I think the more interesting example is that of Jesse Helms. He was effectively ostracised by the Senate, and as far as I know in the course of his entire Senate career he introduced no major legislation benefitting his own state of North Carolina. He wielded enormous power, but that was a personal political power which conferred almost no benefit to his constituents.
In fact, it may have conferred a negative benefit to his constituents. North Carolina ranks near the bottom on federal spending per resident.
I think a good argument can be made that Jesse Helms has been a demonstrable liability to his state for the past thirty years. So what in the hell kept him in office?
Come to think of it, I don’t even want to speculate on that.
Weirdly enough, I asked an almost identical question two years ago yesterday. Given that conjunction, I must have been inspired by the 98th birthday party.
You wanted to know how he was in the senate at 98? Why he was just a young man at the time! A spring in his step and a smile on his face ready to take on the world. You don’t want the youth in the senate? Next thing you’ll be calling for term limits.
Strom Thurmond, over 40 years in the Senate, has never sponsored or lead a single bill of any importance. Nothing. All Strom does is sit there and attach a few pork barrel riders to legislation.
Like him or now, Ted Kennedy has sponsored major legislation throughout his career, most recently the education bill signed and supported by Bush.
I happen to own a 1923 Los Angeles High School Semi-Annual (like a yearbook, except in those days they used to graduate a class every semester, hence Semi-annual). I get a big kick out of looking at it; it seems like high school was taken a lot more seriously in 1923.
Most of these kids were presumably born around 1905.
