 Senator Harry Flood Byrd, Sr. Running under the campaign slogan "get Norfolk out of the Byrd cage," Moss won his first election.In 1980, when Speaker John Warren Cooke retired, House majority leader A. L. Philpott succeeded him and Moss was chosen as majority leader.Philpott, whose endorsement of Douglas Wilder's 1985 campaign for lieutenant governor helped pave the way for his election as governor in 1989, died of cancer in September 1991, shortly after announcing his retirement.