Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has died. Reid a Democrat from Nevada was 82.
Reid led the Democrat-controlled Senate during Obama’s presidency. Recently, Reid battled pancreatic cancer for four years finally succumbing to it on Tuesday.
Senator Reid was responsible for blocking then-President George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize social security and was instrumental in passing Obama-care as well.
Famously, Reid led the push to change the Senate’s procedures for confirming judges and executive-branch nominees with a simple majority. The move altered the chamber and led Mitch McConnell to use it against Democrats in confirming former President Trump’s nominees.
Reid wasn’t without fire. He attacked presidential candidate Mitt Romney with unfounded claims of Romney not paying income taxes for a decade.
Senator Reid urged Barack Obama to run for president and predicted he would become the first black president stating, ““light-skinned and had no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” to which he later apologized.
Harry Reid is survived by his wife, Landra, and five children, and numerous grandchildren.