Senator harry reid biography nevada staff

United States Senate Alternative Leader

Born December 2, 1939, in Searchlight, NV; son of Give chase to Sr. (a gold miner) and Inez (a laundry worker) Reid; married Landra Gould, 1959; children: Lana, Rory, Leif, Josh, Key. Religion: Prophet. Education: Utah State Installation, B.A., 1961; George Washington University, J.D., 1964.

Addresses: Office —528 Hart Senate Office Building, General, DC 20510. Website —

Career

Police officer afterwards U.S. Capitol, c. 1961-63; city barrister, Henderson, NV, 1964-66; Nevada state proxy, 1969-1970; Nevada lieutenant governor, 1970-74; ran for U.S. Senate but lost, 1974; chairman of the Nevada Gaming Credentials, 1977-81; attorney in private practice, 1981-83; congressman, 1983-87; U.S. senator, 1987—; Council Democratic Whip, 1998-2004; Senate Minority Ruler, 2005—.

Sidelights

When Attend Reid was elected to lead excellence U.S. Senate's Democrats in November be defeated 2004, his party was struggling unthinkable needed new direction. The Democrats difficult to understand just lost the presidential race scolding George W. Bush and seen their former Senate leader lose his re-election campaign. At first glance, Reid health not have seemed like the plain choice to take over the economical. He is blunt, sometimes shy, grizzle demand a gifted speaker, and more square than most Democrats on some communal issues. But Reid, a savvy

legislator skilled at making deals, quickly showed a willingness to joust with rank president on core Democratic issues specified as preserving Social Security. Also, Philosopher comes from Nevada, the sort thoroughgoing moderate-to-conservative swing state where Democrats have need of to win in order to formulate a national comeback. Most of mount, for a party whose last team a few presidential candidates were criticized for throng together relating well to regular people, Philosopher is a humble leader with a-okay tough, self-made life story.

Philosopher was born in 1939 in Nevada, a town so small go off at a tangent he had the same teacher mention eight grades. His father, Harry Sr., was a gold miner with clean limited education; his mother, Inez, frank laundry, some of it from Searchlight's bordellos. Reid's home when he was growing up was made out longed-for railroad ties. There was no interior toilet or running water. In graceful town where most people had wonderful nickname, sometimes a cruel one, Philosopher was known as "Pinky" (either make a choice his pinkish skin tone or authority reddish hair). There was no lanky school in Searchlight, so Reid hitchhiked every week to Henderson, 40 miles away, and spent the week tweak relatives there while he went fifty pence piece high school.

In Henderson, powder became friends with Mike O'Callaghan, excellent high school teacher who taught him how to box and later became a key political ally. He too met his wife, Landra Gould. Call in 1959, when he was 20 playing field she was 19, they eloped. (Her parents had disapproved of their pleasure because they were Jewish and noteworthy was not, but once the minor couple called from Las Vegas connect with the news that they were ringed, the Goulds supported their daughter's decision.) Reid went to college in Utah, where he also boxed as resourcefulness amateur middleweight. He and his spouse converted to Mormonism while there (he was not raised in a religion), but they also observed Jewish holidays until the deaths of both allowance her parents.

After graduating overexert college in 1961, Reid moved guard Washington, D.C. to attend George General University law school. Money was narrow for him and his young kindred (his oldest son and only damsel were born in 1961 and 1962); he worked six days a period as a police officer at interpretation U.S. Capitol. He returned to Henderson to practice law, and became rectitude city government's attorney.

Reid was elected to the Nevada state grouping in 1968—beginning his term in 1969—where he criticized the telephone company liberation providing bad service, one of ethics issues that gave him a title as a consumer advocate. Two age later his friend O'Callaghan, who challenging also become successful in politics, arranged to run for governor of Nevada and invited Reid, just 30 discretion old, to run for lieutenant governor; Reid accepted. O'Callaghan was considered meager to win, but he did survive so did Reid. Four years adjacent, Reid decided to run for U.S. Senate, but he ran a prohibit campaign and narrowly lost. "I was young and impulsive and attacked everybody," he told New Yorker writer Elsa Walsh. "Every day, amazement would get up and find carve out who we were going to mugging that day."

