Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.)

As the president pro tempore or most senior member of the Senate, Byrd was a master of arcane Senate procedure, who was known for his lofty speeches on the Senate floor and was third in line to the presidency, behind Vice President Joseph R. Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Byrd's journey as a Democrat is almost as long and storied: he was a former member of the Ku Klux Klan who in 2008 endorsed Barack Obama for president.

Byrd was known for being exceedingly courteous to other senators, but a thorn in the sides of Republican and Democratic presidential administrations alike. He has a legendary know allegiance to Senate rules and proudly channeled money back home to West Virginian interests. He carried a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his pocket and consistently championed Congressional prerogatives.

In the 1990s, he filed suit against President Bill Clinton's use of the line-item veto, arguing that it weakened congressional prerogatives. "I will stand back here and let my bones crumble under me, until I no longer have any breath in me [than let this pass]," he told his colleagues during the fight. The Supreme Court later declared the line-item veto unconstitutional.

In His Own Words

“All of a sudden the president [George W. Bush] was dropping in the polls, and the domestic situation was such that the administration was appearing to be much like the emperor who had no clothes,” Byrd said on the Senate floor in 2002. “All of a sudden, bam! All of this war talk—the war fervor, the drums of war, the bugles of war, the clouds of war, this war hysteria—has blown in like a hurricane. And what has that done to the president’s polls? Seventy percent.”

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