The Passing of Robert C. Byrd

Few in American politics can lay claim to long periods of durability, but Robert C. Byrd, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia, was one of them. He thrived in the soil (some might say the manure) of Congressional debate and won nine terms. His resume in that body is remarkable: majority leader twice, elected to both houses of Congress, and both houses of the State legislature, chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee and thus, guardian of the hallowed purse strings. Over the years, he came to demonstrate his forensic knowledge of Congressional protocol regularly, rarely losing an opportunity to defend it as its powers were gradually being eroded by an intrusive and indifferent executive. His four-volume work on the institution is a formidable reminder of that fact.

His background is instructive: a poor boy of the West Virginia coal fields, he overcame the obstacles of poverty, so prominent in his state, pushing himself through night school and sharpening his political tongue. Indeed, he remains the only member of Congress to have managed to finish law school while holding office.

He had a stint with the Ku Klux Klan, captured by its sense of station at the time, though his involvement as an ‘exalted Cyclops’ of the movement was more than just a flirt. As he tried explaining time and again, he felt regret, but the KKK of that era was the KKK of established personalities, be they professional or otherwise, fearful beings who felt chagrin at a changing order. His opposition against the 1964 Civil Rights Act is known, though such reactionary disposition was readjusted in time. He also made it a habit while chairing the Senate appropriations subcommittee on the District of Columbia from 1961 to 1968 of trying to eliminate mostly black ‘ineligible’ welfare recipients.

For his state, he managed, through his role on the Appropriations Committee, to direct money into needed programs for his impoverished constituents. This funneling was pork barreling in the truest of Congressional traditions, but West Virginia did gradually rise from its ignominious rank as one of the poorest states in the US.

Byrd was a jealous guardian of Congress and its functions which he saw as under continual attack and revision. For him, the Constitution was an almost mystical, living document, something he literally kept close to his heart, able to produce it at a moment’s notice. The ascendancy of the Bush administration and its hunger for pre-emptive war riled him no end. His Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency (2004), left readers in no doubt about his opposition. The power to declare war, for one thing, resided in the Congressional body. President Bush was something of a thief in the night, seeing to appropriate powers he never had.

Throughout 2003, Byrd attacked the notion of the pre-emptive attack that was sending the officials of the Bush administration into a state of rapture. His regular jeremiads against the policy was something that etched his name into a history of old-fashioned American dissent against the unwise deployment of force. On March 19, he expressed with emotion on the Senate floor that, ‘No more is the image of America one of strong yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed.’

He condemned the gift by Congress in its powers of making war to one man as an act of self-emasculation. While Congressional members voted like sheep for the war on Iraq, Byrd stayed the course, insisting on a sunset clause on such enormous powers. Heavy in the memory was his role in passing the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. On both occasions, claims Byrd, members of that august body were misled by doctored facts. The executive, it seemed, was rarely a trustworthy entity.

His flaws were colossal, his personality skewed, his decisions at times startling, but it reflected the ebb and flow of American political history. Few can claim they were not moved by his oratory and his convictions in the values of American institutions. And few can lay claim to having defended Congress when it threatened to become a mere mouthpiece of an Imperial presidency.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and is currently in San Francisco. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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