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u.s. news Diahuebs 30 December 2021

Former US Senate majority leader Harry Reid dies at 82

(AP) — Harry Reid, the former his abrupt style, typified by his habit work in the Senate, declaring, “I dropped a proposed ban on assault
U.S. Senate majority leader and of unceremoniously hanging up the could not have accomplished what I weapons from the Democrats’ gun
Nevada’s longest-serving mem- phone without saying goodbye. accomplished without him being at control legislation. The package, he
ber of Congress, has died. He was my side.” said, would not pass with the ban at-
82. “Even when I was president, he tached.
would hang up on me,” Obama said The most influential politician in
Reid died Tuesday, “peacefully” and in a 2019 tribute video to Reid. Nevada for more than a decade, Reid Reid hand-picked a Democratic can-
surrounded by friends at home in steered hundreds of millions of dol- didate who won the election to re-
suburban Henderson, “following Reid was frequently underestimated, lars to the state and was credited with place him in 2016, former Nevada
a courageous, four-year battle with most recently in the 2010 elections almost single-handedly blocking Attorney General Catherine Cortez
pancreatic cancer,” according to fam- when he looked like the underdog to construction of a nuclear waste stor- Masto, and built a political machine
ily members and a statement from tea party favorite Sharron Angle. Am- age facility at Yucca Mountain outside in the state that helped Democrats
Landra Reid, his wife of 62 years. bitious Democrats, assuming his de- Las Vegas. He often went out of his win a series of key elections in 2016
feat, began angling for his leadership way to defend social programs that and 2018.
“Harry was a devout family man and post. But Reid defeated Angle, 50% make easy political targets, calling So-
deeply loyal friend,” she said. “We to 45%, and returned to the pinnacle cial Security “one of the great govern- On his way out of office, Reid re-
greatly appreciate the outpouring of of his power. For Reid, it was legacy ment programs in history.″ peatedly lambasted President Don-
support from so many over these past time. ald Trump, calling him at one point
few years. We are especially grateful Reid championed suicide prevention, “a sociopath” and “a sexual predator
for the doctors and nurses that cared “I don’t have people saying ‘he’s the often telling the story of his father, a who lost the popular vote and fueled
for him. Please know that meant the greatest speaker,’ ‘he’s handsome,’ hard-rock miner who took his own his campaign with bigotry and hate.”
world to him,” Landra Reid said. ‘he’s a man about town,’” Reid told life. He stirred controversy in 2010
The New York Times in December when he said in a speech on the floor Reid, who brushed off verbal tussles
Funeral arrangements will be an- that year. “But I don’t really care. I of the Nevada legislature it was time with the seen-it-all calm of a politi-
nounced in coming days, she said. feel very comfortable with my place to end legal prostitution in the state. cal veteran, was known to tell his staff
in history.” they weren’t life-or-death situations.
Harry Mason Reid, a combative for- Reid’s political moderation meant
mer boxer-turned-lawyer, was widely Born in Searchlight, Nevada, to an he was never politically secure in his Reid, after all, had faced one of those
acknowledged as one of toughest alcoholic father who killed himself home state, or entirely trusted in the before he ever got to Washington.
dealmakers in Congress, a conser- at 58 and a mother who served as a increasingly polarized Senate. Demo- Then head of the Nevada Gaming
vative Democrat in an increasingly laundress in a bordello, Reid grew crats grumbled about his votes for a Commission investigating organized
polarized chamber who vexed law- up in a small cabin without indoor ban on so-called partial-birth abor- crime, Reid became the target of a car
makers of both parties with a brusque plumbing and swam with other chil- tion and the Iraq war resolution in bomb in 1980. Police called it an at-
manner and this motto: “I would dren at a pool at a local brothel. He 2002, something Reid later said it was tempted homicide. Reid blamed Jack
rather dance than fight, but I know hitchhiked to Basic High School in his biggest regret in Congress. Gordon, who went to prison for try-
how to fight.” Henderson, Nevada, 40 miles (64 ki- ing to bribe him in a sting operation
lometers) from home, where he met He voted against most gun control Reid participated in over illegal ef-
Over a 34-year career in Washing- the wife he would marry in 1959, bills and in 2013 after the Sandy forts to bring new games to casinos
ton, Reid thrived on behind-the- Landra Gould. At Utah State Univer- Hook Elementary School massacre, in 1978.
scenes wrangling and kept the Senate sity, the couple became members of
controlled by his party through two the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
presidents — Republican George W. day Saints.
Bush and Democrat Barack Obama
— a crippling recession and the Re- The future senator put himself
publican takeover of the House after through George Washington Univer-
the 2010 elections. sity law school by working nights as a
U.S. Capitol police officer.
“If Harry said he would do some-
thing, he did it,” President Joe Biden At age 28, Reid was elected to the
said in a statement after the death of Nevada Assembly and at age 30 be-
his longtime Senate colleague. “If he came the youngest lieutenant gover-
gave you his word, you could bank on nor in Nevada history as Gov. Mike
it. That’s how he got things done for O’Callaghan’s running mate in 1970.
the good of the country for decades.”
Elected to the U.S. House in 1982,
Reid retired in 2016 after an acci- Reid served in Congress longer than
dent left him blind in one eye, and anyone else in Nevada history. He
revealed in May 2018 that he’d been narrowly avoided defeat in a 1998
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and Senate race when he held off Re-
was undergoing treatment. publican John Ensign, then a House
member, by 428 votes in a recount
Less than two weeks ago, officials and that stretched into January.
one of his sons, Rory Reid, marked
the renaming of the busy Las Vegas After his election as Senate major-
airport as Harry Reid International ity leader in 2007, he was credited
Airport. Rory Reid is a former Clark with putting Nevada on the political
County Commission chairman and map by pushing to move the state’s
Democratic Nevada gubernatorial caucuses to February, at the start of
candidate. presidential nominating season. That
forced each national party to pour re-
Neither Harry nor Landra Reid at- sources into a state that, while home
tended the Dec. 14 ceremony held at to the country’s fastest growth over
the facility that had been known since the past two decades, still only had six
1948 as McCarran International Air- votes in the Electoral College. Reid’s
port, after a former U.S. senator from extensive network of campaign work-
Nevada, Pat McCarran. ers and volunteers twice helped de-
liver the state for Obama.
Reid was known in Washington for Obama in 2016 lauded Reid for his