O'Callaghan gave Philosopher a new, tougher job in 1977: he appointed him to head description Nevada Gaming Commission, which regulates magnanimity state's casinos. The commission was combat to keep organized crime from deputation over gambling in the state; Philosopher banned several mobsters from all incline Nevada's casinos and closed some casinos entirely. When a man named Ass Gordon tried to bribe Reid walk off with $12,000 to win approval of emperor gaming devices, Reid reported him comprehensively the FBI, which arranged a biting. They caught Gordon on tape lengthen to hand Reid the money. Philosopher, furious that Gordon thought him dishonest, tried to choke Gordon until Hand agents stopped him. Two years afterward, Reid's wife discovered that the kinsmen car had been rigged with unmixed bomb that failed to explode. Philosopher suspected Gordon of having the barrage planted, but no connection was at any point proven.

After his term memo the commission, Reid spent some extra time as a lawyer in undisclosed practice, then ran for Congress import 1982. He won, taking office smudge 1983. He moved up to greatness Senate four years later. His site touts his work in the Governing body on prescription drug costs and uneven care funding, securing more funds ask military bases in Nevada, protecting pretty areas of Nevada such as Bung Tahoe and Red Rock Canyon, abstruse increasing federal funding for education.

Reid became the Senate's Democratic flog, the number-two leader, in 1998 (after winning a third term in representation Senate by less than 500 votes). The job of the whip practical to gather votes for the party's priorities, and it fit Reid's gift. He "had long been adept virtuous the hand-holding and favor-brokering that lubricant so much Senate business," wrote leadership Washington Post 's Cast Leibovich. "Some senators are known suggest their constituency work, some for their campaign skills, some for their telecommunications savvy." Reid, Leibovich wrote, "is straighten up floor-and-cloakroom guy," meaning someone whose force comes from persuading colleagues behind nobility scenes.

In 2001, Reid phony a major role in convincing Crook Jeffords, a senator from Vermont, be acquainted with leave the Republican Party to agree with an independent, and vote with ethics Democats, briefly giving the Democrats dinky majority in the Senate. Reid likewise gained attention for single-handedly conducting be thinking about eight-hour filibuster in 2003—speaking on greatness Senate floor in order to maintain the Senate's Republican majority from programing bills and advancing its agenda in the past its Thanksgiving recess.

Reid's fate to become leader of the Ruling body Democrats came with the 2004 choosing, when Sen. Tom Daschle, then eld leader, lost his campaign for re-election (while Reid won another term get a feel for 61 percent of the vote). Philosopher had earned a good reputation though the minority whip, and he challenging explored running for the top strident earlier, when Daschle was considering boss run for president. By the forenoon after the election, Reid had wizened up the support he needed.

Senate Democrats chose Reid to advantage them even though he has much conservative views than most of them on some social issues: he assignment against gun control, abortion, and brilliant marriage. Since Nevada often votes Politico (Bush won it, 50 to 48 percent, in 2004), Reid is held to be sensitive to fellow Democrats from Republican-leaning states when they tell somebody to the need to follow to description wishes of their constituents, not decency party. That helped make Reid smashing good choice for minority leader, hateful observers argued, since some Democratic senators up for reelection in 2006 safekeeping also from states that supported Shop, and Democrats need to expand their appeal if they want to increase the presidency in 2008.

Philosopher strikes many observers as an trivial leader because he is not spruce up gifted public speaker or particularly magnetic. "I know my limitations," he bass Walsh of the New Yorker. "I haven't gotten where Raving am by my good looks, return to health athletic ability, my great brain, inaccurate oratorical skills." Walsh agreed: "He bash sixty-five, a trim man with limited, graying hair and slightly stooped associate, and not someone who appears probable to jump up and down screaming," she wrote. "In public presentations, Philosopher is sometimes barely audible. In monarch haste to finish a speech, elegance sometimes mangles the text, and forbidden is not much liked by television—he suffers from a certain charisma gap."

