The elected Democrat has been a major character of the end of George W. Bush’s presidency, and a large part of Barack Obama’s two mandates. It was 82 years old.
Le Monde with AFP
Former US Senate Head Harry Reid, an iconic figure of the Democratic Party and the political scene in the United States for several decades, died at the age of 82, announced his wife Tuesday 27. December. “He died peacefully this afternoon,” she said in a statement, stating that the death was following a four-year fight against pancreas cancer.
Chief of majority in the Senate between 2007 and 2015, the elected Democrat has been a major figure of the end of George W. Bush’s presidency, and a large part of Barack Obama’s two mandates. Harry Reid had used his long experience in the Congress to help the Democratic Chairmer to pass his Obamacare Health Insurance reform, one of the most important legislative projects of his eight years at the White House.
This speaker in the tone posed and laconic, was born and grew up in the small mining town of Searchlight, in the state of Nevada (West), in a house without running water. Considered as more conservative than most Democrats in the Senate, this practicing Mormon was an opponent fervent to abortion, a position that frequently earned him the frontal opposition of some colleagues in his party.
Rain of tributes on the democrat side
A rain of tributes on the Democrat side quickly followed the announcement of his death. Barack Obama shared a letter that Harry Reid’s wife had asked him to write shortly before his death, and in which the former president thanked “a good friend”. “I would not have become president if it had been for your encouragement and your support, and I would never have got most of what I could do without your talent and your determination,” says Barack Obama.
For the current head of the Senate, the Democrat Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid “has never forgotten where he came from, and he used his boxer instincts to fight without fear against those who hurt the poor and to the middle class “.
Recalling his past of boxer, Bill Clinton’s former Democratic president said that Harry Reid “never turned away from the necessary political fights, but was convinced that the compromise was vital for a democracy that works”. “Thanks to the laws he has masterfully guided up to ratification, millions of Americans live a better life,” he added.
The leader of the Republicans in the American Senate, Mitch McConnell, recalled on his side only if “the nature of my work and that of Harry frequently brought us to a sometimes intense conflict in policy”, “I Never doubted that Harry has always done what he thought deeply and sincerely just for Nevada and for our country “.