" But Thurmond - the Senate's oldest member in history - refused to leave. So Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) suggested a deal in which Biden would offer to skip his vote if Thurmond went home to rest - so the two senators would, in effect, cancel out each other's ballot. The GOP-stoked rumor mill spun the move as a Democratic conspiracy at the expense of the feeble Thurmond - with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.