civil rights legislation, including a national holiday honoring Dr.
Martin Luther King. And in the end, Robert Byrd endorsed Barack Obama
for President. ``I have lived with the weight of my own youthful
mistakes my whole life, like a millstone around my neck,'' he wrote in
2008. ``And I accept that those mistakes will forever be mentioned when
people talk about me. I believe I have learned from those mistakes. I
know I've tried very hard to do so.''
That is the expression of a man with a big heart and a big mind.
The moments that define most men's lives are few. Not so with Robert
Byrd. He devoted his life to Erma and his family and to public service,
compiling an extraordinary record of accomplishment and service in more
than half a century in Congress. His mastery of Senate rules and
parliamentary procedure was legendary. His devotion to his colleagues
and to this institution was unequaled. And his contributions to his
State and to the Nation were monumental.
Robert Byrd spent most of his life making sure the Senate remained
what the Founding Fathers intended it to be: a citadel of law, of
order, of liberty, the anchor of the Republic. And in doing so, he
takes his place among the giants of the Senate, such as Daniel Webster,
John C. Calhoun and, of course, his and our dear friend Ted Kennedy.
May Robert Byrd rest in peace.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise to celebrate the life and career of
Senator Robert C. Byrd. I have been in
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the body now since 2002, and Senator Byrd will go down in history as
not only the longest serving Senator to date--maybe forever--but also
as one of the most effective Members of the Senate.
He was tough. During his prime, they tell me, there was no tougher
opponent and no better ally than to have Senator Byrd on your side. And
when he was on the other side, you had a long day ahead of you.
He talked about his early life. He is a human being, like the rest of
us. I think what he was able to do for his people in West Virginia, and
the country as a whole, will stand the test of time, and he will be
viewed for many things, not just one. That is the way it should be for
all of us.
I had the pleasure of getting to know him when I first came to the
Senate and I walked into one hell of a fight over judges. The Senate
was in full battle over the filibustering of judges. The Senate had
gone down a road it had never gone down before--an open resistance to
the judicial nominations of President Bush across the board. The body
was about to explode. There were 55 Republicans at the time, and we all
believed that what our Democratic colleagues were doing was
unprecedented, unnecessary, and, quite frankly, dangerous to the
judiciary. I am sure they had their view, too, and everybody has a
reason for what they do around here.
The Gang of 14--affectionately known by some, and discussed by
others--was formed during that major historical moment in the Senate. I
remember talking to some observers of the Senate who were telling me
that if the rules were changed to allow a simple majority vote for the
confirmation of judges, that would take the Senate down a road it had
never gone down before, and where it would stop, nobody knew. At the
same time, there was another constitutional concept that meant a lot to
me and to others, and that is that people deserve a vote when they are
nominated by the President.
Well, Senator Byrd and 13 other Senators--and he was a big leader in
this--came up with the compromise called ``extraordinary
circumstances.'' We agreed that we would not filibuster judges unless
there was an extraordinary circumstance. We understood that elections
had consequences. What we had in mind was that we would reserve our
right to filibuster only if the person did not meet the qualification
test. I believe the advise and consent role of the Senate has to be
recognized, and I respect elections but not a blank check. So there is
always the ability of any Senator here, or a group of Senators, to
stand up and to object--one party versus the other--if you believe the
person is not qualified.
The second issue we dealt with was that we all reserved unto
ourselves the ability to object if we thought the person was an
activist judge--a political person who was going to be put on the bench
and the robe used to carry out the political agenda rather than to
interpret the law.
The law meant a lot to Senator Byrd--the Constitution did. One of my
cherished possessions is a signed copy of the Constitution, given to
all the members of the Gang of 14. That is just one example of where
very late in life he made a huge impact on the Senate. As history
records that moment, I daresay it is probably one of his finest hours.
Because the consequences of not resolving that dispute the way we did
could have changed the Senate rules forever, and I think the judiciary
for the worse. So we have a lot to celebrate.
His family, I know, mourns the loss of their loved one; the people of
West Virginia, their best champion has passed. But we all pass. It is
what we leave behind that counts, and I think he has left a lot behind
and something both Republicans and Democrats can be proud of. Even
though you disagreed with him, as I did on many occasions, I had
nothing but respect for the man. He was a true guardian of the Senate
and what it stands for.
