[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 21]
[Senate]
[Page 27904]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   CONGRATULATING SENATOR ROBERT BYRD

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it has been nearly 30 years now since 
Senator Byrd started delivering a series of lectures that ultimately 
became the book that all of us are familiar with and which all of us 
admire. And the story of how those lectures came about says a lot about 
the man who has now served in Congress longer than any other man or 
woman in the history of our country.
  The story goes that it was a quiet Friday morning here in the Senate 
and Senator Byrd, as the majority leader, went down to the floor 
without planning to say much of anything at all, except that there 
wouldn't be any votes that day. But then he looked up to the gallery, 
and he saw one of his granddaughters up there with some of her 
classmates, and he thought it might be a good idea if they had 
something to talk about when they got back to school.
  So, quite extemporaneously and quite by happenstance, he delivered a 
speech to an empty Chamber on the history of the Senate. A week went 
by, and the same thing happened again. Senator Byrd came to the floor 
to make some brief statement about the floor business. He looked up to 
the gallery, and he saw another one of his granddaughters. Of course he 
couldn't give a history lesson to one and not to another. So he gave 
another history lesson.
  Well, 7 years and about 2 million words later, he stopped giving 
those history lessons. And now we will always have them. And we are 
grateful for that, and for this man. Robert Byrd once said that what is 
sometimes considered to be the result of genius is more the result of 
persistence, perseverance, and hard work. To be a good Senator, he 
said, one has to work at it. And now, longer than anyone else in our 
history, he has lived by those words.
  Today, Robert Carlyle Byrd sets a record that has been more than 56 
years in the making. The records just keep adding up. Three years ago, 
he became the longest serving Senator in our Nation's history. A few 
month after that, he became the only person ever elected to nine full 
terms in the Senate. He has now served in the U.S. Congress for 20,774 
days.
  He has cast 18,500 votes in the well of this Chamber. He is the 
longest serving member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He has 
presided over the Senate's shortest session and its longest continuous 
session. He is the only sitting Member of Congress to receive a law 
degree, a degree that was presented to him by President John F. 
Kennedy, just one of 12 Presidents that Senator Byrd has served 
alongside during his distinguished career.
  Senator Byrd will tell you that he has been anchored over the years 
by the values he learned at the feet of his foster parents, by the 
support and love of his beloved Erma, whom we were all sad to lose, by 
the U.S. Constitution, and by his faith in God. In a long life, he has 
known his share of hardships and triumphs. But he has run the race as 
if to win. He is still at it and we are grateful for his astonishing 
record of service to the people of West Virginia, to the United States 
Senate, and to the Nation he loves.
  In achieving this latest milestone, Senator Byrd surpasses a former 
colleague of his--Carl Hayden, another legendary figure who served the 
people of Arizona in the Senate for 42 years. Carl Hayden was known to 
many as the ``Silent Senator.'' That probably isn't a phrase many would 
use to describe Senator Byrd. But what they both share is an undying 
love of this great country of ours and of the U.S. Congress. So I would 
like to join my colleagues, my fellow Americans, the people of West 
Virginia, and the Byrd family in celebrating this historic occasion. 
Senator Byrd, congratulations.

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