Current Position: Senate Majority Leader (since January 2007)
Career History: Senate Minority Leader (2005 through 2006); Senate Minority Whip (2003 to 2005); Senate Majority Whip (May 2001 to 2003)
Birthday: Dec. 3, 1939
Hometown: Searchlight, Nev.
Alma Mater: Utah State University, B.A. 1961; George Washington University, J.D. 1964
Spouse: Landra
Religion: Mormon
DC Office: 528 Hart Senate Office Bldg, 202-224-3542
State Office: Reno: 775-686-5750; Carson City: 775-882-7343; Las Vegas: 702-388-5020
Reid became the most powerful man in the Senate after Democrats won the upper chamber's majority in 2006. And it looks like he'll stay that way as he not only beat back a 2010 challenge from national tea-party star Sharron Angle (R), but managed to remain atop a slimmer, but still present Democratic Senate majority in a divided Washington after the GOP won control of the House in the 2010 midterms.
As the head of the Senate, Reid serves as President Barack Obama's point man on the Hill for his ambitious reform agenda, including the $787 billion economic stimulus package enacted in February 2009, landmark health-care reform and ending the Iraq war.
Reid tends to vote moderate, but he lobbies hard for legislation that will advance the national Democratic agenda. He has fought for coal-workers rights and worked continuously to keep nuclear waste out of Yucca Mountain. He also spearheaded partisan efforts to block former President George W. Bush’s judicial appointees and to push a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Senate Democrats have described Reid as a unifier who can quickly take the pulse of the party and craft bills accordingly. But critics have charged that Reid’s partisan leadership has led to legislative gridlock. In order to stave off filibusters in the 110th Congress, Reid insisted on a 60-vote majority before bringing measures to the floor, a tactic that virtually ensured gridlock.
Reid's filibuster-proof majority for the first year of the Obama administration made his job a bit easier, but moderate Democrats were not automatic allies in key fights. Reid's first success was passage of Obama's economic stimulus package in February 2009. At the end of that year, he massaged the Senate's various health-care reform proposals until he reached a compromise that won him 60 votes, just in time for Christmas. Victory was finally clinched in March 2010.
Reid grew up poor in Searchlight, Nevada, the son of an alcoholic miner who eventually killed himself and a mother who did laundry for a bordello. Reid hitchhiked 40 miles every week to the nearest high school, where he met his civics teacher, boxing coach and mentor Donal N. “Mike” O’Callaghan. O’Callaghan guided Reid through college, law school and into public office.
After earning his bachelor’s degree from Utah State University, where Reid and his wife converted to Mormonism, he moved to Washington to attend law school at George Washington University. While at school, he worked for the U.S. Capitol Police, a job he got thanks to a few calls placed by O’Callaghan.Evans, K. J., "The First 100," Las Vegas Review Journal
When he returned home to Henderson, Nev., Reid was named city attorney because he was the first resident to earn a J.D. He moved from that job to Hospital Board Chairman. In 1968, he was elected to the Nevada Assembly, where he introduced more bills than anyone in history. Reid went on to serve as Nevada’s lieutenant governor and chair of the Nevada Gaming Commission, a sometimes dangerous position. At one point, a bomb was left in his car.
When Nevada’s growing population earned the state a second House seat in 1982, Reid ran and won. He won Nevada's open Senate seat in 1986. In 2001, he led the successful effort to convince Vermont's then-GOP Sen. Jim Jeffords to become independent and caucus with the Democrats by offering him the chair of the Environmental and Public Works Committee. This move earned him admirers, and, in 2001, he became the majority whip.
Reid then began quietly securing support for the minority leader job. By the time Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) lost his re-election campaign in 2004, Reid already had enough votes to take his place, staving off a challenge from Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.).