I don't think we will ever find anybody who loved the institution
more than Senator Byrd. He will be missed. But the best way we can
honor his memory is to try to follow in his footsteps when it comes to
making sure the constitutional role of the Senate is adhered to, and
that we understand the Senate is not the House, the Senate is not the
executive branch, the Senate is something special, and let us keep it
that way.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to an extraordinary
Senator--Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Chairman Byrd was the longest
serving Senator in the history of this country. He served with
extraordinary distinction not only on behalf of the people of West
Virginia but on behalf of all of us.
The great lesson of his life is that through constant self-
improvement, through constant education, not only can one rise to great
heights but one can also contribute to one's country and community.
Senator Byrd was born in very humble circumstances. At his birth, I
do not think anyone would have predicted he would become the longest
serving Senator in the history of the United States. In fact,
tragically, within a year of his birth, his mother passed away, and he
went to live with his father's sister. But in those difficult
circumstances in West Virginia, he rose above it through tenacious
effort, through hard work.
Through his life's path, he had an extraordinary companion, the love
of his life--Erma. Together they not only had a family but they built a
life of service to others. I know how dear his dear Erma was to Senator
Byrd.
Their children, Mona, Marjorie, their sons-in-law, their
grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren all at this moment are
reflecting on the wonderful person Robert Byrd was, how much he meant
to them, and also I hope recognizing how much he meant to all of us. In
this very difficult moment, I am sure his memory and his example will
sustain them as it sustains all of us.
Senator Byrd, from these humble circumstances through hard work in
shipyards, in the coal fields of West Virginia, rose up. He rose up
because of his incredible talent, not only intellectual talent, but I
had the great good fortune once to hear him play the fiddle. Anyone who
can play a fiddle like that has great hope of employment, at least in
the musical world. But he went beyond that.
Again the lesson Senator Byrd teaches us all is constant striving. He
was someone who received his law degree while a member of the Congress,
the first and perhaps only person to go to law school while he was also
serving the people of West Virginia and the Congress.
He wrote what is regarded as the foremost history of the Senate, not
only this Senate but also the Roman Senate. He did that because he was
committed to finding out about history, about life, about human
challenges, about great human endeavors, and using that knowledge to
help others.
He was someone whom we all revered. When I arrived in the Senate, he
was gracious and kind and helpful. I can always remember he would greet
me as ``my captain.'' He had a deep affection for those who served,
even someone as myself who did not serve at the same level of
distinction as Dan Inouye, John Kerry, John McCain, and others. He is
someone who helped and supported me, and I appreciated very much his
kindness.
I also appreciate the passion he brought in defense of the
Constitution of the United States and the passion he brought to ensure
the Senate and the Congress played its rightful role in the
deliberations of this government.
He would say quite often that he had not served under numerous
Presidents; he had served with them as a Senator, in the legislature, a
coequal branch of government. He fought not simply for personal
prerogatives, he fought for principle, that this government would be
based on, as our Founding Fathers' designed it, the interplay between
the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. His passion for the
Constitution was evident and obvious.
He also was passionate in the last few years about the foreign policy
of the United States. He spoke with eloquence and with passion against
our engagement in Iraq. He saw it, as now it is becoming clearer and
clearer, as a strategic distraction from the true challenge, which was
to defeat our opponents, al-Qaida and their affiliated terrorist
groups, and to do that to protect this country.
He was a remarkable man, born of humble origin, self-educated,
unceasingly educating himself and always
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seeking to better and improve himself. I would suspect in his last few
days he was still striving to learn more.
I simply close by thanking him for his service, thanking his family
for supporting him in his service, and thanking the people of West
Virginia for their wisdom in sending Robert Byrd to the U.S. Congress
and the U.S. Senate.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to
speak on a couple of different subjects. Briefly I wish to say a few
words about our extraordinary and great colleague who has left the
Senate and left this world, but his spirit will be here for many years
to come and his presence will be felt here for decades, if literally
not centuries, and the extraordinary contribution that Senator Robert
Byrd of West Virginia has made to the Congress, to the Senate, to our
country, and to the world.
