Former Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid, who led an epic legislative battle for three decades in Congress, has died at the age of 82, according to a statement from his wife Landra Reid.
She said in a statement Tuesday, "I am heartbroken to announce the passing of my husband, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Surrounded by our family, he passed away this afternoon after a daring four-year battle with pancreatic cancer. Died peacefully."
Reid rose from humble beginnings in Nevada's searchlight to become the most powerful politician in Nevada history, closing his political career as Democratic leader in the Senate, including eight years in the majority.
President Joe Biden, who served with Reid in the Senate, called him one of the "greatest Senate majority leaders of all time in our history" in a statement Tuesday.
"He was my leader, my advisor, one of my dearest friends," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in a statement Tuesday evening. "He's gone, but he'll be running with many of us in the Senate every single day."
Former President Barack Obama released a letter he wrote to Reid before his death in exchange for a statement. Obama wrote, "I wouldn't be president if it weren't for your encouragement and support, and I wouldn't have got what I've done without your skill and determination."
Reid underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2018 and less than a year later said he was in remission. At the time, he told CNN's Dana Bash that he felt "great" and that he was "doing fine." But Reid responded to his cancer diagnosis in 2019 with his usual bluntness, telling The New York Times: "As soon as you find out you have something on your pancreas, you're dead."
From modest beginnings to the US Senate
The beginning of Reid's life did not indicate his political future. Born in 1939 to a modest home with no running water, her mother once earned money by doing laundry for local brothels, she wrote in her memoir, "The Good Fight", while her father worked as a hard-rock miner. Used to do He attended high school in Henderson, Nevada, often hiking the 45-mile route.
A boxer in his youth, Reid attended Utah State University before later moving to Washington, D.C., and worked his way through law school at George Washington University by working as an officer for the United States Capitol Police.
"I think the only former Capitol policeman here who I am is a senator," Reid said in 2011. "I have such a great respect for his work."
After law school, Reid returned to Nevada and served as lieutenant governor from 1971 to 1975, the youngest person ever elected to that role in the state. After losing re-election, Reid served as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, a powerful position that oversees and regulates the state's casino industry. Job made Reid and his family mob targets: After he left that position, his wife found a bomb in the family car, Reid wrote in his memoir.
Reid's political career took off with Nevada. When the state went from one congressional district to two after the 1980 census, Reid ran for a newly created congressional district around Las Vegas in 1982 and won the general election. He was re-elected in 1984. He then successfully ran for the open Senate seat of Nevada in 1986.
He rose through the leadership ranks, serving as the Chamber's Democratic whip from 1999 to 2005. From 2005 through his retirement in 2017, he served as the leader of his party in the Senate, both minority and majority Democrats at the time.
Playing politics
As Chamber's Democratic leader, Reid was a polarizing figure. Republicans argued that much of Congress's impasse stemmed from his hard-ball tactics, but Reid often takes pleasure in playing the political bad guy—even as President George W. Bush a "loser" and a "liar". (Later, when Donald Trump was in the White House, Reid told CNN's Bash that he wished Bush "every day.")
Reid is often blamed for deepening an era of political polarization with jittery rhetoric about Republicans and his use of controversial Senate procedures worrying conservatives that the consensus that once made the chamber special will last forever. had disappeared.
He adopted the same tactic in electoral politics as well. During Obama's reelection bid in 2012, Reid accused Republican nominee Mitt Romney of not paying his taxes, without evidence. When asked by CNN in 2015 if he regretted the attack, Reid said, "I don't regret it at all."
"Romney didn't win, did he?" Reid asked rhetorically.
As much as he annoyed Republicans, he was often cheered by Democrats for being the last line of defense for Bush and other Republicans. He was a staunch defender of social programs and, reflecting the large Latino community's desire to return home, a proponent of immigration reform.
Reid turned the centerpiece of Obama's liberal political legacy into legislation, and he said one of his proudest achievements was encouraging then-Sen. Obama will run for president
"I called him into his office and told him he should take a look at it. And he was stunned because I was the first one to suggest it," Reid told CNN in 2015.
"When he was re-elected, (that) was one of the most moving phone calls I've ever received because he said, you know, 'You're the reason I'm here,'" Reid recalled.
In his letter released Tuesday evening, Obama reiterated the sentiment he sent to Reid. Obama wrote, "That's what I want you to know. You were a great leader in the Senate, and you were more generous than I initially expected."
"As different as we are, I think we both saw something of ourselves in each other — some outsider who defied the odds and knew how to take a punch and care for a little boy. And You know what we've made a very good team," he said.
Former President Bill Clinton also praised Reid, remembering him as "one of the most effective Senate leaders our nation has ever known".
