40 years in the Senate

After Bob Munson and Stanley Danta meet Seab Cooley outside the Senate (and fail to persuade him to lay off Leffingwell), Danta turns to Munson and, indicating Cooley going up the stairs, says, "Scares ya, doesn't it? All that, forty years in the Senate?"

The irony is that at the time the movie was released in 1962, no senator in American history had ever served for forty years. But in the coming six-year-term cycle that would begin with the elections of 1962, all seven of the men who would ultimately serve over 40 years would serve simultaneously -- six of them throughout the full constitutional term (Jan. 3, 1963 - Jan. 3, 1969), the seventh just getting in under the wire before that term's expiration date.

They were (in order of election):

(1) Carl T. Hayden (Arizona Democrat). March 4, 1927 - Jan. 3, 1969: 41 years, 306 days.

(2) John C. Stennis (Mississippi Democrat). Nov. 17, 1947 - Jan. 3, 1989: 41 years, 47 days.

(3) Strom Thurmond (South Carolina Democrat, later Republican). Dec. 24, 1954 - April 4, 1956 and Nov. 7, 1956 - Jan. 3, 2003: 47 years, 158 days.

(4) Robert C. Byrd (West Virginia Democrat). Jan. 3, 1959 - June 28, 2010: 51 years, 176 days.

(5) Edward M. Kennedy (Massachusetts Democrat). Nov. 7, 1962 - Aug. 25, 2009: 46 years, 291 days.

(6) Daniel K. Inouye (Hawaii Democrat). Jan. 3, 1963 - Dec. 17, 2012: 49 years, 349 days.

(7) Ted Stevens (Alaska Republican). Dec. 24, 1968 - Jan. 3, 2009: 40 years, 10 days.

It's interesting that none of these men served an exact number of years in the Senate; each one served a shortened or partial term. Some trivia notes on each regarding their longevity in the Senate:

(1) Hayden is the only one of the seven whose service ran for an exact number of terms (seven). But when Hayden was first elected in 1926 the inaugural date for members of Congress (and the President and VP) was March 4. The 20th Amendment changed this to Jan. 3 for Senate and House members beginning in 1935, so while Hayden served exactly seven terms, the shift in inaugural dates cost him two months off a full 42 years' service. Hayden's erstwhile Arizona Senate colleague, Henry F. Ashurst, who served in the Senate from 1912-1941, appeared as the dozing Senator McCafferty in Advise & Consent.

(2) Stennis was elected in a special election on Nov. 4, 1947, to fill the remaining five years of the term of the late Theodore Bilbo. He subsequently won six full terms beginning in 1952. Charles Laughton spent several weeks in Stennis's office, gaining first-hand knowledge of both southern speech patterns and Senate operations for his role as Seab Cooley.

(3) Thurmond is unique in American history. Contrary to the myth that he was always a popular figure in South Carolina, Thurmond's political career was at a dead end when fate allowed him to get to the Senate. After running as the racist States' Rights party candidate for President in 1948, Thurmond finished out his term as Governor and, term-limited in 1950, ran unsuccessfully against Sen. Olin D. Johnston in the Democratic primary that year (something few remember). His career was going nowhere when in September 1954 Sen. Burnet Maybank, who was running unopposed for reelection, died suddenly. Under state law the Democratic State Committee chose a nominee to replace Maybank, which in the one-party state of the time normally meant that that nominee, Edgar Brown, would be elected to the six-year Senate term. Thurmond denounced this and ran as a write-in candidate, pledging to resign his seat in 1956 and seek reelection to it in a special election in which he would appear on the ballot. Because the state's Governor, James F. Byrnes, mistakenly believed Brown had thwarted Byrnes's candidacy for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination in 1944 -- which would have made Byrnes President when FDR died in 1945 -- he refused to appoint Brown to the vacancy or support him in the election, all of which helped Thurmond. Despite the inherent difficulties of a write-in candidacy, he won overwhelmingly, the first person in U.S. history to be elected to the Senate as a write-in. (The second would be incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski in Alaska in 2010.) Thurmond honored his pledge to resign in 1956 and seek election to the remainder of the term through the standard process, and later won seven full terms beginning in 1960. He's also the lone party-switcher in the group, changing parties on Sept. 16, 1964 to support Barry Goldwater's candidacy. He is of course the only person in American history to serve in Congress past the age of 100, though just barely: he turned 100 on Dec. 5, 2002, less than a month before leaving office. Thurmond is the only one of these seven senators whose term of service was interrupted (by his resignation); he served an initial length of 1 year, 101 days, followed by an uninterrupted 46 years, 57 days. By party divide, Thurmond served a total of 9 years, 47 1/2 days as a Democrat and 38 years, 108 1/2 days as a Republican (counting Sept. 16, 1964 as a "split" day) -- which means Thurmond is actually the second-longest serving Republican senator, after Ted Stevens.

