Tons of stories today about West Virginia Sen. Robert C. Byrd who passed away earlier this morning.
Byrd, 92, was the longest-serving senator in America history. He was also the chamber’s resident historian, orating on the Roman version of our deliberative body and pointing out the differences between a republic and a democracy. He was a fierce defender of U.S. Constitution. Few senators were as effective at funneling federal largesse back to their home states. And there was the matter of the late senator’s personal evolution — Byrd in his later years renouncing his past association with the Ku Klux Klan and opposition to civil rights reform.
