This Week in US History: Democrats Make Klansman Third-in-Line for the President

This week in US history: Democrats make Klansman the third-in-line for president.

On January 5, 1993, the start of the 103rd Congress, the Slavery Party-better known as the Democrats, re-elected Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia senator with a past affiliation to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), as President pro tempore, placing him third in the presidential line of succession after the Vice President and Speaker of the House.

He had already been serving in this role since 1989. Byrd was elected President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate four times, serving non-consecutive terms starting in 1989, 2001, and 2007, holding the position until his death in 2010.

At Byrd’s memorial service in 2010, following his death, then-Vice President Joe Biden delivered a eulogy alongside President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton. Biden described Byrd as a “tough, compassionate, and outspoken leader.”

Biden said, “Robert C. Byrd elevated the Senate.”

The Democratic Party’s historical ties to slavery, the Confederacy, and Jim Crow laws are well-documented, with Southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) leading resistance to civil rights until the 1960s realignment.

Republicans, founded as an anti-slavery party in 1854, championed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and provided crucial votes for the 1964 Civil Rights Act (80% Republican support vs. 63% Democratic).

Conservative narratives frame Byrd’s 2007 election as emblematic of lingering Democratic racism, contrasting it with GOP figures like Abraham Lincoln and Everett Dirksen.