President Joe Biden speaks during a memorial service for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Las Vegas.
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President Joe Biden speaks during a memorial service for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Las Vegas.
Susan Walsh / AP
In his eulogy after Saturday’s memorial service, Harry Reid was remembered as a brilliant politician, a loving husband and father – and perhaps more than anything else, a man Rarely say goodbye before hanging up.
The nation’s top Democratic politicians, among them President Biden and former president Barack Obama, gathered in Las Vegas to pay tribute to Reid, the former Senate Majority Leader and giant of the United States. Democratic politician, who died last month at the age of 82 after a life that brought him from a small Nevada town to the halls of power in Washington.
“The desert shack he calls home, the distances he hitchhiked to school, the boxing ring where he always stood, the family tragedies he endured, the cancer he suffered from. he and Landra fought, the hall of power he walked, the state he transformed, the country he shaped – he is proof that there is nothing ordinary about America. The average American can do anything, with half a chance,” said President Biden.
Reid’s list of speakers and ceremony attendees matches the size of his political influence. In addition to Biden and Obama, attendees included Vice President Harris, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Chuck Schumer, Reid’s successor as Senate Democratic leader. .
“You could say his modesty made him unique in politics. But his modesty is rooted in his strong values from a humble childhood. costly to rise from Searchlight into the limelight and become one of the most popular Senate leaders in decades,” said Pelosi.
Reid had a “frivolous deficit,” says Obama
Over the course of three hours, speakers took turns telling colorful stories about Reid – how he once asked to be dropped in the middle of the Nevada desert to run marathon training; the way he kissed TV after Democrats were re-elected to the Senate in 2006; or how, when he saw a draft of a speech in which he called himself “former boxer,” he crossed out the word “former”.
Reid’s five children – daughter Lana and four sons, Key, Josh, Leif and Rory – remember a loving father who wrote meaningful letters to his children for birthdays, graduations or singles. simply because he was bored listening to the speech on the floor of the Senate.
“In a town obsessed with looks, Harry really has a vanity deficit. He doesn’t like fancy things. He doesn’t like glitz. He prides himself on not owning,” Obama said. a vestment”.
In his eulogy, Obama described arriving at the Capitol as a junior senator from Illinois in 2005, where he was frustrated by the stark difference between himself and Reid – age, skin color, political affiliation, even musical taste (“I didn’t” I don’t know what kind of music he liked, but I guess he didn’t listen to Jay-Z,” Obama said).
But given that Reid comes from an impoverished family in the small town of Searchlight, Nev., Obama says the two men can find common ground.
“Harry understands that we don’t have to look things in the eye to be able to live together and be kind to each other, and that we can learn to bridge our differences of background, race, and region.” , Obama said. Reid was one of the first to encourage him to run for president.
The Senate Majority Leader at the time was Harry Reid, pictured in 2011.
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The Senate Majority Leader at the time was Harry Reid, pictured in 2011.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty
From Searchlight, Nev., To Washington, DC
Reid was born in 1939 in Searchlight – “a town of more than a dozen brothels and no church”, as Schumer describes it.
Reid’s childhood home lacks running water, and Searchlight lacks a high school; Reid will be staying with relatives 40 miles away in Henderson to attend school. At the age of 19, he ran away with his wife Landra.
Reid graduated from Wyoming State University then attended law school at George Washington University in Washington, DC, where he got his first job on Capitol Hill as a police officer for the United States Congressional Police.
He returned to Nevada, where he soon began his political career. Reid served on the Nevada Assembly, as lieutenant colonel governor and chairman of the state’s game committee before moving on to Congress. After four years as a representative, he was elected to the United States Senate in 1986.
Over three decades in the Senate, Reid has developed a reputation as a savvy tactician with an unparalleled ability to cast votes. He served as Senate Majority Leader from 2007 to 2015. During that time, he followed landmark Democratic legislation including the Dodd-Frank fiscal overhaul bill, the stimulus package Great economic act of 2009 and President Obama’s most iconic act, the Affordable Care Act.
“The deals Harry made to implement that law weren’t always pretty – they got votes. Whenever I objected to a change he wanted to make, even for some concern. Concerned about policy or worried about optics, Harry would say to me, in an exasperated voice, “Mr. President, you know more than I do about health care policy, OK, but I know the Senate,” Obama said. speak.
Reid refused to run for re-election in 2016, and his last term ended in January 2017. The following year, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Reid died at home on December 28, aged 82. His body will lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda on January 12.
