He won his Senate seat from Delaware in 1972.
Take out the four years between VP to POTUS and that's 47 years.
51 if you count those "out of office" years which you probably could since he was still ingrained in the beltway during that time.
Either way, it's too damn many.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people