Mark Dayton: “I join with my more senior colleagues in paying my respects and tribute to the great Senator from West Virginia, Mr.…”

“I join with my more senior colleagues in paying my respects and tribute to the great Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd. It is a mark of his greatness that he has had such a powerful effect on not only the most senior of his colleagues who have been here the longest, but also the more junior Members of the Senate, such as myself. When I arrived here in January 2001, just a little over 3 years ago, I was one of 12 freshman Senators from both sides of the aisle. We were given many words of encouragement from our colleagues, but basically left to find our own way or flounder along the way. It was Senator Byrd who took it upon himself to convene tutorials with the 12 of us. We convened promptly at 4 o'clock in his office, and he shared with us his perspective on the Senate. From the four volumes he has orated and published as the history of the U.S. Senate, as well as the volume he orated from his own direct knowledge and reading about the Roman Senate, there is no one who possesses more wisdom and a broader understanding of the historical role and the responsibility of this body and this great democracy and Republic. Those of us who had the benefit of those tutorials learned more from those sessions about how to conduct ourselves in the Chamber where he has served with such greatness than from anything else.”