[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11820-11823]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   REMEMBERING SENATOR ROBERT C. BYRD

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I too wish to say a few words about our 
departed colleague. The first thing to say is that we are sorry, first 
and foremost, to the family and also to the staff of Senator Byrd for 
their loss. The next thing to say is that it is a sad day for the 
Senate. Everybody who has been here for a while has a few Robert Byrd 
stories. A couple come to mind I thought I would share.
  Along with Senator Reid and Senator Dodd, who were here on the floor 
earlier, Senator Byrd, in the early part of the decade, responded to my 
request to come down to the University of Louisville, my alma mater, to 
speak to the students and to a broader audience. At his age and 
particularly given the fact that I was a member of the opposition 
party, there was, frankly, no particular reason for him to do that. But 
he did and made an extraordinary impression on the students and 
inconvenienced

[[Page 11821]]

himself on my behalf, which I always appreciated.
  My second--and really my favorite--recollection of Senator Byrd, I 
found myself a few years ago in a curious position, at variance with 
virtually everybody on my side of the aisle. I had reflexively, as I 
think many Members had, responded negatively to a decision of the U.S. 
Supreme Court in the late 1980s essentially holding that flag burning 
was a permissible first amendment expression of political speech. The 
first time that amendment came before the Senate, I voted for it. Then 
I began to have some pangs of discomfort about my position. Having 
spent a good portion of my political career focusing on political 
speech and the first amendment, I, frankly, decided I was wrong and in 
subsequent votes have opposed it.
  A few years ago, it became clear it was going to be defeated in the 
Senate by the narrowest of margins. I remembered that Senator Byrd was 
always carrying around a Constitution in his pocket and had a feeling 
that upon reflection, he might reach the same conclusion I did. So I 
lobbied Senator Byrd. I thought initially it would be a futile act, but 
he reexamined his position. As a result, he too changed his position, 
and as it turns out, there was not a vote to spare the last time the 
Senate considered whether it would be appropriate to amend the first 
amendment for the first time in the history of the country to kind of 
carve a niche out of it to make it possible to punish an act we all 
find despicable. But, nevertheless, the most unfortunate of speech is 
probably what the first amendment was all about initially. So Senator 
Byrd did change his position. There was not a vote to spare, and the 
amendment was defeated. And from my point of view, the first amendment 
was saved on that important occasion.
  We will all remember Senator Byrd for a variety of different things. 
As the majority leader pointed out, he was a unique individual in so 
many different ways. Those are two of my favorite stories about Robert 
Byrd.
  More than anyone else in any of our lifetimes, Robert Byrd embodied 
the Senate. He not only wrote the book on it, he was a living 
repository of its rules, its customs, and its prerogatives. So it would 
be a mistake to think that Senator Byrd became synonymous with the 
Senate simply because he served in it longer than anybody else. Rather, 
it was a fitting coincidence that a man who cherished and knew this 
place so well would become its longest serving Member.
  Yet it is probably true that he will be remembered above all for his 
longevity.
  Everyone seems to have a different way of communicating just how long 
a time he spent here. For me, it is enough to note that Robert Byrd had 
already spent nearly 20 years serving in elected office in West 
Virginia and in the House of Representatives before he was elected to 
the U.S. Senate during the Eisenhower administration.
  And over the years, he would walk the floor with 4 future Presidents, 
4 of the 12 he would serve alongside in a 57-year career in Congress. I 
won't enumerate all the legislative records Senator Byrd held, but I 
would venture to say that the figure that probably made him proudest of 
all was the nearly 70 years of marriage he spent with a coal miner's 
daughter named Erma.
  If he was synonymous with the Senate, he was no less synonymous with 
West Virginia. Here is how popular Robert Byrd was in his home State: 
In the year Robert Byrd was first elected to the U.S. Senate, 1958, he 
