Byrd to Make History as Longest-Serving Member of Congress

Sen. Robert Byrd will make history Wednesday by becoming the longest-serving member of Congress in history.

The milestone will come just two days shy of the West Virginia Democrat's 92nd birthday.

Byrd, who has served in the Senate since 1959, will surpass former Sen. Carl Haden, D-Ariz, who served from 1912 to 1969.

During his tenure in the Senate, Byrd has held a number of leadership roles, including conference secretary, majority whip and majority leader twice. Byrd, who has never lost an election, has cast more than 18,580 roll call votes, more than any other senator in history, with a 97.9 percent attendance record, according to his Web site.

But Byrd, now wheelchair-bound, has been in frail health this year, one in which he has been mostly absent from the Senate.

In September he was hospitalized for a potential infection, which doctors noticed after the senator went in for an examination following a fall at his home. He was also hospitalized in May and June with serious infections. But he returned to the Senate in July to vote, and in early September he paid tribute to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, who died in August.