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Harry Reid, the former long-serving Democratic senator from Nevada, died Tuesday at 82.
“I am heartbroken to announce the passing of my husband, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He died peacefully this afternoon, surrounded by our family, following a courageous, four-year battle with pancreatic cancer,” his wife of 62 years, Landra, said in a statement.
In 2018, Reid underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer, according to the Nevada Independent, although he announced in summer 2020 that he was cancer-free after experimental surgery.
“We are so proud of the legacy he leaves behind both on the national stage and his beloved Nevada,” Landra Reid wrote Tuesday. “Harry was deeply touched to see his decades of service to Nevada honored in recent weeks with the re-naming of Las Vegas’ airport in his honor.”
Las Vegas’ McCarran Airport officially changed its name to Harry Reid International Airport two weeks ago, a move Reid called “the greatest of honors” in a Dec. 15 statement.
Reid retired in January 2017 after five terms in the U.S. Senate, including eight years as majority leader and four as minority leader. He also served for years in the U.S. House before being elected to the Senate.
In a statement, President Joe Biden remarked on the decades he served with Reid in the Senate.
“During the two decades we served together in the United States Senate, and the eight years we worked together while I served as Vice President, Harry met the marker for what I’ve always believed is the most important thing by which you can measure a person—their action and their word,” said Biden.
“If Harry said he would do something, he did it. If he gave you his word, you could bank on it. That’s how he got things done for the good of the country for decades.”
Before Reid passed, his wife asked former President Barack Obama to share letters that she could read to him, as it was becoming too difficult for the former Nevada Senator to talk over the phone. Obama shared one of the letters Tuesday evening, in which he called Reid “a great leader in the Senate” and “a good friend.”
“As different as we are, I think we both saw something of ourselves in each other — a couple of outsiders who had defied the odds and knew how to take a punch and cared about the little guy. And you know what, we made for a pretty good team,” Obama wrote.
When Harry Reid was nearing the end, his wife Landra asked some of us to share letters that she could read to him. In lieu of a statement, here’s what I wrote to my friend: pic.twitter.com/o6Ll6rzpAX
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 29, 2021
Across the aisle, Reid’s counterpart, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, released a statement calling him “a unique and accomplished American.”
“The nature of Harry’s and my jobs brought us into frequent and sometimes intense conflict over politics and policy. But I never doubted that Harry was always doing what he earnestly, deeply felt was right for Nevada and our country. He will rightly go down in history as a crucial, pivotal figure in the development and history of his beloved home state,” the Kentucky Republican wrote.
Reid, a combative former boxer-turned-lawyer, and former U.S. Capitol Police Officer, was elected to the Nevada Assembly at age 28. At age 30, he became the youngest lieutenant governor in Nevada history.
He was elected to the U.S. House in 1982 and served in Congress longer than anyone else in Nevada history.
Famous for his deal-making skills, Reid was key to getting all 60 Democrats on board with former President Obama’s signature piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act.
In 2013, Reid advocated for Democrats to eliminate the filibuster for judicial appointments, telling the New York Times he “had no choice.”
Reid remained in opposition of the filibuster even after leaving Congress, saying as recently as last year that “it’s not a question of if it’s going to be gone, it’s only when it’s going to be gone.”
