Bob Byrd: The Power Of Tenure

After serving four decades in the Senate and writing four volumes on the chamber's history, Sen. Robert Byrd is considered a passionate defender of the institution and an expert on its rules. And that is pushing him into the middle of the battle over whether to remove President Clinton from office.

Though the years have slowed his gait and made his hands tremble, colleagues are turning to the 81-year-old West Virginia Democrat for guidance on how to handle the Senate's first presidential impeachment trial in 130 years, if it occurs.

And his reputation for defending the Senate's prerogatives are such that senators from both parties trust his judgment.

"He's probably the world's greatest living expert, maybe ever, on the procedure and constitutional prerogatives of the Senate," former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., a one-time colleague, said. "Senators will turn to Byrd for his view on any process the Senate may adopt because they look at him not as a Democrat but as truly a man of the Senate."

The respect earned by Byrd, the Senate's longest-serving Democrat, is giving him clout as the impeachment trial approaches and colleagues look to him for guidance.

For example, when Byrd spoke Monday about "whether there is a trial or whether there is some other solution," he made it easier for advocates of censure to argue their case.

"His comments were ambiguous but certainly opened the door for possible censure if that's the right thing to do," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Tuesday.

Byrd simultaneously made overt lobbying efforts by the administration and others more difficult when he warned, "For the good of our nation, there must be no deal involving the White House or any entity beyond the current membership of the U.S. Senate."

"His voice means a lot, and he was basically saying, 'Don't tamper with the jury,'" said Don Nickles, R-Okla., the No. 2 Senate GOP leader, who said he recently sought advice from Byrd on impeachment procedures. "He was exactly right."

No one doubts Byrd's love for the chamber that he has called "the anchor of the republic, the morning and evening star in the American constitutional constellation.'' But sometimes his devotion to Senate processes and traditions has thrust him and his now thinning white pompadour uncomfortably into the public spotlight.

In April 1997, he objected to allowing a blind aide to a Democratic colleague to enter the chamber with her guide dog, arguing that a committee should first consider rules changes to allow the animal onto the floor. He relented the next day.

And moments before the Senate approved a treaty last April expanding NATO membership, he pressured colleagues into obeying a rarely heeded rule that they cast their votes from their seats rather than as they wander about the chamber.

The Senate, he chided them, "looks like the floor of a stock market."

His speeche are studded with quotes from Shakespeare and Roman lawmakers. Fellow senators look to him because, despite a proven ability to be a fiery partisan, he has shown a will to stand up for the Congress he loves against even presidents of his own party.

Byrd helped lead several highly partisan fights against a top GOP priority of past years, a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. His chief argument was always that the Constitution is too precious to amend with a mechanism that he considers a sham because it calls for a balanced budget without determining how to get one.

He also unsuccessfully fought a 1996 effort by Clinton and Republicans to give the president line-item veto power, arguing that it weakened Congress' constitutional power of the purse. Much to his joy, the Supreme Court struck down the law this year.

"The Constitution did not envision the office of president as having the attributes of royalty," Byrd said in September in a speech to his colleagues.

Byrd has additional clout from his years of being Senate majority leader, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and now that panel's top Democrat. He is the man many lawmakers go to when they want something for back home, and the appropriations panel has a long tradition of operating in a bipartisan way.

"If there is one bipartisan voice who is respected across the aisle, it's Bob Byrd," said Marshall Wittmann, director of congressional relations for the conservative Heritage Foundation. "He's looked at as the keeper of the Senate flame."

By Alan Fram