Reid became Senate minority leader in January 2005. His knowledge of arcane Senate laws allowed him to outmaneuver then-Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). Reid once shut down the Senate by employing a rarely used rule to hold a closed-door discussion, this time about the intelligence the Bush administration used to justify the Iraq war. He later kept the Caucus together to defeat efforts to destroy the filibuster over judicial nominee appointments.Liebovich, Mark, "Harry Reid, an Infighter With a Sharp Jab," New York Times, Nov. 10, 2006
Reid worked tirelessly to rebuild the Senate majority. In 2006, he got his wish — Democrats picked up six seats, giving them a one-vote edge over Republicans. But this slim margin has made his term as majority leader rocky. There were more filibusters conducted during Reid’s first year in charge than at any other time in history. And while the majority-Democrat Senate was able to pass some legislation, policies on renewable energy and measures limiting warrantless wiretapping famously went up in smoke.Almanac of American Politics, 2008 edition
Still, officials like the late Massachusetts Democrat Edward M. Kennedy hail him as a consensus builder who “people fall in line and support.”Mascaro, Lisa, "Reid Reflects on a Rough Year," Las Vegas Sun, Dec. 31, 2007
Reid faced an early controvsery in January 2009 when impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) named Roland Burris to the Senate. Reid initially refused to seat the new Senator because of the charges Blagojevich is facing — U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald issued a criminal complaint against him accusing him of trying to auction off Obama's Senate seat for campaign money or a plum assignment. However, with pressure mounting from the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP, and other Senators, Reid relented, and agreed to sit Burris as long as he testified in Blagojevich's impeachment hearings.
In a party of hard-line liberals, Reid is a voice of moderation. He has voted for a ban on late-term abortions and against a resolution endorsing Roe v. Wade. He is opposed to most gun-control legislation and voted to authorize the Iraq war and in the Persian Gulf in 1990.
Still, Reid has implemented a solidly Democratic agenda and voted with his party 94.6 percent of the time in the 110th Congress.Washington Post Votes Database
He also tried to keep several of President Bush’s judicial appointees out of office. Angering Republicans, he called many “unfit” and held up their appointments for several months, until a group of senators drafted compromise legislation.Walsh, Elsa, "Minority Retort," New Yorker, Aug. 8, 2005
Liberal critics have called Reid too cautious, and claim that he gives in too easily to Republicans. Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) drew attacks from the liberal blogosphere when they supported the summer 2008 renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expanded U.S. spy agency’s power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.Lichtblau, Eric. "Senate Approves Bill to Broaden Wiretap Powers," New York Times, July 10, 2008
Others worry that Reid has essentially allowed Republicans to control the Senate because he insists on a 60-vote majority before bringing legislation to the floor.
Reid had to scale back some of the massive spending (and agree to $282 billion in tax cuts) in order to win the three crucial Republican votes (of Sens. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine) and Arlen Specter (Pa.)) necessary to gain passage of 2009's economic stimulus legislation, Obama's first major triumph as president.
Reid led the Senate’s efforts to pass the fall 2008 financial bailout bill, providing up to $700 billion to struggling banks. When the House failed to pass the legislation early in the week, Reid went forward anyway, passing a bill that included $150 billion in tax breaks. This infuriated some House Democrats who opposed the cuts. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) even accused the senator of offering the House a take-it-or-leave-it choice.Sorkin, Andrew Ross, "Senate Passes Bailout Plan," New York Times, Oct. 2, 2008
Reid was a less successful advocate of the auto bailout, which would have given $15 billion in loans to the three American car companies. Auto industry executives warned that without the money, they would be forced to shutter their factories, but Republicans would not sign on to the legislation unless car companies agreed to cut the salaries of their workers. The legislation ultimately failed.
Reid initially supported the Iraq war, but has since changed his position. He has pushed for a troop withdrawal deadline and fought President Bush’s request for a troop surge. In 2007, he moved the war to the forefront of the legislative agenda, keeping the Senate in session over President’s Day to vote on a withdrawal bill. The measure failed.
