Robert Byrd had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. That’s all you need to know to realize just how long he was in the Senate – he was first elected at a time when such a revelation was the farthest thing from electoral poison.<\/p>\n
Byrd was also the institutional memory of the Senate, the man who knew everything there was to know about how the upper chamber worked. There was a story in DC, probably apocryphal, that Newt Gingrich had a dry run for pushing the Contract With America through the Senate, and had a whole team of researchers to play the part of Robert Byrd – and was dismayed at how simple it would be for one man to tie the chamber in knots.<\/p>\n
With the passing of Byrd, the Senate takes one step farther away from the “Folkways of the US Senate” days and one step closer to being the House of Representatives – only with longer tenure and a worse grip on math.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Robert Byrd had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. That’s all you need to know to realize just how long he was in the Senate – he was first elected at a time when such a revelation was the farthest thing from electoral poison. Byrd was also the institutional memory of the Senate, … <\/p>\n