My colleague, the Senator from Rhode Island, gave a beautiful tribute
a few minutes ago. I was in the Chamber and listened to what he said. I
wish to add that not only did Robert Byrd rise up through educating
himself--in these days that is almost a foreign concept to so many
people. You go to school, you get a degree--but he did all of that and
more. He read so much. He was so curious about so many aspects of life,
not just politics, not just government, but industry, art, and music
that literally he was one of the most inspirational human beings I have
ever had the pleasure to know or ever read about in that sense.
Senator Reed said he lifted himself from literally an orphan status
in one of the poorest communities in the world, West Virginia. Parts of
it are much like a few parts of our country that are extraordinarily
poor, even by world standards.
He came from a very humble, orphaned beginning with virtually no
chance at anything much, and ended up, we know, sitting at that desk,
which is one of the great desks of honor in this Chamber. As people who
work here know, the longer one is here, the closer one gets to the
center aisle. Since he held up the center aisle literally with his
presence every day, one cannot get any more senior than that desk. We
look at it now these days and are reminded of him.
He lifted himself, he lifted his family, but I would say in that
earnest curious way, he lifted an entire State and an entire Nation.
There are not many individuals who can say that their life actually did
that. But Robert Byrd is one of them. West Virginia today is lifted so
much higher. The children of West Virginia, the families of West
Virginia, the communities of West Virginia literally were lifted by the
strength--the spiritual and intellectual strength--and courage and
tenacity of a man for whom there is no peer in this room relative to
that, and our Nation across decades, through many of the great trials
of this Nation. He lifted this Nation to a better place and was such a
strong man and such a great man that he would even admit when he made
some very bad mistakes, which raises him even higher in my eyes.
He said toward the end of his life many times that his stand on civil
rights was not right. He apologized profusely for being on the wrong
side of history on that issue. He did not make many mistakes such as
that. But he was such a great man that he admitted when he did.
Senator Reed recalled that he always called him ``captain,'' but
Senator Byrd had a way of referring to each of us in a special way. He
would always say to me: How are you today, Senator, and how is that
fine father of yours, Moon Landrieu? It would always make me feel so
wonderful that he would say he was such a great mayor. How is Moon
today and how is Verna? Can you imagine a gentleman with so much on his
mind that he would always remember to me the parents I have and that we
both admire so much? It was a special way about him.
Finally, when Katrina happened and all of us on the gulf coast were
devastated--frankly, I could not find a great deal of comfort at the
level of the administration that was in power. I never thought they
quite understood the depths of the destruction that occurred. It
worried me then and it still troubles me to this day. But the first
meeting I had with Senator Byrd, when I was trying to explain to him
how devastating this situation was--because it wasn't a hurricane, it
was a flood and the Federal levees had collapsed--he just sort of put
his hand out and said: Senator, have a seat. He said: I do understand,
and I am going to work with you. I am going to help you. I am going to
be here for the people of Louisiana and the gulf coast as we try to get
this right.
Mr. President, we were shortchanged by other Members of Congress and
by the White House. They never quite understood. When the first
allocation of funding was given out, it was just an arbitrary number
thrown out that we were going to take $10 billion and help the gulf
coast, but no State could get more than $5.4 billion. Well, when you
looked at the facts at the time, the numbers were so disproportionate
to the injury that Louisiana and our people had suffered, had you done
it on just a disaster basis--which we should have done in calculating
it--we should have gotten $15 billion relative to that distribution.
When I brought those numbers to Senator Byrd, he said: We are going
to work on it. And you know what, Mr. President, he did. Unbelievable
as it might be to the people in this Chamber, because he was a very
powerful chairman of the Appropriations Committee, he could actually do
it, and he did.
I didn't have to explain that much or beg that much. I just had to
present the data to him that showed this is how many houses were
destroyed, this is how many homes were lost, this is what the President
gave to X, Y and Z; what do you think, Senator Byrd? Is it fair for us?
And he said: Absolutely. So he gave us literally billions of dollars.
