Path to Power
Robert C. Byrd was born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr. on November 20, 1917 in North Wilkesboro, N.C. After his mother died when he was an infant, he was sent to live with an uncle and aunt, Titus and Vlurma Byrd, who renamed him. Titus was a coal miner, and the Byrds scraped out a meager living in a house without electricity or running water.
Byrd married his high school sweetheart, Erma Ora James Byrd, in 1937. She died in 2006. Byrd has two daughters, five grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. He lives in Sophia, West Va.
As a young man, Byrd formed a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and was voted its “Exalted Cyclops.” Accounts about the length and depth of Byrd’s involvement and the strength of his racist views vary, but Byrd has consistently downplayed his role and repeatedly apologized for the affiliation. “It has emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me and has taught me in a very graphic way what one major mistake can do to one’s life, career, and reputation,” Byrd wrote in his memoir Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields in 2005. Byrd had to overcome his Klan history when it surfaced in his campaigns for the U.S. House in 1952 and the Senate in 1958.
Byrd was first elected to public office in 1946 when he won a seat in West Virginia’s House of Delegates as a 29-year-old. In 1950 he became a West Virginia state senator. He won a U.S. House seat in 1952, which he held until his election to the U.S. Senate in 1958. Byrd has never lost an election.
In fact, Byrd was elected to public office before earning a college degree. Unable to finance his education, Byrd dropped out after one semester at Marshall University and began working as a welder and meat cutter. It wasn’t until 1963, after 10 years of part-time classes taken while he was a representative and then a senator, that Byrd earned a law degree from American University. President John F. Kennedy, there to give the commencement speech, presented Byrd with his diploma. Byrd earned a bachelor’s degree (and straight As) from Marshall University in 1994 when he was 77 years old.
Byrd has never faced a tough re-election bid to the Senate as a legend in his home state. In 2006, he ran against Republican businessman John Raese, the son of one of Byrd’s old friends, the former coach of the West Virginia University basketball team. Raese didn’t put up much of a fight. “I’m running for U.S. Senate, not against Senator Byrd. I have a lot of different ideas, not that his are right or wrong. Mine might be better,” Raese said during the campaign. Byrd won 64 to 34 percent.
Byrd is known for being exceedingly courteous to other senators, but a thorn in the sides of Republican and Democratic presidential administrations alike. His allegiance is to Senate rules and funneling money back home to West Virginian interests before party or policy. He carries a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his pocket.
In the 1990s, he filed suit against President Bill Clinton’s use of the line-item veto, arguing that it weakened congressional prerogatives. “I will stand back here and let my bones crumble under me, until I no longer have any breath in me [than let this pass],” he told his colleagues during the fight. The Supreme Court later declared the line-item veto unconstitutional.
Longest-Serving Senator
Byrd became the longest-serving senator in U.S. history in June 2006. Months later, he was re-elected to an unprecedented 9th term. He has also held more leadership positions that any other senator: as the Senate’s Democratic Majority Whip from 1971 to 1976; Majority Leader from 1977 to 1980 and 1987 to 1988; and Minority Leader from 1981 to 1986.
He is the most senior senator, making him the president pro tempore of the Senate, a title that is largely ceremonial but puts him third in line to the presidency behind the vice president and the House speaker.
Byrd is the author of several books, including Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency, about George W. Bush, and a four-volume historical series, "The Senate 1789–1989," written with Senate historian Richard Baker. He is also an avid fiddler who has performed at the Kennedy Center and recorded an album, Mountain Time.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman
Byrd was the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee when the Democrats were in power from 1989 to January 6, 2009, when he stepped down because of concerns about his age and was succeeded by 84-year-old Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii). Byrd was first appointed to the Appropriations Committee as a freshman senator in 1958 by then-Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas). Byrd also sits on the Armed Services Committee, the Committee on Rules and Administration and the Budget Committee.
