Senators complain Byrd too old to chair key panel

by Frank James

Yesterday, it was the bird in the Senate Radio/TV Gallery people were trying to get rid of. Today, it appears there's another Byrd in the Senate some wish would just go away.

Politico.com's John Bresnahan is reporting that some Democratic senators want Sen. Robert Byrd removed as chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee because, at age 90, he no longer is up to managing the panel effectively which includes counterpunching the White House on spending priorities.

According to the Politico.com story:

A group of Senate Democrats has begun quietly exploring ways to replace the venerable Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) as chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, believing he’s no longer physically up to the job, according to Democratic senators and leadership aides familiar with the discussions.

Under one scenario being circulated in Democratic circles, the 90-year-old Byrd would be named “chairman emeritus,” and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) would become “acting chairwoman” for the remainder of the 110th Congress.

Democratic insiders caution, though, that no decision has been made.

But there is broad discontent among committee members over the way Byrd has run the panel this year and the resulting problems in completing work on the fiscal 2008 spending bills, leading some members to privately push for Byrd’s replacement as chairman.

His physical condition has been slowly deteriorating for years, and he cannot walk now without the assistance of aides.

Byrd has difficultly running committee hearings, and he relies heavily on staffers for guidance.

Still, he can deliver one of his legendary floor speeches on the sanctity of the Constitution and the importance of Congress in the operation of the U.S. government, even if he often repeats himself over and again.

This story is something like a cry for help from those Senate Democrats who would never come out publicly and say Byrd needs to be ousted from his chairmanship because he is harming Democratic efforts to present a strong front against the White House and congressional Republicans in present and future budget negotiations.

Stories like this usually represent an effort to make the public aware of a problem in the hope that it will place pressure on decision makers, in this case the Senate leadership, to do something.

As the article notes, Byrd is a storied figure in the Senate who can lace his Senate speeches with references to ancient Romans. Because of his eloquent and fiery speeches against an Iraq invasion in the runup to the war, he became the tribune of the antiwar movement.

But the situation now confronting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid shows the disadvantages of the Democrats' approach to chairmanships. Senate Democrats still rely on seniority, which means you can wind up with a 90-year-old who by several accounts is unable to discharge his duties, in a committee's top post.

Since chairmanships are essentially management jobs, the argument could, and will be made by many, that committee chairmanships should go to the lawmakers most capable of running the panels effectively so they accomplish the most for citizens and taxpayers, not merely to the senator who has hung on the longest.