Own Ill Health Doesn't Keep Byrd From Voting on Reform

His own battles with ill health haven’t kept Democrat Robert Byrd from making it to the Senate for key milestones on the long road to the health-care reform vote scheduled for tomorrow morning. The 92-year-old—wheelchair-bound and with a live-in nurse after a recent hospital stay—has only added to his legend in the process, colleagues tell the New York Times. “When he comes onto the floor and the members cheer and his face lights up, it just makes our day,” Sen. Charles Schumer says.

“We see someone who is a giant and who is not as well as we would like to see him,” adds Sen. Frank Lautenberg, at 85 the body’s second-oldest member. “It’s pretty tough, pretty tough. But Bob has a place here.” And Majority Leader Harry Reid, often needing every vote he can get, lets Byrd’s staff know well ahead of time when he’ll need the country’s longest-tenured senator ever on hand.
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