Reid’s highs and lows as Senate majority leader
By Amber Phillips, Las Vegas Sun
To understand the pinnacle of Sen. Harry Reid’s career, let’s go back nine years, to Election Day 2006.
Senate Democrats were on the verge of taking control of the Senate for the first time since 2001. Reid, their leader, watched election results anxiously with close aides and fellow senators from a suite in the Capitol Hill Hyatt. When one of their most endangered candidates, Claire McCaskill, won a hard-fought race in Missouri, Reid jumped off his chair and kissed the TV screen.
“I never thought we could do it,” he told the New York Times when the party cinched the majority.
Nevada’s senior senator would go on to serve for eight years as Senate majority leader. In that role, he decided which bills went to the floor and when, controlled a sometimes fractious party and played a key part in high-level negotiations with two presidents, guiding our nation’s policy on everything from national debt to immigration. All while keeping a watchful eye on his home state.
But now Reid must step aside. After a disastrous midterm election for Democrats, Reid will hand over control of the Senate to Republicans when Congress comes back in January.