Robert Byrd, longest-serving Congress member, considered historian
Before making legislative history, Sen. Robert Byrd – on Wednesday he became the longest-serving member of Congress since 1789 – spent a lifetime mastering it.
The Democrat for West Virginia once dazzled a British delegation, complaining that Americans didn’t know English history, by reciting all the kings and queens of England, from Egbert (829-839) through Elizabeth II, including riffs on their children and notable moments in their reign.
His four-volume history of the US Senate, based in part on a decade of floor speeches delivered on slow Friday mornings in the 1980s, became an instant reference on Capitol Hill. His encyclopedic grasp of Senate procedure, honed by constant study, is also a resource to colleagues on both sides of the aisle...
... “He is best known as the foremost guardian of the Senate’s complex rules, procedures and customs,” said Senate majority leader Harry Reid in a tribute to Byrd on the floor of the Senate Wednesday. “Today’s milestone is another record that will never be broken.”
In a bid to educate his Senate colleagues on the perils of the line-item veto, Senator Byrd taught himself Roman history by reading accounts of Julius Caesar, Livy, Plutarch, Tacitus, and others.
“When the Roman Senate gave up its control of the purse strings, it gave away its power to check the executive. From that point on, the Senate declined … and the Roman republic fell,” he said in one of 14 addresses on the Senate floor in 1993.
Read entire article at The Christian Science Monitor
The Democrat for West Virginia once dazzled a British delegation, complaining that Americans didn’t know English history, by reciting all the kings and queens of England, from Egbert (829-839) through Elizabeth II, including riffs on their children and notable moments in their reign.
His four-volume history of the US Senate, based in part on a decade of floor speeches delivered on slow Friday mornings in the 1980s, became an instant reference on Capitol Hill. His encyclopedic grasp of Senate procedure, honed by constant study, is also a resource to colleagues on both sides of the aisle...
... “He is best known as the foremost guardian of the Senate’s complex rules, procedures and customs,” said Senate majority leader Harry Reid in a tribute to Byrd on the floor of the Senate Wednesday. “Today’s milestone is another record that will never be broken.”
In a bid to educate his Senate colleagues on the perils of the line-item veto, Senator Byrd taught himself Roman history by reading accounts of Julius Caesar, Livy, Plutarch, Tacitus, and others.
“When the Roman Senate gave up its control of the purse strings, it gave away its power to check the executive. From that point on, the Senate declined … and the Roman republic fell,” he said in one of 14 addresses on the Senate floor in 1993.