won with 59 percent of the vote, a margin that most people around here 
would consider a landslide. In a record 9 Senate elections, it was the 
smallest margin of victory he would ever get.
  Members will offer tributes of their own in the coming days.
  I will close with this. Last year, in becoming the longest serving 
Member of Congress in history, Senator Byrd surpassed another legendary 
figure, Carl Hayden of Arizona. Hayden was known to many as the 
``silent Senator,'' a phrase few would use to describe Senator Byrd.
  But what the two men shared was a devotion to the United States and, 
in particular, to the legislative branch of our Government, which the 
founders envisioned and established as coequal with the other two.
  A few years ago, Senator Byrd's official portrait was unveiled at an 
event in the Old Senate Chamber. And I think that portrait pretty well 
sums up the image Senator Byrd wanted to leave of himself. It is the 
image of a dignified man, in the classical mold, supported by three 
things: the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and his wife. A lot of people 
looked at Senator Byrd's record-long tenure in Congress, his immense 
knowledge of poetry, history, and the Senate, and wondered where he got 
the strength. With this painting, he gave us the answer. He showed us 
the anchors.
  As I noted at that ceremony, Senator Byrd once wrote that if the 
question was whether to be loved or respected, he always chose to be 
respected. Yet his real accomplishment is that, in the end, he managed 
to be both.
  So I join my colleagues, my fellow Americans, the people of West 
Virginia, and the Byrd family today in remembering our colleague. We 
will surely miss him.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, on this day, West Virginia has lost 
probably its most prominent son and the Senate has lost probably its 
most able statesman. For myself, I have lost an admired colleague and a 
treasured friend. More than nine decades of a remarkable life and five 
decades as an accomplished public servant in the Senate only serve as 
one form of proof that Robert C. Byrd was and always will be an icon, 
particularly in his own State. A man of great character, faith, 
intellect, who rose to the heights of power, yet never forgot where he 
came from, his story holds such a profoundly significant place in both 
West Virginia and American history. But it was in the coalfields of 
southern West Virginia where a young Robert C. Byrd first gained the 
skills, the moral character, the toughness, and the shrewdness that 
would make him a truly great man.
  After his mother passed away, he was raised by his aunt and uncle, a 
coalminer, he movingly called ``the most remarkable man I have ever 
been privileged to know.'' From them Senator Byrd learned early in life 
what it meant to be loyal, to have a ferocious work ethic, really 
almost beyond imagination, and possess a deep faith in God. And it was 
these values--these innately West Virginia values, I argue--that guided 
his every action and made him such a unique and strong fighter for our 
State and who got such joy in doing that fight.
  He was proud of West Virginia. He was proud of his ideals. He was 
proud of the service he could render to the people from whom he came. 
He believed with all of his heart that our breathtaking mountains, our 
rivers, and our deep valleys, and especially our well-rooted people, 
who face adversity always and face it with strength and courage, make 
our State a place like quite none other in the world.
  He loved the music of the mountains and played his fiddle, in fact, 
very brilliantly. He was a master violin player. He loved to quote the 
ancients, lending depth to his analysis and observations, with 
knowledge of history and philosophy to rival any professor. Just as 
easily as he could quote Cicero from memory, he could sing every verse 
of ``Amazing Grace'' from memory, too, and often did.
  Everything about Senator Byrd was a testament to his faith in God. 
This man, who wrote and debated countless laws, lived with 10 clear 
Commandments in his heart. His aunt and uncle kept the King James Bible 
in their home and instilled in him an enduring reverence for God. He 
always remembered that as important as the Senate and our 
constitutional government might be, there was always a higher law that 
took precedence.
  He started his career humbly by any definition--as a butcher, as a 
welder, other things too--and then campaigned by playing his foot-
stomping music, the fiddle, to get elected to the West