Today, St. Bernard Parish, the city of New Orleans, and parishes all
in the southern part of the State are recovering because of one person,
Senator Byrd, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, who said: We
are not going to leave you at your hour of greatest need.
I will never forget, and my State will never forget, the generosity
and the courage it took for him to stand with us through that difficult
time. So I wanted to, in a small way, add my voice to the many tributes
that Senator Byrd has received, and those are the most important ones
that I wanted to share today.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, this is not my regular seat in the
Senate, but I came here to stand near the place that Senator Robert C.
Byrd occupied. His absence is noted by the flowers and the black cloth
that covers his desk.
There is so much to say about Robert C. Byrd that to have a serious
discussion about who and what he was would take far more time than we
have available. He was an unusual man, brilliant, genius, credited with
encyclopedic knowledge.
When I came to the Senate in 1983, I was not a young man. I am now an
older man. When I came, I wanted to meet Senator Byrd. I came from the
business world. I was chairman and CEO of a significant corporation
that carried substantial esteem and respect for the record compiled by
the three of us boys from poor working-class families in Paterson, NJ,
an industrial city that had its origins as an industrial place at the
time of Alexander Hamilton.
I was privileged to meet a lot of people who could be described as
lofty and holding positions of importance. When I went in to Senator
Byrd's office to introduce myself--I had met him a couple of times
before I was elected to the Senate seat from New Jersey--it was with
great awe and respect that I sat in front of this individual who had
given so much to our country, who taxed our wits and made us think more
deeply about our responsibilities than sometimes we have. He was a
tower of knowledge and strength.
I introduced myself to him, and we had a nice chat for a while. He
asked me about my background. I talked about my life and my
experiences, which are not anything like the depth of Senator Robert
Byrd's background. I came from a poor family. I served in the Army. I
received my education at Columbia University because I was able to use
the scholarship that was given to soldiers who had served in the
military.
As I listened to Robert Byrd, what he had accomplished in his
lifetime
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dwarfed anything I had ever seen. He was a man born into poverty,
orphaned at an early stage in life, and turned over to relatives to be
brought up. He taught himself how to play the violin and attended law
school part time at night for years, finally getting his law degree
from the university. He was an incredible figure in our time.
We feel his absence already. In his latest years, he was not
fortunate enough to have the kind of health he had as a younger man,
but he always had the respect of everybody who knew him.
When we look at his history, if one has time to go to the computer
and get a biography that is held in Wikipedia and see the more than 30
pages' worth of his accomplishments and history, it was a privilege and
an honor for those of us who knew him when we look at the positions he
held. He had elegance. He had grace. He had resilience. He was tough.
He had a meticulous grasp of history.
I came out of the computer business. I used to tease Robert C. Byrd.
I called him ``my human computer.'' He had so much knowledge that,
frankly, I think it competed very ably with the computers in the early
eighties when I came to the Senate.
When I visited him in his office, he asked me if I knew the history
of the monarchs of the British Empire. I said I did not know much about
them. I knew the recent one, the sitting monarch at the time. He
proceeded for more than one hour to give me the history of the monarchs
of the British Empire, starting with William the Conqueror, 1066, and
recalling everybody who was King or Queen of England, of the British
Empire. He talked about how long they served, the precise dates they
served, whether they died by the hand of an assassin, whether they died
from a disease, whether they died from an accident. He knew all of that
detail. I was sitting in total bewilderment as to how one could capture
and remember so much of that information.
When I asked to be excused because I had some other business, he was
ready to give me the history of the Roman Senate. He did this not like
most of us, with notes. He had it in his brain while he recalled
everything he learned and did, the number of votes, where he cast them,
and on what issue. It was remarkable.
He served at a period of time when we had some of the most remarkable
people this body has seen. Not to suggest we do not have talent equal
to the stature of some of those who served then. It is worthy of
mention that he was the majority leader in the Senate from January 1977
to January 1981 and again from 1989 to 1989, a relatively short period.
He preceded and served with people such as Howard Baker on the
Republican side, Bob Dole, Mike Mansfield, and George Mitchell. He was
an equal with those powerhouses and stood as one of them. He stood out.
He revered this Senate and the process with which we then operated.
