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He is third in line to the [[President of the United States|Presidency]] behind [[Vice President of the United States|Vice President]] [[Dick Cheney]] and [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|Speaker]] [[Nancy Pelosi]].

He is third in line to the [[President of the United States|Presidency]] behind [[Vice President of the United States|Vice President]] [[Dick Cheney]] and [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|Speaker]] [[Nancy Pelosi]].

On March 4, 2001, during an interview with Tony Snow, Byrd said the following comment on race relations:

Byrd was elected as a member of the [[United States House of Representatives]] in 1952 for the 6th district of West Virginia, succeeding [[E.H. Hedrick]], who had decided to step down to run for [[Governor of West Virginia]]. Byrd was reelected to the House twice. In 1958, he was elected to the [[United States Senate]], defeating the [[United States Republican Party|Republican]] incumbent [[W. Chapman Revercomb]]. He has been reelected eight times. For his first four terms, Byrd was West Virginia's junior senator. This was because his colleague from 1959 to 1985, [[Jennings Randolph]], had been elected on the same day in a special election to fill the seat of the late Senator [[Matthew Neely]].

:''"There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word."''

While Byrd faced vigorous Republican opposition in the past, he has not faced truly serious opposition since freshman congressman [[Cleve Benedict]] ran against him in 1982. He has since won by comfortable margins. Despite his tremendous popularity in the state, he has only run unopposed once, in 1976. On two other occasions — in 1994 and 2000 — he carried all 55 of West Virginia's counties. In his reelection bid in 2000, he won all but seven of West Virginia's precincts. [[Shelley Moore Capito]], a Congresswoman and the daughter of one of Byrd's longtime foes—former governor [[Arch A. Moore, Jr.|Arch Moore, Jr.]]—briefly weighed a challenge to Byrd in 2006, but decided against it.

Byrd's use of the term "nigger" created immediate controversy.

 

On November 7, 2006, Byrd was elected to an unprecedented ninth consecutive term in the Senate. He became the longest-serving senator in American history on [[June 12]], [[2006]], surpassing [[Strom Thurmond]] of [[South Carolina]] with 17,327 days of service.<ref>[http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/053106/news2.html The Hill]</ref> Previously, he already held the record for the longest unbroken tenure in the Senate (Thurmond served 48 years in total, but vacated the office between April and November of 1956). Counting his tenure as a West Virginia state legislator from 1947 to 1953, Byrd has served as an elected official for almost 60 years and has never lost an election. Byrd has cast a total of 17,745 votes as of [[September 13]], [[2006]] — the most of any senator in history. Upon the death of Senator [[George Smathers]] of Florida on [[January 20]], [[2007]] — Byrd became the last living United States Senator from the 1950s.<ref>[http://senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/three_column_table/10000_or_more_votes.htm U.S. Senate]</ref> This means that not only has Byrd outlived every other Senator who had seniority over him, but he is the only person to ever have remained in the Senate the entire time while doing it. He is on pace to pass [[Carl Hayden]] of [[Arizona]] as the longest-serving member of Congress (House and Senate tenure combined) in American history sometime in early [[2010]]. Byrd is the last remaining Senator to have voted on a statehood bill and has served longer in the Senate than eight of his colleagues have been alive (those being [[Bob Casey, Jr.]], [[Amy Klobuchar]], [[Blanche Lincoln]], [[John Thune]], [[David Vitter]], [[Barack Obama]], [[Mark Pryor]], and [[John E. Sununu]]).

 

Byrd is currently the chairman of the [[United States Senate Committee on Appropriations]]. Byrd was first appointed to the committee by then-Majority Leader [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] when he first entered the Senate in 1959. Since [[1989]], he has been the committee's top Democrat and has chaired the committee when the Democrats have control of the Senate. Byrd is also a member of the [[United States Senate Committee on Armed Services|Committee on Armed Services]], the [[United States Senate Committee on Rules and Administration|Committee on Rules and Administration]] and the [[United States Senate Committee on the Budget|Committee on the Budget]].

 

  | accessdate = 2006-10-03 }}</ref> Despite an 83 day [[filibuster]] in the Senate, both parties in Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Act, and President Johnson signed the bill into law.<ref>http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Civil_Rights_Filibuster_Ended.htm U.S. Senate, June 10, 1964: Civil Rights Filibuster Ended]</ref> He also opposed the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]], but voted for the [[Civil Rights Act of 1968]]. In 2005, Byrd told the ''Washington Post'' that his membership in the [[Baptist]] church led to a change in his views. In the opinion of one reviewer, Byrd, along with other Southern and border state Democrats, came to realize that he would have to temper "his blatantly [[racial segregation|segregationist]] views" and move to the Democratic Party mainstream if he wanted to play a role nationally.<ref name="WP061905"/>

==References==

==References==