[[Page 11822]]

Virginia Legislature--that is how he did it--the very same body that 
decades later would deem him the ``West Virginian of the 20th 
Century.''
  It was at Mark Twain High School where a lifetime of love first began 
for Robert C. Byrd and his future wife, Erma Ora James. Calling her the 
``wind beneath this Byrd's wings,'' as he put it, Senator Byrd was 
never shy to tell you that Erma--a beloved coal miner's daughter 
herself--was the reason he reached all of his goals. He believed that 
with all of his heart. So from the fiddle-playing young man to a 
history-making American icon, she loved and supported him every step of 
the way until her passing in 2006.
  I know and I observed maybe earlier than some that Senator Byrd lost 
just a bit when Erma died. Watching him hurting was painful. His wife 
died from the same disease my mother died from; that is, Alzheimer's, 
and we talked about it, especially a few years ago when he was talking 
more frequently. I always felt bad that I could not give him comfort 
and that I could not say something to him that would relinquish his 
pain, which was evident and obvious--very obvious in privacy. But I 
could not do that because you cannot do that for diseases like that 
one. There were not words to describe the difficulty such a devastating 
loss can bring, and I commend my friend for continuing on so strongly--
as he did--for so long.
  Erma was his soulmate, his best friend and trusted counselor. Their 
marriage was something to behold. My wife Sharon and I loved watching 
them together. He became a different person. They radiated an 
extraordinary faith in God, in each other, and in the beautiful family 
they built together, which in the end was what he loved the most. 
Indeed, it was the time Robert C. Byrd spent with Erma; their 
daughters, Mona and Marjorie, their husbands, and their grandchildren 
and their great-grandchildren that brought sheer joy--pure, 
unadulterated--to his life. So with sadness in my heart, I also have 
joy at the thought of my friend united with his precious Erma, with his 
dear grandson he lost at a young age. And we all know, those of us who 
have been here for several years, the agony he went through at the 
death of that young man, setting up a shrine in his office. It affected 
him deeply. It was interesting that a man who could be so oriented 
toward policy, and sometimes almost remote from personal matters, as a 
professional self-definition, could be so utterly moved by sadness in 
his own life and I think in the lives of others.
  It was in the Halls of the U.S. Senate where Robert C. Byrd became 
known as the ``Soul of the Senate,'' a fierce defender of the 
Constitution, a respected historian, and an absolutely fearless 
legislator. He held, as has been said many times before, more 
leadership posts than any other Senator, cast more votes than any other 
Senator, and served longer than any other Senator. And one could go on 
in many ways in that theme. He literally wrote the authoritative book 
on the rules and procedures of the Senate. He taught all of us who were 
freshmen in this body about that in classes which he would conduct 
standing in the well of the Senate. He loved and he revered this 
institution. Everybody says that. It is true.
  Some people pass through this institution. They experience this 
institution. He lived this institution. Yet, still, his entire career 
was fundamentally an act of commitment to the State of West Virginia 
and its people--a day-in and day-out effort to do the best he possibly 
could for the people of the Mountain State; always put upon, often 
looked down upon, even disdained by others who did not understand where 
they came from, what their lives were like, and, for example, what it 
was like to be a coal miner. People do not understand West Virginia 
well. Most people do not go there. Senator Byrd sprung from West 
Virginia and, yes, was an intensely devoted statesman.
  He put himself through law school while also serving in Congress. I 
know a few others have done that, but I just sort of deny that. I think 
it is amazing that Senator Byrd did that; therefore, any others who did 
it do not get my attention.
  He understood that people with the fortitude to ask questions and to 
debate and to dissent one from another makes America stronger. He had 
that courage himself, standing up time and time again to defend the 
ideals upon which our Nation was founded. And often those ideas were 
very different from those of others. No matter with Senator Byrd; he 
always spoke for what he felt was correct.
  As the minority leader has pointed out, the Senator always had the 
Constitution in his pocket, close to his heart. And he outlasted 
Presidents and Supreme Court Justices. He served with an absolute 
insistence on the equality of the three branches of government as 
envisioned by our Founding Fathers, and he, therefore, helped us as a 
body be more than our separate parts. He spread the words of our 
Constitution to young children and his colleagues alike. His patriotism 
was strong and confident, infusing his every action with deep devotion 
for our Nation and its people.
  A Senator from a State that has sent legions of sons and daughters to 
war--out of courage, out of love of country, sometimes just out of a 
need to get work--he supported our troops whether he agreed with their 
cause or not, fought for our veterans, and worked hard to make sure 
those who served our country got the respect, the support, the supplies 
they needed and they deserved.
  He also earned the loyalty of West Virginians with a record of 
support for education and economic opportunity that few Senators, at 
any time, in any State, in my judgment, could ever match. To him, every 
school building or education grant was a chance for a better life for 
some West Virginia child or maybe quite a lot of children. He cared 
about that, and he helped that become true.
  Every overpass, every road represented an opportunity for a more 
dynamic economy for our cities and towns, which might be taken casually 
in some places but not in West Virginia because only 4 percent of our 
land is flat, and unless there is a road or a bridge, you cannot build 
anything anywhere or virtually do anything anywhere. Every business 
park or government office meant the possibility of a better job for 
West Virginians trying to raise their families--people he fought for 
all his life.
  Senator Byrd also believed health care is one of the most important 
ways to strengthen a community, and his support for medical research 
resulted in breakthrough medical opportunities. He spread this research 
all across West Virginia, to West Virginia University, to Marshall 
University, to institutions of all kinds. He believed in medical 
research and did more than most of our colleagues even know.
  So in a State with rugged terrain, full of people like the family who 
raised him, doing their best for their family, for their country, for 
their God, Robert C. Byrd decided that somebody needed to do the best 
for them, and he did so each and every day of his life.
  To me, he was a perfect colleague and a reliable friend, a walking 
example of the kind of America I believe in, and a living testament to 
the values that made West Virginia my own home forever. It has been my 
greatest privilege to serve with Robert C. Byrd in the U.S. Senate. I 
respected him and I fought side-by-side with him for causes we both 
believed in, and obviously I am profoundly saddened that he is gone.
  So in closing, Mr. President, I think he leaves a void that probably 
cannot be filled. But I am lifted by the knowledge of his deep and 
abiding faith and that he is in the hands of the One who inspired these 
words in ``Amazing Grace:

       Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
       And mortal life shall cease,
       I shall possess within the veil,
       A life of joy and peace.

  I think that gives all of us some comfort. It certainly does me.
  So peace and Godspeed, Senator Byrd, and peace to your family, your 
loyal staff, and to the loving people of West Virginia, who held you 
high for so long and will continue to do so.

[[Page 11823]]

  I thank the Chair and yield my time.

                          ____________________