We are far less committed to process. Bob Byrd insisted we have the
time, respect, courtesy, and proper addressing of individuals, giving
it a certain loftiness that we otherwise would not have had.
Nobody knew more about this body than Robert C. Byrd. He was this
Chamber's protector. He protected the Senate's rules, the Senate's
integrity, and he protected the Senate's civility. He taught each and
every one of us how the Senate works--the ins, the outs. It is hard to
imagine serving a single day without him. He had such respect for the
management of this country of ours.
We should be inspired by Robert C. Byrd's legacy to become more
cooperative and more civil in the days ahead. We ought to reflect on
those values tomorrow as we view Senator Byrd's casket lying in repose
in this Chamber that he loved so dearly. He loved it so much that he
reminded all of us from time to time--he would pick up on a phrase.
Someone talked about serving under President this or that President. He
said: Sir, never, never under. We serve with the President of the
United States. We never serve under them. We are a body of equal
importance. And he knew that from every possible position of
responsibility he held.
What we should do as a Senate is accept the best that Robert C. Byrd
brought to us, to share the image he brought to all of us and to the
stature of this body.
Robert C. Byrd's journey in life was simply remarkable. He was born
into deep poverty, growing up without the comforts that many of us take
for granted, such as running water, and setting an example for all
Americans of what you might be if you make the effort and you have the
dedication to a higher purpose.
Although he was high school valedictorian at the age of 16, he had to
skip college because he did not have the means to pay for it. He
overcame that obstacle by becoming a self-taught man and a student of
history. How did he learn to play the violin all by himself, and learn
what he did about education and law?
He served half a century--51 years--in the Senate, holding every
critical position, including, as I mentioned, majority leader and
minority leader and President pro tempore. In that position he was
third in line for the Presidency of the United States.
Still, he never forgot where he came from and his duty to help
everyday people. He pleaded their case, particularly his beloved West
Virginia, as well as across the country.
I had the privilege to serve with Senator Byrd when he was chairman
of the Appropriations Committee. Some like to make light of his
position to fund projects in West Virginia, but there was nothing
cynical about his life's cause to stamp out poverty in his home State
and in this country. Senator Byrd called bringing Federal dollars back
to his State one of his greatest achievements. He understood that a new
school meant a child would have a better chance for a future. A new
sewage system meant that families might have clean water--unaccustomed
as they were in lots of places in his home State. A new highway meant
that farmers and companies could bring their product and their produce
to market in hours.
I will use the expression that he ``elegantized'' the beauty of the
deeds of working people and brought meaning to the purpose of their
lives and their work.
He was a forward-looking man. He, working with all of us, recognized
the importance of an appropriate infrastructure--the importance of
Amtrak, of the railroad that serves so many millions of Americans every
year. He was a voice for stronger rail service, knowing that could get
people more reliable travel so they would not be stuck in massive
traffic jams when they had to get someplace. It was an important part
of an agenda that he had that was so broad.
Years ago, when Amtrak--a favorite part of my view of what has to
happen with our infrastructure--was under siege, we worked side by side
to protect America's premier rail network from being defunded. In 2007,
when the Amtrak law I authored was on this floor, we faced a difficult
vote to defeat a killer amendment. I remember standing here as they
were counting the yeas and nays, and Senator Byrd had occasion to let
his simple yes or no ring out across this place. He put a stamp on
that, and that meant that he didn't like it or he did like it.
He wanted everybody in this place to remember that he was chairman of
the Appropriations Committee. He remembered when people voted with him
and when they didn't. He couldn't stand the hypocrisy of people who
would say: Oh, these earmarks are terrible, and then they would put in
their list. But he would remember it. It was not a good thing, to meet
with Robert C. Byrd's disapproval, when you wanted something;
especially after so hypocritically voting against something and then
wanting that very thing for your own State.
We have an obligation to honor the legacy of this giant of an
individual, this giant of a Senator, this giant of a public servant,
and that means never losing sight of the millions of Americans out
there who don't know whether they will have a home now or have a job,
or whether they will be able to afford electricity or food or a roof to
sleep under, or a way to take care of their children. But he reminded
us on a constant basis what our commitment was.