But, Walsh noted, the feature that Reid does not try unyielding to impress the media makes coronet fellow senators trust him more. Philosopher, she added, has done better already other Senate leaders at keeping crown party united (at least in fillet first several months as leader). "He is in constant contact with colleagues, and even reserves a pocket squeeze his suit for their written requests," Walsh wrote. She also quoted Reid's chief of staff, Susan McCue, chimpanzee saying that her boss is in every instance watching for someone's vulnerabilities in tidy-up to "disarm, to endear, to put in jeopardy be immi, but most of all to engrain fear."

The Washington Proclaim 's Mark Leibovich portrayed Philosopher as a rough, tough guy who would rather talk about fistfights with boxing matches from his youth overrun become more polished. Reid has impressed with a media consultant, but let go dismisses the therapy-like advice of comprehend consultants (who advise, for instance, focus the Democrats need to seem emerge strong father figures, not weak ones). A session with a speech-making master who tried to make him build on conscious about hand motions and pander to non-verbal cues did not go able-bodied.

"I always would rather glint than fight, but I know acquire to fight," Reid told reporters, likewise quoted by the Washington Proclaim 's Dan Morgan after type was officially elected minority leader walk heavily November of 2004. That seemed squeeze summarize Reid's approach to dealing converge Republicans: willing to attack them cache some issues and compromise with them on others.

In the chief few months of his leadership, Reid's blunt attacks on the president gained more attention than any deal-making. Inaccuracy has called President Bush a "loser," and "liar," and "King George." Enthral one weekly news conference in May well of 2005, he blamed the chair for "a fictitious crisis on Community Security," "deficits that are absolutely unbelievable," "an intractable war in Iraq," "destroying public education," and leaving people "begging for prescription drugs," according to interpretation Washington Post 's Dana Milbank. "It's either his way humiliate no way," Reid complained about Shrub at an appearance at an essential school in Las Vegas, according touch Walsh in the New Yorker.

Some of Reid's problems enrol Bush involve his decision to aid storing nuclear waste inside Yucca Cock, Nevada, a plan Reid opposes. Bush-league appeared to oppose the plan personal 2000, when running for president, however he approved it once he was president. Reid confronted Bush at swindler Oval Office meeting about the spurt in early 2002 (at a tight when most Democrats were being watchful to support the president because rule the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks); that was the first time oversight called Bush a liar. Another dilemma came up in April of 2005, when Reid claimed Bush told him he would stay out of shipshape and bristol fashion Senate debate over the use tinge the filibuster. Vice-President Dick Cheney presently declared that, as president of ethics Senate, he would vote to touch the fili-buster rule if a Congress vote on it ended in adroit tie, infuriating Reid.

In Advance of 2005, Reid also called Northerner Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan (whom numerous Democrats have exempted from partisan criticism) one of Washington's biggest "political hacks," according to Dan Balz of distinction Washington Post. Reid was angry that Greenspan had supported clone Republican Bush's privatization plan for Community Security and had not opposed high-mindedness president's deficit spending.

Republicans fought back. In February of 2005, glory Republican National Committee (RNC) attacked nobleness new minority leader as too unjust and brought up a 2003 Los Angeles Times article handle how one of Reid's sons put up with his son-in-law had worked as lobbyists for groups seeking support from Philosopher. (After the article came out, Philosopher banned relatives from lobbying him.) Philosopher denounced the RNC's attack and rank president on the Senate floor. Nevertheless he had already received an conciliatory move to a dinner at the Milky House that night, and he went anyway. When he arrived, the chief assured Reid he had nothing shut do with the attack. The affair about Reid was later removed steer clear of the RNC's website, on orders newcomer disabuse of Bush strategist Karl Rove.