"We probably won't see another public servant like him—the personality, the command of strategy and tactics, and the assurance of walking to the beat of his own drum," Clinton said in a statement.
In the darkest hours of the Great Recession, Reid propelled a nearly $800 billion economic stimulus plan through the Senate, despite tumultuous lines with most Republicans who said it was too expensive and had too much debt.
Later, he piloted the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare, using a controversial budget maneuver known as a controversial budget maneuver to bypass the Republican filibuster, and he told the GOP about it. I was told to "stop crying".
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "Senator Harry Reid was a leader of immense courage and ruthless conviction who worked tirelessly to achieve historic progress for the American people." Capital. "In more than four decades of public service, Senator Reid was always guided by his North Star: to improve the lives of working families like his own," he added in a statement reflecting on his death.
In modern-day Washington, the former senator's influence is perhaps most present in a 2013 change in Senate rules to prevent filibusters of most executive branch nominations.
He told CNN last year that he did not "absolutely" regret changing the rules at the time, adding: "I have no regrets. It was the right thing to do. And by the way, this isn't the first time the rules have been changed." They have been replaced many times. It was time to do it again."
The widespread use of filibuster has increased in recent years in an increasingly polarized Congress. This change prompted Reid to write an opinion piece in the New York Times in 2019, calling for an end to filibuster altogether.
“During the two decades we served together in the United States Senate, and for the eight years we worked together when I served as Vice President, Harry met the marker I have always believed to be the most important The thing by which you can measure a person—their action and their words," Biden said in his Tuesday statement.
"If Harry said he would do something, he did. If he gave you his word, you can trust him. That's how he worked for the good of the country for decades," the president said.
Despite his blunt political style, Reid garnered fierce respect from many of his longtime colleagues as well as fellow lawmakers – even from across the aisle.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was often at odds with Reid during her long career, remembered her as a "one-of-a-kind" senator, saying their relationship had transcended political feuds.
The Kentucky Republican said, "Harry and the nature of my jobs brought us into a constant and sometimes intense conflict over politics and policy. But I never doubted that Harry was always doing what he did honestly, deeply." Was right for Nevada and our country." "He will rightfully go down in history as an important, important figure in the development and history of his beloved home state."
Reid told CNN earlier this year that he has "great respect" for John Boehner, a former Republican House speaker from Ohio, with whom he reacted to excerpts from Boehner's memoir and the Republican Party's recent " Tribal". " turn.
"The deal is this. John Boehner and I did a lot, but we didn't mince words," he said.
Love and legacy
Despite Reid's reputation as a tough bargainer, he had no hesitation in sparring with his detractors, he was also known as a romantic and the most influential person in his life was his wife, Landra. The two met in high school when Reid was 15 years old. His father was so opposed to the two dating that Reid and her future father-in-law had a fight early in the courtship.
Reid, who was raised agnostic, told Bash in 2015 that his protest was that he wanted his daughter to marry a Jew. They fled during college in 1959, converting to Mormonism a year later. His parents finally came to him.
"I am blessed to have this 5-foot-tall woman with me for so many years," Reid said.
The former Senate majority leader credits one thing for his political success over the years: hard work.
"I didn't make it in life because of my athletic prowess. I didn't make it because of my good looks. I didn't make it because I'm a genius," he said in his farewell speech in the Senate. floor in 2016. "I made it because I worked hard."
Reid's most enduring legacy is likely to be felt in Nevada, where the senator not only rebuilt the western state, but turned it into a Democratic stronghold that last supported a Republican president in 2004.
"The little boy from Searchlight is able to be a part of the changing state of Nevada," he said in his farewell address in 2016.
Reid was instrumental in pushing Democrats to make Nevada one of the first nominating contests in the country, a move that focused Democratic attention on Nevada and was a catalyst for a shift to its left. He often pushed Democrats to make Nevada even more important, urging the party to move the state ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states in the nomination process, due to the state's diversity.
He also used his power to elevate the careers of young politicians like Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who was recruited by the former Senate majority leader to run for his seat when he retired in 2016.
"Harry Reid was a champion for Nevada, helping to preserve our precious environmental treasures, strengthen our rural communities, and build our great cities," Cortez Masto recalled in a statement Tuesday. "The American people are better off because of the leadership of Senator Harry Reid."
In recognition of Reid's impact on Nevada, the Clark County Board of Commissioners earlier this year voted in favor of renaming McCarran International Airport to Harry Reid International Airport.
Reid reflected on her life — and the role she played in transforming Nevada — when she received a lifetime achievement award from the Nevada Democratic Party in 2019.
"It's a long way from searchlight to Washington," he said. "But I didn't get there alone. I got there because of you, Nevadan."