Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lay in state Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol.
Reid, a longtime senator and a Nevada Democrat, died last month after battling pancreatic cancer. He was 82.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks in honor of Reid at a tribute ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda.
CONGRESS GRAPPLES WITH OMICRON WAVE IN CAPITOL COMPLEX
Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, were in attendance, as were members of House and Senate leadership and members of Nevada’s delegation. The ceremony was broadcast, but the building remains closed to the public amid the pandemic.
In his remarks, Schumer said, “My friends, we celebrate Harry Mason Reid’s final return to the Capitol, because we must. Few have shaped the workings of this building like our dear friend from Nevada.”
Schumer also shared an anecdote in which Reid once ushered him into a tiny hotel bathroom for a private conversation on his own efforts to become Democratic leader.
“He lowered his voice. He said, ‘Chuck, I want to take care of something very important,’” Schumer said. “He pulled out a wad of cash from his pocket, and he peeled off four $100 bills. ‘You’ve been working hard and doing the right things to become leader,’ he said. ‘But you need to dress the part. Go buy some better shoes for goodness sakes.’”
Schumer and Pelosi both said Reid had a tendency to end phone calls without saying goodbye.
“So, I probably hold the record for being hung up on more than anybody,” Pelosi said.
Reid went from a childhood in the impoverished mining town of Searchlight, Nevada, to become an amateur boxer, later working as a Capitol Police officer while he attended law school. He was first elected to the House in 1982 and the Senate in 1986, where he went on to serve for 30 years, eventually becoming the Senate Democratic leader.
Reid’s legislative legacy includes working with Pelosi to pass the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
But it also includes his decision to change the Senate’s filibuster rules, allowing the upper chamber to bypass filibusters for most presidential appointments and judicial nominations, with the exception of the Supreme Court.
The rule change, implemented in 2013 while Senate Republicans blocked some of then-President Barack Obama’s nominations, gave the GOP leverage to bypass the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. In 2016, Mitch McConnell, then majority leader, did not hold a confirmation hearing for Obama’s final nominee, Merrick Garland, which allowed Donald Trump, elected that year, to nominate Neil Gorsuch instead once he took office.
Some Senate Democrats are now pushing for the elimination of the filibuster altogether, a change Reid encouraged before his death.
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President Joe Biden and Obama spoke at a funeral service for Reid in Las Vegas on Jan. 8.
Reid will be the 37th person to lay in state at the U.S. Capitol and the 15th senator, according to the Architect of the Capitol, which tracks the tradition.
The Architect of the Capitol also said Reid’s casket was placed on the Lincoln catafalque, which first held the casket of President Abraham Lincoln after his assassination in 1865.
