Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has died at the age of 82 on Reuters

By the hand of Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Harry Reid, the son of a hard-working Nevada hard rock miner and a hard-working partisan fighter in Washington, D.C., died on Tuesday as the leader of the U.S. Senate. . He was 82 years old.

Reid, a former boxer who replaced Nevada as a Democrat in the U.S. Congress for more than three decades, died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, Landra’s 62-year-old wife said in a statement.

“I have had the honor of serving with some of the most senior Senate leaders in our history. Harry Reid was one of them. And for Harry, it was not about power for the sake of power. It was about power. To do good to the people,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a letter.

As the majority leader, Reid Barack Obama served as Presidential Representative in the Senate and in 2010 helped secure the passage of Obama’s health care bill, known as Obamacare, in the wake of fierce Republican opposition.

Obama recently wrote a letter to Reid on social media on Tuesday:

“You were a great Senate leader, and you were more generous with me than I initially expected,” Obama said in the letter. “I wouldn’t have been president if it weren’t for your encouragement and support, and I wouldn’t have achieved most of what I have achieved without your skills and determination.”

Reid retired in 2016 after a year of breaking his ribs and facial bones and exercising at home after injuring one eye in an accident.

He came to power as the majority leader in 2007, despite being moderate, differing from many in his party on abortion, the environment and gun control. In this job, Reid regularly clashed with Republicans and maintained bad relations with opposition party leaders.

“I always prefer dancing to wrestling, but I know how to fight,” Reid said in 2004, referring to his boxing career.

In 2012, Mitch McConnell, then the Senate’s top Republican, called Reid “the worst leader ever in the Senate.”

At the time of Reid’s majority leadership, major legislation languished because Democrats and Republicans could not compromise. His relationship with McConnell was so close that the Republican leader sidelined Reid in talks on U.S. fiscal policy and spoke directly with Vice President Joe Biden.

“The nature of Harry and my work has often and sometimes brought us into conflict over politics and politics. But I never doubted that Harry always did what he felt was serious and profound for Nevada and our country. It will go right. as a key and key person in history, ”McConnell said in a written statement.

In 2013, disgusted with the Republican movement blocking Obama’s judicial and executive powers, Reid pushed for a historic change in the Senate in the Senate filibuster rules, with a minority party preventing the blockade of presidential nominations except the Supreme Court.

Republicans said the move was pure power.

Reid was first elected to the House in 1982 and in 1986 was elected to the Senate by Nevada voters. He showed remarkable resilience, once again facing the challenges of the election.

ORIGINS OF CHILDREN

The touch wasn’t Reid’s strong. He called Republican President George W. Bush a “loser” and a “liar,” and said Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said he was “one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington.”

In 2010, he apologized to Obama, the first black president of the United States, for referring to “light skin” in private conversations two years earlier as “without a black dialect,” “I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words.”

Reid became a Mormon at a young age and eventually became a senior member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in U.S. public office.

In the 2012 presidential race, Reid became a Democrat attacking dog, accusing Republican opponent Mitt Romney of failing to pay federal income for 10 years. Romney stressed that he has paid “all the taxes required by law.”

Harry Mason Reid was born on December 2, 1939, in a small mining town in the Searchlight Desert, Nevada, into a poor family. His father was a hard rock miner who was in his eighth grade, and he committed suicide in 1972.

Her mother, who had not finished high school, took care of her laundry to prostitute her clothes. The family lived in a small cabin with no indoor plumbing, hot water, or telephone.

“I studied in America. It doesn’t matter what your parents’ education is, what religion they are or not, their social status – we didn’t have that – their skin color or their economic status. I’m an example of that. If I do, anyone can do it,” he said. Reidek in 2007.

Reid went to a two-room school until the eighth grade, and then hiked 40 miles (64 km) a week for high school, joining local families before heading home every weekend.

He graduated from Utah State University in 1961 and then worked at night as a police officer at the U.S. Capitol while attending law school at George Washington University in Washington. He graduated with a law degree in 1964 and returned to Nevada.

Reid was a trial lawyer and held various Nevada state charges. He served on the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1977 to 1981.

In the Senate, Reid passed an ethical measure banning senators from accepting lobbyist gifts, meals, or travel in 2007.

He voted in favor of resolving the Iraq war in 1991 and 2002. While Reid remained a supporter of the first Iraq war, he turned his back on and opposed the second, accusing the Bush administration of misleading the nation.

Reid and his wife, Landra, had five children.