Longest-serving US Senator Byrd dies at 92

ROBERT BYRD, the longest-serving member of Congress in US history, died at the age of 92 after almost six decades in office, his office announced yesterday.

Byrd grew up in dirt-poor coal country and rose to the heights of power in the Senate where he doled out billions in federal money to his home state of West Virginia.

The vehement defender of the US Constitution – and a former member of the secretive and racist Ku Klux Klan who enthusiastically supported Barack Obama’s successful 2008 White House bid – died after falling seriously ill last week following years of health problems.

His office said Byrd, who was third in line to the presidency after Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, died peacefully at approximately 3am at Inova Fairfax Hospital.

No specific cause of death was given

A self-described “hillbilly” who occasionally played the fiddle on the Senate floor, Byrd claimed his greatest accomplishment was improving the lives of the people of West Virginia, one of the country’s poorest states.

He had served in Congress since January 3, 1953 – nine years before Obama was born.

With his passing, the president’s majority Democrats have one less vote in the 100-member Senate, which along with the House of Representatives was expected to vote as early as this week on a sweeping financial reform bill tightening regulation and ending practices blamed for leading to the 2008 financial crisis.

West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, a Democrat, will appoint a replacement to serve out the remainder of Byrd’s term, which ends in 2013.

Byrd, who never lost an election, held several of the Senate’s most powerful posts, including chairman of the Appropriations Committee, which controls the US purse strings.

He funnelled massive amounts of federal funding to West Virginia, and more than two dozen federal projects in West Virginia bear his name, from roadways to courthouses.

Serving first in the House of Representatives before his election to the Senate in 1958, he is the only person ever elected to nine full Senate terms.

Throughout his career, Byrd has cast more than 18,680 roll call votes – more votes than any other Senator in American history.

Before entering politics, Byrd joined a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, the white supremacist group which has terrorised blacks and other minority groups since immediately after the US Civil War.

He has repeatedly apologised for his past membership in the Klan, calling it one of the great mistakes of his life, and also expressed regret for participating in the 83-day filibuster to delay the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed racial segregation.

In the decades since he has become one of the Senate’s most powerful supporters for civil rights, as well as a prominent anti-war advocate.

Byrd had several health scares in recent years, including an extended hospitalisation last year that prompted speculation of his looming retirement.

Byrd was born Cornelius Calvin Sale in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, in 1917, but was adopted by his uncle and aunt, who renamed him Robert Carlyle Byrd

The late senator is survived by two daughters, six grandchildren and five great granddaughters.