Sen. Robert C. Byrd is making his final sojourn to a Senate chamber that for 51 years echoed with his impassioned speeches and came to be the place he called home.
|
|
Byrd, who died Monday at age 92, was to lie in repose for six hours in the Senate chamber, his casket resting on the Lincoln Catafalque, a bier that was built for the coffin of Abraham Lincoln.
Byrd, who served longer than any other senator in history and became a guardian of the chamber's customs and traditions, will be the first person to lie in repose in the Senate since 1959.
That was the year Byrd, a fiddle-playing, states-rights Democrat from coal country in West Virginia, first entered the Senate after serving six years in the House. He went on to cast more than 18,000 votes and serve twice as Senate majority leader. At his death, he was president pro tempore of the Senate, third in line to the presidency behind Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Over the years, Byrd changed with the nation: The man who filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act for 14 hours came to support the creation of the Martin Luther King national holiday and supported Barack Obama in his bid to become the nation's first black president.
What didn't change were his commitment to lifting West Virginia out of poverty with billions of dollars in federal money and his defense of Congress, in particular the Senate, from what he considered encroachments by the executive branch.
Click here to continue reading.
