Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, the crusty Democratic ex-boxer from Nevada, announced Friday that he won’t seek re-election in 2016, and said he wants Sen. Charles Schumer of New York to succeed him.
“It's the caucus' decision but Senator Reid thinks Senator Schumer has earned it,” said Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson.
In the morning after senators pulled an all-nighter to pass a Republican sponsored budget resolution, Reid, 75, issued a statement acknowledging that his recovery from a serious eye and facial injuries suffered in a home exercise accident in January gave him time to reflect about his political future.
"I have had time to ponder and think," he said in the statement. "We’ve got to be more concerned about the country, the Senate, the state of Nevada than about ourselves. And as a result I’m not going to run for re-election."
"I’m going to be here for another 22 months, and you know what I’m going to be doing?" he added. "The same thing I’ve done since I first came to the Senate."
Reid later said he wanted Schumer, 64, currently the third-ranking Senate Democrat, to succeed him once he steps down. Schumer, known for his media savvy, is currently in charge of Democrats’ messaging operation. Senate Democrats will pick a new leader after the 2016 election.
Current number two in the Senate Democratic hierarchy is Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., though Schumer has long been regraded as the favorite to succeed Reid.
Reid wound up with two kinds of reputations. In President Barack Obama’s early years, Reid had a luxury few leaders get: Sixty votes, enough to overcome filibusters. That meant he could steer the Affordable Care Act through the Senate, despite fierce Republican opposition.
But as Obama’s approval numbers dropped, and the Senate became more intensely partisan, Reid took on another role, as the dogged Democrat standing up to Republican barrages.
The nature of the Senate changed. Reid had gotten along with Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, but now, around 2010, Republicans became dominated by the tea party and their take-no-prisoners tactics.
Reid and McConnell were now angry adversaries. Reid would lead the effort to change Senate rules so that 51 votes, rather than 60, would be needed to limit certain debate. Last year, Reid accused Republicans of throwing a "temper tantrum."
For Reid, the journey wasn’t supposed to end this way. He grew up in the hardscrabble town of Searchlight, Nevada.
His father was an alcoholic who committed suicide at age 58, and the family struggled. Reid became a boxer whose coach was Mike O’Callaghan, later Nevada’s governor.
The protégé became a U.S. Capitol Police officer to help pay for law school and back in Nevada was elected O’Callaghan’s lieutenant governor at age 30.
Reid ran for Senate in 1974 and lost. When he did win, 12 years later, it was with half the vote, and six years later, he won with 51 percent. In 1998, Reid barely survived, winning by 428 votes. In 2010, he fought off a strong challenge from Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle, winning with 50.2 percent.
Reid fit snugly into the Washington system, easily winning the leadership election among Democrats in 2004.
Though he’ll complete his term, the battle over who succeeds him as the Senate’s Democratic leader will almost certainly begin immediately. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the Democratic whip, and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., have long been viewed as contenders to succeed him.
Email: wdouglas@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @williamgdouglas.
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