Harry Reid, the pugnacious son of a Nevada hard-rock miner who rose from poverty to become the U.S. Senate majority leader and earned a reputation as a fierce partisan fighter during an era of political gridlock in Washington, is dead.
Reid, 82, died on Tuesday after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, his wife of 62 years, Landra, said in a statement.
The deceased, a former amateur boxer who represented Nevada in the U.S. Congress as a Democrat for more than three decades,
“I’ve had the honor of serving with some of the all-time great Senate Majority Leaders in our history. Harry Reid was one of them.
“And for Harry, it wasn’t about power for power’s sake.
“It was about the power to do right for the people,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a written statement.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said late on Tuesday that the country had lost an honorable public servant, adding that the Reid made a meaningful difference in people’s lives.
“Harry Reid rose through the ranks in Washington, becoming Senate Majority Leader, but he never forgot his humble beginnings in Searchlight, Nevada – and he always fought for working families and the poor,” Harris said in a separate written statement.
As majority leader, Reid served as President Barack Obama’s point man in the Senate and helped the secure congressional passage of Obama’s signature healthcare law, known as Obamacare, in 2010 over furious Republican opposition.
Obama on Tuesday posted to social media a recent letter he had written to Reid: “You were a great leader in the Senate, and early on you were more generous to me than I had any right to expect,” Obama said in the letter.
“I wouldn’t have been president had it not been for your encouragement and support, and I wouldn’t have got most of what I got done without your skill and determination.,” he added.
Reid retired in 2016, one year after suffering broken ribs and facial bones and injuring an eye in an accident while exercising at home.
He had ascended to the job of majority leader in 2007 despite being a political moderate who differed from many in his party on abortion, the environment, and gun control.
In that job, Reid regularly clashed with the Republicans and maintained poor relations with the opposition party’s leaders.
“I always would rather dance than fight but I know how to fight,” Reid said in 2004, in a reference to his boxing career.