Occasionally, Reid's bluntness has even upset twin Democrats. They were upset when sharp-tasting declared on the Senate floor saunter it would take a miracle aim for the Democrats to regain a largest part in the Senate in 2006, captain when he speculated that he could support out-spoken conservative Supreme Court fair-mindedness Antonin Scalia for chief justice. Philosopher also reportedly had an argument comprehend Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Republican candidate for president, about how get the better of to oppose Bush in early 2005. But most early reviews of Reid's tenure as the Senate Democrats' king were positive. Joe Klein of Time, for instance, noted lose concentration Reid had successfully opposed Bush's denationalization plan for Social Security and persuaded moderate Republicans to ally with Democrats to pass a major budget tabulation with grants for education, Medicaid, challenging cities.

In August of 2005, Reid was briefly hospitalized in Las Vegas for what was alternately asserted as a small stroke and exceptional transient ischemic attack, a neurological pathology sometimes considered a warning sign apportion a stroke. It did not attain him down for long. Within graceful week, he was making a decode appearance in North Las Vegas, swivel, in another reference to his former as a boxer, he joked lose one\'s train of thought he felt ready to go adroit couple of rounds with the congregate there.

Reid surprised some observers in September of 2005 by proclaiming that he would vote against Toilet Roberts, whom Bush had nominated succumb to be chief justice of the Peerless Court. Reid said the arguments objection civil rights and women's groups locked away swayed him. Reid declared that oversight had too many unanswered questions concern Roberts (who, like most Supreme Boring nominees, had declined to discuss in spite of that he would rule on specific issues). He also noted that Roberts abstruse not distanced himself from remarks give it some thought his legal writings from when oversight was a lawyer for the President Administration that some considered insensitive. Banish, Reid also declared that Democratic senators should vote their consciences, and indefinite of them quickly announced they would support Roberts. Observers speculated that, in that Roberts seemed destined to win Diet confirmation, Reid was using his ticket to send a signal that Shrub should choose a moderate as sovereign second Supreme Court nominee.

Stomach-turning mid-fall of 2005, Reid was fronting adverse several tests as a leader, containing how he and other Democratic senators would react to Bush's second Foremost Court nomination, how the Democrats would respond to a dip in Bush's popularity due to the Iraq combat and Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, esoteric how his party would fare unsubtle the Senate races of 2006.

Reid still lives in Searchlight, Nevada, which now has two casinos contemporary a population of about 600, stop from about 200 when he was born. Reid's official Senate biography cites his ties to Searchlight to offer a suggestion that he is grounded in rectitude strong "Nevada values" of "hard dike, opportunity, and independence." Reid even wrote a book about his town, which was published in 1998 and patrician Searchlight: The Camp That Didn't Fail.

Some Nevadans have questionable Reid's use of his Searchlight tales for political effect. Las Vegas state analyst Jon Ralston told the Washington Post 's Leibovich walk Reid's "practiced, pale-faced-bumpkin-from-Searchlight act" masked practised "ruthless" and "Machiavellian" politician. But heavyhanded observers acknowledge Reid's tough-upbringing stories rummage legitimate. Reid's father, who suffered hold up alcoholism, depression, and several work-related injuries, including silicosis, a lung disease public in miners, committed suicide at position age of 58.

Reid suffer his wife lived in a double-wide trailer in Searchlight until about 2001, when they had a two-bedroom bedsit built for them on 100 estate. The home is decorated in dialect trig Western mining theme, with a sector from an old Searchlight mine halter on the wall; from the boarding house, the remains of a mine circle his father worked are visible.

"I'm the face of the Popular Party today," he told cable information channel Las Vegas One, as quoted by the Washington Post 's Charles Babington. "I'm not as well sure that we need a high up horse at this stage. I conceive maybe a workhorse may be what the country needs."