It also means, I think in reflection, that we should be renewing our
commitment, as hard as it is--and it is easy to kind of pontificate
here--to working together. But let us look at what is happening. Let us
look at what
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has been happening now. I don't think this is an appropriate time to
voice lots of criticism, but when we see how difficult it is to move
positive things through this institution, it is hard to understand,
because the fundamentals that Robert C. Byrd brought to his work were
that we were here to serve the public. That was the mission.
Rather than standing in the way of permitting things to be
considered--things of value--perhaps we ought to have a Byrd lecture to
the Senate-at-large every now and then and let someone who knew him or
studied him talk about what he brought to the Senate, in addition to
extraordinary leadership; someone who could talk about the degree of
collegiality that is necessary for us to consider things--serious
things--and to get them done.
Senator Byrd recently said--and he said this on a regular basis:
The world has changed. But our responsibilities, our duties
as Senators have not changed. We have a responsibility, a
duty to the people to make our country a better place.
It would be fitting if in the shadow of his passing that we could
take a sledgehammer to partisan gridlock, put the unnecessary rancor
aside and start functioning in a deliberative fashion once again.
I thank you, Senator Robert C. Byrd, for what you gave to us and gave
to this country. All of it will not be recognized in these moments. But
as history is reviewed, people will remember--I hope they do--that even
when he made a mistake, a serious mistake in his early days--when he
was not eager to support desegregation; that he should not have abided
with segregationists; that this country belonged to all the people and
no one should be discriminated against--that one can be forgiven with
good deeds after some bad ones. And he redeemed himself so nobly, so
wonderfully.
So we say, as we have been for these days, thank you, Robert C Byrd.
We loved being with you, and we will miss you.
Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I have not yet had the opportunity on the
floor to express my regret for the passing of Senator Robert Byrd and
my incredible respect for the service he gave our country.
I was only able to serve with Senator Byrd at the twilight of his
career. I knew him in my capacities as Assistant Secretary and then
Secretary of the Navy years ago, and I admired him for many years as an
individual of fierce intellect. He was a strong proponent of the
balance of power, particularly protective of the powers of the U.S.
Congress as they relate to the executive branch, which is an area I
have also focused on over the years.
Senator Byrd had great love for the people of Appalachia. He was
their greatest champion. He was a self-made man in every sense of the
word--self-made economically, born an orphan, and self-made in terms of
his own education.
I recall that when I was Secretary of the Navy, I had the authority
to name various combatants, and I named a submarine the ``USS West
Virginia.'' When I made the statement about why I named it that, I
pointed out that West Virginia, in every war in the 20th century,
ranked either first or second in terms of its casualty rate. He was
someone who never forgot the contributions of the people of that much-
maligned State to the well-being and greatness of our country. He left
his mark on all of us, and I would be remiss if I didn't express my
regret in his passing.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to our
departed Senate Dean, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia. Senator Byrd
served in this Chamber longer than any Senator in history, 50\1/2\
years. Combined with 6 prior years in the House of Representatives,
Senator Byrd's service spanned nearly a quarter of the history of the
Republic, from the Truman administration to the Obama one, longer than
the span of my life.
To serve with Senator Byrd, as was my privilege for too short a time,
was to serve with a giant of the Senate, an apotheosis of a long-ago
age when oratory was an art. How fortunate I was to sit on the Budget
Committee several chairs away from the man who wrote the Budget Act. I
will never forget a Budget Committee hearing last year at which, with
35 years of hindsight, Senator Byrd reviewed the very budget process
that he had designed. On that February morning, Senator Byrd delighted
in describing his crafting of the budget process and its implementation
and evolution over three and a half decades.
Tomorrow, for the first time since 1959 when Robert C. Byrd was a 40-
year-old first-year Senator, a departed Member of this body will lie in
repose in its Chamber. The tribute will surely be fitting, as the
Senate's most senior Member occupies the floor one final time.
The man will be missed, but his legacy will continue to guide this
institution for generations to come, and the institution to whose
principles and welfare he dedicated his life, the U.S. Senate, will
endure with his lasting imprint upon it.
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