Harry Reid rose from hardscrabble roots to the heights of American politics, his canny temperament and underdog's grit taking him from a one-room shack in Searchlight, Nev., to the office of U.S. Senate Majority Leader. The former Democratic senator from Nevada reshaped the U.S. Senate and transformed his home state's political culture, earning a reputation as a master dealmaker despite his laconic demeanor. He steered his party through the tumult of the Bush and Obama eras, turning against the Iraq War, cheerleading President Barack Obama's historic rise and shepherding the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
Reid died Tuesday at 82 at his home in Henderson, Nev. The cause was not immediately disclosed. He had previously battled pancreatic cancer, but said last summer that it was in remission.
"He was tough-as-nails strong, but caring and compassionate, and always went out of his way quietly to help people who needed help," the current Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, said in a statement Tuesday. "He was a boxer who came from humble origins, but he never forgot where he came from and used those boxing instincts to fearlessly fight those who were hurting the poor and the middle class."
Harry Mason Reid was born in 1939 in a gold-rush ghost town separated from Las Vegas by 50 miles of empty desert. The family lived in a shack made of stuccoed-in railroad ties with no running water; Reid learned to swim at one of the brothels that were the town's main amenity. His father, a miner, was a brooding, silent drunk who would later end his own life with a shotgun to the head. Reid, nicknamed "Pinky," hitchhiked 45 miles each way to the nearest high school, in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson.
It was the fight in Reid that provided an escape from his tough circumstances. In high school, he met the man who would become his mentor, Mike O'Callaghan, a one-legged Korean War veteran who taught Reid to box and would go on to serve two terms as governor. It was also in high school that Reid met and wooed Landra Gould, a Jewish girl whose parents were so suspicious of his motives that he once punched her father in the face to take her out on a date. The couple eloped to Utah, where Reid had, with O'Callaghan's help, gotten a scholarship to a junior college.
There had been no religion in Reid's upbringing — the closest thing to faith, he wrote in his 2008 memoir, was an F.D.R. quotation pinned to the wall: "We can. We will. We must." But in Utah, impressed by the generosity of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Harry and Landra Reid converted to Mormonism together. Reid moved to Washington to attend law school at George Washington University, working nights as a Capitol Police officer to pay the bills.
As a young lawyer in Las Vegas, Reid prided himself on taking the cases of society's underdogs, such as prostitutes and cocktail waitresses. He served on the state's gaming commission during Las Vegas' early days as a mecca for gambling (and organized crime). At one point, Reid wore a wire for an FBI sting of a would-be casino operator; after the agents burst into the room, Reid put the man in a chokehold and hollered, "You son of a bitch, you tried to bribe me!" On other FBI wiretaps, a mobster boasted that he had "Cleanface"—Reid—in his pocket. Reid was investigated, but never implicated in mob activity. Near the end of his tenure on the commission, Landra found a bomb wired to the engine of the family station wagon.
As a politician, Reid was, by his own admission, uninspiring. After serving in the state legislature and as lieutenant governor, he lost a long-shot Senate race, then successfully ran for the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. His voice was quiet and high-pitched, and he had a tendency for malapropisms. He wasn't much for glad-handing and kissing babies. It took intense focus to get from Searchlight to the Senate, and perhaps for that reason, he disdained what he viewed as time-wasting niceties – from Christmas cards to state dinners. Typical phone calls would begin without small talk and end as soon as he believed the conversation was finished – he even hung up on President Barack Obama. Reid's staff was close-knit and fiercely loyal, but he prided himself on not being managed by them. His press secretaries lived in a perpetual state of high anxiety, awaiting his latest unscripted flub.
Reid began his career as a conservative Democrat from a rugged, mostly rural state. He was anti-abortion, pro-gun and hawkish on legal and illegal immigration. Reid was the first Democrat to come out in favor of the first Gulf War, under President George H.W. Bush, and voted in favor of the Iraq War in 2003. But his politics evolved alongside his native state. Nevada in the 1990s experienced vertiginous growth, as gambling and tourism fueled the rapid growth of an increasingly diverse population and a housing boom. By the end of his career, Reid was an avowed environmentalist, a pro-gay-marriage ally of Planned Parenthood who championed (unsuccessfully) immigration and gun-safety reform. He viewed the vote for the Iraq War as his greatest regret.
Reid's ascent to majority leader was somewhat accidental. He became minority leader after South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle was unexpectedly defeated in the 2004 election, and majority leader after the Democratic wave election of 2006. (Watching the returns roll in, the usually unsentimental Reid was so elated he kissed the television.) Early on, Reid saw promise in Obama, then a junior colleague, and encouraged him to run for president in 2008. After Obama was elected, Reid shepherded his major legislative accomplishments through the Senate, including the 2009 stimulus bill, the Dodd-Frank banking reforms and the Affordable Care Act.