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SEN. BYRD: “The United States Senate, the greatest deliberative body in the whole world.”

He called the U.S. Senate a temple, where Sen. Robert Byrd was its longest-serving member when he died peacefully at age 92 in a Fairfax, Virginia hospital.

Friends and colleagues are calling his death a profound loss for his state of West Virginia and the country as a whole.

A political analyst tells Chicago’s WFLD no one knew the Constitution better than Sen. Byrd, and that his death marks a big shift for the Senate.

“He carried the Constitution with him every day of his life when he was in the United States Senate. ... He was always the individual that brought the Senate back to the Constitution: ‘This is where we are, this is where the Constitution is.’ And he really kind of grounded the Senate. With Ted Kennedy having died a year ago, and now Bob Byrd. There’s a real generational shift going on...”

And if there was one thing the late senator was good at, it was bringing home the bacon to West Virginia. CBS News points out he was so influential, he even secured a Coast Guard facility in his landlocked home state.

“His critics called him the king of pork. He called that hogwash. ... Byrd said he owed his success to the long-suffering people of West Virginia, and he returned the favor by sending billions of dollars of federal projects to the state, dozens of them named for him.”

And he wasn’t without controversy. Many media outlets are pointing out Byrd’s early membership in the Ku Klux Klan and his opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

But West Virginia Public Broadcasting spoke with a local civil rights activist who says the senator had later redeemed himself.

REPORTER: “Tolbert says Byrds' willingness to apologize and respond to complaints worked in his favor.”

ACTIVIST: “I think what Sen. Byrd would do if he is wrong he'll tell you he’s wrong. And black people appreciate that.”

As for Byrd’s successor, Fox Business points out that’s the crucial question moving forward, since his death complicates Democratic support for financial regulatory reform.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum tells the network it’s even possible West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin will appoint himself.

“There’s some real question as to whether whoever serves the interim term just serves to this Fall or whether they serve the remainder of the term. And if it’s the remainder of the term and that’s what the lawyers decide, there’s a good chance Joe may appoint himself. And if he does, you will have a conservative pro-business Democrat in that ranks.”