Harry Reid, the pugnacious son of a Nevada hard-rock miner who rose from poverty to become the U.S. Senate majority leader and earned a reputation as a fierce partisan fighter during an era of political gridlock in Washington, died on Tuesday. He was 82.
Reid, a former amateur boxer who represented Nevada in the U.S. Congress as a Democrat for more than three decades, died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, his wife of 62 years, Landra, said in a statement.
Reid retired in 2016, one year after suffering broken ribs and facial bones and injuring an eye in an accident while exercising at home. During Reid's time as majority leader, major legislation languished because Democrats and Republicans could not compromise. His relationship with McConnell was so strained that the Republican leader shunned Reid during crucial U.S. fiscal policy talks and dealt directly with Vice President Joe Biden.
Reid became a Mormon as a young man and eventually became the highest-ranking member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in U.S. public office. "I learned in America, it doesn't matter the education of your parents, what their religion is or isn't, their social status - we had none - the color of their skin or their economic status. I am an example of this. If I made it, anyone can," Reid said in 2007.
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