Byrd Reaches 17,000 Vote Milestone

[James T. Kirk]

http://byrd.senate.gov/byrd_newsroom/byrd_news_april/byrd_2004_aprillist/byrd_2004_aprillist_0.html

Excerpt
U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., who already holds the distinction of having cast more roll call votes than any other Senator in history, cast his 17,000th roll call vote Thursday.

"Seventeen thousand votes ago, I achieved a dream. I stood on the floor of the United States Senate and prepared to cast my first vote as a Senator from the Mountain State, West Virginia. Seventeen thousand votes later, I still feel much the same. It is a great privilege to serve the people of West Virginia in the United States Senate," Byrd said.

Byrd has achieved a 98.7 percent voting record during his tenure in the Senate, earning him the record for the greatest number of roll call votes in Senate history.

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"For me, Bob Byrd personifies what our Founding Fathers were thinking about when they were thinking about a United States Senate. He brings the kind of qualities that the Founding Fathers believed were so important for service to a state and service to the nation," said Senator Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.

"It has often been said that the man and the moment come together. I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia that he would have been a great senator at any moment. Some were right for the time. Robert C. Byrd, in my view, would have been right at any time," said Senator Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

[w4rma]

1. A truly great man. (nt)

[DustMolecule]

2. Standing (cyber) Ovation to Senator Byrd

I thank you, and this country thanks you, for your many many years of outstanding and dedicated service to the United States of America and the people who live within it's shores!

*Me thinks* I'm gonna send him an e-mail to this effect, cause I don't know if he reads DU!

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Congratulations, and gratitude, to Senator Byrd!

[Archae]

4. Senator Pork

Not to diminish his achievment in staying so long as a senator, I still remember how he used to get half the highway money for WV, and the other 49 states got the other half.

And his major league whine on the senate floor, when ABC reporters tried to ask him about that.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0%2C1249%2C395007267%2C00.html

[kentuck]

6. Not that West Virginia needed any "pork"....

But he did a lot for the infrastructure of that state. Perhaps it would have been better spent in another state on a defense contract?

[Archae]

7. That's not the point.

When a senator uses his clout to get 50% of the highway money for his state, while all the other states get the remaining 50%, that is just wrong.

Pork is pork.
Right now Alaska (thanks to some repug) is getting tons of pork also.

[James T. Kirk]

5. More praise from Senator Dodd

From http://thomas.loc.gov/

"It has often been said that the man and the moment come together. I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia that he would have been a great Senator at any moment. Some were right for the time. ROBERT C. BYRD , in my view, would have been right at any time. He would have been right at the founding of this country. He would have been in the leadership crafting this Constitution. He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this Nation. He would have been right at the great moments of international threat we faced in the 20th century. I cannot think of a single moment in this Nation's 220-plus year history where he would not have been a valuable asset to this country. Certainly today that is not any less true."

"I join my colleagues in thanking the Senator from West Virginia for the privilege of serving with him. He has now had to endure two members of my family as colleagues. Senator Byrd was elected to the Senate in 1958 along with my father. He served with my father in the House. I have now had the privilege of serving with Senator Byrd for 24 years, twice the length of service of my father. That is an awful lot of time to put up with members of the Dodd family. We thank Senator Byrd for his endurance through all of that time."