Over the next several months, Reid forced 34 votes on Iraq. He was only able to pass one bill demanding troop redeployment, which former President George Bush vetoed.
But in spring 2009, Democrats had their first real rift with President Obama over the fate of enemy combatants detained at Guatanamo Bay in Cuba. Obama had pledged to shutter the prison by January 2010, but Reid and other Democratic leaders balked about accepting any prisoners in the U.S. and stripped funding from a measure appropriating funds to Iraq and Afghanistan. "This just isn't the right way to deal with this," Reid said in May 2009. "We don't want [terrorists] around the United States."Isenstadt, Alex, Politico.com, "Harry Reid on Gitmo: We don't want terrorists in the U.S.," May 19, 2009
As Senate majority leader, Reid oversaw the two Senate committees developing health-care reform proposals in 2009. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's (D-Mass.) Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee released a progressive plan in summer 2009 that included the more liberal public option, a few months before Kennedy's death from a brain tumor. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) continued working through the fall to try to hammer out a bipartisan compromise in his Finance Committee, which eliminated the public option.
Reid's combination of the Finance and HELP versions of the bill bore little resemblance to either, giving short shrift to ideas such as non-profit health cooperatives and nixing the idea of a triggered public option altogether.
Instead, the majority leader assembled a plan he thought could get 60 Senate votes, eventually eliminating the controversial public option and luring Democratic holdouts with special provisions for their home-states. Pear, Robert, The New York Times, "Deep in Health Bill, Very Specific Beneficiaries," December 20, 2009
The Congressional Budget Office initially estimated Reid's plan would cost $848 billion and extend health coverage to 31 million Americans without insurance. Elmendorf, Douglas, Congressional Budget Office Letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, November 17, 2009
The bill passed the Senate, 60 to 39, on Dec. 24, 2009.Senate Roll Call vote
The final bill was similar to the Senate version and enacted in March 2010.
Fighting the development of Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository for the country’s nuclear waste has been one of the defining causes of Reid’s political life. After former President Clinton pledged to veto any bill that turned Yucca Mountain into a permanent nuclear waste site, Reid worked diligently to ensure the Senate could not override the vetoes. President Bush did not make a similar vow. In 2002, his Department of Energy approved using Yucca Mountain as a permanent site. Reid was furious about the decision, saying "President Bush is a liar. He betrayed Nevada and he betrayed the country."FactCheck.org
On other issues, Reid has opposed environmental groups, especially where coal is concerned. He fought Clinton’s attempts to impose higher fees on miners and efforts to reduce the use of coal in the economy.
In 2007, Reid introduced an ethics reform bill in Congress. The bill bars Senators from accepting gifts, meals and trips from lobbyists and also prevents Senators from employing former lobbyists or accepting trips. The bill quickly passed both houses, but was held up in committee when Reid wouldn’t allow Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) to sit in on negotiations.
Reid has faced questions about his own ethical conduct. In 2003, the Los Angeles Times published a piece asserting that Reid’s family members routinely lobbied his office.FactCheck.org Reid has since banned them from doing so. Reid was also forced to explain his “routine” relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff after the Associated Press published a series of stories alleging ties. Reid has acknowledged that he received money from Abramoff’s clients, but that there was nothing illegal about their relationship.Neubauer, Chuck Cooper, Richard T., "The Senator's Sons: In Nevada, Reid Is the Name to Know," L.A. Times, June 23, 2003
In the Senate, Reid was good friends with former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Despite their partisan differences and the fact they ran against each other in 1998, he also works closely with fellow Nevada Senator and Republican John Ensign. The pair co-host a weekly breakfast at the Capitol every Thursday.Birnbaum, Jeffrey and Willis,Derreck, "Democrats also got tribal donations," Washington Post, June 3, 2005
Reid's staff includes Rodell Mollineau, James P. Manley, and Gary Myrick.
(photos: Pete Souza / White House, Reid Facebook page)