By Ray Smock

The Senate just changed the interpretation of one of its rules (Rule XXII) to reduce the number of votes necessary to invoke cloture and end certain filibusters from a supermajority down to a simple majority of 51 votes. This rule change, a precedent rather than an actual change in the language of the rule, supposedly makes it easier for the Democratic majority in the Senate to confirm the president’s nominees for the federal bench and for executive branch positions requiring Senate confirmation. Rule XXII was not changed in regard to bills before the Senate or for voting on nominees to the Supreme Court.

The Senate website has information on the history of cloture and the filibuster.
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Senator Byrd’s name has come up frequently in the wake of the Senate’s action regarding Senate Rule XXII, citing his longstanding defense of minority rights and his earlier opposition to the so-called “Nuclear Option.”

Part 1 of a 4-Part Series

By Malorie Matos
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Senator Robert Byrd was well-known for his political accomplishments and prowess as a fiddler, but many may be unaware of just what an integral role fiddling played in the senator’s life.

Note: This post was previously listed under our "News from the Grey Box" blog series 
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​By Jody Brumage

“What is the relevancy of Roman history? To put it simply and elementally, by delivering the line-item veto into the hands of a president – any president, Republican or Democrat or Independent, the United States Senate would have set its foot on the same road to decline, subservience, impotence, and feebleness that the Roman Senate followed in its own descent into ignominy, cowardice, and oblivion.” - Senator Robert C. Byrd, June 22, 1993
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Senator Robert C. Byrd, beginning in May 1993, delivered fourteen speeches in the Senate on the history of the Senate of the Roman Republic. While these speeches, delivered entirely from memory, gave a condensed history of Ancient Rome, from the foundation of the Republic to the rise of the Empire, Byrd’s larger thesis was always clear. The Senate had allowed the line-item veto to creep back into floor debate, and it was gaining support. President Bill Clinton, who had enjoyed the privilege of line-item veto while Governor of Arkansas, along with 42 other state governors, was asking for such power to be granted to the presidency as well. Senator Byrd believed such a provision meant the end of Senate supremacy over the purse strings of the federal government and, more importantly, the unraveling of the system of checks and balances which enabled the three branches of government to coexist. Senator Byrd saw the line-item veto as an unconstitutional measure.

By Sarah Brennan

Senator Robert C. Byrd was more than a politician from West Virginia.  He, and his wife Erma represented West Virginia on the national stage. Their support was frequently symbolic and always brought positive attention to their home state.  One such example occurred during the 1980s, when Senator Byrd persuaded the United States Navy to name a nuclear submarine in honor of the state.
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Correspondence in the Byrd Collection at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies shows the Senator’s desire to have a nuclear powered submarine named the West Virginia as early as May 1987, the same year that a planned relocation of the United States Coast Guard National Operations Computer Center to Martinsburg was to take place at his request. Byrd appealed to U.S. Naval Secretary James Webb, asking him to consider that the previous ship named after West Virginia saw action at Pearl Harbor and Tokyo Bay during World War II. That ship was decommissioned in 1959, and to Byrd, the patriotism of West Virginians warranted the naming of a new one.