They call the United States Senate the senate because it is the senior body (‘senex’ was a Roman elder). We note this on the birthday of the longest serving member of the United States Senate, West Virginia’s Robert Byrd. He turned 90 the other day, and we note this milestone not just because it’s a good
age and one we wish for all our readers but because without this gentleman, we would not have deregulated the airlines of the United States. Back in the late 1970s, when Congress was considering the economic deregulation of the commercial industry in this country, proponents of liberalisation ran into a block they could not overcome: conservative Democrats and rural and farm state legislators (who are often the same the folks). They feared that the carriers would abandon places like Bismarck, North Dakota, or Macon, Georgia, if they had the freedom to concentrate on places like Chicago and Atlanta.
At a crucial moment, Senator Byrd, 
a Democrat who first went to Capitol Hill in 1959, almost 18,000 Senate votes ago, formed a coalition of these senators, who then agreed to support deregulation if rural airline service got a guarantee. The plan, called EAS or Essential
Air Service, gives subsidies to make up the losses on flights from cities that were beyond driving distance from hubs. Even though EAS has been through the legislative wringer, with mileage-formula rewrites and funding cutbacks, it’s still in place. More importantly, deregulation is still in place, and for that, flights to places like Jackson, Tennessee; Cape Girardeau, Missouri; or Morgantown, Parkersburg, and Fairmount - all in the Senator’s Mountain State - may be a small price to pay.
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