(4) Byrd is the only senator in American history to exceed not just 40 but 50 years in the Senate.

(5) Kennedy is tied with Thurmond, Byrd and Inouye for the greatest number of victories for U.S. Senator, with 9 apiece. However, one each of the nine wins by Kennedy and Thurmond were in special elections (Thurmond in 1956, Kennedy in 1962), while Byrd and Inouye were elected to nine full six-year terms. However, counting his 1950 primary loss, Thurmond ran in more Senate contests than the six other 40-year senators, with ten senate races.

(6) Inouye fell just short of matching Byrd's feat of reaching 50 years in the Senate. He died in office only 17 days before he would have hit the 50-year mark, leaving Byrd the sole senator to achieve that landmark distinction.

(7) Stevens is the only one of these seven senators who did not serve throughout the entire Jan. 3, 1963 - Jan. 3, 1969 term. He just managed to slip into the final 10 days of that cycle, which became thereby the only period during which all seven 40-year-plus senators in American history served concurrently. He is also the one who came closest to not attaining 40 years (he served just 11 days more) and is of course therefore the 40-year-plus senator with the shortest term of service. Stevens is the only one of the seven to have been appointed, rather than elected, to his seat (following the death of Democrat E.L. Bob Bartlett), and the only one whose tenure ended in defeat rather than by death or retirement. He is one of only two of the seven, along with Thurmond, who was defeated in a bid for the Senate; but while Thurmond lost just once (the 1950 Democratic primary, before his eventual service), Stevens's tenure was bookended by losses: he lost his first bid for the Senate in 1962, when he was defeated by incumbent Democrat Ernest Gruening, and in 2008, when he lost his reelection bid to Democrat Mark Begich. Counting his two lost races, Stevens ran for the Senate nine times: two defeats, one special election in 1970, and six regular election victories from 1972 through 2002.

Just some historical trivia showing how life bettered art.

EDIT & UPDATE (August 19, 2015): I got so carried away with the past that I completely forgot that there is now an eighth U.S. Senator who has passed the 40-year mark. He's the first to do so since that six-year term from 1963-1969 that saw the first seven serving simultaneously, and probably won't be the last.

Anyway, he is:

(8) Patrick J. Leahy (Vermont Democrat). Jan. 3, 1975 - present.

Leahy, elected in 1974, hit the 40-year mark this year, on Jan. 3, 2015. As of the date of this edit (Aug. 19, 2015), he has so far served in the Senate 40 years, 228 days, so he has already easily surpassed the service of Ted Stevens and is on his way to besting John C. Stennis and Carl T. Hayden, though that won't occur until late in 2016. Leahy's seat is up in '16 and while he's made no announcement the thinking is he'll run for an eighth term. But even if he retires and stays in office until the end of his present term on Jan. 3, 2017, he'll have served 42 years exactly and risen to fifth-longest serving Senator in history. We'll see what the future holds.

Speaking of which, the next possibility of a Senator to reach the 40-year mark is Orrin Hatch, Utah Republican, who was first elected in 1976. He'll make 40 if he's still in office on Jan. 3, 2017. Hatch's present term ends on Jan. 3, 2019, and he's expected to retire at that time; again, assuming he lives and does retire then, he'll have served exactly 42 years. But all that is still several years away.

We'll keep this updated as necessary.

EDIT & UPDATE (February 4, 2017): As promised, an update on the above information...and since IMDb is disabling the message boards in two weeks, this will surely stand as our final edit and update. But, the record must be served.

First, Senator Patrick Leahy was reelected in 2016 and began his eighth term in the Senate on January 3, 2017. As of this date, he has served 42 years and 32 days in the Senate, and counting. His term ends January 3, 2023; if he serves it in full he'll have been in the Senate for 48 years at its close (and will be 82 years old, young for almost half a century in office). That last fact might just allow him to run again and be reelected in 2022 for the term ending January 3, 2029; he would be 87 at the close of that term and, at 54 years in office, would have long since eclipsed Robert Byrd's record of Senate service (and become only the second senator to reach 50 years in the chamber). Might this occur? Unfortunately we'll never be able to note in this space what happens to him, but we've set the stage for future research!

Second, we now have another senator who's served 40 years:

(9) Orrin G. Hatch (Utah Republican). Jan. 3, 1977 - present.

Hatch did indeed make the 40-year mark on January 3, 2017, becoming the ninth senator in American history to do so; as of this date, he's served 40 years, 32 days. As previously noted, his seventh term ends on January 3, 2019, and Hatch had said he was going to retire in 2018, when he will be 84 and have served exactly 42 years. Last I heard, he was wavering on that promise and may run again. But he's already crossed the rarely-attained 40-year threshold of Senate service. As for what might happen in the future, here too, you'll have to look elsewhere once these boards are shut down.

So, that's it. Barring some unexpected development in the next two weeks, this is where this bit of historical trivia stands as of our leaving this post on Saturday, February 4, 2017. Thanks for reading!