Robert Carlyle Byrd (born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr.; November 20, 1917 – June 28, 2010) was an American politician and musician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia for over 51 years, from 1959 until his death in 2010.

Serving three different tenures as chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations enabled Byrd to steer a great deal of federal money toward projects in West Virginia.

[9] Critics derided his efforts as pork barrel spending,[10] while Byrd argued that the many federal projects he worked to bring to West Virginia represented progress for the people of his state.

[11] Although he filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and supported the Vietnam War earlier in his career, Byrd's views changed considerably over the course of his life; by the early 2000s, he had completely renounced racism and segregation.

[33][34] In December 1944, Byrd wrote to segregationist Mississippi Senator Theodore G. Bilbo: I shall never fight in the armed forces with a negro by my side ... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.In 1946, Byrd wrote a letter to Samuel Green, the Ku Klux Klan's Grand Wizard, stating, "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state in the nation".

[101] On March 29, 1968, Byrd criticized a Memphis, Tennessee, protest: "It was a shameful and totally uncalled for outburst of lawlessness undoubtedly encouraged to some considerable degree, at least, by his [Dr. King's] words and actions, and his presence.

[111] On March 11, 1982, Byrd voted against a measure sponsored by Senator Orrin Hatch that sought to reverse Roe v. Wade and allow Congress and individual states to adopt laws banning abortions.

Byrd maintained that the Senate was ill-equipped for girl pages and was among those that cited the long hours of work, the carrying of sometimes heavy documents and the high crime rate in the Capitol area as among the reasons against it.

[128] In a May 1972 luncheon speech, Byrd criticized American newspapers for "an increasing tendency toward shoddy technical production" and observed that there was "a greater schism between the Nixon Administration and the media, at least publicly, than at any previous time in our history".

Byrd responded to the position in a November speech the day before the election without mentioning McGovern by name in saying, "How could we keep faith with the thousands of Americans we sent to Vietnam by giving a mere tap on the wrist to those who fled to Canada and Sweden?"

Byrd said the welfare proposals were part of "pernicious doctrine that the Federal Government owes a living to people who don't want to work" and chastised individuals that had personal trips to Hanoi rather than official missions as "the Ramsey Clarks in our society who attempt to deal unilaterally with the enemy".

[132] In January 1973, the Senate passed legislation containing an amendment Byrd offered requiring President Nixon to give Congress an accounting of all funds that he had impounded and appropriated by February 5.

Byrd introduced a bill identical to the one vetoed by Nixon the following month, differing in not containing the information provision as well as a ban on appropriating or spending more money than the annual budget called for, the Senate approving the legislation on November 13.

[139] In November 1973, after the Senate rejected an amendment to the National Energy Emergency Act intending to direct President Nixon to put gasoline rationing into effect on January 15, Byrd indicated the final vote not coming for multiple days.

That month, Byrd delivered a speech on the Senate floor opposing Nixon's potential resignation, saying it would serve only to convince the President's supporters that his enemies had driven him out of office: "The question of guilt or innocence would never be fully resolved.

[156] In September, Byrd sponsored an amendment to the appropriations bill that if enacted would bar the education department from ordering busing to the school nearest to a pupil's home and sought to hold the Senate floor until there was an agreement among colleagues on his proposal.

The decision was seen as allowing wavering senators to not be cornered on their votes as lobbying efforts for both business and labor commenced and various opponents of the bill viewed Byrd's call as a sign of weakness toward the Carter administration.

[172] In June, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch Mark Green stated that President Carter had told him that Majority Leader Byrd had threatened that he would personally lead a filibuster against any attempt to extend controls on domestic oil prices.

[180] In July 1978, Byrd introduced and endorsed a proposal by George McGovern for an amendment to repeal the 42‐month‐old embargo on American military assistance for Turkey that also linked any future aid for that country to progress on a negotiated settlement of the Cyprus problem.

Byrd added that he did not disagree with the move by the Carter administration to admit Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for hospitalization and that the same action would extend to "Ayatollah Khomeini himself if he were needing medical treatment and had a terminal illness".

[193] In September, Byrd said that Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan had made comments on the Iran–Iraq War that were a disservice to the United States and that he was exercising "reckless political posturing" in foreign policy.

In April 2004, Byrd mentioned the possibility of the Bush administration violating law by its failure to inform leadership in Congress midway through 2002 about its use of emergency anti-terror dollars to begin preparations for an invasion of Iraq.

Byrd stated that he had never been told of a shift in money, a charge reported in the Bob Woodward book Plan of Attack, and its validation would mean "the administration failed to abide by the law to consult with and fully inform Congress".

[219] In March 1981, during a Capitol Hill interview, Byrd stated that the Reagan administration was promoting an economic package with assumptions for the national economy that might take a year for the public to see its difficulties and thereby lead to a political backlash.

[230] At the beginning of February 1983, House Democrats committed themselves "to an emergency economic assistance program that would create public service jobs, provide shelter and soup kitchens for the destitute and avert foreclosures of homes and farms".

Byrd admitted that calling for the death penalty seemed harsh, but cautioned that children in some cases had their entire lives destroyed through using drugs and that Congress had been soft for too long without seeing a change in results.

[237] In September 1988, in response to charges by Vice President Bush's presidential campaign that Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis was weak on defense, Byrd delivered a Senate speech in which he said that the Reagan administration "is living in a glass house when it throws a stone at the Democratic Party for its so-called Disneyland defense policies" and that the U.S. land-based missiles had grown in vulnerability due to the administration being "unable to produce an acceptable solution to make our missiles survivable".

[238] In October 1990, Byrd and James A. McClure served as floor managers for the appropriation bill for the National Endowment of the Arts, accepting an amendment by Jesse Helms prohibiting NEA support of work denigrating objects or beliefs of religions.

[268][269] The song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" was played at the end of the funeral in a bluegrass fashion as his casket was being carried back up the stairs and into the West Virginia State Capitol Building.

Adjoining the university's Ruth Scarborough Library, the CLS "advances representative democracy by promoting a better understanding of the United States Congress and the Constitution through programs and research that engage citizens".