WASHINGTON -- The Senate's most famous hearing room will be renamed in honor of the trio of Kennedy brothers who served in Congress' upper chamber. The gilded caucus room of the Russell Senate Office Building would become the "Kennedy Caucus Room" under a resolution approved by a voice vote on Monday after virtually no debate. Democrats had hoped to pass the resolution last week after a day of tributes to the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, whose son Patrick was on the Senate floor Monday when the measure was approved. "This was Teddy's wish and desire," Sen. Christopher Dodd, Kennedy's closest friend, said last week. Kennedy died of brain cancer last month after nearly a half-century in the Senate. He was 77. "I asked him, what could we do to recognize him? He said, "I'd like to have you recognize my brothers as well for their contribution,'" Dodd said. Kennedy's home-state colleague, Democrat John Kerry, also sponsored the resolution. "Every time we walk into the Caucus Room, we will pause to remember our dear friend Ted, whose optimism could overwhelm any doubter and whose joy for life was wonderfully contagious and completely irresistible, and find inspiration in the legend he left behind," Kerry said in a statement. John, Robert and Edward Kennedy are the only three brothers to have served in the Senate, Dodd said. The cavernous caucus room has been the site of some of the Senate's most significant public hearings, starting with the 1912 investigation into the sinking of the Titanic. Kennedy's brothers, John, then a senator from Massachusetts, and Robert, who represented New York, both announced their presidential campaigns in the room, eight years apart. The room also has hosted hearings into the Vietnam War, Watergate and Supreme Court nomination of Justice Clarence Thomas. When Kennedy became too ill to shepherd a bill to overhaul the nation's health care system, Dodd carried on that work _ in the caucus room. "Whatever history is made in the Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building in the next century, I'd like to believe it could be guided by that spirit of respect and good humor that Ted Kennedy brought to this institution for almost half a century," Dodd said.
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