Oldest Senator Hospitalized

W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 2, 2001 -- Ailing Sen. Strom Thurmond has been hospitalized after slumping over on the Senate floor today following a vote.

Reporters and other observers were cleared from the area as fellow senators tended to Thurmond and medics headed to the scene. But the 98-year-old Republican, the nation's oldest and longest-serving senator, eventually smiled and waved to friends as he was taken out of the Senate in a wheel chair and put in an ambulance.

Senate Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi told reporters Thurmond merely had been feeling faint and slumped over. His pulse remained good, Lott said, as Thurmond rested in the Senate cloakroom, just off the chamber floor, before being taken to a hospital.

Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist, a doctor, ran out of a meeting across the hall and onto the Senate floor to treat Thurmond after hearing the news.

A congressional staffer said that amid the response Thurmond asked, "Are they making all this fuss over me?"

Thurmond, first elected in 1954, has been the subject of widespread health concern and has been hospitalized after suffering fainting spells in the past. Thurmond moves around the Capitol with the help of aides and has trimmed back his schedule in recent years.

He is not seeking re-election in 2002, but had pressed for the appointment of his estranged wife Nancy to take over the Senate seat if he is unable to serve out the rest of his term.

Balance of Power

Under South Carolina law, Democratic Gov. Jim Hodges would appoint a replacement — presumably, a Democrat — to serve out the remainder of Thurmond's term, which ends in January 2003.

Now that Democrats control the Senate, the prospect of replacing Thurmond is no longer quite the politically high-stakes situation it was back before Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the GOP. Democrats currently hold a 50-49-1 advantage in the Senate; a Hodges-picked Democratic replacement for Thurmond would change that to 51-48-1.

Thurmond had planned to retire at the end of his term, anyway, and both parties have certain nominees to replace him: Republicans have Rep. Lindsey Graham, and Democrats are fielding former College of Charleston president Alex Sanders. Because of the state's conservative tilt, Graham has been given the edge.

The consensus among close observers and those involved in the process has long been that Hodges, if faced with the prospect for replacing Thurmond, would appoint a "caretaker" who would agree not to run for a full term in 2002. Among those names mentioned: former Rep. Butler Derrick and Rep. Jim Clyburn.

Beyond that, Hodges' selection could turn on what kind of political capital Hodges himself hopes to gain from the situation. Hodges also is up for re-election in 2002. Giving Clyburn the chance to become the first African-American senator from South Carolina, for example, would give Hodges a boost among the state's African-American community.

Thurmond will turn 99 on Dec. 5.

Elizabeth Wilner contributed to this report.