Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid dies

Harry Reid, a Democratic leader and Nevada’s longest-serving member of Congress, died on Tuesday in Henderson, Nev. He was 82. His wife, Landra, said the former Senator passed away “peacefully,” surrounded by friends, after a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer.

What was his legacy? The combative former boxer-turned-lawyer was widely known as one of the toughest dealmakers in Congress. He helped pass the 2008 bank bailout and later shepherded Obamacare through the Senate. In 2013, Reid used the so-called “nuclear option” to change the Senate rules for votes on federal judges. The move allowed Democrats to get around GOP filibusters and approve most of President Barack Obama’s judicial appointments with a simple majority vote. Reid served four years in the U.S. House and 30 years in the Senate. Although Reid was prone to verbal gaffes in public, he was a shrewd politician, and Obama credited Reid with encouraging him to run for president. A Mormon who shunned alcohol and disapproved of gambling, Reid entered Congress in 1983 opposed to abortion, although he later demonstrated a mixed voting record on the issue. He announced his pancreatic cancer diagnosis two years after he retired in 2016. He is survived by his wife, to whom he was married for 62 years, and five children.