LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Robert Byrd: Senate Democrats
built 424 days ago
Now that Byrd has dropped his hold, focus has shifted back to Stevens. Bloggers need to keep him in the hot seat until he drops his hold as well and make sure Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist brings the bill to the floor in September.
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Byrd has held the office of president pro tempore of the Senate three times, most recently from 2001 to 2003, and will hold the title again in the 110th Congress beginning in 2007. He has served as a member of the Appropriations Committee since the 1950s and is chairman of the committee when the Democratic party is in the Senate majority. Should he win re-election in 2006 and serve a full term, his term will expire in January 2013, when he will have been in Congress for 60 years and the Senate for 54 years. He already holds the record for the longest uninterrupted term of service in the history of the U.S. Senate.
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While serving in the House, Byrd did initiate a personal goal—earning a law degree. In 1953 he enrolled in night classes at George Washington University’s School of Law. He transferred to American University’s Washington College of Law after learning that George Washington would not confer a law degree because he lacked the prerequisite baccalaureate degree. Byrd worked on his law degree for the ten years, completing it as a member of the United States Senate in 1963. When the commencement speaker, then President John F. Kennedy, conferred the degree, he remarked that Robert C. Byrd was the only person to begin and complete the requirements for a law degree while serving as a member of Congress.
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On occasion, Byrd disagreed with President Bill Clinton's policies. Byrd initially said that the impeachment proceedings against Clinton should be taken seriously and conducted completely. Although he harshly criticized any attempt to make light of it, he made the motion to dismiss the charges against the president and effectively suspend proceedings. Even though he voted against both articles of impeachment, he was the sole Democrat to vote for the censure of Clinton.[27] He strongly opposed Clinton's 1993 efforts to allow gays to serve in the military and has ... supported efforts to limit gay marriage. However, he opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment, arguing that it was unnecessary because the states already had the power to ban gay marriages.[28] However, when the amendment came to the Senate floor he was one of the two Democratic Senators who voted in favor of the cloture motion.[29] He also opposes affirmative action.
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In 1950 Byrd decided to vacate his seat in the House of Delegates and run for the state Senate. He was elected to the office, but about half way through his first term in the state Senate, one of West Virginia’s representatives in the United States House of Representatives decided not to run for reelection. This opened up a seat in Byrd’s Congressional district.
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Byrd has been a member of the Senate Democratic leadership since 1967, when he was elected as secretary of the Senate Democratic Conference (caucus). He became Senate Majority Whip, or the second-ranking Democrat, in 1971. From 1977 to 1989 Byrd was the leader of the Senate Democrats, serving as Senate Majority Leader from 1977 to 1981 and 1987 to 1989 and as Senate Minority Leader from 1981 to 1987.
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