Harry Reid

Nevada majority leader who steered the Affordable Care Act through the Senate.

Overview

The son of a Searchlight miner, a onetime amateur boxer and Capitol policeman, Reid represented Nevada in the House from 1983 to 1987 and the Senate from 1987 to 2017. As majority leader from 2007 to 2015 he held together the 60-vote coalition that passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, enacted Dodd-Frank, and confirmed two Supreme Court justices, while in 2013 invoking the nuclear option to end filibusters on executive and judicial nominees below the Court. His low-key, risk-embracing style, decisive in the 2008 crash-era interventions, made him the most powerful Nevadan in Washington history.